Gripla - 01.01.1993, Síða 246

246
GRIPLA
unfortunately abbreviated, may have been by Solomon. If so, Guð-
mundr announced in effect that he would exercise justice in the con-
viction that the source of wisdom was justice.44 Kolbeinn’s death scene
thus portrays Guðmundr as a merciful and just spiritual shepherd who
retrieved an errant lamb at the edge of the precipice. Kolbeinn was re-
deemed because Guðmundr was justified in interceding for him. The
saint had recognized, in the poem, Kolbeinn’s readiness for conversion
and had elicited Kolbeinn’s expression of remorse. The historic fact of
Kolbeinn’s reconciliation with the church had become ancillary to the
staging of a higher truth: a spectacular display of Guðmundr’s sover-
eign exercise of pastoral duties.45
Sighvatr as Guðmundr’s Foe
Sighvatr’s prominence, longevity, and seemingly continuous struggle
against Guðmundr account for Arngímr’s portrayal of Sighvatr as the
archenemy. In íslendinga saga, Sighvatr is not the most relentless
among Guðmundr’s adversaries. There is only one episode in which he
treated Guðmundr harshly. In a 1222 raid, to exact blood revenge on
Guðmundr’s armed retainers for the slaying of his son Tumi, Sighvatr
ordered Guðmundr to be brought by force on board his ship. While
44 See Hans Walther, Proverbia, Sententiaeque Latinitatis medii ac recentioris aevi,
Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters und der friihen Neuzeit in alpha-
betischer Anordnung. New Series, II, 7, ed. Paul Gerhardt Schmidt (Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), p. xvi: Anima justi sedes est sapientie [Florence, BN Magl. Cl,
1, 7F, 13 I 5v]. Leclercq, p. 109, comments on the false attribution of this saying to the
Bible. The saying is, in reality, a maxim of the patristic tradition. See also Ian J. Kirby,
Biblical Quotation in Old Icelandic-Norwegian Religious Literature, (Reykjavík: Stofnun
Árna Magnússonar, 1980), II, p. 80, on the loose quotations of Biblical passages in Arn-
grímr’s work. Therefore, Arngrímr might have referred to Sap. 3.1, iustorum autem ani-
mae in manu Dei sunt, in Novae Concordantiae Bibliorum Sacrorum Iuxta Vulgatam
Versionem, Critice Editam, ed. Bonifalius Fischer OSB (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holz-
boog, 1977), I, col. 331.
Thus Arngrímr’s vita is also structured, at least in part, by the device of grada-
tional opposition proper to the Latin vita. See Charles F. Altman, “Two Types of
Opposition and the Structure of Latin Saints’ Lives,“ Medievalia et Humanistica. Studies
in Medieval & Renaissance Culture, N.S. 6 (1975), 1-11. See Gerhild Scholz Williams,
“Der Tod als Text und Zeichen in der mittelalterlichen Literatur," Death in the Middle
Ages, ed. Herman Braet and Werner Verbeke (Leuven University Press, 1983), p. 135,
on the interpretative function of death scenes.