Gripla - 2019, Síða 228

GRIPLA228
ety, joyfulness, humanity and affability – qualities which made guests leave
the bishop’s table with even more reluctance than that shown by Diogenes
when he was listening to Antisthenes and refused to be driven away even
when threatened with a staff. Thus the bishop’s hospitality and his gen-
erosity to all men would have allowed him to say, with the blessed Job:
“If I have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten
thereof; if I have withheld the poor from their desire, and have caused the
eyes of the widow to fail ....”, which of course he would not have done.13
To support his view of Guðbrandur and his lack of avarice, the au-
thor cites still more characters from the classical world, culminating in
a direct quotation from Horace on the miser Uvidius, whose meanness
proved of no use to him as he was eventually killed by a freedwoman.14
No, Guðbrandur was not like that: he had riches, as Arngrímur acknowl-
edges, but they did not have him, Divitias, inquam, habuit Gudbrandus;
non Gudbrandum divitiæ. After a few more references to Job, the author
concludes this section and links it to a new aspect of Guðbrandur’s life by
defending himself against possible allegations that his purpose in this en-
comium was to attract the attention of the late bishop’s friends or heirs.15
If, Arngrímur continues, anyone is listening unwillingly and suspects
him of partiality, he may find abundant evidence of the esteem and favour
in which Guðbrandur was held by the foremost men abroad. Besides
King Fredrik II of Denmark (1534–1588), other important figures include
the most Reverend Povl Madsen (1527–1590) and the theologian Niels
Hemmingsen (1513–1600), at whose table Guðbrandur imbibed wisdom
as a young but already mature man. In Germany too there were people
who admired and loved Guðbrandur’s fame even though they had never
seen him, for example Philippus Nicolai (1556–1608), who dedicated a
work to him.16
Concluding the long and varied chapter VII, Arngrímur emphasises
that Guðbrandur’s general conduct was a reflection of his virtuous charac-
13 The words seem to refer to Job. 31, 17, 16, 18 but the quotation is inaccurate.
14 Horace, Satires. Epistles. Art of Poetry. Ed. and trans. H. Rushton Fairclough. Loeb Classical
Library 194 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1929), I. 1, 95–100.
Ummidius is now the accepted reading in place of Uvidius.
15 The references are probably to Job. 31: 24–25.
16 The work referred to is Synopsis articuli controversi de omnipræsente Christo (Hamburg,
1607).