Gripla - 20.12.2005, Blaðsíða 26

GRIPLA24
development of sympathetic secondary characters as they learn by example
and experience the lessons that the apostle is teaching, or the defeat of ob-
stinate and unsympathetic secondary characters, whose refusal to learn usual-
ly earns them divine retribution.32 A case of the latter is definitely to be found
in Bartholomew’s saga in the character of King Astriges, whose destruction is
as swift as that of the god/demon whom he worships (he and his bishops are
seized by demons and fall down dead at Bartholomew’s tomb, Post.:762.12-
15), and something of a case of the former in the character of King Polimius
himself, whose questions to Bartholomew made when the omnipresent, om-
niscient apostle appears to him behind the locked doors of the king’s bed-
chamber (in a somewhat clumsy shift of scene), allow Bartholomew to give
his sermon on Christ’s triumph over Satan’s wiles (Post.:758.39-760.30;
*Post.:748.6-28). Polimius thus plays the role of a foil, a role that is normally
reserved for a character close to the king, whose conversion helps to
eventually convert his ruler (in other words, Polimius essentially helps to set
up his own conversion here).
Of particular interest in this saga is the fact that there are no other
secondary characters of note besides the demons themselves. The devil Berith
plays an important role in giving the description of the apostle, and, as noted
above, Berith’s description of the apostle’s omnipresence comes into play
throughout the saga’s narrative, when a strangely disembodied Bartholomew
cures the first demoniac (Post.:758.17-22), when the apostle appears to the
king in his bedchamber (Post.:758.39-40), and when Astriges’ god Balldath is
smashed to smithereens although the apostle and the king are debating else-
where (Post.:762.5-7; the description of Bartholomew’s omnipresence or even
omnipotence is contrasted well with the description of his negative counter-
part, Astaroth, since the devil’s hands are bound behind its back with fiery
chains). Similarly, the apostle’s main contender in the vita section of the saga
would seem to be the demon Astaroth, but it is actually Satan himself, who
32 Other sympathetic secondary characters in the postola sögur include Mikdonia, Trepicia, and
Abbanes in Thomas’ saga, Ephigenia and Candacis in Matthew’s saga, Maximilla and Strat-
ocles in Andrew’s saga, Candacis in Matthew’s saga, Varardag in the saga of Simon and
Jude, and Filetus in the saga of James the Greater. Unsympathetic secondary characters can
include Pharisees, sacrificial priests, sorcerers, and demons, characters close to the despot
such as Karicius in Thomas’ saga, or even the despots themselves. A good example of a
secondary character who simply fails to learn anything is Xerxes in the saga of Simon and
Jude (even after hearing their lessons on the worthlessness of worldly wealth he builds a
glorious church for the apostles).