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
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