Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Qupperneq 157

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Iceland during the later middle ages. Further examples of Old Icelandic
translations and adaptations of CTV doubtless await identification.25
Use of C7Y by the author of Spec. Pen. is first evident at lines 14-16,
where it is noted that because sin is complex, its many forms need to be
distinguished; for some are sins of the heart, some of the mouth, some
of deed. These remarks are paralleled in C7YIII.vi. 92B, 35 and 93A,
8-12:
Divisio peccatorum multiplex est... Sumuntur etiam peccatorum divisiones
secundum causam materialem, circa quam primo sumitur hæc divisio: Pec-
catorum aliud est cordis, aliud oris, aliud operis.
The classification of sins of the heart, of the mouth and of deed which
follows (Spec. Pen. 17-63) is drawn from CTV IH.xxx-xxxii.26 There
follows an account of things which aggravate sin (Spec. Pen. 64-74).
Although there is a discussion of the same subject in C7Y (VI.xxv.
224B, 2-3: circumstantiæ aggravantes peccatum), Hugh Ripelin’s text
provides no parallel for the detailed list of circumstances presented in
Spec. Pen:, if the sin is committed on a holiday or during a period of
fast, or in a consecrated place, or in a way which is contrary to nature;
or if the transgressor is powerful, wise and of high rank; or if one urges
or incites or forces oneself to transgress before feeling the temptation of
sin; acting against one’s father and mother and others who know the
sinner well; striking clerics or monks; defiling churches, monasteries or
churchyards, or the graves of the dead; giving poison or anything else
intended to cause death or illness to anyone to eat or drink; living ac-
cording to bodily lusts: eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, indulging in
fornication and lechery whenever one wishes, wherever one wishes,
with whomever one wishes, in whatever way one wishes; and in every
way engaging in sin against human nature. Although it is difficult to
point to a single likely source for this list, it is worth noting that at least
some of the it’ems mentioned appear in medieval penitential manuals.
Compare, for example, remarks in Thomas Chobham’s Summa Confes-
25 Svanhildur Oskarsdottir of University College, London has recently identified sec-
tions of C7V VII.vii-x, xii-xv, xx, xxvi, xxviii, and xxxi as the source of an account of
Judgement Day in Tveggja postula saga Jons ok Jakobs, chapters 50-56. See her article
on this newly discovered source in the present volume of Opuscula. 1 am grateful to
Svanhildur for drawing my attention to her work on this text.
26 For the text of the Latin parallel to Spec. Pen. 17-63, see Appendix I, pp. 167-169.