Niorstigningar Saga Read online

  Niðrstigningar saga

  SOURCES, TRANSMISSION, AND THEOLOGY

  OF THE OLD NORSE “DESCENT INTO HELL”

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  Niðrstigningar saga

  SOURCES, TRANSMISSION,

  AND THEOLOGY OF THE OLD

  NORSE “DESCENT INTO HELL”

  Dario Bullitta

  UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

  Toronto Buffalo London

  © University of Toronto Press 2017

  Toronto Buffalo London

  www.utorontopress.com

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  ISBN 978-1-4426-9799-7

  Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bullitta, Dario, 1984–, author

  Niðrstigningar saga : sources, transmission, and theology of the Old Norse

  “descent into hell” / Dario Bullitta.

  (Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic series ; 11)

  Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

  ISBN 978-1-4426-9799-7 (cloth)

  1. Gospel of Nicodemus (Icelandic version) – Criticism, Textual. 2. Sagas –

  Criticism, Textual. I. Title. II. Series: Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic studies ; 11

  BS2860.N6B85

  2017 229'.8 C2017-903590-8

  The author gratefully acknowledges the Fondazione Banco di Sardegna for a generous

  subsidy that covered the production costs of this book.

  University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing

  program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency

  of the Government of Ontario.

  Funded by the

  Financé par le

  Government gouvernement

  of Canada

  du Canada

  cum autem mortale hoc induerit inmortalitatem

  Is. 25:8

  tunc fiet sermo qui scriptus est

  Os. 13:14

  absorta est mors in victoria

  1 Corinthians 15:541

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  Contents

  Illustrations and Tables ix

  Acknowledgments xi

  Introduction xiii

  Abbreviations xvii

  1 The Latin Evangelium Nicodemi in Medieval Europe 3

  Latin A 6

  Latin B 12

  Latin C 13

  Latin T 14

  Iceland 17

  2 The Manuscript Tradition of Niðrstigningar saga 21

  AM 645 4to 21

  AM 623 4to 25

  AM 233 a fol. 28

  AM 238 V fol. 31

  JS 405 8vo 31

  3 The Manuscript Filiation of Niðrstigningar saga 38

  Agreement of the Two Redactions 38

  Disagreement of Readings between the Two Redactions 41

  Significant Errors within the Older Redaction 43

  Stemmata Codicum 49

  4 The Latin Source Text Underlying Niðrstigningar saga 54

  The Prologue 55

  The Shattering of the Gates of Hell 58

  A Host of Angels Attending Christ 59

  viii Contents

  Destruction of the Bondage of Sin 60

  Amazement among the Inhabitants of Hell 61

  The Physical Binding of Satan 62

  Minor Variants of T Reflected in A against K 62

  Minor Variants of T Reflected in A against K and R 66

  Agreement between K and E against T and A 67

  Agreement between T, R, and A against K 68

  5 The Textual Interpolations of Niðrstigningar saga 70

  The Gates of Paradise 70

  Seven-Headed Satan 73

  Christ as Warrior-King 74

  The Capture of Satan on the Cross 76

  6 The Theological Context of Niðrstigningar saga 86

  The Latin Fragments of French Provenance 86

  The Jarteinabœkr Þorláks byskups 88

  The Skálholt Scriptorium ca. 1200–1210 92

  7 Conclusion 96

  Notes 97

  Texts and Translations 129

  Texts 131

  Niðrstigningar saga (The Older Redaction) 133

  Niðrstigningar saga (The Younger Redaction) 154

  Translations 158

  Niðrstigningar saga (The Older Redaction) 158

  Niðrstigningar saga (The Younger Redaction) 167

  Bibliography 171

  Index of Scriptural Quotations 187

  Index of Manuscripts 189

  General Index 193

  Illustrations and Tables

  Illustrations

  1 Mapping of the manuscripts of Niðrstigningar saga 22

  2 Gary L. Aho’s stemma 50

  3 Odd Einar Haugen’s stemma 51

  4 The present stemma 52

  5 Illumination attributed to the Master of the Parement of Narbonne in

  the Très belle Heures de Notre-Dame (Paris, BnF, nuov. acq. lat. 3093),

  f. 155r, lower side (ca. 1375–1400) depicting the Harrowing of Hell

  as related in the Gospel of Nicodemus. 56

  6 Engraving depicting a mouse entrapped in a wooden mousetrap in

  Glasgow, UL, Special Collections, SM 19, f. E3v. Andrea Alciato,

  Emblematum liber. Augsburg: Heinrich Steyner, 1531. 84

  Tables

  1 Extant text of Niðrstigningar saga in its manuscripts 32

  2 Dissemination of the manuscripts of Niðrstigningar saga 37

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  Acknowledgments

  I have numerous people to thank for their intellectual and moral support

  throughout the years of research leading to this book. First, I should like to

  thank Fabrizio D. Raschellà, my mentor at the University of Siena, for believ-

  ing in the project from its early stages and for his attentive guidance.

  I am profoundly indebted to Carla Falluomini, Zbigniew Izydorczyk, and

  Kirsten Wolf for their constant support and encouragement in my academic

  pursuits and for the invaluable advice they have provided during my work on

  the Gospel of Nicodemus.

  I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to the three anonymous reviewers on

  behalf of the University of Toronto Press for offering highly incisive sugges-

  tions and improvements of the manuscript. I am most grateful to the University

  of Toronto Press – in particular, Senior Humanities Editor Suzanne Rancourt

  and Associate Managing Editor Barb Porter – for their assistance and commit-

  ment throughout the publishing process, and also to copy editors Beth McAuley

  and Kristy Hankewitz. In restituting the text of Niðrstigningar saga, I have

  consulted and made use of all the available critical editions and translations

  of the text, and I am greatly indebted to the works of Carl R. Unger, Philip

  Roughton, and Odd Einar Haugen.1 I am especially grateful to Marteinn Helgi

  Sigurðsson, for providing unceasing encouragement and for making acute

  modifications of my translations of the Old Norse and Icelandic texts; to

  Zbigniew Izydorczyk and Jonathan Black, for their care in reading and com-

  menting upon an early version of chapters 4 to 6; and to Haki Antonsson,

  Marco Maulu, and Andrea Meregalli, for the most fruitful discussions on the

  topic. I must also kindly thank scholars at the Arnamagnæan Manuscript

  Collection and the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose
at the Department of Nordic

  Research (NFI), University of Copenhagen, Simonetta Battista, Helle Degnbol,

  Christopher Sanders (†2013), Þorbjörg Helgadóttir, Ragnheiður Mósesdóttir,

  xii Acknowledgments

  Florian Grammel, Alex Speed Kjeldsen, Gottskálk Jensson, and Annette

  Lassen, who have sustained my research activities in innumerable ways over

  the years.

  I am grateful to the BnF and Glasgow UL, Special Collections for permis-

  sion to reproduce the materials for which they hold copyright.

  Several institutions provided financial support at various stages of the proj-

  ect. I am much obliged to the University of Siena, for affording me the op-

  portunity to pursue research at the British Library, as well as to the Warburg

  Institute and the University College of London in Fall 2011 and Spring 2012;

  to the Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, for a generous subsidy that covered

  the production costs of this book; to the Associazione Italiana di Filologia

  Germanica (AIFG), for awarding me the Scardigli Prize for best publication

  in Germanic Philology in the Spring of 2016; and to the Jay C. and Ruth Halls

  Fund at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for a visiting scholar fellow-

  ship, which allowed me to present this work at the Department of German,

  Nordic, and Slavic (GNS) in Fall 2016.

  I feel most fortunate to have received intellectual and personal support from

  many other scholars, including Massimiliano Bampi, Marina Buzzoni, Odd

  Einar Haugen, Claudia Händl, Fulvio Ferrari, Alison Finlay, Patrizia

  Lendinara, Margrét Eggertsdóttir, Nicoletta Francovich Onesti (†2014), Carl

  Phelpstead, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Paolo Trovato, and Alessandro Zironi. I

  also wish to reserve special thanks for Antonella Calaresu, Gabriele Cocco,

  Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Fay Lockett, Todd Michelson-Ambelang, and

  Natalie Van Deusen, who frequently listened to my passions and frustrations

  throughout years of research. I am forever indebted to my two brothers,

  Antonio and Luca, and to my friends and colleagues, though I cannot mention

  them all by name, who are a constant source of strength and fortitude.

  Lastly, and most importantly, I dedicate this work to my parents, Ica and

  Tonino, for teaching me the beauty of history, old books, and the written word.

  I am in gratitude for a lifetime of love and support.

  Dario Bullitta

  Sassari, Sardinia, Christmas Eve 2016

  Introduction

  Throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the apocryphal writings rep-

  resented for clerics, theologians, and exegetes an invaluable source to consult

  and interrogate when the text of the biblical canon was either reticent or am-

  biguous. The most widely known pseudoepigraphical work among the New

  Testament Apocrypha was undoubtedly the Evangelium Nicodemi (“The Gospel

  of Nicodemus”), which on account of its supplementary character nearly at-

  tained the status of a “fifth gospel.”1

  In its early form, the Gospel of Nicodemus or Evangelium Nicodemi, origi-

  nally called Gesta Salvatoris (“The Deeds of the Saviour”), consisted of two

  separate Latin texts, the Acta Pilati (“Acts of Pilate”) and the Descensus

  Christi ad inferos (“Christ’s Descent into Hell”). These two narratives first

  circulated separately and were only subsequently conflated – sometime be-

  tween the fifth and the eighth centuries – to form a unique pseudo gospel de-

  picting the Trial, Passion, and Crucifixion of Christ, and his Harrowing of

  Hell.2 Its high appreciation throughout the Middle Ages can be seen through

  both the impressive number of surviving Latin manuscripts – over 400 today

  – and by the numerous medieval vernacular translations throughout Europe,

  the majority of which were completed early on during the process of vernacu-

  larization of devotional literature.3

  In the context of renewed cultural contacts and the increasing exchange of

  clerics between Icelandic and continental centres of learning and devotion –

  most notably with those of northern France and the University of Paris – some

  exemplars of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi seem to have been imported to

  Iceland towards the end of the twelfth century. Shortly after this acquisition,

  Icelandic clerics undertook the task of translating and adapting one of the Latin

  texts into their vernacular.

  xiv Introduction

  The first extant Icelandic translation of the apocryphon circulated with the

  title Niðrstigningar saga (“The Story of the Descent”) and survives today in

  two distinct redactions.4 As its name suggests, the Icelandic translation em-

  braces exclusively the Descensus Christi ad inferos, altogether omitting the

  Acta Pilati – that is, the chronicle on the Trial and Crucifixion of Christ. This

  exclusion seems to have been a deliberate editorial choice, as there is evidence

  that the Icelandic compiler consulted and employed a Latin manuscript that

  contained the complete text.5 The reasons for the omission of the Acta Pilati

  might lie in the recapitulative and repetitive nature of its text, which correlates

  and condenses the notable events leading to the Crucifixion of Christ, already

  abundantly addressed in the canonical Gospels. Its narrative might have been

  regarded as either less authoritative or even redundant, and its translation was,

  therefore, not a compelling preoccupation of the Icelandic compiler.

  What undoubtedly fascinated him and urged him to translate the apocryphon

  in the Norse vernacular for the benefit of those illiterate in Latin was the

  Descensus Christi ad inferos and its treatment of the Harrowing of Hell.6 Its

  text offers a detailed description of the afterworld and mentions, among other

  things, the entrance to Hell, the gates of Paradise, the hosts of angels and de-

  mons inhabiting those realms, the terrible sight of Satan, and, most notably,

  Christ’s final victory over that Old Enemy.

  Besides these suggestive portrayals, the core narrative of the Descensus cen-

  tres on Christ’s deliverance of the souls of the righteous from the imprisonment

  of original sin, and, therefore, it specifically addresses the main theological

  questions of redemption. On the occasion of a public or private reading of the

  text, the audience of the Descensus, as well as that of Niðrstigningar saga, might

  have been compelled to consider the contemporary and future implications of

  the story. Throughout the narrative, each member of the Christian community

  would accordingly be encouraged to speculate on his/her own personal path to

  redemption. Moreover, as a contemporary allusion to Niðrstigningar saga seems

  to suggest, the Icelandic text apparently conceals an exhortation to arduous but

  rewarding resistance of the temptations of the Devil.7

  The author of Niðrstigningar saga was evidently educated in theology, and

  clear evidence will be given throughout the book that points to his inquiry and

  use of contemporary exegetical treatises. Despite being a precious source of

  information on the Harrowing of Hell, the original text of the Descensus re-

  mains silent, or treats only hastily or superficially, some of the most weighty

  theological co
ntroversies debated at the time of the composition of the Icelandic

  text – most crucially, the relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity.

  Consequently, the supplementary passages, absent in the entire Latin tradition

  and only subsequently introduced in the Icelandic text, should in every respect

  Introduction xv

  be regarded as the result of the compiler’s own investigations and elucidations

  on contemporary theological issues. They therefore represent an invaluable

  historical source for the dating of the text and its contextualization.

  The present volume attempts to prove that the presence in Niðrstigningar

  saga of variant readings typical of the version known as the “Troyes redaction”

  of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi, which originated in twelfth-century France,

  indicates that the Icelandic compiler employed this version of the text rather

  than the more widely available version of the apocryphon in western Europe.

  Moreover, a closer analysis of the textual interpolations drawn from foreign

  sources reveals the compiler’s acquaintance with biblical glosses and commen-

  taries produced during the second half of the twelfth century by some of the

  greatest exegetes of the Paris school of theology, Peter Lombard (†1160) and

  Peter Comestor (†1178) in particular. Taking into account these identifications,

  the survey then turns to the evidence of French manuscripts dating to around

  1200 and containing Parisian theological and exegetical texts that might have

  been brought to Iceland by students studying theology in northern France or

  Paris. Indeed, significantly, these texts conform to the matrix of additional bib-

  lical and theological material consulted by the compiler of Niðrstigningar saga

  to gloss, exemplify, and augment suitable passages of his copy of the Latin

  Evangelium Nicodemi. Finally, it is argued that the epilogue of Niðrstigningar

  saga was intentionally modelled on that of the Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups in

  forna (“The First Miracle Collection of Bishop Þorlákr”), written after 1199

  and extant in the first section of AM 645 4to, the oldest surviving manuscript

  containing Niðrstigningar saga, and was already in circulation before the com-

  pletion of the Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups ǫnnur (“The Second Miracle

  Collection of Bishop Þorlákr”), completed by the year 1210. In addition, the

  second section of the book includes a semidiplomatic edition of the two redac-

  tions of Niðrstigningar saga, which takes into account a new stemma codicum