Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Page 150
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After these remarks on the cleansing of sins, the identification of
sources for the Icelandic treatise proves less problematic, for the author
begins to draw upon a text which provides a close Latin parallel for
most of the rest of his treatise, namely the theological manual Compen-
dium Theologicae Veritatis (hereafter CTV), a work often attributed to
the Dominican writer Albertus Magnus, but in faet compiled some time
around the years 1260-1265 by one of his contemporaries, Hugh Ripe-
lin of Strassburg.'3
Hugh’s theological handbook appears to have been very well known
in medieval Iceland. Icelandic book-lists from the fourteenth and fif-
teenth century mention works with similar titles. A record of books at
Videyjarklaustur in 1397 includes a copy of a Veritas Theologiæ\u and
Catholica Lovaniensis, Lovanii Novi (Turnhout, 1989). Although this does not allow one
to State categorically that Augustine never spoke of tears as a form of baptism, it is safe to
say that there appears to be no evidence to support the attribution in Spec. Pen. 10-11.
It is, of course, simply a commonplace in medieval literature for works by a great varie-
ty of patristic authors to be attributed to the pen of Augustine. Dom Germain Morin esti-
mated that in his edition of the works of Caesarius of Arles, he had restored to their genu-
ine author no fewer than 137 sermons traditionally referred to as the work of Augustine.
See G. Morin, ed., Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis opera omnia (Maredsous, 1937-
1942); ed. 2, CCSL 103-104 (Turnhout, 1953), p. XIV. The wealth of material from Cae-
sarius which is routinely ascribed to Augustine in Norse sources has been studied in a se-
ries of articles by Hans Bekker-Nielsen: ‘En norrøn adventsprædiken’, Maal og Minne
(1959), pp. 48-52; ‘Caesarius af Arles som kilde til norrøne homilier’, Opuscula 2.1/ Bib-
liotheca Amamagnæana 25.2 (1961), pp. 10-16; ‘Caesarius and Stjorn', in Saga og
Språk, ed. J.M. Weinstock (Austin, 1972), pp. 39-44. In this regard, compare remarks be-
low on Spec. Pen. 131-152, a passage attributed to Augustine, but in faet translated from
Caesarius, Sermo 179. Caesarius is, of course, not the only author whose work is falsely
attributed to Augustine in Norse sources. On Norse attribution to Augustine of homiletic
material by Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Ravenna, see D.M. McDougall, ‘Pseudo-
Augustinian passages in “Jons saga Baptista 2” and the “Fourth Grammatical Treatise’”,
Traditio 44 (1988), pp. 463-483.
13 The best available accounts of Hugh’s life and work are those by G. Steer, Hugo Ripe-
lin von Strassburg: Zur Rezeptions- und Wirkungsgeschichte des “Compendium Theolo-
gicae veritatis’’ im deutschen Spatmittelalter (Tiibingen, 1981), and ‘Hugo Ripelin von
Strassburg’, Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexicon 4 (Berlin/ New
York, 1983), cols 252-266; see also T. Kaeppeli and E. Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Prae-
dicatorum MediiAevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1970-1993), II, pp. 260-269 and IV, pp. 123-124.1
have provided a summary of Steer’s survey of information pertaining to Hugh’s career in
my doctoral dissertation, Codex Lindesianus: An Old Icelandic Miscellany (unpubl. PhD
dissertation, London Univ., 1983), pp. 437-440, 496-501.
14 See Vilchinsbdk (AM 260 fol), Diplomatarium Islandicum. Islenzkt Fornbréfasafn
(DI), 16 vols. (Reykjavfk, 1857-1972), IV, no. 117, p. 110, line 15. Cf. Emil Olmer, Bok-
samlingarpå Island 1179-1490 (Goteborg, 1902), no. 251, p. 52.