Beowulf Christianity
Beowulf - ChristianityWhen missionaries first introduced the Christian ideology to the Anglo-Saxons, they left the
people with a clear choice; Pagan deities could not coexist with the Christian God. Therefore,
they must abandon these ancient icons in order to hold a more monotheistic view. Unfortunately,
most of their culture is built around upholding a heroic code instead of a single deity. Rather than
completely forsake the standards that they had lived by for so many generations, they
incorporated their old ideals into the new Christian beliefs. In a similar fashion, the poet’s task was
to apply this same transformation to a story deeply rooted pagan society. The Beowulf poet “was
concerned to extol the virtues of ancient Germanic heroes while acknowledging regretfully that
the were deprived of the Christian revelation enjoyed in [the poet’s] own era” (Robinson 1). Many
flaws originate from this change, however. The burning of the dead is one of the most overt
among these flaws and is evidence for the Anglo-Saxon ideas surrounding death. Cremation as a
pagan rite seems necessary to the characters in Beowulf. Similarly, the glorification of a corpse
through the adornment of treasures is also emphasized. These key elements give us a glimpse into
the rituals of a pagan culture and a somewhat incomplete attempt of a Christian poet to express
these ceremonies in a more monotheistic light.
In the traditional Christian belief, what happens to the body after death is a matter of
science; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. God created man from dirt and so the body will return to the
earth as the Bible states, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen.
3:19). What is important is what happens to the soul after death and not the fate of the body. In
this respect, the body can be viewed as a vessel that carries the soul throughout its earthly
existence. The non-Christian culture, unfortunately, does not have a divine explanation of death
and the events that follow it.
Ogilvy, J.D.A. and Donald C. Baker. Reading Beowulf. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1983