Gripla - 20.12.2015, Side 57

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Gripla XXVI (2015): 57–79
PeteR jORGeNseN
tHe LIFE OF ST. BASIL IN ICeLANd
ba s i l o F ca e s a r e a or st. Basil the Great (329 or 330–379 A.d.) is
considered a saint in both eastern and Western Christianity and recog-
nized as an influential ecclesiastical figure in both churches. Hence it is not
surprising that his vita should have reached Iceland, although the current
state of its transmission in that country is highly problematic. this article
will discuss some of these problems, contextualize the Icelandic vita with
Continental versions, and present an edition of a previously unknown
Icelandic manuscript text of the Life of St. Basil.
to begin with, the Icelandic text, Basilius saga, is far from complete.
Extant in two very fragmentary vellum manuscripts, the text that remains
is severely damaged. the longer of the two manuscripts, AM 238 II fol.,
contains three leaves, of which f. 3v is almost entirely illegible and has been
left unedited, while AM 655 VI 4to contains two leaves, of which f. 1r
and f. 2v are so badly damaged that they could not be edited.1 the former
manuscript is dated to the first half of the fourteenth century and the latter
to the first quarter of the thirteenth century.2
1 edition by Gustav morgenstern, Arnamagnæanische Fragmente. (Cod. AM. 655 4to III–VIII,
238 fol. II, 921 4to IV 1.2). Ein supplement zu den Heilagra manna sögur nach den handschrif-
ten (Leipzig and Copenhagen: Emil gräfes and Skandinavisk antiquariat, 1893; repr.
Whitefish, Mt: Kessinger, 2010), 24–35. A facsimile and text edition of f. 2r of AM 655
vI 4to is found in Hreinn Benediktsson, Early Icelandic Script: As Illustrated in Vernacular
Texts from the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, íslenzk handrit. Icelandic manuscripts,
Series in folio, vol. 2 (reykjavík: manuscript Institute of Iceland, 1965), plate 21 and xvi.
2 Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog: Registre (Copenhagen: Den Arnamagnæanske kommis-
sion, 1989), 459, 436. Cf. also kirsten Wolf, The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic
Prose (toronto: University of toronto Press, 2013), 56–57; kristian kålund, Katalog over
den Arnamagnæanske håndskriftsamling, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: gyldendal, 1889–94), 1:199;
2:50; gustav Morgenstern, “notizen,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 11, ny följd 7 (1895): 97. the
manuscripts are abbreviated here as 238 and 655.
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