Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 199

Saint Olafs Dream House
197
appropriate and useful service. This society reflects a cosmic hierarchy of divine
powers, inhabiting the summit of the cosmos, angels and demons stationed in
the middle and the terrestrial powers holding the lowest position.'49
Both the state and the cosmos were likened to the composition of man. In
Rauðulfi þáttr there is a direct correspondence between the house and the Platonic
tripartite soul. The soul was partitioned into reason, emotion (or anger) and
appetite and the corresponding locations in the body were the head, chest and
belly (Republic 436, Timaeus 38). According to Augustine (City of GodVU 23)
the three parts of the soul were also equated with the division of heaven into the
upper (empyrean), middle (ethereal) and lower regions.50 The dream-house is
brought into line with this cosmology by the decoration of the ceiling and its
correspondence in the crucified dream-figure. The apex is occupied by God,
whose place is in the empyrean heaven (the head of the crucifix). The planets
occupy the middle region and are associated with the chest and arms of the
crucifix. The sublunar world corresponds to the belly of the crucifix.
There is also an interesting parallel in the IcelandicHomily Aoo^where we have
the familiar division into body, soul and spirit:
Body is one part of the man, the lowest in rank and the outermost. Another part is
soul, which is both inner and more superior. But the supreme part, the most noble
and innermost, is the spirit. The body is a visible thing, but the soul is invisible.
Growth, touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing are given to the body by the soul. All
the life, strength and motion of the body is because of the action of the soul. Body
and soul together are one creature and are called the exterior man. For although the
soul is invisible and belongs to the spiritual realm, it only knows lust and bodily things,
but nothing which is divine. The third part is called spirit, which is the noblest,
innermost and most supreme in the man. The spirit gives intelligence, understanding,
judgement and memory, language and rationality, a sense of faith and self-control to
the man. The spirit is called the interior man and an angel, it controls the whole man,
i.e. both his inner and outer being. Together they symbolize Adam and Eve, and also
any other couple.51 The spirit shall direct both itself and the soul together with the
body, just as Adam was commanded to take care of both members of the couple . . .
But in every marriage it is commanded that the husband steer both members of the
pair, and the spirit its outer man, because then the couple will be well off and symbolize
49 See Dutton (1983, pp. 84-85), Lincoln (1986), Barkan (1975) and Kurdzialek (1971, p. 67).
Alan of Lille (Plaint of Nature Prose 3, p. 120) equates God in heaven with the ruler “at the
pinnacle of an earthly state”, and the air is equated with the centre of the city, where angels carry
out the commands of God. These in turn are obeyed by man who lives at the outskirts of the
universe. See also Thomas Aquinas On Kingship. To the King of Cyprus 93-95.
50 Also dearly expressed byAIanofLille The Plaint ofNature (prose 3): “Just as any army of planets
fight against the accepted revolution of the heavens by going in a different direction, so in man
there is found to be continual hostility between sensuousness and reason.“ Calcidius Platonis
Timaeum Comment. 95: “The sphere of the fixed stars in the soul is reason, [the spheres] of the
planets, iracundia and cupiditas and other movements of this sort.” (P. 77 in Freccero 1986).
See also Kurdzialek (1971, p. 58) and Bernardus Silvestris Cosmographia: Microcosmos Ch. 13.
51 Cf. Pseudo-Bede A Treatise on the Universe and the Soul II 112-113.