Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1968, Page 140

CXXXVIII
Jón Guðmundsson also refers to Adamsbók in
“Samantekt um skilning á Eddu”, Papp. fol. nr. 38,
f. 94r: “su jardneska paradis til a/str ættar . . . med
ofolnandi avoxtum, ongri nott. oc allskyns unatsemd-
um, brunne lifanda vatnz, fugla oc eingla sætum song,
sem þeir kolludu Adams paradis. þangat skylldi
Seth sendr hafa verit, sem segir i Adams bok etc.”.
This description of Paradise corresponds in broad
outline to the one given in E 73 f.
Arni Magnússon makes use of the title Adamsbók
on a couple of occasions. In his lists of MSS he writes
of A Leg. in Hb as “Theologica qvædam, videntur
esse ur Adams bok”14, and of some leaves of AM
623.4to he notes, both in the MS itself and in his
lists of MSS, that they derive “Ur Adams boc”15.
These leaves, however, contain a fragment of Niðr-
stigningar saga16, with which Árni Magnússon was
familiar and otherwise referred to by this name17.
An explanation for Árni’s mistaken attribution is
provided, however, by the opening of the fragment.
It begins in the middle of Seth’s account of his
journey to Paradise and of how the archangel refuses
to grant Adam the oil of mercy but promises him
deliverance after the passage af 5,130 years. This
account of Seth’s visit to Paradise corresponds not
with Leg.’sbut withVita Adae’s, see p. cxxxvif. (there
is a variation in the number of years). There is reason
to believe that Árni Magnússon was acquainted with
an Adamsbók, which may have been the same work
14. Arne Magnussons Hándskriftfortegnelser, 1909, p. 38.
15. Katalog AM II p. 37; Arne Magnussons Hándskriftforteg-
nelser, p. 13.
16. Printed in Heilagra Manna Segur II pp. 9-14, and in AM
623.4° Helgensagaer, ed. Finnur Jónsson, 1927, pp. 1-9. An
unpublished text of the medieval translation is found in JS
405.8vo pp. 1-18, cf. Magnús Már Lárussen in Skímir CXXIX,
1955, pp. 159-68.
17. Arne Magnussons Hándskriftfortegnelser, p. 13.