Gripla - 20.12.2005, Blaðsíða 9
1. INTRODUCTION
AM 645 4to and AM 652 4to (which is preserved in full in AM 630 4to, a
seventeenth-century copy), are the two most complete collections of translated
apostles’ and saints’ lives surviving from early medieval Iceland. AM 645 4to
dates to the first half of the thirteenth century, and is therefore the oldest
surviving Icelandic collection of saints’ lives. The manuscript is defective, and
consists of two separate codices, generally dated to the same period. Codex I
contains the complete sagas of Clement, James the Greater, and Matthew, the
partial sagas of Peter, Bartholomew, and Andrew, and the bulk of the miracle
book of St. fiorlákr. Codex II contains a portion of Andrew’s saga, the com-
plete saga of Paul and the nearly-complete saga of Martin of Tours, and a ver-
sion of the Descensus Christi ad Inferos (Ni›rstigningar saga, concerning the
descent of Christ into Hell before his resurrection).1 AM 652 4to dates to the
middle of the thirteenth century and contains fragments of the sagas of John
the Evangelist, James the Greater, Bartholomew, Andrew, and Matthew, while
AM 630 4to contains these same sagas as well as those of Thomas, Simon and
Jude, Peter, Philip and James the Less, and Matthias.2
PHILIP ROUGHTON
STYLISTICS AND SOURCES
OF THE POSTOLA SÖGUR
IN AM 645 4TO AND AM 652/630 4TO
1 Hreinn Benediktsson (1965:xxxvii) dates Codex I to around 1220, and Codex II to „the
second quarter of the 13th century.“ For a discussion of other conjectures as to the date of the
manuscript, ranging from 1200 to 1237, see Holtsmark 1938:7-10.
For further information on the textual history of AM 645 4to and its relationship to other
Icelandic manuscripts, especially AM 652 4to, see Sverrir Tómasson 1992:424-425; Ólafur
Halldórsson 1967:24-25 and 1994:lxxxiii-cxvii; Collings 1969:3-5; Bekker-Nielsen 1965:
122; Holtsmark 1938:7-12.
2 Hreinn Benediktsson (1965:xlii) dates AM 652 4to to the second half of the thirteenth
century. C. R. Unger (Post.:ix) dates it to the end of the thirteenth century, and Kristian Kå-
lund (II:55), dates it to the last half of the thirteenth century. Ólafur Halldórsson (1994:xxxv