Gripla - 01.01.1995, Qupperneq 160

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GRIPLA
himself had assembled the citations. Had he done so, he presumably
would have provided more accurate references. Therefore it would
seem that he simply lifted the entire section from the legend of St.
James the Less. Indeed, the third quotation drawn from St. Luke - „at
einginn 'steinn' mvne þar verda liggiande ofann aa avdrvm saker þinn-
ar ohlydne og drambseme et cetera" (226:27-29 - occurs in the legend
of St. James the Less in the Legenda aurea, where we read:
sed non solum ob mortem Jacobi, sed etiam ob mortem domini
praecipue destructio ista facta est, secundum quod dominus di-
cit: non relinquent in te lapidem super lapidem, eo quod non
cognoveris tempus visitationis tuae. (p. 298)
In addition to the scriptural interpolation, ch. 7 contains a minor,
but nonetheless noteworthy deviation from the text in Sth. 2. When St.
Stephen was stoned, his assailants laid their garments at the feet of a
young man named Saul, and the narrator’s voice interjects with a ref-
erence to another text: „og fyr var gethid jsavgvnne fostbrodrs heilags
Stefani. sem nv er Pall postole“ (Rhb, 224:32-33). In Sth. 2 and AM
661 the comment takes a somewhat different form, however, for the
reference is to Saul, „er fyRr var getid fost brodvr heilags stephani sa
er nv pall posíoli" (45vb28-29; Hms 297:4-5). Both references are cor-
rect. In the first chapter of Stefanus saga, Stephen and Saul are identi-
fied and contrasted as students of Gamaliel. Whereas the authorial
comment in St. 2 identifies Saul as the foster brother of Stephen, who
had been mentioned earlier, the comment in Sth. 3 does not identify
Saul but rather the source of the information presented about him,
namely the legend of his foster brother, Páls saga postola, where we
read:
Ok þa er Stephanus var gryttr fostbroðir hans, fyr þvi at hann
hellt retta tru, þaa var Saulus þar við staddr ok varðveitti klæði
þeira manna, er þat gerðu, ok var i aullum raðum með þeim, er
Stephanum gryttu, en þotti ser eigi sama at leggia hendr aa hann.
(Post. s., 237:33-238:3)
There are two explanations for the discrepancy in the reference to
Saul in the two redactions. In Sth. 2 it is text-internal, but in Sth. 3 the
comment refers to a text other than itself. The redaction of Stefanus
saga that Björn Þorleifsson was copying may have been part of a com-