Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/94

76 use the press as a weapon against the Reformation, but here as everywhere else it became the most potent agency for promoting its cause, and with the Reformation intellectual life began anew to blossom. Yet not before Jon Arason's death (1552) was the chief obstacle to the introduction of the Reformation in Iceland removed.

The first Icelandic translation of the New Testament was made by. On journeys in Germany and Denmark he had become acquainted with Luther and his doctrine, and surrounded by the greatest difficulties he took upon himself the task which needed most to be performed in order to remove the old errors, viz., the translation of the word of God into the mother tongue. His translation was printed in Denmark, in 1540, but the whole Bible did not become accessible to the Icelandic people before the year 1584, after Bishop had finished his complete translation of Luther's German version of the sacred Scriptures.

There arose at length in the seventeenth century two men whose lives and works had a radical influence on the religious development and opinions of the Icelanders. One of them was the preacher and psalmist (1614-1674). Though he is neither as voluminous nor inclined to soar on as lofty a poetic pinion as his great contemporary psalmists in Denmark and Sweden, still his works are of great value since they give the clearest revelations we have in a northern tongue of the spirit of the Reformation. This is particularly true of his fifty psalms which have the passion story for their theme, and which have in so remarkable a degree won the hearts of the Icelandic people that they have become one of the first necessities of every household. Thirty editions of this work have appeared. With fervent emotion the poet grasps in each part of the passion story its significance to the life of every Christian in relation to God, and his psalms are clothed in clear and stately language with phrases and figures here and there of startling originality and beauty. No