Gripla - 20.12.2011, Side 97

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Genesis in his In Pentateuchum commentarii represents a useful and close
parallel in this sense; which again does not mean that Bede’s elabora tion
of a rainbow colour-imagery based on penitential doctrine and practice
needs to be considered the specific source of the Old Icelandic preacher.
But certainly the exegetical connection of the rainbow imagery with the
vast symbolic treatment of the ship/Noah’s ark as an allegory of Christ’s
Church and figura of the baptism – which derives naturally from the bibli-
cal narrative in the Genesis – is very strong in the works of the Fathers (see
Bede, Rabanus Maurus, etc.), and this must be considered our preacher’s
train of thoughts, too; it is not surprising, in fact, that in the Old Icelandic
Physiologus manuscript our sermon fragment was copied after a double
homiletic allegory of the ship. The insertion of the same text in encyclo-
pedic miscellanies like the Hauksbók90 or pseudo-scientific treaties like
Rímbegla is not in contrast with the issue, of course; on the other hand, it
is worth pointing out that no ‘natural’ or atmospheric description of the
rainbow enters this Old Icelandic manualistic production, and that strictly
biblical exegesis forms the sole basis for rainbow inquirers in medieval
Iceland.
Before drawing any conclusion, it may be convenient to examine briefly
some occasional occurrences of the topos and/or of colour-imagery in other
vernacular literatures possibly relevant to the Icelandic cultural milieu, with
special reference both to the Early Middle High German biblical poetry on
Genesis (Altdeutsche Genesis) and to Irish homiletic tradition.
V
Within the literary tradition of the rest of the Germanic-speaking (i.e.,
Anglo-Saxon and German) area, the topic of the rainbow occurs wherever
the narrative of Genesis is found. But it does not necessarily bring with it
the allegorical interpretation based on colour-imagery we have seen pro-
ductively at work in the Old Icelandic sermon fragment. Thus, the biblical
episode of God’s promise to Noah after the flood, sealed by the token of
90 Rudolf Simek has suggested that the arrangement of texts in this section of the Hauksbók
derives from Lambertus Audomarensis’ Liber floridus. Cf. Rudolf Simek, Altnordische
Kosmographie. Studien und Quellen zu Weltbild und Weltbeschreibung in Norwegen und Island
vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen
Altertumskunde 4 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990), 382.
THE RAINBOW ALLEGORY