[293]. I Peter, ii, 17.
[294]. The compiler of Stjórn, an Old Norse paraphrase of the larger part of the Old Testament, following Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, attributes to Bede the statement that the serpent in those days bore the face of a maiden (p. 34). The author of the King’s Mirror cannot have used Stjórn, as it seems to be a production of the fourteenth century, nor is there any evidence that he knew the Historia Scholastica.
[295]. The story of the court proceedings in Paradise after the fall of man and the discussion between Mercy and Peace on the one side and Truth and Justice on the other was widely current in the thirteenth century. It made an important scene in certain types of mystery plays, and it seems quite likely that the source of the version given in the King’s Mirror must be sought in some dramatic representation of the creation story. The account of the trial was made the theme of two poems in Old French which have been attributed to the English ecclesiastics Archbishop Langton and Bishop Grosseteste, both of whom were contemporaries of our Norwegian author.
Homilies were written on this theme in the twelfth century by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Migne, Patrologia Latina, CLXXXIII, 770) and by Hugh of St. Victor (ibid., CLXXVII, 623-626). There is a still earlier version of the story in a homily attributed, though for no good reason, to the Venerable Bede. According to this story a man has a son and four daughters named Mercy, Truth, Peace, and Justice. He also has a servant whom he wishes to try by giving him an easy task. The servant fails and is handed over to the executioner. The daughters now come into violent disagreement, but the son finds a way out of the difficulty: he saves the servant and succeeds in bringing the sisters into agreement. Ibid., XCIV, 505-507.
W. Scherer, in Zeitschrift für deutsche Altertumskunde, N. F., IX, 414-416, finds traces of the legend in Talmudic sources. In the Hebrew story, however, the disagreement is over the expediency of creating man, Mercy favoring and Truth opposing the project. The ultimate source appears to be Psalms, lxxxv, 10: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
For bibliographical information see L. Petit du Juleville, Les Mystères, II, 359.
[296]. The statement that Lucifer planned to set up a rival throne in the northern regions of heaven also appears in the Michaels Saga (Heilagra Manna Sögur, I, 677). It was apparently a common belief in medieval Christendom and was based on Isaiah, xiv, 13.
[297]. I Corinthians, xii, 4-10.
[298]. Exodus, xiv.
[299]. Numbers, xvi.