Christianity in Beowulf
The devout followers of the Christian religion have a long-standing reputation for adapting and manipulating antecedent and subsequent “unholy,” outright pagan symbols, practices, and traditions to have their righteous agenda subsumed into popular culture, such as Christmas or December 25th - which, to Christians, is the birth of Jesus Christ, but historically was the celebrated day of the birth of the pagan god, Mithra, the Greek god, Dionysus, and the Phrygo-Roman god, Attis, who was, like Jesus, described as being born of a virgin. Enlisting syncretism - the combining of religious and cultural characteristics - to appeal to minorities of pagans, enticing them to convert and assimilate into their ranks, or to assert dominance as the “one true religion” has been a repetitive trait among most religions. In Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon epic that contains innumerable Norse mythological themes, the …show more content…
To clarify, if one was to single out every mention of God, or any variation of the name, they would find that most of the lines in which God is mentioned could function still as cohesive expressions even if God was to be removed; the Christian themes do not forward the plot in the slightest. Really, appears that the Christianity within the story was just scribbled in as extra (unnecessary) descriptive lines. The same can be said with a degree of certitude regarding the direct Old Testament reference within lines 100-114 of the Seamus Heaney translation. In it, Grendel, the monster that wages destruction on the Herot mead hall, is asserted as a descendant of the evil that the biblical character, Cain, released upon the world, which is quite a convenient backstory to give Grendel, considering he was, as said in numerous lines, a demon, a spawn of evil by
The devout followers of the Christian religion have a long-standing reputation for adapting and manipulating antecedent and subsequent “unholy,” outright pagan symbols, practices, and traditions to have their righteous agenda subsumed into popular culture, such as Christmas or December 25th - which, to Christians, is the birth of Jesus Christ, but historically was the celebrated day of the birth of the pagan god, Mithra, the Greek god, Dionysus, and the Phrygo-Roman god, Attis, who was, like Jesus, described as being born of a virgin. Enlisting syncretism - the combining of religious and cultural characteristics - to appeal to minorities of pagans, enticing them to convert and assimilate into their ranks, or to assert dominance as the “one true religion” has been a repetitive trait among most religions. In Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon epic that contains innumerable Norse mythological themes, the …show more content…
To clarify, if one was to single out every mention of God, or any variation of the name, they would find that most of the lines in which God is mentioned could function still as cohesive expressions even if God was to be removed; the Christian themes do not forward the plot in the slightest. Really, appears that the Christianity within the story was just scribbled in as extra (unnecessary) descriptive lines. The same can be said with a degree of certitude regarding the direct Old Testament reference within lines 100-114 of the Seamus Heaney translation. In it, Grendel, the monster that wages destruction on the Herot mead hall, is asserted as a descendant of the evil that the biblical character, Cain, released upon the world, which is quite a convenient backstory to give Grendel, considering he was, as said in numerous lines, a demon, a spawn of evil by