Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 10

GRIPLA8
The majority of the texts in AM 645 4to and AM 652/630 4to are transla-
tions of Latin apostles’ lives found in the so-called Historia Apostolica (Apos-
tolic History) of Pseudo-Abdias. The Passio Simonis et Judas, found in the
sixth book of Pseudo-Abdias, gives a spurious account of the work’s origin:
Abdias, who was ordained the first bishop of Babylon by the apostles Simon
and Jude, wrote about the lives of all of the apostles in Hebrew; one of
Abdias’ disciples, Europius, translated the book into Greek, and later Julius
Africanus translated it into Latin, in the form of ten books.3 The actual work
and cxxi-cxxii) suggests that the manuscript is no younger than from around 1270, but that it
is probably not many decades older than that date.
AM 630 4to was written by Steindór Ormsson (b. 1626). Árni Magnússon purchased the
manuscript in 1710 from Jórunn Jónsdóttir of Ytri-Hjar›ardal in Önundarfjör›ur, the wife of
Jón Steindórsson (the son of Steindór Ormsson). In a notice attached to the manuscript, Árni
Magnússon mentions that a certain Halldór Bjarnason from Brei›adal in Önundarfjör›ur told
him in 1710 that Steindór Ormsson copied the text from a book in folio owned by Sigmundur
Gu›mundsson from Seljaland in Skutulsfjör›ur, and that the book had been afterward torn
apart and used for shoe leather. According to Ólafur Halldórsson (1994:xxxv-xxxvi), the
appearance of the name Sigmundur in AM 652 4to indicates that it was the original from
which Steindór Ormsson copied his text.
The texts of AM 645 4to and AM 652/630 4to have been transcribed in full in Post. and
HMS. Unger’s editions, although faulty at times, still remain the only complete transcriptions
of most of the corpus of early Icelandic translated hagiographical literature. AM 652 4to and
AM 630 4to exist in modern editions only in Unger, but two other editions of AM 645 4to
have been published: Anne Holtsmark’s fascimile edition (1938), and a diplomatic edition of
Codex I, edited by Ludvig Larsson (1885).
Other editions of medieval Icelandic translations of apostles’ lives are to be found in Ólafur
Halldórsson 1967 and 1994; Slay, 1960; Foote 1962 and 1990; fiór›ur Ingi Gu›jónsson 1996;
Harty 1977; Hofmann 1997. For a listing of studies of Icelandic saints’ lives and related
literature, see Sverrir Tómasson 1992:593-598; Ólafur H. Torfason 1993:99-126; Cormack
2000:322-325.
3 The Icelandic version’s account of the ordination of Abdias and the recording of the apostles’
works (Post.:787.11-17) corresponds to Mombritius’ Latin text of the Passio Simonis et Judas
(II 538:43-49), mentioning the ten books written by the apostles’ disciple Craton (although
Post.:787.16 gives the amount of time that the apostles spent in Syria as fourteen rather than
thirteen years). To this the Icelandic version adds material found in the Pseudo-Abdian epi-
logue concerning the recording „here“ of the first part of the first book and the last part of the
tenth (Post.:787.27-28; Mombritius II: 539.57-58), although the text being cited refers not to
Craton’s work but to the work that was supposedly written by Abdias, translated into Greek
by Europius (or Eutropius, see James 1924:439) and finally retranslated into Latin by Afri-
canus, ‘the historian’ (Mombritius II:539.53-56; this information is also given in a preface to
the Apostolic History, still to be found in the editions of Pseudo-Abdias, purportedly written
by Africanus himself). Africanus is also mentioned in the Pseudo-Abdian account as the
translator of Craton’s works (Mombritius II:538. 49-50), but the Icelandic version omits any
mention of him, Europius, or Abdias’ gesta apostolorum.