Gripla - 01.01.1995, Síða 176

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GRIPLA
source. Speaking for the existence of this redaction of the dream in the
Icelandic source from which the Inventio section of Stefanus saga was
copied is the inherent contradiction between the dream vision and the
account of the burial and finding. Throughout Reykjcihólabók the
compiler functions very much as a hagiographer who wishes to trans-
mit as complete a record of a saint as possible and who is therefore
willing to transmit variant, even contradictory matter. When he does
so, however, he also remarks on the discrepancies, as happens for
example, in the divergent accounts transmitted in Gregorius saga bisk-
ups (cf. Rhb, II, 24:13; 24:28; 25:1), or when he comments on the var-
iant names Albanus (in his source of Stefanus saga) and Volusianus in
other books (217:18-19; see section II above). If the dream had been
interpolated from a second source, the compiler presumably would
have noted that it contradicted the preceding and subsequent factual
information. Indeed, the method of incorporating deviating informa-
tion that is evident elsewhere in Reykjahólabók - but most strikingly
in Gregorius saga biskups - suggests that the compiler would not have
suppressed one variant in favor of another, but would have incorpora-
ted both, but accompanied by commentary. It appears implausible that
the source of Stefanus saga in Sth. 3 had contained the Sth. 2 redaction
of the dream, and that the compiler had rejected this in favor of the
variant represented by the Legenda aurea redaction. The very fact that
the contradiction between the account of the burial and the dream was
allowed to stand suggests that a manuscript was being copied that al-
ready contained the contradiction rather than that the copyist/compil-
er rejected a dream that concurred with what preceded and followed
in the legend - as in the Sth. 2 redaction - in favor of one that contra-
dicted earlier and subsequent information.
In the Legenda aurea and the Passionael the two Translatio accounts
constitute a part of the Inventio legend. Like the Inventio in Sth. 3,
which derives from a no longer extant Icelandic redaction, the first
Translatio account, while related to that in the other manuscripts,
nonetheless derives from a different redaction, one characterized by
an otherwise unknown introductory interpolation to the story of how
the body of St. Stephen came to be transferred to Constantinople. The
Inventio narrative (ch. 10) in Reykjahólabók concludes with a refer-
ence to St. Augustine that is not found in the other manuscripts: