Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Síða 141
131
Hum Jacobi but were in the Middle Ages wrongly attributed to Hiero-
nymus.6 More difficult, however, is a precise identification of the learned
works which inspired the meditative sections of the Old Norse Vita.
Apart from Hieronymus, Augustine and Gregory the Great, who are ex-
pressly named in the saga,7 the author must have also known the Histo-
ria Scholastica by Petrus Comestor and, although perhaps only indir-
ectly, the theological works of Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St.
Victor.
In his use of these mariological sources the Icelandic writer aimed at
achieving two different purposes: in addition to offering his audience -
most probably both ecclesiastic and lay - an example of spiritual perfec-
tion personified in Christ’s Mother - a reflection of increasing devotion
to the Virgin in Iceland - he intended to resolve some theological diffi-
culties. From this dual purpose arises his constant effort to explain and
interpret, making use of allegories and examples from the Scriptures
and from everyday life that were intended to help dispel or at least re-
duce any doubt or mistrust.
To illustrate the exegetic attempts in Mariu saga I have selected two
examples of different kinds: the first concerns the writer’s interpretation
of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, that is to say a theoretical
difficulty, while the second concerns the comment on the first verse in
Mary’s hymn, otherwise known as Magnificat, where the difficulty to
be resolved is of a lexical kind.
In the chapter entitled Fra Joachim - that is chapter three in the first
version of Unger’s edition - it is told how, after an angel was sent first
to Joachim and then to Anna to comfort them with the promise of a
child, the elderly couple come together after some months of separation
and beget a child in accordance with the prophecy. This child - explains
the author - was begotten like all other children with original sin, since
she was begotten through sexual intercourse which in itself implies a
sin.8 But, as the Old Norse writer on his own initiative goes on to ex-
6 All three texts are edited by Constantinus Tischendorf in Evangelia Apocrypha, Leip-
zig 1876.2
7 Unger, op. cit., pp. 350-351 (pp. 11-12 in the first version) and again pp. 372-373 (33-
34).
8 “ok var jrat bamn getid med hinni gavmlv synd sem hvertt annat, [rat er af karllmanni
ok konv getz. [...] firir jrvi at fav vorv med mvnvd getin”. (And that child was begotten
with the old sin like anyone else who is begotten by a man and a woman,... because they
were begotten through lust). Unger, op. cit., p. 3451'3'5'6 (619’20-22-23). By using the plural —»