Gripla - 20.12.2011, Qupperneq 86

GRIPLA86
dudum impii perierunt in diluvio; alterum, per quod postmodum
peccatores cremandi sunt in inferno.48
“(The rainbow) is four-coloured, and takes its appearance from all
the elements. It derives its fiery-red colour from the sky, purple
from the waters, white from air, and draws its dark colour from
earth. [...] Others have spoken of its two colours, that is a watery
and a fiery, which betoken two judgements. The one through which
long ago wicked people perished in the flood; the other, through
which afterwards sinners will have to be burnt in hell.”
This last bichromatic interpretation of the rainbow, elaborating on the
two divine judgements narrated in the Bible (Noah’s flood and Doomsday),
represents an exegetical tradition we have already met in Peter Comestor’s
Historia scholastica and, on the Icelandic side, in Veraldar saga and, obvi-
ously, in Stjórn. This was a very widespread tradition, as proved by a great
number of influential commentaries and expositions on the matter of the
Genesis, for instance by Bede’s Hexaemeron. Here, in Book 2, it is told that
the rainbow appears in the sky as a sign reminiscent of the divine covenant
with us that never again will the earth be destroyed by a flood, but also
as a clear indication before our eyes of the judgement to come through
fire49; then Bede goes on, first describing the two colours relating to the
two judgements, then introducing a naturalistic note in referring to the
atmospheric conditions generating the rainbow:
Neque enim frustra caeruleo simul et rubicundo colore resplendet,
nisi quia caeruleo colore aquarum quae praeterierunt, rubicundo
flammarum quae venturae sunt nobis testimonium perhibet. Apte
autem arcus coelestis, quem Irim vocant, in signum divinae propi-
tiationis ponitur, arcus quippe ille resplendere solet in nubibus, et
radiis solis quo roscida illustratur obscuritas...50
48 Cf. Isidore, De natura rerum, XXXI, 2, in PL 83, col. 1004.
49 Cf. Bede, Hexaemeron, II, in PL 91, col. 110 B: Arcus in coelo usque hodie quoties videtur,
signum nobis divini foederis quod non sit ultra terra diluvio perdenda in memoriam reducit; sed
et futuri judicii quod per ignem est mundo futurum, si bene consideretur, signum nobis ante oculos
praetendit.
50 Ibid., col. 110 BC.