Gripla - 01.01.1995, Qupperneq 166

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GRIPLA
granted Lucianus and the preceding account of the burial of the saints
as well as the subsequent discovery of their remains. According to Ga-
maliel (228:6-25), he placed the body of Saint Stephen into a new
stone sarcophagus that he had let fashion for himself. When Nicode-
mus died, he had him put into another sarcophagus. Finally, his son
Abibas was laid to rest in a third sarcophagus, and next to him, in this
same coffin, Gamaliel in turn was placed. At the end of the Inventio
account, the actual discovery of the saints is not described, but a
dream vision granted a monk named Migetius (231:34-37) intimates
that the finding of the remains is in accord with what Gamaliel had re-
ported about their burial.
After Lucianus’s first unsuccessful attempt to find the coffins, Ga-
maliel appears to Migetius and shows him three golden beds in a
tomb, and in one of these beds an old man and a young man are lying
side by side. The old man, that is, Gamaliel himself, informs the monk
that he and the others are the lords of the tomb, and that the great and
righteous ox - hinn miklci olldvng og en rettlatha (232:1) - also rests
there. Reference is thus made in Migetius’s dream to Lucianus’s sec-
ond dream, in which St. Stephen is symbolized by an ox (see above).
The cross reference to the earlier dream is flawed in Sth. 15, Sth. 2,
and AM 661, for the word öldungr does not occur: St. Stephen is mere-
ly identified in Sth. 15 as „eN gaofgasta goþs vin oc eN retlata“ (95vl5)
and as „en/7 m/fcla oc enn rettlata“ in Sth. 2 (47ra27-28; Hms 301:31)
and AM 661 (16vll). The AM 655 XIV redaction is further reduced; the
reference to St. Stephen is lacking. Otherwise the texts are in harmony.
The dream vision granted Lucianus is significant for an assessment
of the Icelandic redactions of Stefanus saga, since the manuscripts in
which it is found manifest a process of reduction and apparent revi-
sion; furthermore, there are significant discrepancies in the Sth. 3
redaction. The deviations are not to be attributed to the scribe, that is,
Björn Þorleifsson, but rather to the source of Sth. 3, which contained a
different redaction of the Inventio.
When, after Gamaliel’s first appearance, Lucianus takes no action to
find the remains of St. Stephen and the others, Gamaliel appears to
the priest once more and scolds him. In answer to Lucianus’s query as
to how he will be able to identify the individuals correctly, Gamaliel
grants him a vision of several caskets filled with flowers and herbs and
explicates their meaning. A comparison of the texts shows that there