Gripla - 20.12.2008, Blaðsíða 145
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multitudo autem hominum, abducta per speciem operis, eum qui
ante tempus tanquam homo honoratus fuerat nunc deum æs tima-
verunt...
Augustine lays it out in several places in The City of God, e.g.:
De quibus credibilior redditur ratio, cum perhibentur homines
fuisse, et unicuique eorum ab his qui eos adulando deos esse
voluerunt, ex ejus ingenio, moribus, actibus, casibus, sacra et
solemnia constituta.58
Similarly, Isidore of Seville takes it up in Etymologiæ VIII 11:
Quos pagani deos asserunt, homines olim fuisse produntur, et pro
uniuscujusque vita vel meritis, coli apud sios post mortem
cæ perunt.59
Euhemerism thus spread as widely as possible in learned medieval cir-
cles.60
Demonology took the opposite view of euhemerism in grouping pagan
deities as devilish deceptions, and was employed mainly in sterner ecclesi-
astical writings, e.g., in the field of hagiography.61
Snorra-Edda, the medieval storehouse of Norse mythology, should
be and has been read against this intellectual and theological background.
Snorri’s conception of the past and its link to the Christian present
revolves around the complimentarity of natural religion and euhemerism,
as is seen most explicitly in the Prologue. It opens with a detailed explana-
tion of natural religion, how true knowledge of God was lost, and how
58 De Civitate Dei, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina: Patrologiæ cursus completus, Series
Latina 41 (Paris, 1843), 208.
59 Etymologiæ, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina: Patrologiæ cursus completus, Series Latina
82 (Paris, 1878), 314.
60 On euhemerism, natural theology, and demonology in medieval Icelandic sources, see,
e.g.: Andreas Heusler, Die gelehrte Urgeschichte; Rudolf Schomerus, Die Religion der
Nordgermanen im Spiegel christlicher Darstellung (Leipzig: Robert Noske, 1936); Lars
Lönnroth, “The Noble Heathen: A Theme in the Sagas,” Scandinavian Studies 61 (1969):
1–29; Anthony Faulkes, “Descent from the gods,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 11 (1978–1979
[publ. 1982]): 92–125.
61 Snorra-Edda makes no use of demonology, although the term Gylfaginning has been found
to smell of it, if faintly.
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY