Gripla - 20.12.2011, Blaðsíða 80

GRIPLA80
regularly employed in parallel sentences within this section of the sermon,
with no alternative in the case of both our and Hauksbók’s text.31
Whether these textual differences among the various testimonies of
the Old Icelandic allegorical sermon on the colours of the rainbow may
be relevant to our investigation of its sources and cultural background is
something I intend to verify later on; only a few related hints have been
accommodated till now.
IV
The Old Icelandic preacher’s allegorical background for his treatment of
the rainbow lies fundamentally in exegetical literature related to the Bible.
If the ultimate source of any symbolic Christian interpretation of the
rainbow is the Old Testament (namely Gen. 9, 13–17; Ez. 1, 28; Eccli. 43, 12
and 50, 8), with the addition of the vision of the divine throne in Apoc. 4, 3,
our text is specifically based on that passage in the Genesis where the arcus
appears in the sky after the Flood as a sign of the new covenant between
God and mankind.32
31 Kålund’s quotation from the Rímbegla collection of texts in AM 731, 4to, only gives the title
‘Um regnboga’ plus the first and last sentences (Í regnboga eru þrír litir — sem á hans dǫgum
hafði orðit), followed by a brief note reminding that the text answers to Hauksbók’s stan-
dard edition pp. 174, l. 30–175, l. 11 (the passage discussed earlier), and that in the Rymbegla
edition “er sidste sætning omstillet” (Alfræði íslenzk III, 9).
32 Cf. Gen 9, 8–17, but especially 13–16: ...arcum meum ponam in nubibus, et erit signum foederis
inter me et inter terram. Cumque obduxero nubibus caelum, apparebit arcus meus in nubibus, et
recordabor foederis mei vobiscum et cum omni anima vivente, quae carnem vegetat; et non erunt
ultra aquae diluvii ad delendum universam carnem. Eritque arcus in nubibus, et videbo illum et
recordabor foederis sempiterni, quod pactum est inter Deum et omnem animam viventem universae
carnis, quae est super terram. “I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant
between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the
clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings, so
that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings. As the bow
appears in the clouds, I will see it and recall the everlasting covenant that I have established
between God and all living beings – all mortal creatures that are on earth.” Cf. Nova
Vulgata. Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, on-line text at the web page http://www.vatican.
va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_vt_genesis_lt.html#9 (access:
February 2011); English translation from The New American Bible, on-line text at the web
page http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PB.HTM (access: February 2011).