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quoting another great Roman poet, Horace, in order to show that he is
comparing like with like, namely humans with humans, and not animals
with humans.8 We admire Moses and Samuel for their divine gifts. Should
it not then be permitted to admire Guðbrandur for the same or similar
endowments from God? And when the author thinks that he has justified
his choice of comparison well enough he proceeds in a highly systematic
way to enumerate five parallels with the history of Moses.
In the first place the author refers to Moses grazing his father-in-law’s
sheep on the high and steep Mount Horeb in the desert of Sinai. There
God spoke to him for the first time and told him he had chosen him to be
the leader of his people. In the same way Guðbrandur was elevated from
the folds and pastures of the sheep on his father’s farm to be educated at
the school at Hólar as if on some kind of mountain or acropolis, which
was the first step towards shouldering heavier burdens. Secondly, Moses
took off his shoes because of the sacredness of the place, to symbolize
that his mind was not inclined to any profane views but devoted to the
one God. Similarly Gudbrandur took off the shoes of the papist religion
which most people wore at that time and set foot on the sacred land like
Moses, or to be more exact on the scriptural foundations of the reformed
faith, where he imbibed the word of God brought to him by the teachers.
Thirdly, the Lord had shown himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but not
disclosed that his name was Jehovah, which was interpreted as meaning
that the deeds of the fathers were not comparable to those of Moses. They
founded a small church which in no way equalled the multitude that Moses
led out of Egypt and governed in the desert. Thus the initial knowledge
of God, introduced by Bishop ólafur Hjaltason, seemed to represent the
phase before Moses, but the perfection of Guðbrandur’s subsequent work
corresponded to the revelation of Jehovah’s name through the ministry of
Moses. In the fourth place Moses was a slow speaker, which may be com-
pared with the sluggish memory from which Guðbrandur suffered during
the first years of his school training.9 In both cases, nevertheless, God in
his mercy brought to pass what he had decided upon. Moses was obliged to
use his brother as an interpreter, and an exraordinary gift of eloquence was
8 Horace, Satires. Epistles. Art of Poetry. Ed. and trans. by H. Rushton Fairclough. Loeb Clas sical
Library 194 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1929), I. I, 102–103.
9 Exod., 4 and 6.
TO TELL THE TRUTH – BUT NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH