Anon Alpost 10VII/6 — siðar ‘of faith’’
Giftu giefr með kröftum
guðspjallamaðr snjalla
mildr Mathéas öldum;
miskunnar guðs unni.
Hann var særðr með sverði
siðar í kirkju miðri;
veiti hann virðum mætum
væna hjálp í bænum.
Hier er Mathéas minni
mjög þekkiligt inni.
Mildr guðspjallamaðr Mathéas giefr öldum snjalla giftu með kröftum; unni guðs miskunnar. Hann var særðr með sverði í miðri kirkju siðar; veiti hann mætum virðum væna hjálp í bænum. Mathéas minni er mjög þekkiligt hier inni.
The gentle evangelist Matthew gives people resounding good fortune with miracles; he granted [them] God’s mercy. He was mortally wounded with a sword in the middle of ‘the church of faith’. May he grant to worthy men fair help in their prayers. Matthew’s memorial toast is very agreeable herein.
notes
[6] í miðri kirkju siðar ‘in the middle of ‘the church of faith’ (? i.e. a Christian church)’: A reading proposed by Kock (NN §1761), literally ‘in the middle of the church of the (new) faith’ (i.e. ‘in the middle of a Christian church’). Finnur Jónsson (Skj B) would remove siðar from its immediate context and read it as part of a cl. siðar ... virðum mætum (ll. 6, 7), and he interprets siðar with ll. 7-8: ‘May he grant men excellent in their faith good help in their prayers’. Kock argues that removing siðar from what appears to be a separate cl. in ll. 5-6 requires a syntactical construction which is inconsistent with the prosaic style of the rest of the poem. Meissner (1930, 232) objects to the collocation kirkja siðar ‘church of the (new) faith’, and would instead emend siðar to síðarr ‘later’ in order to read the l. ‘He was later stabbed ... in the middle of a church’. However, as Meissner admits himself, this emendation violates the required aðalhending. The detail that Matthew was stabbed ‘in a church’ is included in the Passio Sancti Mathei Apostoli et Evangelistae (Mombr., II, 263: in ecclesia; cf. Mth1ˣ 805/34; Mth1Frg 811/37: i kirkiu / kirkio).