Note to Anon Pét 41^VII

[2-3] rann brott með varðhaldsmanni ‘he ran away with a watchman’: Finnur Jónsson proposes a sense vogter, fængselsvogter ‘watchman, guard, prison-guard’ for varðhaldsmaðr (see LP), but does not explain precisely which prison-guard he imagines Peter eloping with (one of Christ’s captors?). The passage would appear to refer to Christ’s abandonment by his disciples at the moment of his arrest: Mark XIV.50 (cf. Matt. XXVI.56) tunc discipuli eius relinquentes eum omnes fugerunt ‘then his disciples leaving him, all fled away’. A normal sense of varðhaldsmaðr is ‘watchkeeper, watchman’ (see Fritzner; cf. varðmaðr), and since all of Christ’s followers were enjoined to keep watch in Gethsemane (Mark XIV.34 sustinete hic et vigilate; cf. Matt. XXVI.38), the term might perhaps refer ironically to one of the other disciples (or, even more obliquely, to the only other figure who is reported to have fled at the time of Christ’s capture, the adulescens of Mark XIV.51-2: adulescens autem quidam sequebatur illum ... et tenuerunt eum, at ille reiecta sindone nudus profugit ab eis ‘and a certain young man followed him ... and they laid hold on him, but he, casting off the linen cloth, fled from them naked’). But the passage remains obscure. Three gospels record only that after Christ’s arrest, Peter ‘followed him afar off’ (Matt. XXVI.58; Mark XIV.54; Luke XXII.54). John XVIII.15 notes that Peter followed Jesus together with ‘another disciple’ (Petrus et alius discipulus). In some versions of the passage, this figure is identified as John (cf. Kirby 1976-80, II, 313 [John XVIII.16f.]; Pétr 14/1).

References

1. Bibliography
2. LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
3. Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.