''Gyðinga saga'' (Saga of the Jews) is an

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

account of

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...

compiled from translations of a number of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

texts. Beginning with an account of Alexander the Great's conquests, it proceeds to cover around 220 years of Jewish history from Antiochus IV Epiphanes's accession in 175 BCE to

Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of ...

becoming procurator of Judaea in 26 CE. The main manuscript source for ''Gyðinga saga'' concludes with an epilogue which attributes its translation into Old Norse to Brandr Jónsson (d. 1264), bishop of

Hólar Hólar (; also Hólar í Hjaltadal ) is a small community in the Skagafjörður district of northern Iceland. Location Hólar is in the Hjaltadalur valley, some from the national capital of Reykjavík. It has a population of around 100. It is th ...

. In this manuscript ''Gyðinga saga'' follows ''

Alexanders saga ''Alexanders saga'' is an Old Norse translation of ''Alexandreis'', an epic Latin poem about the life of Alexander the Great written by Walter of Châtillon, which was itself based on Quintus Curtius Rufus's ''Historia Alexandri Magni''. It is att ...

'', which is also attributed to Brandr Jónsson. The saga is untitled in AM 226 fol; the name ''Gyðinga saga'' appears to date from the 19th century.

Árni Magnússon Árni Magnússon (13 November 1663 – 7 January 1730) was a scholar and collector of manuscripts from Iceland who assembled the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection. Life Árni was born in 1663 at Kvennabrekka in Dalasýsla, in western Iceland, ...

referred to it as both 'Historia Judaica' and 'Historia Macchabeorum'.

Etymology

''Gyðinga'' is the

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

plural of ''Gyðingr'', which is derived from the

word guð ("God"), with the suffix -ingr (a noun suffix used to refer to people associated with another noun). Thus it could be literally translated as "God-people" or "God-followers." It is the source of the modern Icelandic word for a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

, '' gyðingur'', and the Faroese word '' gýðingur''.

Preservation and authorship

''Gyðinga saga'' is preserved in five

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other ani ...

manuscripts and sixteen paper manuscripts, of which seven have independent value. The saga is preserved intact in AM 226 fol from 1350–1360. However, comparison with the older fragments AM 655 XXV 4to and AM 238 XVII fol shows that ''Gyðinga saga'' was originally longer, and that the version in AM 226 fol has been reduced in length by around one third. ''Gyðinga saga'' concludes with the following epilogue:

The holy priest Jerome translated this book from Hebrew into Latin, but it was translated from Latin into Norse by the priest Brandr Jónsson, who was later bishop of Hólar; and
randr X.Org Server is the free and open-source implementation of the X Window System display server stewarded by the X.Org Foundation. Implementations of the client-side X Window System protocol exist in the form of ''X11 libraries'', which serve ...
then ranslatedAlexander the Great at the behest of the honorable lord, Lord King Magnus, son of King Hákon the Old.

As Brandr died in 1264, this is as late as the saga could have been originally compiled, if it was indeed written by him. This date can be pushed back to 1263 as the epilogue refers to Brandr as 'priest' not 'bishop'; he served as bishop of Hólar from 1263 until his death the following year. Magnus Haakonsson held the title of king from 1257. This places the authorship of ''Gyðinga saga'' sometime between 1257 and 1263, if the epilogue's attribution is correct.

In AM 226 fol, ''Gyðinga saga'' is split into 39 chapters; these fall into 3 sections based on different sources. The first 21 chapters are based on

1 Maccabees The First Book of Maccabees, also known as First Maccabees (written in shorthand as 1 Maccabees or 1 Macc.), is a book written in Hebrew by an anonymousRappaport, U., ''47. 1 Maccabees'' in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001)The Oxford Bible Comme ...

, with additional material taken from

2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, el, Μακκαβαίων Β´, translit=Makkabaíōn 2 also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus I ...

and

Petrus Comestor Petrus Comestor, also called Pierre le Mangeur (died 22 October 1178), was a twelfth-century French theological writer and university teacher. Life Petrus Comestor was born in Troyes. Although the name ''Comestor'' (Latin for 'eater', ''le Ma ...

's ''

Historia scholastica The ''Historia Scholastica'' is a twelfth-century Biblical paraphrase written in Medieval Latin by Petrus Comestor. Sometimes called the "Medieval Popular Bible", it draws on the Bible and other sources, including the works of classical scholars a ...

''. Chapters 22–32 are based on the ''Historia scholastica''. The final section, chapters 33–38 are based on a precursor to

Jacobus de Voragine Jacobus de Voragine (c. 123013/16 July 1298) was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the '' Golden Legend'', a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the me ...

's ''

Golden Legend The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...

''. This final section gives an apocryphal account of the lives of Pontius Pilate and

Judas Iscariot Judas Iscariot (; grc-x-biblical, Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης; syc, ܝܗܘܕܐ ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ; died AD) was a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. According to all four canonical gospels, Judas betray ...

as well as a short version of Jewish history from

Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanic ...

becoming emperor in 37 CE to the death of

Herod Agrippa Herod Agrippa (Roman name Marcus Julius Agrippa; born around 11–10 BC – in Caesarea), also known as Herod II or Agrippa I (), was a grandson of Herod the Great and King of Judea from AD 41 to 44. He was the father of Herod Agrippa II, the ...

in 44 CE. Towards the end of the saga, some of its content over laps with that of '' Rómverja saga''. Despite being based on Biblical sources, ''Gyðinga saga'' plays down the moral and religious aspects of its sources and is presented as a work of historiography.

References

Old Norse literature Sagas 13th-century books Hasmonean Kingdom Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire

Etymology

Preservation and authorship

Contents

Further reading

References