Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 18

GRIPLA16
each particular grouping, followed by an illustration of these characteristics
using a saga within the group.
2. GROUP A
Bartholomew (AM 645 version only), James the Greater (AM 645 version
only), Matthew (AM 645 and 652/630 versions), Simon and Jude, Thomas
(Simon and Jude and Thomas exist only in AM 652/630)
All of the sagas in this group are translations of Pseudo-Abdian texts. In these
sagas Latin rhetorical ornatus is for the most part pared down in favor of a
more straightforward narrative style that allows for a sharper focus on dia-
logue and action.15 This ‘simplistic’ narrative style allows for a clearer reflec-
tion in these sagas of the didactic scheme particular to their Pseudo-Abdian
originals, in which the edificatory effectiveness of the saint’s life is heightened
by an interweaving of narrative action and thematic concerns, as well as by
the marked emphasis on the effect of the apostle’s lessons, in deeds and words,
on secondary characters (and the ways in which these characters help or hinder
the strengthening of the Church Militant). The sagas in this group also mirror
the ways in which the Pseudo-Abdian originals characteristically display only
a moderate employment of sensationalistic elements (such as demons, sorcer-
ers, magic items, etc.), and narrate the details of the saints’ martyrdoms in as
brief a space as possible.
The Pseudo-Abdian accounts represent ‘Catholicized’ versions of an orig-
inal ‘Christian-Gnostic variety of the Hellenistic-Oriental romance,’ which
combined Biblical material with adventure stories of a hero’s travels into for-
15 For instance, Collings 1969:162-166 points out how the translator of the saga of the apostle
Thomas omits or modifies the rhetorical devices that are used in abundance in the original
(such as anadiplosis, polysyndeton, homeoteleuton, and alliterative couplets), and simplifies
the original by omitting not only tag phrases (‘contiget autem,’ for instance) and repetitious
elements such as participial phrases that summarize previous events, but also passages that
repeat events from a different angle; also omitted is excessive doctrinal content from the
sermons. The resulting ‘unencumbered’ Icelandic narrative thus displays the saga-like quality
of the early Icelandic translated saints’ lives, comprised as they are mainly of dialogue and
action and structured on characteristically saga-like tripartite scenes.
As mentioned above, younger Icelandic versions of apostles’ and saints’ lives tended toward
more expansive, rhetorically enhanced, and even pedantic narratives. Collings discusses the
differences in style between older and younger apostles’ lives in detail; for futher discussion
see Sverrir Tómasson 1992:440-448.