biðja þess almáttigan Guð, þann hinn sama, er þá krapta gefr inum sæla Þorláki
byskupi at gefa sjón blindum mönnum, en heyrn daufum, göngu höltum, en hre-
insa líkþrá, ok reka djöfla frá óðum mönnum, lífga þá er áðr eru dauðir, stöðva
vötn ok vinda.21
(Now we can appreciate what has been presented on this anniversary [ Þorlák-
smessa] with the bearing of virtue and praying to God the Almighty, the same
who has given the powers to the blessed Bishop Þorlákr to give sight to blind men,
and hearing to the deaf, walk to the lame, and [the powers] to clean leprosy and to
drive out the devils from mad people, to resuscitate those who had previously been
dead, and to halt waters and winds.)
Once again, drawing a parallel between the sanctity of Christ and that of
Þorlákr, Páll adopts the similes of “trap” (“gilldra”), “bait” (“ögn”), and “wild
The Theological Context of Niðrstigningar saga 91
animals” (“dýr”), employing them eleven times throughout the text. These
amount to another echo of Niðrstigningar saga. Accordingly, we are told by
the author that in our earthly life we encounter two kind of traps: those set by
God to bless us and those set by the Devil to lead us into temptation. Páll ex-
plains that God has set before us “manifold traps of mercy” (“margafalliga
miskunnar gildrur”) in granting us the teachings and miracles of Bishop
Þorlákr, into which we are drawn, attracted by the “accessible baits” (“aðgen-
giligum ögnum”) of divine “love and affection” (“ást ok elsku”):
Hefir allmáttigr Guð í lífi ok kenningum, dýrlingum dæmum ok ítarligu andláti en
ótalligum jareinum ins sæla Þorláks byskups sett fyrir oss margafaldliga miskun-
nar gildrur með atgengiligum ögnum ok teygiligum tillögum, at heimta oss með
ást ok elsku í sinn einangr, þann hvervetna er hirt ok haldit er í þann kemr.22
(With the life and teachings, the saintly proofs, the glorious death, and the innu-
merable miracles of the blessed Bishop Þorlákr, God the Almighty has set before
us manifold traps of mercy, accessible baits and seductive counsels, to draw us
with love and affection into His narrow passage, which is hidden everywhere and
holds in it whoever comes in.)
In the same manner, the Devil sets a trap of misfortune (“ófarnaðar gildru”),
laying in it as bait “all the corrupted desires” (“allar rangar fýsnir”). Once a
man is caught, it is impossible for him to escape, just as if it were done to an
“evil and noxious animal” (“skaðasöm dýr ok meinsöm”) that dies miserably
inside the trap. It is easily inferred that Páll is here referring to a typical medi-
eval Icelandic trap for foxes made of stone (“gildran er gjör af grjóti”).23
En at teygja til þessarar gildru er þessi ögn: röng ást óskaplig ok ágirni, metnaðr
ok mannráð, reiði ok ranglæti ok allar rangar fýsnir. En þeir menn sem í þessa
ófarnaðar gildru ganga eptir teygingu þessara ódáða ok ógna ok megu eigi til
snúask ór henni at ganga, þá eru svá hörmuliga staddir. Ok þá hleypr fyrir hana
hurð, þat er dauðinn, endir þessa heims lífs, ok þá eru gefnir í vald þess er egndi
gildruna, fjándans sjálfs, segi ek, er þá dregr til eilífs dauða ok óendanligra kvala
at þeim hætti sem gjört er hér við skaðasöm dýr ok meinsöm at þá eru deydd er
þau koma ór gildrunni.24
(And to allure these traps, there is this bait: corrupted unnatural love and greed,
haughtiness and conspiracy, wrath and injustice, and all the corrupted desires.
And those men who walk into this unfortunate trap, after the temptation of these
misdeeds and baits, may not turn and escape from it, and in this way they are sadly
stopped. And before it there slides a door, that is Death, which ends this earthly
92 Niðrstigningar saga
life. And they are trapped in that power which baited the trap, the Devil himself, I
say, which drags them to eternal death and endless torments, in the same way it is
done to an evil and noxious animal, so that those who come into the trap are dead.)
The Skálholt Scriptorium ca. 1200–1210
During the first decade of the thirteenth century, the scriptorium of Skálholt
flourished in the production of hagiographical and historical literature. With
the great public acclaim generated by the numerous testimonies of Þorlákr’s
miracles, witnessed both before and after his death, and especially after the
translation of his relics to the Skálholt Cathedral in 1198, the Icelandic eccle-
siastical authorities were urged to provide texts commemorating his vita and
wondrous portents for the benefit of the Christian community. In order to be
accessible to all Icelanders, literate and illiterate alike, the life and deeds of the
first local saint had to be adapted into the vernacular. Moreover, to further le-
gitimize and validate his memorable deeds and their venerable legacy, his bi-
ography had to be placed within the greater picture of the history of the
Icelandic Church. In this manner, Þorlákr’s saintly figure could be connected to
Christianity’s early history and its rise on the island, as the adoption of the new
faith has been commonly contemplated as a sacred event.25
In the span of a decade or so, some of the greatest hagiographical and his-
torical texts of the Icelandic Middle Ages were produced at the diocese of
Skálholt. The Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups in forna was written around 1200,
and around the same time, two biographies inspired by Þorlákr’s saintly life
were completed: the oldest redaction of Þorláks saga byskups in the vernacular
and his vita in Latin, whose oldest witness dates to ca. 1200.26 The first collec-
tion of his miracles was subsequently substantiated with more prodigious
events and anecdotes ascribed to Þorlákr. Before the death of Bishop Páll
Jónsson in 1211, the second redaction, the Jarteinabók ǫnnur, possibly com-
piled by Bishop Páll Jónsson himself, was also completed.
Before the death of Bishop Páll in 1211, and possibly after the death of the
erudite lawspeaker and priest Gizurr Hallsson in 1206 (the great-grandson of
Bishop Ísleifr Gizurarson, who is acknowledged in the preface of the Hung-
rvaka text as the greatest source consulted for its compilation), an epitome on
the regencies of the first five bishops of that diocese, under the emblematic
name of Hungrvaka (“hunger-waker or appetizer”),27 was also completed in
the Skálholt scriptorium. Accordingly, the vernacular chronicle had to “stimu-
late the appetite” of the lay people and clerics – that is, their curiosity to know
more about the lives of the five Icelandic bishops who preceded Þorlákr
The Theological Context of Niðrstigningar saga 93
(†1193), namely, Ísleifr Gizurarson (†1080), Gizurr Ísleifsson (†1118), Þorlákr
Rúnólfsson (†1133), Magnús Einarsson (†1148), and Klængr Þorsteinsson
(†1176). Its text, in my view, also created an appetite for the very pièce de ré-
sistance of the scriptorium, the recently produced biography testifying Þorlákr’s
unparalleled sanctity, the first redaction of the Þorláks saga byskups, a
s im-
plied in the concluding lines of the text:
Nú er komit at frásǫgu þeiri er segja skal frá inum sæla Þorláki byskupi […] er at
réttu má segjask geisli eða gimsteinn heilagra, bædi á þessu landi ok svá annars
staða um heiminn. Hann má at sǫnnu kallask postoli Íslands, sva sem inn helgi
Patrekr byskup kallask postoli Írlands, því at þeir frǫmdu verk postola sjálfra í
sínum kenningum ok þolinmœði, bæði við óhlýðna menn ok rangláta.28
(Now, after their [the bishops’] story, the time has come to relate to the blessed
Bishop Þorlákr, […] who may justly be called the sunbeam and gemstone of [all]
the saints, both on this land and also in other places in the world. He may truly
be called the apostle of Iceland, much like the holy Bishop Patrick is called the
apostle of Ireland, for they furthered the deeds of the apostles themselves in their
teachings and with their endurance, both towards disobedient and unjust men.)
The bulk of information collected for the composition of the hagiographical
texts concerning Þorlákr and his predecessors were naturally drawn from oral
accounts – for instance, that of Gizurr Hallsson in the case of Hungrvaka – and
from various written sources available at the scriptorium, most notably, annals
and church registers. However, the basic literary framework for the constitu-
tion of the texts was borrowed from European hagiography. It has, for in-
stance, been suggested how the vitae of the prominent continental bishops,
especially Ambrose of Milan (†397), Martin of Tours (†397), and Nicolas of
Myra (†343), must have represented primary literary models on which the
Icelandic gesta abbatum were skillfully moulded, primarily on account of
these bishops’ political commitment and confrontation of powerful and poten-
tially dangerous men.29
If the ethics, morality, and integrity attributed to the Skálholt bishops were
partially modelled on those of their European predecessors, the greatest source
for their sanctity and some of their most topical miracles and supernatural abil-
ities were those of Christ himself. This connection is especially evident in the
treatment of the miracles performed by the two most eminent bishops, Ísleifr
and Þorlákr. Ásdís Egilsdóttir has for instance noted that some miracles attrib-
uted to the first bishop of Skálholt, Ísleifr, in Hungrvaka, recall those per-
formed by Christ in his early career of thaumaturge. She draws attention to
94 Niðrstigningar saga
Ísleifr’s alleged restoration of deteriorated ale, which closely recalls Christ’s
transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana, mentioned as Christ’s
first miracle in the Gospel of John.30 On the contrary, the list of healing proper-
ties attributed to Þorlákr in the Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups ǫnnur, namely, the
healing of the blind, the deaf, the lame, the possessed, and the lepers, which are
found in Niðrstigningar saga, in Latin T, and in the Gospel of Matthew, are
significantly related to the miracles of a mature Christ. As a matter of fact, the
texts of Evangelium Nicodemi and Niðrstigningar saga are filled with the su-
pernatural and divine wonders performed by Christ, both during his lifetime
and in the afterworld, when he confronted Satan alone.
There is reasonable evidence to support that the text of Niðrstigningar saga
was already available in Skálholt by the time of composition of the Jarteinabók
ǫnnur between 1200 and 1210, as Bishop Páll Jónsson seems to allude to it in
his treatment of the sanctity of Þorlákr. Moreover, the fact that the oldest wit-
ness of Niðrstigningar saga, AM 645 4to, copied in Skálholt during the follow-
ing decades (approximately in the years 1225–50), already transmits numerous
textual corruptions and can actually be counted as evidence of the abundant
scribal and editorial activity within the scriptorium during those years; one
must postulate a considerable production of copies before the transcription of
AM 645 4to.
With the advent of the first local saint and the great interest among Icelandic
clerics and laypeople in the blessed life and miracles of Þorlákr, the scriptorium
of Skálholt was urged to produce the first indigenous hagiographical material
concerning Þorlákr and his predecessors. This cultural impetus was masterfully
directed by Þorlákr’s nephew and successor, Bishop Páll Jónsson, who com-
missioned, supervised, and even himself wrote new hagiographical texts, which
would validate Þorlákr’s sanctity and concurrently give prestige to the diocese.
Moreover, Páll Jónsson seems to have encouraged readings in the vernacular
among the young clerics, a cultural policy which necessarily involved the very
composition of these texts, either ex novo or as translations of foreign Latin
literature, as some of the introductory lines to Hungrvaka seem to indicate:
“Þat berr ok annat til þessa rits at teygja til þess unga menn at kynnisk várt mál
at ráða, þat er á norrœnu er ritat, lǫg, eða sǫgur eða mannfrœði”31 (“And sec-
ondly, this writing is intended to allure young men to whom our tongue is
known to read that which is written in Norse: laws or stories or genealogies”).
The project of translating the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi may well have
been initiated in the Skálholt scriptorium, favoured by this innovative and stim-
ulating cultural context, which characterizes the first decade of the thirteenth
century. Moreover, the young clerics addressed in Hungrvaka also seem to
have profited greatly from the new cultural impetus, as many of them were able
to study on the Continent for a considerable time. As a matter of fact, the num-
ber of clerics who were travelling abroad for education in those years – that is,
around 1200 – was so high that Bishop Páll was urged to take a census of the
priests who needed to perform services in his diocese, so that no parish church
would remain uncovered.32
Some of these young clerics may well have decided to study in Paris in imi-
tation of Þorlákr’s own academic experience. It is consequently likely that
upon the return of one of these young clerics from northern France, an exem-
plar of the T redaction of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi was deposited in the
Skálholt scriptorium, where its translation may have been initiated at the re-
quest of Bishop Páll. These years also saw the importation of the first biblical
glosses and the great systematic exegetical treatises of the Paris school of the-
ology, which were naturally consulted and interrogated by the compiler of
Niðrstigningar saga, particularly in those cases in which the Latin Evangelium
Nicodemi was perceived as scanty or uneventful.
7 Conclusion
The text of Niðrstigningar saga reflects a resourceful project of textual and
biblical exegesis, especially in view of the editorial evaluation that must have
preceded the translation work, such as choosing the version of the apocryphon
to translate and determining how to supplement its core narrative with extra
biblical material.
The Troyes redaction may
have been chosen as the source because of its
textual features for providing the scenes copiously attested both in sermons
and in visual arts and mainly referring to the figure of Christ; most notably his
arrival in Hell with a host of angels, the shattering of the gates of Hell, and the
physical binding of Satan. The T text may consequently have been preferred to
the Majority Text, which enjoyed enormous circulation in Europe and was also
known in Iceland around the year 1200.
The textual matrix of the interpolations, on the other hand, reveals the avail-
ability in Iceland of the contemporary biblical glosses and commentaries of the
Paris school of theology, especially the Glossa ordinaria, Sententiae in IV li-
bris distinctae, and Historia scholastica. In all probability, the compiler con-
sulted these texts for the interpolations into the original pseudo gospel and
employed them to gloss, exemplify, and augment selected loci of his copy of
Evangelium Nicodemi. Moreover, some allusions to the text of Niðrstigningar
saga in contemporary devotional and hagiographical literature seem to suggest
that its text was composed at Skálholt after Þórlakr’s first collection of miracles
had been written down and before the completion of the second collection. The
work of translating and revising the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi might reason-
ably have been undertaken in Skálholt between the years 1199 and 1211 –
roughly a century later than the date suggested by Magnús Már Lárusson.1 The
translation and adaptation of the Latin text may have initiated under the aus-
pices of Bishop Páll Jónsson, a scholar of broad education, regarded as one of
the most learned men of his time, under whom the bishopric of Skálholt
flour-ished in the production of devotional te
Notes
Epigraph
1 (“And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying
that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory”). Paul proclaims the victory of
Christ over Death, quoting the eschatological oracle of Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14.
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations of the Vulgate are taken from Biblia
sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber et al., revised by Roger Gryson.
All English translations of the Latin Vulgate are taken from the Douay-Rheims