Jón Thorkelsson Vídalín

Jón Thorkelsson Vídalín (born 1666, Gardhur, near Reykjavík, Iceland—died 1720, Iceland) was a Lutheran bishop, best known for his Húss-Postilla (1718–20; “Sermons for the Home”), one of the finest works of Icelandic prose of the 18th century.

The son of a learned physician and a grandson of the scholar Arngrímur Jónsson the Learned, Vídalín was educated at Skálholt in Iceland and at the University of Copenhagen and rose rapidly in the church, becoming bishop of Skálholt in 1697. The extreme poverty of the Icelanders and the misery that had been caused by a series of epidemics aroused his indignation against the negligent secular authorities, and he carried on a lifelong feud against them. His Baroque antithetical style sprinkled with proverbs, his ironic portrayals of prevailing abuses, and his vivid pictures of hell—all of these elements made Vídalín’s homilies a worthy companion to Hallgrímur Pétursson’s Passion Hymns as well as the most popular devotional work in Iceland down to the 19th century.