Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1991, Blaðsíða 213
199
IV
A few phrases and passages in 714 deserve separate discussion.
Thus, the opening lines ofthe GS extract in 714, i.e., 88v21-89rl, differ
somewhat from the corresponding passage in 226 (80610) in that the
information about the year of Christ’s birth is omitted. It seems prob-
able that this omission is the work of the scribe of 714; from the tide
»Nockrar Historiur umm Ogudlega Tyranna og er first af Herodes
Askalonita« it seems that he was primarily concerned with writing a
story about Herod, and the information about the year of Christ’s
birth may have been irrelevant to him in this context.
In 91r24-26, in the descripuon of Herod’s illness, it is added that
»Egesippus og Evsebius skrifa, ad hann hafe ecke feinged eim helldur
Åtta slags siukdoma.« This information is not found in the HS, 226, or
41. The source of the description of Herod’s eight illnesses may be
Niels Heldvad’s Historiarum Sacrarum Encolpodion (Copenhagen,
1634).18 Heldvad citesjosephus, (H)Egesippus and Eusebius (of Caesa-
rea) for the description. Excerpts of Niels Heldvad’s Encolpodion have
been translated into Icelandic. The description of Herod’s eight ill-
nesses is found in the C-text of the History of the Cross-tree and in AM
124 8vo fols. 76v-77v,19 but the transladon in 714 seems to be different
from either of these.
In the Latin (Mone, pp. 526-527) Pilate’s father’s name is Tyrus, his
mother’s name Pila, and the miller’s name Atus. Pila, who »regis
nominis ignara«, names her son Pilatus by compounding her own
name and her father’s name. In 226 Pilate’s father’s name is - as in the
Latin - Tirus, but his mother’s name is Sopila. The miller’s name is not
mentioned. Since she does not know the king’s name, she names her
son after herself only. Jon Helgason, pp. 368-369, notes that in 41 it is
the king, who is called Atus, Pilate’s mother is named Sopilijna, and
the boy is named after his father and mother, who in this version
knows the king’s name. In 714 the king is - as in 41 - named Atus, and
Pilate’s mother is - as in the Latin - named Pila. As in 41 the boy is here
named after his father and mother.
18 I am indebted to Mariane Overgaard for this reference.
19 See Mariane Overgaard (1968), op. cit. pp. XCIX and 44.