Beowulf: Guiding New Christians?

Before we started reading Beowulf, I thought the story would be more or less a Nordic/Anglo-Saxon version of a Greek epic poem, like the Odyssey. It would center on Beowulf, an epic hero who fights a monster named Grendel and probably does other things. There might be mythical creatures other than Grendel (and his mother, whom I heard shows up at some point later). There might be polytheistic gods. Would they be Norse? Celtic? Otherwise?

Very otherwise. Pagan gods get a few mentions—not by name, but as if gesturing vaguely to a category—but the god Beowulf worships is one god. The Christian god, who hereafter will be capitalized for clarity’s sake.

If God is to be involved in this epic poem, will He take the role that other gods have in other epics, or that He has in Bible stories? Yes and no. Let’s examine two passages. The first is in lines 175-181, at the end of chapter II:

“At times they offered honor to idols

at pagan temples, prayed aloud

that the soul-slayer might offer assistance

in the country’s distress. Such was their custom,

the hope of heathens—they remembered hell

in their minds, they did not know the Maker,

the Judge of deeds, they did not know the Lord God” (175-181).

If this were a tale in the Old Testament, this would be the part when God would pick one human to tell all the other humans that God is furious at them for worshipping other gods, that they are a bunch of idolatrous whores, that He refuses to hear them, and that He is abandoning them forever . . . for real this time! (He would then be back by the next book, if not the very next chapter. He always comes back.)

In Beowulf, however, God does not take the role of intervening deity. What follows this passage and concludes the chapter is a sermon on the importance of seeking the Lord. Uh, okay. Was this small dose of evangelism to remind the original audiences of their new Christian faith? Perhaps.

The second passage concerns specifically the faith of the story’s hero. Beowulf chooses to fight Grendel—a giant, human-eating fiend of a monster—barehanded because Grendel “does not care for weapons” (434). Also, Beowulf says of his upcoming fight, “Let him put his faith / in the Lord’s judgment, whom death takes” (440-441). Among our hero’s qualities, then, is his faith. His own mortal strength can take him only so far; God takes him farther. This indirect divine influence reminded me of a specific Bible story: David and Goliath. Goliath, like Grendel, is a giant who attacks a human community until a hero defeats him. David and Beowulf are noticeably different: David is “little more than a boy” ( 1 Sam 17:42), has no previous combat experience, and overall looks neither formidable nor intimidating. Beowulf, on the other hand, is recognizably an adult. He is a seafarer, a warrior, and a leader. He already has a reputation in the surrounding communities. What’s the connection, then? The heroes’ faith. “David said to [Goliath], ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty. . . . This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands’” (1 Sam 17:45-46).  Both David and Beowulf, regardless of their natural abilities and resources, ensure victory by their faith in God. Since Beowulf’s original audiences would have held the hero in high esteem, his faith would be a model for them to follow.

Given the hero's Christian faith and a brief sermon within the text, perhaps the poem functioned in part as a reminder to a community new to the religion.

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