ANTHONY FAULKESPAGAN SYMPATHY:
ATTITUDES TO HEATHENDOMIN THE PROLOGUE TO SNORRA EDDA
I

This discussion relates to the prologue to Snorra Edda (SnE) as reconstructed by Finnur Jónsson in Edda Snorra Sturlusonar.1 The prologue
is extant in four independent manuscripts. Recent scholarly opinion
inclines to the view that the text in Codex Wormianus has been expandedby the interpolation of fairly lengthy passages, and that the text in the
Uppsala manuscript has been shortened by compression of phrase andsentence (but without much matter being omitted). In the other two manuscripts (Codex Regius and the Utrecht manuscript) the beginning islacking. Finnur Jónsson based his text on the Codex Regius, and supplied
the beginning partly from the Utrecht manuscript (which does not lackso much as the Codex Regius) and partly from Codex Wormianus.2 How
close this reconstructed text is to the author’s original is not possible toknow; nor is there enough evidence on which to base an opinion whether
the prologue as we have it is by Snorri Sturluson. But it seems to be an
integral part of the work, and discussion of the ideas in it must of necessity
be based on what seems to be the best available text.
There are in fact several indications that the prologue was originallyconceived as an essential part of SnE, and that it is by the same author as
the rest of the work. First of all, it is required as a narrative introduction
to Gylfaginning. It is referred to in Skáldskaparmál, SnE, p. 86/17–22(in AM 757, 4to, there is an even more detailed reference to the prologue
and its contents, see footnote to SnE, p. 86/18). The heading in the Uppsalamanuscript specifically states: bók ﬂessi . . . hefir saman setta Snorri
1 Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Copenhagen, 1931). References to Snorra Edda
are to this edition, but the spelling of all passages quoted from Old Icelandic
sources is normalised.
2 There in fact seem to be some seventeenth-century manuscripts from which
the missing part of the text of the prologue in the Codex Regius might be moresatisfactorily reconstructed, e.g. Sth. papp. fol. nr 38; Thott 1494, 4to; NkS 1878
b, 4to; AM 755, 4to. See Anthony Faulkes, ‘The Prologue to Snorra Edda: An
Attempt at Reconstruction’, Gripla III (Reykjavík, 1979), pp. 204–213.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

Sturlusonr eptir ﬂeim hætti sem hér er skipat (Snorri Sturluson made thisbook after the manner found below). There are various links between theideas of the prologue and those in Gylfaginning, and some of these arepointed out below.3
The information in the prologue, and the manner in which it is presented,
does not differ from that in Snorri’s Ynglinga saga more than one would
expect with two works written at different stages of an author’s development. The historical, euhemeristic treatment of the Æsir in the prologue
is not basically different from that in Ynglinga saga (whereas theirpresentation in Gylfaginning is in fact different from both, since there
they are not treated euhemeristically at all within the framework of theconversation except in one brief passage, SnE, pp. 16/20–17/3). The
historical interest in heathen religion, characteristic both of the prologue
and Ynglinga saga, appears also in Snorri’s Hákonar saga gó›a.4 Boththe prologue and Heimskringla make use of material (genealogies andregnal lists) similar to those in AM 1 e β II fol. Finally, the prologue(admittedly in differing versions) is found in each of the only four
independent manuscripts of SnE that contain Gylfaginning as well as
Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal.
The prologue is not one of the kind found in Heimskringla andÍslendingabók, in which the author in his own person discusses his aims
and methods. It relates only to Gylfaginning, and thus is not in fact a
prologue to the Edda as a whole, and is a narrative introduction that sets
the scene for the ‘frame’ within which the mythological stories in
Gylfaginning are told. This ‘frame’ is the conversation between Gylfi(calling himself Gangleri) and three Æsir (calling themselves Hár, Jafnhár,
and ﬁri›i). The prologue is necessary on a narrative level to define thesituation, give it a historical setting, and introduce the characters (though
it actually only introduces the Æsir collectively, not individually). The
distinction between the historically conceived frame and the mythologicalcontent of the stories set in it is underlined by the fact that the author
confines himself to quoting Eddic verse in the stories, while he allows
himself to quote two scaldic verses by named poets in the frame.
3 A. Holtsmark, in Studier i Snorres Mytologi (Oslo, 1964), gathers evidence
from vocabulary and concepts shared by the prologue and Gylfaginning that
supports the assumption of common authorship. On the differences between thetwo see A. Heusler, Die Gelehrte Urgeschichte im Altisländischen Schrifttum(Berlin, 1908), pp. 28–29, 32–34 (reprinted in A. Heusler, Kleine Schriften [Berlin,1969], II, pp. 101–102, 104–106).
4 ÍF, XXVI, pp. 167–72.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

3

Besides its artistic and structural purpose, the frame of Gylfaginningalso provides an explanation of the preservation and transmission of the
mythological stories it contains (see SnE, pp. 76/20–22), thus again linking
myth and history. This rather naive preoccupation with justifying theauthor’s knowledge is common in early Icelandic narrative, and appears
elsewhere in Snorri’s work.5
But although the prologue has a primarily narrative function, and theauthor does not obtrude his own personality into it, he does appear to betrying in it to define his attitude to the mythology he is presenting and toclarify the relationship of the religion implied by the mythological stories
in Gylfaginning to his own beliefs and to the Christian culture within which
he was writing. Undoubtedly one of his motives for including the prologue,
and maybe the chief reason for the use of the frame device itself, was to
avoid the criticism that his stories were dangerous to orthodoxy. This preoccupation is made explicit in the so-called epilogue (SnE, pp. 86/17–18).6
But the author’s attitude to his material is based on a historical interpretation rather than an ideological or mythical one. He tries to fit it into
the framework of universal history as he knew it from the Bible and other
Christian writings. From the í upphafi of the first sentence to his remarkson the origin of place-names in the last, the author of the prologue relates
his material to historical learning and explains the religion of his forefathers rationally as a groping towards truth by unenlightened heathens
in a pre-Christian age. His aims thus appear to be very similar to those of
the author of Skjƒldunga saga as defined by Bjarni Gu›nason: ‘a› tengjaNor›urlƒnd vi› heimssƒguna.’7 Both authors are following the traditionof Eusebius, Orosius, Isidore of Seville, Ado, and Peter Comestor, who all
try to combine sacred and secular history and mythology in a single scheme.8
5 ÍF, XXVI, p. 298; XXVII, pp. 358–60. See S. Nordal, Snorri Sturluson, 2nd ed.

(Reykjavik, 1973), pp. 167 ff. Cf. also Grettis saga, ÍF, VII, p. 205; ¯rvar-Odds
saga, ed. R. C. Boer (Leiden, 1888), pp. 194–95; Njáls saga, ÍF, XII, pp. 330–31;
Orms ﬂáttr Stórólfssonar in Flateyjarbók (Christiania, 1860–1868), I, p. 529.
6 Eigi skulu kristnir menn trúa á hei›in go›. Compare the slightly different
disavowal at the end of the Táin bó Cuailnge in the Book of Leinster, trans.
T. Kinsella (London, 1970), p. 283, quoted by F. Paasche, Norges og Islands
Litteratur inntil utgangen av middelalderen, 2nd ed. (Oslo, 1957), p. 349. It
might be maintained that the stories in Gylfaginning are deliberately narrated ina naive way so as to make it impossible for a sophisticated audience to take them
seriously. See Y. Ågren, ‘Virrighetens Apoteos’, Edda, 61 (1961), pp. 13–38.
7 Um Skjöldungasögu (Reykjavík, 1963), p. 265. Cf. also pp. 199–200. Ari
follows a similar line in Íslendingabók.
8 In various chapters of his Historia Scholastica, Peter Comestor relates events

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

In spite of its preference for historical narrative as opposed to theology
or philosophy, the prologue is more obviously learned than Gylfaginning,
though not more obviously so than Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal. But its
learning is of a different kind from theirs, and leans more heavily on
foreign European tradition. While in Skáldskaparmál and Háttatal theauthor applies his broad education to native material, in the prologue heis much closer to simply reproducing foreign learning.
The ultimate aim of Gylfaginning (as of most of the narratives in
Skáldskaparmál too) is presumably to give the mythological backgroundto the kennings of scaldic verse, though this is nowhere stated in thebook. In Skáldskaparmál the relevance of individual stories to thekennings they are supposed to explain is often directly stated (as forexample in SnE, pp. 83/11–14,142/5), but this is nowhere done in
Gylfaginning except perhaps in two places (pp. 31/2–3 and 33/5, footnote).
Indeed, a great many of the stories told in Gylfaginning seem to havenothing to do with kennings at all, and the choice of material in this partof the Edda can hardly have been determined by the need to explain
particular aspects of scaldic diction, as can be maintained with most of
the material in Skáldskaparmál. The immediate intention in Gylfaginningmust therefore be to give a survey of the mythology itself as a whole,
without reference to particular kennings. What is perhaps even more
surprising is that the myths are related without any attempt at interpretationor comment (other than the general implied comment on their significancein the prologue, the last chapter of Gylfaginning, and the so-called
epilogue in Skáldskaparmál, SnE, pp. 86–88). The author seems only
concerned to tell the stories clearly and effectively. He has not eventroubled in some cases to reduce conflicting versions of myths to a single
coherent account (see, for example, SnE, pp. 17/8–18/22, 19/12, 70/20–22,
and 76/13). This approach, with its complete absence of interest both in
the possible symbolic or allegorical significance of myths and in theirreligious implications, is very different from that of other European
mythographers of the Middle Ages such as Fulgentius and his followers,
who are generally more concerned with the interpretation of myths thanwith the myths themselves. Gylfaginning, therefore, has reminded scholars
more of the matter-of-factness of earlier mythographers like Hyginus,
in world (i.e. principally Roman) history to biblical events. These he calls incidentiae. See J. Seznec, La survivance des Dieux Antiques (London, 1940), pp. 16–19;
P. Alphandéry, ‘L’Evhémérisme et les débuts de l’histoire des religions au moyen
âge’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 109 (1934), p. 19. Breta sƒgur also integrates pagan Greek and Roman story with British and English Christian tradition.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

5

Servius, or Ovid.9 But though the author may have adopted the mannerof classical mythographers, and perhaps absorbed some of their ideas
and some from later writers too, the content of his narratives seems fairly
free from the direct influence of classical mythology; such similarities as
there may be seem more likely to be due to influence at a pre-literary stage.10
Medieval Iceland has a rich mythology, but it is largely known fromjust three sources: the Poetic Edda and two works of Snorri Sturluson(his Prose Edda and Ynglinga saga, the latter being the first section of
his Heimskringla). These were all compiled in the thirteenth century,
though many of the individual poems in the Poetic Edda may be mucholder in origin. The information in these three sources can be supplemented from a variety of other medieval Icelandic writings, such as
fornaldar sögur (mythical-heroic sagas) and accounts of the conversionof the Scandinavian countries that involve some mention of heathen
practices and beliefs. There are also some mythological poems besides
those preserved in the Poetic Edda. (Some of these are in fact preserved
only in manuscripts of SnE, and the scaldic poems that relate myths arealso nearly all preserved as parts of Snorri’s works.) But it is only in thetwo Eddas and Ynglinga saga that there is any attempt at a coherent
account of Norse mythology. There are no comparable mythographicalwritings from the other Scandinavian countries in the Middle Ages except
for the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus (written about 1200), where
euhemerised versions of many of the myths recorded in the Eddas are
given in Latin prose. Nor is there anything similar in any of the other
Germanic languages, except for the unsympathetic and brief account inÆlfric’s homily De falsis diis.11 Snorri as a mythographer is therefore a
9 See R. M. Meyer, ‘Snorri als Mythograph’, ANF, 28 (1912), pp. 109–21.

Seznec (La survivance des Dieux Antiques), traces four ways in which mythology
survived through the Middle Ages, la tradition historique, la tradition physique,la tradition morale, la tradition encyclopédique. Of these, only the first can besaid to appear in Icelandic sources.
10 Cf. Ursula Dronke, ‘Classical influence on early Norse literature’, inClassical Influences on European Culture A.D. 500–1500, ed. R. R. Bolgar(Cambridge, 1971), pp. 143–49, especially p. 145, n. l.
11 Homilies of Ælfric, A Supplementary Collection, Early English Text Society,No. 260, ed. J. C. Pope (Oxford, 1968) II, pp. 667–724. This homily, which waspartly based on a work of Martin of Bracara (d. 579), was known in medieval
Iceland, and a translation is preserved in Hauksbók, ed. Eiríkur Jónsson and
Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen, 1892–1896), pp. 156–64, but it is not certain how
early this translation was made. See Ursula and Peter Dronke, ‘The Prologue ofthe Prose Edda: Explorations of a Latin Background’, Sjötíu ritger›ir helga›ar
Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977, Reykjavík 1977, pp. 153–176.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

somewhat isolated figure, and there are many problems both in trying tounderstand his attitude to myth and in finding the sources of his ideas.
There is no obvious model either for his attitudes or his methods.12
Characteristic of the treatment of mythology in the prologue to SnE
and in Ynglinga saga is the attempt to fit mythological figures, interpreted
euhemeristically, into a chronological framework which would relate themto known historical persons. Though the influence of these writings inthis respect cannot be said to be very extensive in later Icelandic literature,
Snorri has followers in the interpolator of the version of the prologue in
Codex Wormianus, the author of the so-called epilogue in Skáldskaparmál(SnE, pp. 86–88), if this was not Snorri himself, the authors of Sƒrla
ﬂáttr, Bósa saga, Sturlaugs saga starfsama, Vƒlsungs rímur, and thefragment of a mythological treatise in AM 162 m, fol.;13 and his nephewÓláfr hvítaskáld in the Third Grammatical Treatise, who wrote: ¯ll er
ein listin, skáldskapr sá er rómverskir spekingar námu í Athenisborg á
Grikklandi, ok sneru sí›an í latínumál, ok sá ljó›aháttr e›a skáldskaprer Ó›inn ok a›rir Asiamenn fluttu nor›r higat í nor›rhálfu heimsins, ok
kenndu mƒnnum á sína tungu ﬂesskonar list svá sem ﬂeir hƒf›u skipat oknumit í sjálfu Asialandi, ﬂar sem mest var fræg› ok ríkdómr ok fró›leikr
veraldarinnar.14 Again the interest is historical, the concern to relate
traditional Icelandic culture to the mainstream of European learning.
Many parallels in European literature to the ideas of the prologue havebeen pointed out by other scholars, in recent years most notably by A. Holtsmark and W. Baetke.15 The parallels noted below are not aimed at adding
12 Cf. A. T. Laugesen, ‘Snorris opfattelse af Aserne’, ANF, 56 (1942), pp.

301–15; Y. Ågren, ‘Virrighetens Apoteos’.
13 Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, ed. C. C. Rafn (Copenhagen, 1829–30), I,
pp. 391ff.; III, pp. 193 and 592; Rímnasafn, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen,
1905–12), I, pp. 311 ff.; Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Copenhagen, 1848–1887),
II, pp. 635–36. See also Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda I, p. 411 (the beginning of
one version of Hei›reks saga). Later versions of Langfe›gatal are also influenced
by the prologue to SnE, e.g. Alfræ›i Íslenzk III, ed. K. Kålund (Copenhagen,
1917–1918), p. 58.
14 Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, ed. B. M.
Ólsen (Copenhagen, 1884), p. 60.
15 A. Holtsmark, Studier i Snorres Mytologi; W. Baetke, Die Götterlehre derSnorra-Edda (Berlin, 1952), cf. especially p. 55, n. 2; see also A. Heusler, Die
Gelehrte Urgeschichte im Altisländischen Schrifttum; S. Bugge, Studier over denordiske Gude- og Heltesagns Oprindelse (Christiania, 1881–1889), I; E. H.
Meyer, Völuspá (Berlin, 1889). I am also indebted for many helpful suggestions
to Professor G. T. Shepherd, University of Birmingham.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

7

to the already sufficient evidence that the author was acquainted withvarious kinds of medieval Latin writing, but are an attempt to clarify his
ideas by showing what lines of thought in European literature he waspursuing, and to reveal him not as an imitator and plagiarist but as anindependent thinker applying ideas from foreign books to the literary
and philosophical problems arising in his own culture from the juxtaposition of Christian and heathen tradition.
II

The prologue begins with an account of how mankind (except for a few
people) lost its knowledge of the creator when time had passed after thecreation, and again after the flood. This is based ultimately on Genesis
and an intermediate source has not been demonstrated, though the accountis similar in some respects to parts of Æfric’s homily De initio creaturæ,Veraldar saga, and Lactantius’ Divinæ Institutiones II,14.16 Eventually
mankind even forgot the name of God (SnE, p. 1/15). This idea was wellknown both from the same passage in Lactantius and from Gregory’s
Moralia I,1: ‘Pagans were enchained by sin inasmuch as they lacked
knowledge of their creator.’17 Note also Beowulf (ll. 180–81): Metod hie
ne cuﬂon, || dæda Demend, | ne wiston hie Drihten God. The idea reappears
in Aquinas, who says that one of the causes of idolatry is ignorantia veri
Dei: ‘In the first age there was no idolatry because of the fresh memoryof the creation of the world, as a result of which the knowledge of one
God was still alive in the minds of men.’18 It is also found in an Icelandic
manuscript of about 1500: En ﬂvíat ﬂeir vissu eigi hverr hann (the creator)var, ﬂá villast ﬂeir af ﬂví í mƒrgum hlutum.19
III

The author however goes on to say (SnE, p. 1/16 ff.) that God still gave
men reason with which to understand the world around them (cf. Wisdom
16 The Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. B. Thorpe (London,1844), I, pp. 20 and 22; Veraldar saga, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Copenhagen,1944), pp. 3–14; PL, VI, 326–29. With SnE, pp. 1/3–4 and 9–11, cf. SnE pp.
14/14–15, 16/18, and 76/3–4.
17 PL, LXXV, 528–29.
18 Summa Theologicæ 2a,2æ,94,4. Cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der SnorraEdda, pp. 53–54.
19Alfræ›i Íslenzk III, p. 96. That there was no idolatry before the flood is also
expressly stated in Ælfric’s De falsis diis, ll. 72–73.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

7: 17 ff. and Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones II,8: ‘God gave wisdom to
all as part of the human lot’20). From considering the physical universe
they deduced the existence of the God they had forgotten, basing thisdeduction first of all on their observation of the analogies between thenature of animals and the earth: the water in the earth is similar to theblood in animals, vegetation to hair and feathers, the surface of the earth
to skin, rocks and stones to teeth and bones. From this men came tobelieve that the earth was alive, and included her in their genealogies
and, one assumes, worshipped her as a goddess (SnE, p. 2/13). The ideaof the body as a microcosm of the earth has a long history in European
literature, though usually the analogy is made with the human body.21
Among the writings where it is found are Ambrose, Hexaemeron VI,9,22
Gregory, Moralia VI,16,23 Isidore, Sententiæ I,8,24 Macrobius, commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis II,12,11,25 Alain de Lille, Liberde Planctu Naturæ,26 Guillaume de Conches, Philosophia,27 Honorius
of Autun, De Imagine Mundi II,59,28 Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica, Genesis 1,29 R. Grosseteste, Quod homo sit minor mundus.30 The
idea is not confined to European tradition (cf. Rig-Veda X,90).31

20 PL, VI, 287. Compare the end of Gƒngu-Hrólfs saga (Fornaldar sögur
Nordrlanda III, p. 364): ﬂat er ok sannliga ritat, at gu› hefir lánat hei›nummƒnnum einn veg sem kristnum vit og skilning um jar›liga hluti.
21 See R. Allers, ‘Microcosmus’, Traditio, 2 (1944), pp. 319–407 and cf. J. M.
Parent, La Doctrine de la Création dans l’École de Chartres (Paris, 1938), p. 62
and nn. 5–7. Cf. Jón Helgason, The Arna-Magnæan Manuscript 674 A, 4to.
Elucidarius (Copenhagen, 1957; Manuscripta Islandica 4), p. xxxi, who refers
to the passage in Elucidarius in Old Norse Translation, ed. E. S. Firchow and K.
Grimstad (Reykjavík, 1989), p. 40.
22 PL, XIV, 264 ff.
23 PL, LXXV, 740 (on Job 5: 10–11).
24 PL, LXXXIII, 549; cf. E. H. Meyer, Vƒluspá, pp. 61–62.
25 See Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, trans. W. H. Stahl(New York, 1952), p. 224, n. 7.
26 PL, CCX, 443; cf. Allers, ‘Microcosmus’, pp. 344–45 and 348.
27 Willelmi a Conchis Philosophia seu Summa Philosophiae, ed. C. Ottaviano,
Archivio di Storia della Filosofia Italiana (1933), p. 18.
28 PL, CLXXII, 154.
29 PL, CXCVIII, 1055.
30 Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, ed. L. Baur (Munster,1912), p. 59.
31 Der Rig-Veda, trans. K. F. Geldner, Harvard Oriental Series 35 (Cambridge,
Mass. 1951), III, pp. 286–88.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

9

But the author of the prologue is talking about heathen philosophers
and their attempts to understand the world, and it was well known that
Plato regarded the earth and the heavenly bodies as having, in a sense,
animal life (see Timaeus 30,B–C; 38,E; 40,B; 92,C; and Chalcidius’s
commentary XCIII, XCIX–C, CXIII).32 Nicolas de Cusa (born 1401)
writes in De Docta Ignorantia II,13: ‘The earth is like a sort of animal—
as Plato says—having stones instead of bones, streams instead of veins,
trees instead of hair.’33 Plato nowhere says precisely this, but there is adetailed analogy made between the human body and the earth in thepseudo-Hippocratean treatise De Septimanis 6.34 Rather less detailed isOvid, in Metamorphoses I: ‘The great mother is the earth, and I think“her bones” means the stones in the body of the earth’ (ll. 393–94). Thisis reproduced in both the first and second mythographers.35 There is also
an interesting parallel in Philo Judæus, Legum Allegoria II,7: ‘Lifelessthings, like stones and blocks of wood, share with all others the power ofholding together, of which the bones in us, which are not unlike stones,
partake. “Growth” extends to plants, and there are parts in us, such as
our nails and hair, resembling plants.’36 The best-known parallel inChristian writings is Augustine, De Civitate Dei VII,23: ‘He (Varro) saysthat this force in our bodies penetrates to our bones, nails, and hair, justas in the world trees, though they have no feeling, are nourished andgrow, and in their own way have life . . . also stones and the earth, which
we see in the world, to which feeling does not penetrate, are like the32 Plato Latinus IV, Timaeus, ed. J. H. Waszink (London, 1962), pp. 146–47,
151 and 159.
33 Ed. E. Hoffman and R. Klibansky (Leipzig, 1932), p. 111; see note ad loc.
Cf. R. Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in Indogermanische Zeit
(Wiesbaden, 1967), p. 279.
34 Oevres complètes d’Hippocrate, ed. E. Littré, VIII (Paris, 1853), p. 637,
and IX (Paris, 1861), p. 436. A great deal has been written about the Latin
traditions of the eight parts of man; see W. Stokes, ‘Man octipartite’, MythologicalNotes VI, Revue Celtique I (1870–1872), pp. 261–62; J. M. Evans, ‘Microcosmia
Adam’, Medium Ævum XXXV (1966), pp. 38–42; Hildegard Tristram, ‘Der homooctopartitus in der irischen und altenglischen Literatur’, Zeitschrift für Celtische
Philologie XXXIV (1975), 119–53.
35 Scriptores Rerum Mythicarum Latini Tres, ed. G. H. Bode (Celle, 1834), I,
pp. 58 and 99. See H. Falk, ‘Martianus Capella og den Nordiske Mytologi’,ANO (1891), pp. 266–300, esp. 274.
36 Philo, ed. and trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library(London, 1971), I, pp. 238–41. Cf. also P. Dronke, Fabula (Leiden, 1974), p. 160(Milo, De Mundi Philosophia).

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

bones and nails of god.’37 See also S. Hildegard, Liber Divinorum Operum
I,4, 82 and I,4, 47.38 A source almost certainly known to the author of the
prologue is Honorius of Autun’s Elucidarius, for this was translated into
Norse in the twelfth century, and here a parallel is drawn between stones
and bones, trees and nails, vegetation and hair.39 The idea of the humanbody as a microcosm appears also in AM 435, 12mo, and the notion of
the earth being alive appears in Konungs skuggsjá.40
Another commonly found idea about the earth is that hon fœddi ƒll
kykvendi ok hon eigna›iz allt ﬂat er dó (SnE, p. 2/11–12). With this may
be compared Cicero, De Natura Deorum II,26: ‘all things return to earth
and originate from the earth’; Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I,248 ff.,
II,598 ff., 991 ff., especially 999; Gregory, Moralia II,17;41 and Augustine,
De Civitate Dei VII,23.42
The earth (terra mater) as an object of worship is a familiar idea fromclassical times onwards, as witness the passages of Cicero and Lucretius just mentioned, and also Cicero, De Natura Deorum III,20; Ovid,
Fasti I,671ff.; the second and third mythographers.43 The origin ofheathen cults in nature worship is often mentioned in medieval authors(the starting-point is often Wisdom 13), such as Lactantius, Divinæ
Institutiones II,5–7 and 14;44 Augustine, De Civitate Dei IV,8–11; VI,8;
VII,23;45 Isidore, Etymologiæ VIII,11,29 and 59 ff ;46 Rabanus Maurus,
De Universo XV,6;47 Ælfric, De falsis diis (also in the Norse translation
37 PL, XLI, p. 212.
38 PL, CXCVII, 839 and 862. On the comparison of the depth of water under

the surface of the earth with the depth of blood under the skin (SnE, pp. 1/22–2/3)
cf. Guillaume de Conches, De Philosophia Mundi III, 18 (PL, CLXXII, 83).
39 Elucidarius I, 11, PL, CLXXII, 1116; Konrad Gislason, ‘Brudstykker af
den islandske Elucidarius’, Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1858),
p. 61. Cf. E. H. Meyer, Vƒluspá, p. 63, who also quotes Honorius’s Sacramentarium
50 (PL, CLXXII, 773).
40 Alfræ›i Íslenzk III, p. 93; Konungs skuggsjá, ed. L. Holm-Olsen (Oslo, 1945),
p. 18.
41 PL, LXXV, 570 (on Job 1: 21).
42 PL, XLI, 215. Again Augustine is quoting Varro. Cf. P. Dronke, Fabula, p. 160.
43 Bode, Scriptores Rerum, I, pp. 90–91 and pp. 157–58. See also H.
Liebeschütz, Fulgentius Metaforalis (Leipzig, 1926), p. 62.
44 PL, VI, 277–84 and 329.
45 PL, XLI, 118–20, 186, and 211–13. Cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der SnorraEdda, p. 55.
46 PL, LXXXII, 317 and 320–21.
47 PL, CXI, 431.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

11

in Hauksbók);48 Chalcidius’s commentary on Plato’s Timaeus;49 the third
mythographer.50
In Norse tradition, the idea of microcosm is implied in the account ofYmir in Grimnismál 40:
Ór Ymis holdi var iƒr› um scƒpu›,enn ór sveita sær,biƒrg ór beinom, ba›mr ór hári,enn ór hausi himinn.
Snorri’s account in SnE (pp. 14/20–16/10) is based on this.51 Norse mythalso has a figure corresponding to terra mater in Jƒr›, wife of Ó›inn andmother of ﬁórr (SnE, p. 17/5 ff.). On the names given to earth (SnE, p. 2/13)
cf. SnE, pp. 115, 167–68, 209 and Isidore, Etymologiæ VIII,11,59 ff.52
But it should be noted that neither Jƒr› nor Ymir/Aurgelmir (SnE, pp.
12–14) appear in Norse genealogies, and therefore the prologue’s statement that men trace their descent from the earth (SnE, p. 2/13) does not
represent popular tradition in the north. But one might compare with thisthe phrase eor›an (eor›u) bearn meaning ‘men’ in some texts of Cædmon’s
48 De falsis diis, ll. 82–89; Hauksbók, pp. 157–58.
49 Plato Latinus IV, Timaeus, p. 171. Note also Guillaume de Conches, Glosæ

super Platonem, ed. E. Jeauneau (Paris, 1965), p. 201 (which relates to the same
passage in the Timaeus, i.e. 40,D).
50 Bode, Scriptores Rerum I, pp. 171–72. On the third mythographer see B.
Smalley, English Friars and Antiquity (Oxford, 1960), p. 111; E. Rathbone,‘Master Alberic of London, Mythographus Tertius Vaticanus’, Medieval andRenaissance Studies, I (1941–1943), pp. 35–38. He probably lived in the twelfth
century and his work was based on Fulgentius. Nature-worship is also describedin the fragmentary Icelandic mythological treatise quoted above, note 13 (cf.
Heilagra manna søgur, ed. C. R. Unger [Christiania, 1877], II, p. 391), and in
the first interpolation in the version of the prologue to SnE in Codex Wormianus.
51 In an interesting parallel to this creation myth in the Book of the Secrets ofEnoch 30: 8, man is said to be made of seven substances: ‘one, his flesh from theearth; two, his blood from the dew; three, his eyes from the sun; four, his bones
from stone; five, his intelligence from the swiftness of the angels and from cloud;six, his veins and his hair from the grass of the earth; seven, his soul from mybreath and from the wind’. See R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphaof the Old Testament (Oxford, 1913), II, pp. 448–49. Compare also the passage
in the Rig-Veda, trans. Geldner, pp. 286–88; Ovid, Metamorphoses IV, ll. 657 ff;
and Die Pseudoklementinen, II, Rekognitionen, ed. B. Rehm (Berlin, 1965), X,
17, 30, and 32 (pp. 336 and 346–48). Cf. P. Dronke, Fabula, pp. 83 and 154–55.
Cf. also J. Campbell, The hero with a thousand faces (London, 1971, 285).
52 PL, LXXXII, 320.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

hymn,53 and according to Tacitus, Germania 2, the Germans had a
tradition that they were descended from the three sons of Mannus, son ofTuisto whom the earth brought forth. Moreover, there is little or noevidence for a cult of mother earth in Scandinavia in historical times;54
but again Tacitus, Germania 40, claims that some Germanic tribes worshipped
Nerthum, id est Terram matrem (Nerthus, that is, Mother Earth).
The prologue’s analogy between vegetation and hair is reflected in the
kenning jar›ar haddr (earth’s hair, i.e. grass) in Bjarkamál 3 and vallarfax (plain’s mane, i.e. trees) in Alvíssmal 28; but the first is not recorded
in manuscripts older than the seventeenth century and the second depends
on emendation (the manuscript has vallar far).55 Such kennings do,
however, occur in fourteenth-century Icelandic poetry.56 One might also
compare the use of coma for vegetation in Latin poets.57
IV

Pagan philosophers, according to the author of the prologue, went on to
make another deduction. From the contemplation of the regularity of the
motions of the heavenly bodies over long periods they came to the conclusion that there was an almighty ruler of the universe (SnE, pp. 2/13–3/1).
This is one of the traditional proofs of the existence of God, though it wasoften neglected by medieval theologians in favor of more sophisticatedarguments.58 It is found, for instance, in Cicero, De Inventione I,34 (where
it is given as an example of intelligent reasoning) and in his De Natura
Deorum II,2 and 5: ‘What can be so obvious and so apparent, when we lookup at the sky and contemplate the heavenly bodies, as that there is somedivine power of surpassing intelligence by which these things are governed?
. . . the fourth and most important reason of all (for men’s belief in thegods) is the regularity of motion and the revolution of the sky, the difference,variety, beauty, and order of the sun and moon and all the stars, just thevery sight of which is enough to prove that all this is not fortuitous.’
53 Three Northumbrian Poems, ed. A. H. Smith (London, 1933), pp. 2–3 and 38.
54 See H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmonds-

worth, 1964), pp. 111–14.
55 Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen,
1912–1915), A, I, p. 181; [Poetic] Edda, ed. Hans Kuhn (Heidelberg, 1962), p. 128.
56 Skjaldedigtning, ed. cit., A, II, 353, 27/3; 357, 46/1; 396, 1/2.
57 See A Latin Dictionary, by C. T. Lewis and C. Short (Oxford, 1879), s.v.
coma, II (see especially Horace, Odes I.21.5, IV.3.11 and 7.2; Tibullus II.1.48).
58 See G. Grunwald, Geschichte der Gottesbeweise im Mittelalter, Beiträge
zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, VI,3 (Münster, 1907).

PAGAN SYMPATHY

13

Cf. also De Natura Deorum I,8, and II,20–21 (on the motions of theheavenly bodies). Plato’s Timaeus (28,B–C and 47,B–C) is slightly lessspecific (the motions of the heavenly bodies are discussed in 39,B). See
also Plato’s Laws XII, 966,E. But Lucretius, De Rerum Natura V,1182 ff.
is, like Cicero, more straightforward: ‘Moreover they saw the way thesky was arranged in an orderly fashion and how the various seasons of
the year came round, but could not understand by what causes thishappened. So they took refuge in assuming that everything was in thehands of the gods and declaring that everything was subject to their whim.’
Note also Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae I, prose 6, and III,
prose 12: ‘I cannot at all imagine how such regular movements could
take place by pure chance, and indeed I am sure that god the creator is incontrol of his works . . . indeed such a fixed order of nature would notcontinue, nor would things display motions so organised as to place, time,causation, space, and properties, if there were not one who, himself at
rest, was arranging this variety of changes.’59
For Christian writers the argument is principally an extension of Psalm
18: 2 (19: 1), Wisdom 13: 5, and Romans 1: 20, and commonly appears
in association with commentary on these passages, for example, Abelardon Romans 1: 20: ‘Not only did heathen philosophers from this order andfrom the marvellous ornaments of the world perceive its marvellous creator,
but also from its perfect organisation, by an extension of this reasoning,were able to point to the perfect providence of the divine control . . .’60
As in many of the theological writings where this ‘proof’ occurs, it ishere presented not as part of Christian teaching, but as an example of
how even the philosophi gentium have been able to come to a knowledge
of God without the benefit of revelation. See also Abelard’s Introductio
ad Theologiam III,1 and Theologia Christiana V; Gregory, Moralia
XXVI,12 (on Job 34: 5–7); Rupert von Deutz, commentary on Ecclesiasticus 1: 14, 15; Atto on Romans 1: 19–20.61
The argument appears occasionally elsewhere in more down to earth
Christian writers, as in Augustine, Sermons 197 and 241: ‘As therefore
from the movements and control of the body you can perceive the soul
though you cannot see it, so from the fact that the whole world is
controlled, and from the guidance to which souls themselves are subject,
59 See Parent, La Doctrine de la Création, pp. 32–33 and 130–31 (Guillaumede Conches’s commentary on Boethius).
60 PL, CLXXVIII, 803 ff.
61 PL, CLXXVIII, 1085 ff., 1315 ff.; PL, LXXVI, 358; PL, CLXVIII, 1231;
PL, CXXXIV, 139.

14

PAGAN SYMPATHY

perceive the creator . . . The wise ones among the heathens, who arecalled philosophers, those who were the most outstanding among them,examined nature, and came to a knowledge of the creator through hisworks (although) they had not heard the prophets, they had not received
the law of God.’62 Cf. also his Enarratio in Psalmos, Psalm 41: 4, section
7; De Civitate Dei VII,29–30 and VIII,1 ff., especially chapters 6 and 9,
where Augustine, like the author of the prologue, is giving an account of
the philosophy of the heathen.63 Similarly Lactantius: ‘For there is noone so primitive or so uncivilised in his attitudes, who, when he raises
his eyes to the sky, though he does not know by the providence of what
god all that he sees is governed, does not nevertheless understand that
there is some providence, simply from the magnitude, movement, arrangement, regularity, usefulness, beauty, and organisation of things; it is notpossible but that what exists with wonderful method has been arranged
by some intelligence greater than itself.’64
One of Alcuin’s letters has an interesting parallel: ‘What else do we
contemplate and marvel at in the sun and moon and stars but the wisdomof the Creator and their natural courses? Moreover it is said that the
Patriarch Abraham came to know and worship God the creator throughthe study of astronomy.’65 In this letter, Alcuin, like the author of the
prologue, is defending the ideas of heathen philosophy. The account of
how Abraham came to a knowledge of God through astronomy is also
found in Stjórn,66 where it is taken from Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum
Historiale I,102, who had it from the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions
I,32: ‘He (Abraham), when the whole world was again subject to various
errors . . . having studied astronomy, was able from the logic and order ofthe stars to perceive the creator and understood that everything wasgoverned by his providence.’67
In most later writers the argument is swamped in more profound and complicated thoughts; see, for example, Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ la,2,3 (Quintavia) and 2a,2æ,94,1, and Guillaume de Conches, De Philosophia Mundi
I,5, who claims that the existence of God can be proved even to unbelievers
62 PL, XXXVIII, 1022 and 1133.
63 PL, XXXVI, 468, PL, XLI, 219–20 and 231–34.
64 Divinæ Institutiones I, 2; see also II, 5 and 14, and Epitome 1 (PL, VI, 121,

277–80, 328–29 and 1019).
65 PL C, 271–72. Cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der Snorra-Edda, p. 55.
66 Ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1862), p. 104.
67 Ed. B. Rehm, p. 26. Cf. Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger, p. 104 (quoting Speculum
historiale).

PAGAN SYMPATHY

15

by arguments from the way the world has been created and the rationalityof the daily ordering of the universe.68 The author of the prologue to
SnE, however, has expressed the argument in a more concrete way thanany of these Latin writers. This is perhaps partly due to his use of the vernacularand partly to his characteristically Icelandic avoidance of abstractions.
The description in the prologue of how heathens came to a knowledgeof a creator and then gave him a name fits well with the account of thehighest god in Gylfaginning, SnE, p. 14/5–8; ‘Ok ﬂat er mín trúa, at sáÓ›inn ok hans brœ›r munu vera st‡randi himins ok jar›ar; ﬂat ætlum vér
at hann muni svá heita. Svá heitir sá ma›r er vér vitum mestan ok ágæztan,
ok vel megu ﬂér (v. l. ﬂeir) hann láta svá heita.’ Cf. also SnE, pp. 10/11–21,
17/35, 27/13–21. It seems likely that Snorri had the ideas of the prologue
in mind when he wrote these passages.
Having described how mankind deduced the existence of God, theauthor of the prologue remarks that even so, vissu ﬂeir eigi hvar ríkihans var (SnE, p. 2/24; cf. 10/16 f. and 11/5–6).69 This is reminiscent of
the teaching of the Epicureans, that the gods existed, but far away fromthe world we know (see for example Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
II,646 ff.; V,146 ff., 1188 ff.). The whereabouts of God are the subject ofa passage in Honorius of Autun’s Elucidarius I,3; see also Augustine,
Enarratio in Psalmos, Psalm 41, section 7.70
V

The author of the prologue assumes that each nation gave a name in theirown language to the ruler of the universe whose existence they had deduced,
and this led to the variety of names of gods and different religions thatnow exist (as nations changed and languages branched, SnE, p. 3/4). The
same idea lies behind several passages in Gylfaginning: Sá heitir Alfƒ›r at
váru mali (SnE, p. 10/12), ﬂat ætlum vér at hann muni svá heita (SnE, p.
14/6–7), svá margar sem eru greinir tungnanna í verƒldunni, ﬂá ﬂykkjaz
allar ﬂjó›ir ﬂurfa at breyta nafni hans til sinnar tungu til akallz ok bœnafirir sjálfum sér (SnE, p. 28/14–16). The third mythographer has been quoted
as a parallel to this: ‘(Heathen) philosophers . . . say there is one god, andthey certainly mean the creator of heaven and earth and all things. They callhim, however, by various names according to the various means by which
68 PL, CLXXII, p. 44. Cf. Parent, La Doctrine de la Création, pp. 32–33, 130–131.
69 Compare also the description of the three heavens in Gylfaginning, SnE,

p. 26/9–13, and see A. Holtsmark, Studier i Snorres Mytologi, pp. 35 ff.
70 PL, CLXXII, 1111; PL, XXXVI 467 ff.

16

PAGAN SYMPATHY

different aspects of the world are governed.’ 71 This, however, does not
explain the names of god as due to the different languages of his worshippers.
Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica, Genesis 40, is much more similar:‘Thus he is called Belus by the Assyrians, and similarly other nations say
according to the idiom of their language, some Bel, some Beel, some
Baal, some Baalim. Moreover they also give him distinct names, somesaying Beelphegor, some Beelzebub.’72 Cf. also Ælfric, De falsis diis.73
Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones I,22, says that Jupiter acquired different
names through travelling to different places,74 and this explanation ofÓ›inn’s names appears in Gylfaginning, SnE, p. 28/17 (cf. Grímnismál
48–50). Compare also SnE, p. 38/17–19. (In Isidore, Etymologiæ VII,1,
PL, LXXXII, 259–61, God is said to have ten names in Hebrew.)
Most medieval comments on the variety of languages in the world are
based on the Biblical story of the tower of Babel. This is retold in Veraldar
saga and AM 194, 8vo,75 and also at some length in the version of the
prologue to SnE in Codex Wormianus (based on Veraldar saga), andthere the connection of SnE, p. 3/4 with the Babel story is made explicit
and the linguistic ideas are further developed.
It is unusual to find in medieval writings a truly genetic conception of
the relationships of languages such as seems to lie behind the use of theverb greina, SnE, p. 3/4, and the noun greinir, SnE, p. 28/14, though it
seems to be present also at the beginning of the First GrammaticalTreatise.76 See Isidore, Etymologiæ I,3,4 and IX,1,1, where the idea ofthe splitting of nations into sub-groups also appears (cf. ‘svá sem ﬂjó›irnar
skiptuz,’ SnE, p. 3/4).77
71 Bode, Scriptores Rerum I, p. 152. See R. M. Meyer, ‘Snorri als Mythograph’,p. 117. Cf. also Elucidarius in Old Norse Translation, pp. 28–29 (see Jón
Helgason, The Arna-Magnæan Manuscript 674 A, 4to, pp. xxxi–xxxii)
72 PL, CXCVIII, 1090. Cf. Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger, p. 102.
73 Lines 124, 140, etc.
74 PL, VI, 248–49.
75 Veraldar saga, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, p. 14; Alfræ›i Íslenzk, ed. K. Kålund
(Copenhagen, 1908), I, p. 8. Cf. also Hauksbók, p. 157 (De Falsis diis, ll. 73 ff).
76 Ed. E. Haugen, 2nd ed. (London, 1972), p. 12. See A. Holtsmark, En Islandsk
Scholasticus fra det 12. Århundre (Oslo, 1936), pp. 82 ff. Peter Comestor says
rather ambiguously in Historia Scholastica, Genesis 38 (PL, CXCVIII, 1089):‘In this division (at Babel) God created nothing new, for words are the sameamong all nations, but he separated the pronunciation and forms into various
categories’. Cf. Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger, pp. 67 and 102, and note also Historia
Scholastica, Genesis 40 (PL, CXCVIII, 1090).
77 PL, LXXXII, 75 and 325.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

17

Both the prologue and Gylfaginning reveal considerable interest in andunderstanding of linguistic questions, though it is perhaps doubtful whether
there is really any intention of drawing attention to the non-Norse derivationof some of Ó›inn’s names in SnE, pp. 3/4 and 28/14–17, though this iscertainly done with both personal and place-names in SnE, p. 7/14–19.78
With this may be compared Snorri’s remark on a similar subject in Heimskringla (ÍF, XXVI, p. 153). Moreover, in several places in the prologue names
are given in two forms, one of which is supposed to be native, one foreign.79
A starting point may have been provided by the genealogy of Ó›inn used by
the author, for in the copy of it in AM 1 e β II fol. there is already the statement ‘Voden, ﬂann kƒllum vér Ó›in’ (cf. SnE, p. 5/3). Some of the equivalents
given seem to be attempts at etymology, such as Sibil . . . er vér kƒllum
Sif and Tror er vér kƒllum ﬁór (SnE, pp. 4/19 and 8). There are also
several place-name doublets given, such as Trója/Tyrkland, Trakia/
ﬁrú›heimr, Jótland/Rei›gotaland (SnE, pp. 3/21, 4/16, 6/11). Enea as aname for Europe (SnE, p. 3/12, and also in Ynglinga saga) is unexplained.
Etymological fantasies such as the association of Æsir with Asia
(p. 6/14, also in Ynglinga saga), Vanir with Vanaland (in Ynglinga saga)and (perhaps) the Goths with Go›ﬂjó› (in Skjƒldunga saga) are in accord
with the methods of European writers such as Fulgentius, Isidore,
Augustine, Hrabanus Maurus, and the third mythographer.80 The practice
was well established in Iceland before Snorri, and Skjƒldunga saga already
implied the identification of Æsir with Asia, besides other similar‘etymologies’, and examples are also found in Hversu Noregr byggdisk
in Flateyjarbók and the beginning of Orkneyinga saga.81 Rígsﬂula also
seems to have derived the word konungr from Konr ungr. In Gylfaginningsome of the names of the Ásynjur are explained as personifications ofabstractions by the same characteristic kind of medieval etymology (SnE,
pp. 38–39). In the context of the Middle Ages, it is wrong to call thisphenomenon ‘popular etymology’; it is a learned activity characteristicof the Latin encyclopaedists and mythographers.
78 This passage is closely based on the beginning of Skjƒldunga saga, see ÍF
XXXV, p. 39.
79 E.g. SnE, pp. 4/24–5/5. See Heusler, Die Gelehrte Urgeschichte im Altisländischen Schrifttum, pp. 68 f. (134 f.).
80 Cf. Alphandéry, ‘L’Evhémérisme’, p. 17, n. 1; Bode, Scriptores Rerum I,
pp. 153, 160, 200–203, etc. Compare the explanation of the origin of the nameSelund in SnE, p. 8 and Ynglinga saga, ÍF, XXVI, p. 15.
81 See ÍF XXXV, p. 39; Flateyjarbók (1860–68), I, pp. 21–24, 219–21. Cf.
Bjarni Gu›nason, Um Skjöldungasögu, pp. 230–31. Note also Stjórn, ed. C. R.
Unger, pp. 67 ff.

18

PAGAN SYMPATHY
VI

Like many theologians, the author of the prologue makes a clear distinction between the knowledge of God that heathen philosophers gain bynatural wisdom (jar›leg skilning ‘earthly understanding’) and that gainedby grace or revelation (andleg spekt ‘spiritual wisdom’).82 Thus Hugh of
St Victor in his Expositio in Hierarchiam Coelestem S. Dionysii I,l:For two images were offered to man in which he would be able to see invisible
things: one of nature and one of grace. The image of nature was the appearanceof this world, and the image of grace was the humanity of the Word. And inboth God was revealed, but he was not comprehended in both; for natureindeed by its appearance revealed the creator, but could not illuminate theeyes of the beholders . . . For nature could show, but could not illuminate.
And the world proclaimed its creator by its appearance, but did not infuse
the hearts of men with the understanding of truth. Therefore by the imagesof nature, the Creator was no more than indicated; but in the images of grace
God was shown in his actuality . . . this is the distance of the theology of thisworld from that which is called divine theology.83

There is also a long discussion of the limitation of ‘natural reason’ inQuæstiones in Epistolas S. Pauli, which includes the following:Some say that natural reason by itself can go a long way, as can be seen in
the philosophers, who have learned many things on their own by the use ofreason, not only in the understanding of truth concerning the created world,
but also about the Creator, that is that God exists, and is one, and that he isthree. But they do not seem to have arrived at this train of thought without
the help of grace.84

Alain de Lille, in his Liber de Planctu Naturæ, speaks of the limitationof naturalis ratio; Guillaume de Conches comments ‘This is as much as
pagans have been able to know about God by means of natural reason’,and Hugh of Rouen, in his Tractatus in Hexameron I,3, speaks of what is
known ‘not from human wisdom, but by the instruction of the Holy
Spirit.’85 The distinction often arises from discussion of Romans 1: 19–25
82 SnE, p. 3/4–6. Both are gifts of God, see SnE, p. 1/16 ff. and the parallels
quoted to that passage in Section III above.
83 PL, CLXXV, 926. Cf. W. Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth
Century (Princeton, 1972), p. 52; R. Baron, Études sur Hugues de Saint-Victor(Bruges, 1963), pp. 139–49.
84 PL, CLXXV, 440–41. This work can no longer be attributed to Hugh of St
Victor with confidence.
85 PL, CCX, 446; Philosophia, ed. C. Ottaviano, p. 32; PL, CXCII, 1249.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

19(like the argument for the existence of God from contemplation of his
works discussed above), as in Abelard’s commentary:
But he clearly refutes this excuse (of the heathen’s ignorance of God), pointing
out that even without scripture God was already known by heathens throughthe natural law, since he had bestowed on them knowledge of himself throughthe reason he had given them, that is the natural law, and through his visible
works . . . the nature of the godhead has now been revealed to the world
through the written law, but even without scripture it was already manifest
through natural reason.86

Atto, in his commentary, assumes that in Romans 1: 22 (‘professing
themselves to be wise’) St Paul is referring to classical authorities suchas Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Virgil, Cato, Ovid.87 Augustine (DeCivitate Dei VIII,23) writes of Hermes Trismegistus: ‘He says indeed
many things about the one true God, the creator of the world, which arelike the truth; and I do not know how with that darkness of the heart hefalls into the error of always wanting men to be subject to gods who headmits are made by men.’88
In Sermons 240 and 241 he also discusses the incomplete understandingof philosophers (cf. also his Confessiones V,389). A similar distinction ismade in AM 435, 12mo:. . . ﬂá er vi›rkvæmilegt at s‡na, hver grein verit hefir millum skilningar
fornra meistara og helgra fe›ra. Fornir frœ›imenn ok meistarar skil›u ok
trú›u alla hluti gerast eftir náttúrlegu e›li, ok ﬂvíat ﬂeir skil›u af náttúru
skepnunar, at sá var almáttugr, er hana haf›i í fyrstu skapat . . . En ﬂvíat ﬂeir
vissu eigi hverr hann var, ﬂá villast ﬂeir af ﬂví í mƒrgum hlutum . . . En
heilagir fe›r me› gu›s miskunn ok giƒf skil›u ok trú›u ok vissu sannan gu›
eigi at eins af náttúrlegu e›li e›a af náttúrlegri skynsem›, heldr jafnvel af
heilags anda birting.90
VII

At the end of his section on the development of ‘natural’ religions the authorof the prologue adds the rather intrusive remark: svá skil›u ﬂeir at allir
hlutir væri smí›a›ir af nokkuru efni (they deduced that all things were made86 PL, CLXXVIII, 802 (reading seipso for seipsis).
87 PL, CXXXIV, 140.
88 PL, XLI, 248.
89 PL, XXXVIII, 1132–34 and XXXII, 707–08.
90 Alfræ›i III, ed. K. Kålund, pp. 96–97; cf. A. Holtsmark, Studier i Snorres
Mytologi, p. 11.

20

PAGAN SYMPATHY

of some material, SnE, p. 3/6–7).91 Here again the reference seems to be to
the doctrines of classical philosophers; see Plato, Timaeus 28–37, andChalcidius’s commentary XXVII ff. and CCLXXIX–CCCLV;92 Lucretius,
De Rerum Natura I,155–205: ‘nothing can be made out of nothing.’ The
remark might also be a reference to the materialism of some Greek
philosophers, cf. Chalcidius’s commentary on Timaeus CCXIV–CCXVII.93
The author of the prologue would not have needed to read classicalwritings to know of these doctrines, for they are often quoted in later
writers, for example, Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiæ V, prose 6:‘Therefore they are not right who when they hear the view of Plato thatthe world had no beginning in time nor would ever have an end, thinkthat this means that the world is co-eternal with the maker’; Peter
Comestor, Historia Scholastica, Genesis 1: ‘God created . . . the world,that is made it out of nothing . . . When Moses used the word “created”,
he refuted three errors, those of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus. Plato said
there were three eternals, God, ideas, and matter; and at the beginning oftime, the world was formed out of this matter’;94 Hugh of St Victor,
Advertationes Elucidatoriæ in Pentateuchon 4: ‘In this our (Christian)
writers differ from (heathen) philosophers, that the philosophers makeGod just a craftsman and assume three principles: God, matter, andarchetypal ideas; our (writers) however assume just one principle, that is
God alone’;95 Hugh of Rouen, Tractatus in Hexameron I,10: ‘There weremen who in their opinions accepted the evidence of their senses, saying
there were three things coeternal, that is God, and matter, and all forms. . . they said something could be made from something, but not anythingfrom nothing.’96 John of Salisbury, in his Metalogicon II,2, speaks of the‘Stoics, who claim that matter is co-eternal with God.’ The question of
the priority in time of God and matter perhaps lies behind the remark
ﬂess væntu ﬂeir, ef hann ré›i fyrir hƒfu›skepnunum, at hann myndi ok
fyrr verit hafa en himintunglin (they presumed that if he was lord of theelements he must also have existed before the heavenly bodies, SnE, p.
2/19–21). See Guillaume de Conches, De Philosophia Mundi I,4–5.97
91 Cf. . . . trú›u alla hluti gerast eftir náttúrlegu e›li in the passage just quoted.
92 Ed. cit. (note 32 above), pp. 78 ff. and 283–346.
93 Ibid., pp. 229–31.
94 PL, CXCVIII, 1055.
95 PL, CLXXV, 33. Cf. Hugh’s De Sacramentis I, 1, PL, CLXXVI, 187.
96 PL, CXCII, 1251. Cf. Grunwald, Geschichte der Gottesbeweise im

Mittelalter, p. 77 and n.3.
97 PL, CLXXII, 43–44.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

21

The author would of course have known that the orthodox Christian
doctrine of creation, based on Genesis, was that God created matter ex
nihilo. See Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones II,9: ‘Let no one ask fromwhat materials God made these so great, so marvellous works, for hemade all things out of nothing . . . It is easy to reply to those who, notunderstanding the power of God, believe that he was unable to makeanything except from material lying ready at hand; and even the (heathen)philosophers laboured under this error.’98 See also Augustine, Confessiones
XII,7 and 8; Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum I,8 and 9; Hughof Rouen, Tractatus in Hexameron 1,2 ff.99 Note also Ælfric, De Initio
Creaturæ: Ealle ›ing he geworhte buton ælcum antimbre.100 In Icelandic
sources the doctrine is also spelled out in Hauksbók: Allsvaldandi gu› er
af engu efni ger›i alla hluti . . .,101 and Placidus saga: Ek em Jesus Kristr,
ek ger›a himin ok jƒr› ok allar skepnur af engu efni.102
In the various twelfth-century attempts to harmonise Platonic philosophy with Christian theology, this basic disagreement about God’s rolein creation caused a major problem that was much discussed (seeClarembald, Tractatulus super librum Genesis 25; Thierry of Chartres,
De sex dierum operibus 2–3; Guillaume de Conches, commentary on
Boethius; John of Salisbury, Metalogicon IV,35).103 It is of particularinterest in this connection that Snorri’s quotation of Vƒlospá 3 (SnE, p.
11) has the reading er ekki var (when nothing existed) instead of er Ymirbyg›i like the texts of the Poetic Edda. The whole of SnE, pp. 10/11–14/8
and 27/10–28/19 seems to be Snorri’s attempt to show how the ideas in
the prologue about the origin of religion in general apply to the actual
religion of heathen Scandinavia. In the account of creation in SnE, p. 12(presumably developed by heathen philosophers using jar›leg skilning)
there is a primal matter that congeals into the giant form of Ymir, fromwhich the earth was subsequently made by the sons of Borr. The concep98 PL, VI, 297.
99 PL, XXXII, 828–29; PL, XLII, 609–10; PL, CXCII, 1249–51.
100 Ed. B. Thorpe, p. 14.
101 P. 180.
102 Heilagra manna søgur, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1877), II, p. 194(Placidus saga I).
103 N. M. Häring, Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras (Toronto, 1965), p.
237; idem (ed.), Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and his School(Toronto, 1971), pp. 555–57; Parent, La Doctrine de la Création, pp. 131–32.
There is a good general account of the problem in the same work, pp. 34–43. See
also T. Silverstein, ‘The Fabulous Cosmogony of Bernardus Silvestris’, Modern
Philology, 46 (1948–1949), pp. 100–01.

22

PAGAN SYMPATHY

tion in this account of the primal matter coming into existence as a resultof the meeting of two (rather than four) elements, in this case heat andcold (or moisture), is reminiscent of the Stoic view of the origin ofmatter.104 One might also compare Ovid, Metamorphoses I, ll. 430–31:‘For when moisture and heat are mingled, they become pregnant, andfrom these two things everything originates.’ Or Lactantius, Divinæ
Institutiones II,10: ‘Therefore there are these two principles, which havepower that is different and mutually opposed: heat and moisture. These
God has marvellously contrived for the maintenance and production of
all things.’105 The Florentine commentator on Martianus Capella also
speaks of the function of warmth and moisture derived from the planetsin the structure of the human body.106 See also Chalcidius’s commentaryon Plato’s Timaeus CCCVII and CCLXXX.107
The source of the kraptr in SnE, p. 12/20 may be conceived as personal(Alfƒ›r or Surtr?) but ﬂess could be neuter (only the Uppsala manuscript
has a specifically masculine pronoun). There is a similar vagueness in
Ovid’s account of the creation in Metamorphoses I, ll. 21 and 32 (quisquis
fuit ille deorum).
VIII

The idea in the prologue of an intuitive conception of an almighty creatorgiving rise to heathen religion is reflected in Gylfaginning, SnE, pp.
10/11–11/6 and 14/5–8. In SnE, pp. 17/3–5 and 27/13–21 Al(l)fƒ›r is
explicitly identified with Ó›inn. It would appear that in GylfaginningÓ›inn-worship is being presented as the specific Scandinavian versionof the type of religion described at the beginning of the prologue.
104 H. Falk, ‘Martianus Capella og den Nordiske Mytologi’, p. 282, n. 1, quotes

Notker’s commentary on Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii(Notker des Deutschen Werke, ed. E. H. Sehrt and T. Starck (Halle, 1935), II, p.
207), but this passage is not about creation. Cf. E. H. Meyer, Vƒluspá, pp. 55–60.
105 PL, VI, 308–09. K. von See, Mythos und Mythologie (Heidelberg, 1988),
p. 53, also refers to Guillaume de Conches (without naming the work) as
mentioning the creation of matter from heat and cold, but Guillaume usuallyaccepts the usual classical doctrine of the four elements (De Philosophia Mundi
I, XXI; II, XIX; De Imagine Mundi I, III; PL, CLXXII, 48–55, 83, 122).
106 Quoted from manuscript by P. Dronke, Fabula, pp. 111 and 117. On thegrowth of the universe from a primal giant form (SnE, pp. 12–16) see the passages
quoted in note 51 above. The pseudo-Clementine Recognitions X, 32, isparticularly reminiscent of SnE, p. 12/6–21.
107 Ed. cit. (note 32 above), pp. 308 and 284–85.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

23

The speculations in the first part of the prologue about the pagan
conception of God find parallels in other thirteenth-century Icelandic
writings, where a belief in a nameless creator or ruler of the world isassumed for pre-Christian Iceland and Norway. Thus in Vatnsdœla saga:
Njóta mun fa›ir minn ﬂess frá ﬂeim, er sólina hefir skapat ok allan heiminn,hverr sem sá er. En ﬂat má vita, at ﬂat mun nokkurr gert hafa.
Nú vil ek heita á ﬂann er sólina hefir skapat, ﬂví at ek trúi hann máttkastan,at sjá ótími hverfi af ﬂér; vil ek ﬂat gera í sta›inn, fyrir hans sakar, at hjálpavi› barninu ok fœ›a upp, til ﬂess at sá, er skapat hefir manninn, mætti honum
til sín snúa sí›an, ﬂví at ek get honum ﬂess audit ver›a.
ﬁorkell kvazk eigi vilja a›ra trú hafa ‘en ﬂeir ﬁorsteinn Ingimundarson hƒf›uok ﬁórir fóstri minn; ﬂeir trú›u á ﬂann er sólina hefir skapat ok ƒllum hlutumræ›r.’ Byskup svarar: ‘ﬁá sƒmu trú bo›a ek me› ﬂeiri grein, at trúa á einngu› fƒ›ur son ok helgan anda, ok láta skírask í hans nafni.’108

Landnámabók:
Hann lét sik bera í sólargeisla í banasótt sinni ok fal sik á hendi ﬂeim gu›i, er
sólina haf›i skapat; haf›i hann ok lifat svá hreinliga sem ﬂeir kristnir menner bezt eru si›a›ir.109

Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar:
Haraldr konungr var hei›inn ok vissi ekki til gu›s . . . finnz ﬂat ok í hansor›um at hann hafi vænt sér nokkurs trausts af ﬂeim sem hann haf›i skapat,ﬂó at hann hef›i eigi fulla vissu af hverr sá gu› var.
Nú ef sá er sannr gu› er sólina hefir skapat til ﬂess at birta ok verma verƒlldina,ok ef honum líkar vel milldi ok réttlæti sem ver hƒfum heyrt sagt, ﬂá s‡nihann oss miskunn sína svá at vér megim prófa me› sannindum at hann er
skapari manna, ok at hann megi stjórna ok st‡ra allri verƒlldu.110

The legal formula hjálpi mér svá Freyr ok Njƒr›r ok hinn almáttki áss
may reflect the same idea.111 Cf. also Vƒlospa 65 (only in Hauksbók):
108 ÍF, VIII, pp. 62, 97–98 and 125.
109 ÍF, I, pp. 46–47.
110 Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, ed. Ólafur Halldórsson (Copenhagen,

1958–2000 ), I, p. 383 and II, pp. 182–83. The first is part of a speech supposed
to have been made by King Óláfr, the second is from one by Arnórr kerlingarnef.
Similar sentiments to those expressed in these quotations are attributed to Haraldr
hárfagri in Heimskringla (ÍF, XXVI, p. 97); Fagrskinna (ÍF, XXIX, pp. 368–69).
111 Landnámabók, ÍF, I, p. 315; ﬁór›ar saga hre›u, ÍF, XIV, p. 232; ﬁorsteinsﬂáttr uxafóts, Flateyjarbók (Christiania, 1860–1868), I, p. 249. Cf. H. Kuhn,‘Das nordgermanische Heidentum in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten’, ZfdA,

24

PAGAN SYMPATHYﬁá kømr in ríki at regindómi,ƒflugr, ofan, sá er ƒllo ræ›r.

And Hyndlolió› 44:ﬁá kemr annarr, enn mátcari,ﬂó ﬂori ec eigi hann at nefna.

One might also compare the regnator omnium deus in Tacitus, Germania 39.
The passages from Vatnsdœla saga, Landnámabók, and Óláfs saga havein common with the prologue to SnE both the attribution to heathens of abelief in a nameless god and an attitude to that belief that is not only notcondemnatory but inclined to be idealising. The story of the worship of
the unknown god in Acts 17: 23 ff. could well have been in the minds ofthe writers of some of these passages (particularly the third from
Vatnsdœla saga). Cf. also Augustine, De Civitate Dei IV,9: ‘Varro believes
that it is he (Jupiter) also who is worshipped by those who worship one
god only without an image but called by another name.’112 Cicero, in De
Natura Deorum II,2 and 25, presents a similar idea, and quotes Ennius in
support of it. A similar tendency to idealise heathens by suggesting thatthey were in fact atheists (or agnostics), and thus at any rate better than
idolaters, appears in stories about vikings who are said to have believedin their own mátt ok megin113 and in the much-discussed account in
Hrafnkels saga of how Hrafnkell abjures the heathen religion.114 The
common medieval idea of the ‘noble heathen’ is probably at the root of
all this, together with the desire on the part of Icelandic writers to justify
or apologise for the attitudes of their forefathers. Augustine has a similarly
almost nostalgic respect for the Platonic school of philosophers, in spiteof their being heathens (De Civitate Dei VIII, 5–9115), and besides Plato,
Aristotle and Virgil were highly regarded by Christian writers in the
Middle Ages. Even Aquinas is not too hard on the ignorant heathen(Summa Theologiæ 2a,2ae,94). Some heathens (or at least pre-Christians)
were believed to have been saved in various ways; cf. Summa Theologiæ
79 (1942), pp. 133–66 (reprinted in H. Kuhn, Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1969–72), II, pp. 296–326), especially pp. 159–60 (319–20). In this article Kuhn
discusses medieval Icelandic attitudes to the heathen gods in general.
112 PL, XLI, 119.
113 See E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North (London, 1964),
ch. 14. There is an example in Landnámabók, ÍF, I, p. 48: ﬂeir fe›gar vildu ekki
blóta ok trú›u á mátt sinn.
114 ÍF, XI, p. 124.
115 PL, XLI, 224–34.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

25

2a,2ae, 2,7; Dante, Paradiso XIX, XX; Piers Plowman, B version, XII,
268–86 and X, 384 ff.116 There is a discussion of the problem in Quæstiones
in Epistolas S. Pauli I,38 ff.117 Cf. also Honorius of Autun, Elucidarium
III,6.118 The best-known expression of sympathy for the righteous heathen
is Dante, Inferno IV.119
The view of heathen religion held by the author of the prologue is that
it is a perversion or partial understanding of the true religion, the resultof an honest attempt by moderately enlightened heathen philosophers tounderstand the nature of existence. They were misguided but admirable(cf. Wisdom 13: 6: ‘But yet for this they are the less to be blamed: forthey peradventure err, seeking God, and desirous to find him’). Though
this is not the usual ecclesiastical view of paganism, it does correspondto the general attitude to classical philosophers in the twelfth century, at
any rate among humanists in the universities. The author evidently saw aparallel between the relationship of Greek and Roman writers to European
Christendom and that of heathen Norse literature to the Icelandic
civilisation of his own time. His sympathetic attitude to native culture isin the tradition of Ari, the author of Skjƒldunga saga, and other Icelandic
writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Heusler was certainly rightin supposing the ideas of the prologue to be learned and to belong to thethirteenth century rather than being inherited from ancient, pre-ChristianNorse tradition.120 The starting point is the historical humanism of thegenealogies and the result is an original, perceptive, and detached theoryof the origin of heathen religions. The method is scholarly and logicaland non-polemic. Though this matter-of-fact humanism and lack of moral
condemnation of non-Christian material is common enough in clericalauthors of the twelfth century, there remains little reason to suppose thatthe author of the prologue was himself a cleric, since in Iceland by thethirteenth century there were enough lay authors with an education in thelearned writings of medieval Europe.
116 Ed. G. Kane and E. T. Donaldson (London, 1975), pp. 481–82 and 430 ff.
117 PL, CLXXV, 440–42 (on this work see note 84 above).
118 PL, CLXXII, 1161.
119 See St Erkenwald, ed. I. Gollancz (London, 1922), pp. xxxviii–lv; and cf.

L. Lonnroth, ‘Studier i Olaf Tryggvasons saga’, Samlaren, 84 (1963), pp. 86–87,
who refers to the account of Aigolandus in the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle, ch. 13(which also appears in Karlamagnus saga, ed. C. R. Unger [Christiania, 1860],
pp. 146–47); and the same writer’s excellent article ‘The Noble Heathen: A Themein the Sagas’, SS, 41 (1969), pp. 1–29.
120 Die gelehrte Urgeschichte im altisländischen Schrifttum.

26

PAGAN SYMPATHY

The author does not, of course, confuse heathen religion with classicalphilosophy, nor should he be accused of anachronism in attributing topagan Scandinavia ideas proper to Greek philosophers. He takes the Æsirto have come from Asia minor, and their culture to be an offshoot of the
pre-Christian culture of the Mediterranean, and not a separate culture atall. He sees all heathendom as having the same roots. (Compare the quotation from the Third Grammatical Treatise at the end of Section I above.)
IX

The assumption behind the account of ﬁórr and Ó›inn in the prologue isthat they are gods interpreted euhemeristically. Euhemerism in Icelandic
literature, when it relates to the Norse gods, nearly always appears in association with the story of the migration of the Æsir from Asia and with genealogy(as already in Ari). The standpoint is essentially historical, and these three
aspects of it appear only in secular, scholarly writings. Icelandic genealogies
themselves seem to be largely the result of historical speculation among
the learned members of two Icelandic families, Ari’s and the Oddaverjar,
and insofar as they were mainly cultivated by scholars, were probably
not really part of popular tradition.121 Popular mythology on the other
hand takes the gods at their face value, as timeless and immortal andnon-human, and makes no attempt to fit them into a historical scheme.
In clerical writings whose purpose is religious edification, the attitude
is different both from that of the scholarly historians and from that of
popular mythology. In these the heathen gods are usually interpreted asdevils deliberately trying to lead men astray, and pagandom is represented
as idolatry and positively evil. This attitude is common in the lives ofsaints and of the missionary kings Óláfr Tryggvason and St Óláfr, andmany stories about devils in the form of heathen gods may originallyhave been popular tales originating soon after the conversion—but
presumably popular in a different sense, or among different people, fromthe popular mythology of the Eddas.
121 See Bjarni Gu›nason, Um Skjöldungasögu (Reykjavík, 1963), pp. 156 ff.
When Upphaf allra frásagna (ÍF XXXV, p. 39) makes Ó›inn son of ﬁórr indefiance of both mythology and genealogy, this is presumably the result of learned
identification of Ó›inn with Mercury and ﬁórr with Jupiter. Their relationship inRoman mythology has been given precedence over that in Norse mythology. Cf.
Ælfric, De falsis diis, ll. 141–49 (which might indeed have been known to theauthor of Upphaf ), and Saxo’s Gesta Danorum VI, 5 (ed. J. Olrik and H. Raeder,
I [Copenhagen, 1931], p. 152).

PAGAN SYMPATHY

27

Euhemerism, however, is less polemic, and in itself fairly neutral froma moral point of view, and does not necessarily involve a harsh judgmenton the misguided worshippers. This accords with the fact that it iscommonest in the early Middle Ages and in historical rather thantheological writers. It is also easy to see why the theory was adopted by
the scholarly humanist Icelandic writers of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, who were not preachers. They tended to see paganism as partial
truth, incomplete understanding, rather than a positive evil.
There was an inherent contradiction in Icelandic tradition by the
beginning of the thirteenth century between the conception of heathen
gods implied by genealogies and the historical works into which they
were incorporated, where they appeared euhemerised as ancestors (andsometimes descendants) of human beings, and the way they appeared inmyths, where the Æsir and Vanir were presented as beings of a different
nature from human beings and having little contact with them. 122
Moreover, this contradiction was not only one of attitude but also of
irreconcilable facts, for in historical works Ó›inn was son of Frealaf andfather of various human sons who are progenitors of royal houses (Skjƒldr,Sæmingr, Beldegg, Veggdegg, Siggi), while in mythology he was son ofa giant called Borr and father of most of the other Æsir. Njƒr›r (orsometimes Freyr) appears as his son in some genealogies, while inmythology Njƒr›r and Freyr were unrelated to the Æsir. In order toreconcile genealogy and mythology, the gods in the prologue andGylfaginning are separated into two sets, the historical ones who migrated
to Scandinavia in the time of Gylfi, and the others about whom they,
under the names Hár, Jafnhár and ﬁri›i, tell Gylfi stories. Gylfi wanted
to find out whether the success of the historical Æsir was due to theirown power or to the gods they worshipped (SnE, p. 8/19–21), and theanswer is presumably the latter: the gods about whom they tell Gylfi
stories are the gods they themselves worship (SnE, pp. 14/5–8, 10/12–11/4,
27/10ff., 31/22–25).123 In Ynglinga saga, too, the euhemerised gods
worship other gods, but there the objects of their worship are not identified.
122 Euhemerised gods also appear side by side with their mythical counterpartsin Irish books. See A. Nutt, The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895–1897), I, pp.
232–33 and II, p. 165 ff. Note also the miscellany of mythical and pseudohistorical names in the ﬂula of burir Ó›ins, SnE, p. 196, v. 429. Cf. Kuhn, ‘Das
nordgermanische Heidentum’, pp. 160–63 (321–23).
123 Cf. Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones I,11 (PL, VI, 183–84 and 168), where
euhemerised gods are also said to worship other gods. See Baetke, Die Götterlehre
der Snorra-Edda, pp. 27–32.

28

PAGAN SYMPATHY

But while in Ynglinga saga some myths are related in euhemerised form
about the historical Æsir (who there are also made to stand in their correct
mythical relationship to each other), the confusion of the mythical Æsirwith the historical ones is avoided in SnE, since the gods within the frame
are kept distinct from those outside it, and are generally not euhemerised,
but presented as alien creatures with a nature different from that of humanbeings. But in one place in Gylfaginning the gods the historical Æsirworship are themselves euhemerised, and said to be the ancestors of theÆsir telling the stories (SnE, pp. 16/19–17/3).124 Here they are said tohave lived on earth in old Ásgar›r, that is, Troy (though this identification
is not in the Uppsala manuscript). They are therefore identified with the
inhabitants of Troy in the prologue, SnE, pp. 3–4 (this identification isfurther elaborated in the version of the prologue in Codex Wormianus).
At the end of Gylfaginning (SnE, p. 77/4–8) and in the so-called epilogue
in Skáldskaparmál (SnE, pp. 86–8) the Æsir who are the subject of thestories in Gylfaginning are again identified with the heroes of Troy, and
it is suggested that the myths told about them in Gylfaginning are historicalallegories of events in the Troy story.
Thus the prologue and Gylfaginning present us with two Ó›inns, theolder one of the myths, who is presumed to have lived at the time of the
Trojan war, and the later one who migrated to Scandinavia in the time of
Gylfi, and (under the names Hár, Jafnhár, and ﬁri›i) told stories to Gylfi
about his ancestors; two ﬁórrs, the ﬁórr of the myths, identified at theend of Gylfaginning with the Tror of the prologue and Hector of Troy(cf. SnE, p. 17/7–8, where, although he has a different pedigree, he has
the same attributes as the monster-fighting Tror in the prologue), andanother one, contemporary with the later Ó›inn; and presumably two ofeach of the other gods. At any rate the Gefjun of SnE, p. 38/10 is distinct
from the Gefjun of SnE, p. 8. The reason for the doubling of names isgiven in the last chapter of Gylfaginning: the historical Æsir deliberately
adopted the names of their more powerful ancestors, the old gods, so that
their new Scandinavian neighbours should believe that they too weregods.125 (The identification of ﬁórr with [H]ector, son of Priam, at theend of Gylfaginning and in the ‘epilogue’ in Skáldskaparmál is of course
124 Cf. SnE, pp. 10/12, 20/4 ff.; cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der Snorra-Edda, p. 30,
n. 1. There is one euhemerised myth related in Gylfaginning (SnE, p. 8/1–12), but
this is outside the frame of the conversation within which the other myths are related.
125 On the transference of names of men and gods cf. again Lactantius, Divinæ
Institutiones I,11 (PL, VI, 176 and 181–82), and see Kuhn, ‘Das nordgermanische
Heidentum’, pp. 162–64 (322–24).

PAGAN SYMPATHY

29

incompatible with his identification with Tror, son of Munon/Mennon in
the prologue, though it springs from the same sort of interpretation of myth,and must represent a revision, whether by the same writer or another.)
As a further complication, the first part of the prologue proposes yet
another, more general explanation of the origins of heathen religion: thatit began from nature worship and a conviction that a personal agency
controlled natural phenomena. Presumably we are to imagine that theworship of the old Æsir who are described in Gylfaginning began fromnature worship and that the myths told about them are, at least in part,the development of stories told to account for natural phenomena, whichwere later, in some cases, identified with stories about Trojan heroes.
The author does not go into detail about this, and some of the stories in
Gylfaginning are more susceptible to this sort of interpretation than others.
It is possible that this rather cumbersome scheme is all the work of one
writer, but naturally scholars have been inclined to assume that there
have been several hands at work; that the original author of Gylfaginningbegan with a fairly simple euhemeristic interpretation of the gods andthat further explanations were added by later redactors with pet theoriesof their own, resulting in the existing superabundance of ideas. The
prologue itself has often been assumed to be an addition to the originalplan, or at least to have been subject to severe revision. The last chapterof Gylfaginning (or part of it) and the ‘epilogue’ in Skáldskaparmál havealso been assumed to be additions.126
It is true that if the intention was simply to explain away the heathen gods
for a Christian audience there is an excess of motives in the prologue andGylfaginning. One explanation would have been enough. But the author
was a historian, and his sources contained conflicting accounts of the gods.
His method in Gylfaginning when faced with conflicting versions of a story
was sometimes to include both versions side by side (e.g., SnE, pp. 11/13 ff.,
43/20 ff.; 17/8–19/12, 70/20–22, 76/13; 63/7–9). It may be that he did
126 The passages in both Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál that mention Troyare all lacking in the Uppsala manuscript, but the problem of the superabundanceof ideas is not obviated by deleting them. The Uppsala manuscript still mentionsÁsgar›r inn forni (SnE, p. 17/2), and this implies the migration legend, whichappears in the prologue in this manuscript too. In SnE, pp. 16–17, the Uppsalamanuscript expresses the euhemeristic attitude even more clearly than the othermanuscripts (ﬂar [í mi›jum heimi] byg›i Ó›inn ok ættir ﬂeirra er várar ættir
eru frá komnar). Moreover, it is hoped that enough links between the ideas ofthe prologue and those in Gylfaginning have been demonstrated to make it clearthat there is no reason to doubt that the prologue is by Snorri. The two pieces ofwriting are interrelated and best understood in the light of each other.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY

not want to reject any of his sources; that he devised his frame so as to beable to tell the myths without euhemerising them through the mouth of asuitable pre-Christian character (to have told them in his own person would
have invited the charge of idolatry), and then composed a prologue which
would allow him to reproduce his genealogical and historical account of
the gods as well, besides giving room for his philosophical and theological
speculations about paganism. Thus he did not need to reject (or violently
alter) his historical or mythological sources, and was also able to makeuse of the ideas suggested by his reading of foreign Christian authors.127
The one explanation of the gods which is not used in Gylfaginning isthat of demonic deception, though the use of the title Gylfaginning(‘deception of Gylfi’) suggests that the author had it in mind.128 But theword ginning undoubtedly refers to the end of Gylfaginning where theÆsir cause themselves and their hall to disappear, presumably because
they have lost the contest of wisdom (cf. SnE, pp. 10/7, 48/23–24,
76/13–16). They also deceive Gylfi and his people into thinking thatthey themselves are the gods about whom they have told the stories. But
the author nowhere suggests that either set of Æsir are really devils.129
Allegorical explanations are also eschewed in SnE generally, though
the etymological connection of some of the names of the Ásynjur with
abstractions (SnE, pp. 38–39) and the account of Hel (SnE, p. 35/4–9) comeclose to it. Historical allegory is used in the last chapter of Gylfaginningand the ‘epilogue’ in Skáldskaparmál, SnE, pp. 87–88. Moral allegory iscommon in medieval mythographers.130 Historical allegory is also found,
127 Cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der Snorra-Edda, p. 32. There is the same
complexity in Ælfric, Lactantius, Isidore, and Augustine, who all have multiple
explanations of the origins of heathen gods.
128 The interpretation of heathen gods as devils is often found in medieval
sources, sometimes in association with euhemerism; see Ælfric, De falsis diis,ll. 159 ff., 197 ff., and De initio creaturae, ed. cit. (note 16 above), p. 22;
Hauksbók, pp. 159 and 170; the translation of Elucidarius (Honorius of Autun),p. 156; Beowulf, ll. 175–78. The idea is biblical, see for example I Corinthians
10: 19 ff., Deuteronomy 32: 17. In Snorri’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (ÍF, XXVI,
pp. 312–14) a story of the king being confronted by Ó›inn, who is presumably a
manifestation of the devil, is told. Cf. Baetke, Die Götterlehre der Snorra-Edda,
pp. 37 f.
129 The Æsir also delude Gylfi into thinking that the stories they tell him are
literally true; see SnE, p. 86/20–22. According to the author they are either
allegories of events in the Troy story or of natural phenomena (the latter, ofcourse, is implied by the first part of the prologue, but nowhere stated). Cf.
Kuhn, Das nordgermanische Heidentum, pp. 158–59 (318–19).
130 E.g. the third mythographer, Bode, Scriptores Rerum I, pp. 246–48 and 251.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

31

for example, in Servius, Lactantius, and the third mythographer (here itis actually in association with the Troy story, as in SnE).131
If the present interpretation of the prologue and Gylfaginning is correct,
and the author saw the heathen religion as a groping towards truth bypagan thinkers, it is clear that any similarities between the account of thepagan religion and Christianity, and any apparent influence of Christianity
on the mythology of Gylfaginning, are likely to be the result of a deliberateattempt by the author to explore the common ground between the tworeligions rather than of unconscious syncretism either in the author or
the traditions he inherited. It would not be surprising if he sometimes
made the heathen religion more similar to the Christianity he knew thanit ever was in fact. Various passages in Gylfaginning are reminiscent of
the Christian Credo, as SnE, pp. 27/10 ff., 10/11–11/4 (with these cf. p. 1/1 ff.);
the idea of reward and punishment after death (SnE, pp. 11/1–4 and 74–75)
seems a deliberate attempt to accommodate heathen ideas to Christianones, and ragnarƒk is made to seem rather like doomsday (SnE, pp. 26/1–9,
70–73).132 The idea that there were parallels between Christian stories
and heathen myths, and that they were in some cases in a sense identical(e.g. stories about creation, the flood, the end of the world) could perhaps
have been suggested by a reading of the Ecloga of Theodulus, which issaid to have been known at any rate to the author of the opening chapter ofTrójumanna saga in Hauksbók.133 From Theodulus it is a short step to theassumption that heathen mythology is merely a perversion of Christian stories.
131 See J. F. Mountford and J. T. Schultz, Index rerum et nominum in scholiis
Servii et Aelii Donati Tractatorum (Hildesheim, 1962), p. 11, s.v. allegoria;
Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones I,11 and Epitome 11 (PL, VI, pp. 170–72 and1026); Bode, Scriptores Rerum I, pp. 174 and 222. Historical allegory is also
found in Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger, p. 87 (Deucalion).
132 Cf. Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, III (Copenhagen,1958), pp. 478–79.
133 Theoduli Ecloga, ed. J. Osternacher (Ripariae, 1902). See G. L. Hamilton,‘Theodulus: A Mediaeval Textbook’, Modern Philology, 7 (1909–1910), pp.
169–85; H. Dunger, Die Saga vom trojanischem Kriege (Leipzig, 1869), p. 76.
The Ecloga is also apparently quoted in the Third Grammatical Treatise, but
may not have been directly known to the author (see B. M. Ólsen, ed., Den
tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, p. 52). On the questionof the Norse flood story see A. Holtsmark, ‘Det Norrøne Ord Lú›r’, MM (1946),
pp. 49–65, and G. Turville-Petre, ‘Professor Dumézil and the Literature of
Iceland’, Hommages à Georges Dumézil, Collection Latomus, XLV (Brussels,
1960), pp. 209–14. It seems likely that Snorri deliberately manipulated his sourcesin order to produce the greatest possible correspondence with the Old Testament;a flood is not mentioned in Norse mythological sources outside Gylfaginning.

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PAGAN SYMPATHY
X

There is no doubt that many of the Latin works quoted in this article
were known in medieval Scandinavia, some directly, some perhaps onlyin quotation. For example, a translation of Honorius of Autun’s Elucidarius
into Old Norse survives in a manuscript of about 1200; there is a translationof Ælfric’s homily De falsis diis in Hauksbók. Peter Comestor’s Historia
Scholastica is quoted extensively in Stjórn. Augustine and Gregory arequoted in AM 435, 12mo, in the introduction to a treatise on physiognomy.134
Honorius’s De Imagine Mundi I,1 and II,59 are quoted in AM 685 d, 4to,and in the same part of AM 435, 12mo.135 Plato (probably the Timaeus in
Chalcidius’s version) is referred to in the Third Grammatical Treatise.136
Macrobius is quoted three times in the Second Computational Treatise.137
The pseudo-Clementine Recognitions were known from Clemens saga.
This list could be greatly extended.138
But though the ideas of the prologue can be paralleled in various works, it
is difficult to know which, if any, the author was actually acquainted
with; and if his ideas were derived from Latin authors, it is difficult tosay how far his knowledge was at first hand and how much reached him
orally through the general dissemination of ideas in literary circles in
Iceland. The analogies between the earth and living creatures (SnE, pp.
1/22–2/8) are developed much further than in any other medieval writer
I know, and in a very individual way, and the author might have arrived
at them independently. Nevertheless, the similarities with European
writings, though they do not prove dependence, show that the author was
thinking in a similar way to medieval Latin writers, and was not following
a specifically Norse train of thought.

134 Alfræ›i III, ed. K. Kålund, pp. 96–98. See Gregory, Moralia XXVI, 12 andV, 39 (on Job 35: 5–7 and 4: 20), and cf. also XI, 4 (on Job 12: 9) (PL, LXXVI,
358 and PL, LXXV, 719 and 956).
135 Alfræ›i III, pp. 75 and 98; see PL, CLXXII, 121 and 154.
136 Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, ed. B. M.
Ólsen, p. 34.
137 Alfræ›i Íslenzk II, ed. N. Beckman and K. Kålund (Copenhagen, 1914–16),
pp. li, 96, 103, 124.
138 Not all the evidence for the knowledge of such works comes from thetwelfth or early thirteenth centuries, of course, but interest in them is mostcharacteristic of that period, even when the manuscript evidence is later. See
T. Frank, ‘Classical Scholarship in Medieval Iceland’, American Journal of
Philology, 30 (1909), pp. 139–52.

PAGAN SYMPATHY

33

Whether or not the author was acquainted with medieval Latin writings,
his work has a different flavour. It is more down to earth, more concrete andcompact, less inclined to abstraction, discursiveness and flights of fancy,
though it is not unimaginative. It is more reminiscent of earlier writers like
Augustine, Bede, Isidore, or Ælfric, than of the subtler doctors of twelfthcentury Paris and Chartres like Alain de Lille, Bernard of Chartres, or even
Abelard, though it is not so unlike Peter Comestor. As far as classical writers
are concerned, there are closer parallels in Cicero than Plato, and similarities
with the thought of Lucretius and Lactantius are particularly noticeable.
Even when indulging in philosophical speculation, the prologue has a firm
grasp of concrete reality (which almost amounts to naivety at times) in amanner different from the abstract discourse of most theological writing.
The lack of interest in allegory and symbolism and greater interest in
history and historical synthesis mark thirteenth-century Iceland generally
as more in the tradition of Bede and Isidore than of twelfth-century Europe.
Of all the Norse sources that touch on mythology, it is only in the
prologue to SnE that we find a fully-developed attempt to give a theoreticaland philosophical account of the origins and development of heathen
Scandinavian religion (Ynglinga saga makes no attempt to explain thegods worshipped by the euhemerised Æsir or to expand on their beliefs),
albeit even here it is done by means of narrative rather than discursively.
But the prologue does define the relationship of heathendom to Christianity
and give it a place in history (though it may be a spurious one). For muchof the content of the prologue no direct source is known. If it is by Snorri
in its present (reconstructed) form it entitles him to be considered one of
the most original and analytical mythographers of the Middle Ages. The
prologue to SnE and the prologue to Heimskringla are two of the very
few pieces of writing in Old Icelandic that are not translations and where,
at the same time, there is evidence of analytical thought—in one caseapplied to historical source-criticism, in the other to the history of religion.139
Originally published in Edda: A Collection of Essays, ed. R. J. Glendinning and
H. Bessason (Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 1983), pp. 283–316. Several
references have been added.

139 I should like to draw attention to the article by Ursula and Peter Dronke on
the subject of Snorri’s prologue (‘The Prologue of the Prose Edda: Explorationsof a Latin Background’, Sjötíu ritger›ir helga›ar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí1977 [Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977], pp. 153–176), which was
published since the writing of this article and could not be taken into account.

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ABBREVIATIONS

ANF
ANO
ÍF
MM
PL
SnE
SS
ZfdA

Arkiv för nordisk Filologi
Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og HistorieÍslenzk fornrit
Maal og Minne
Migne, Patrologia Latina
Snorra Edda
Scandinavian Studies
Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur