Fis Adamnan: a comparative study (with introduction, text, and commentary based on the version of the Lebor na Huidre)

Abstract

In western apocalyptic. literature, the Vision of Adamnan holds a unique position. Though other visions, contemporary or prior, may give analogs for some of the material it contains, there is no vision which offers exact parallels to the most striking elements in this Irish vision. One may read in vain-the Visions of Fursa, Drythelm, Laisren, Tundale, the Monk of Wenlock, Owayne Miles, Frate Alberico, and a dozen others, in an attempt. to find a similarly conceived Other World. By this foot alone the Vision of Adamnan attracts attention: it is in such marked contrast to the general trend of western apocalyptic.

This contrast may be-detected in two outstanding features. First, the presentation of heaven as a realm of light, with God described as a burning-fire, surrounded by choirs of fiery, angels. The traditional paradise, with its sensual delights has been eliminated. Three features of sense-pleasure remain: light, fragrance, song. There is no celestial Eden, no rivers of milk or honey, no tree of life. Instead we find obscure symbolic figures: the three birds on the throne, the three zones about the Divine Crown, the Crystal Veil about the Flaming Throne, the precious stones, the flaming jewels, the, fiery circle.

This region of light, fragrance and music is reached after an arduous ascent of the seven heavens - a motif which brings us back into the Gnostic world of the inimical archons who hinder the soul's progress during its return to the realms of light. How did this obscure theory of the soul's ascent survive? What brought such a tradition into a tenth or eleventh century Irish vision? Such questions naturally present themselves to the reader. The seven-heavens sections constitute the second outstanding feature-of the vision.

These two features, the heaven of light and the ascent of the soul present two major problems of investigation. However, there are many other which remain. There is the mysterious group of souls mentioned in sect. 14A who are excluded from the city. Then, too, the bridge-episode of section 22 provides problems of interpretation, for it complicates our attempts to gain an accurate idea of the route followed by the soul after death. Furthermore, the eschatological theories implied in this vision are quite different from what we would expect in western Europe during the tenth or eleventh century.

The commentary which is found on pages 74-306 attempts to throw some light on this obscure piece by subjecting each motif to a minute analysis whereby the individual strands of thought and pattern are traced to analogs or possible sources in other literature belonging to the same genre. This method has been fairly successful, for practically every motif can be clarified by comparison with similar ones in other visions and apocalypses, it is the combination of so many divergent streams of apocalyptic that makes the Vision of Adamnan so unique. Several schools of apocalyptic thought seen to have been combined to produce it. This combination has been made more problematic by the poor condition of the text, which shows unmistakable signs of having been reduced in content and reworked.

Still, there is a certain unity manifest-throughout the vision. The author did make an attempt, to work his materials into a whole. The commentary frequently calls attention to these signs of unity, for a consistent interpretation of the vision' is possible only if the piece constitutes a unit, I believe there is sufficient evidence in the vision to justify this approach, and therefore I have not developed a theory of interpolations to explain awkward passages. Where no. completely satisfying answer to certain problems is found, I have preferred to leave the problem rather than explain it away by emending the text. With the limited amount of source-material available it would be too much to expect-a perfect elucidation of every motif.