Note to Anon Alpost 8VII
[2, 3, 4] sannr sonr systur móður guðs ‘the true son of the sister of the mother of God’: Cf. IO 76,1: Iacobus Alfei ... sororis matris Domini filius ‘James [son of] Alphaeus ... son of the sister of the mother of the Lord’. The Virgin Mary’s half-sister Mary, wife of Cleophas (John XIX.25), was the mother of James the Less (see Mark XV.40; cf. Cross and Livingstone 1983, 304) – a potential source of confusion, since the mother of James the Great (to whom verse 5 above is dedicated) was also the half-sister of the Virgin Mary (cf. Kilström 1962a, 530). This may support Kock’s reading of sannr (NN §1758, see Note to 1-4 above), if the poet intends to suggest here that James the Less has a greater claim than his namesake to being called ‘God’s mother’s nephew’.
References
- Bibliography
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Cross, F. L. and E. A. Livingstone. 1983. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2nd edn. 4th impression. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3rd rev. edn 2005 by E. A. Livingstone. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- IO = Gómez, César C., ed. 1985. [Isidore of Seville] De ortu et obitu patrum. Auteurs Latins du Moyen Age. Paris: Société d’Editions ‘Les Belles Lettres’.
- Kilström, B. I. 1962a. ‘Jakob’. KLNM 7, 529-31.