Faith in a Heap of Broken Images: The Christian Beowulf

BRANDON MURI

In the last half of the twentieth century, critics have agreed

that Beowulf is the work of a single poet composing in the mode of a

previous and-still influential tradition of oral literary creation,

and that this poet was a Christian consciously making use of pagan

materials.1 The lingering question—why a Christian poet would write an

ostensibly “pagan” poem—has troubled scholars for decades. In his

1995 study Pride And Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript, Andy

Orchard describes how the multicultural composition the Cotton

Vitellius manuscript illustrates a singular Anglo-Saxon tendency to

incorporate diverging perspectives. This propensity for cultural

assimilation has been well documented. One such example is Pope

Gregory’s letter to Mellitus, in which the pontiff directs his

emissary to Christianize pagan practices by transforming them, as much

as possible, into feasts of the martyrs, reasoning that “he who would

climb to a lofty height must go up by steps, not leaps” (letter of

Gregory to Mellitus, in Bede, i.30). While this simple explanation may

avoid the initial paradox, there remains much to be said; for even if

one accepts this picture of a broad-minded Christian poet at home with

1 From J.D.A. Oglivy and Donald Baker’s critical work Reading Beowulf, qtd. In Beowulf: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism by Jodi-Anne George, page 89.

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pagan lore, it remains to be seen why the poem seems to resist a

Christian interpretation.2

The simple answer to this question is implicit in the poet’s

choice of material, which could never be fully scrubbed of its pagan

character without changing the essence (the fate of the original

chanson de geste that became The Song of Roland and the Celt-Irish heroic

legends absorbed into the Arthurian cycle). Fortunately for us, the

Beowulf poet had enough respect for his material and the good sense to

let the past remain as it was. Therefore in substance the poem reflects

the hard edge of its pagan material. At its core, Beowulf is more lion

than lamb, offering more of pagan wilderness than cultivated Christian

teaching and we find in it a pagan reverence for courage, loyalty, and

honor rather than the Christian triad of faith, hope, and love. One

would assume such a blending could produce a dubious work at best, but

this is not the case. The poem confronts us with none of the internal

inconsistencies and contradictions many tortured misreadings of the

2 While several critics have made the attempt, with varying levels of success,historically, Christian interpretations have occupied the periphery of Beowulf scholarship. What follows is a representative sample of essays I encountered that take this approach, though only the last two had any bearing on this paper: M. B. McNamee, “Beowulf”: An Allegory of Salvation?”; William Whallon, “The Christianity of “Beowulf”; Morton W. Bloomfiel, “Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth”; Marijane Osborne, “The Great Feud: Scriptural History and Strife in Beowulf”; Margaret Goldsmith “The Christian Perspective in Beowulf”

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early twentieth century warned us about.3 As scholars have come to

recognize the poem’s integrity as a self-contained work of genius, the

unity of the poem—like the Christianity of the poet—has passed into

the short list of assumptions Beowulf scholars are willing to make.

In the main, however, critics have perpetuated a reductionist

tendency to quantify this unity as either “pagan” or “Christian.”4 I

am aware that this statement leaps across the sea of nuances

intervening these two poles, but nuances aside, the conversation in

general has tended one way or the other.5 The cause is an insidious

tendency to bestow primacy on either the poem’s matter or form, as

critics almost invariably tend to emphasize one at the expense of the

other. This presents a serious lapse, which in the course of this

paper I intend to rectify (as much I am able) by offering equal

treatment to both. My analysis will seek to prove that the poem

reflects the antithetical ideals of paganism and Christianity

3 “The Christian Coloring of Beowulf” is one such example, in which F.A. Blackburn concludes that the poem originated in ancient folktale, was taken upby a scop, and amended by the Christian copyist to reflect a Christian perspective.4 Some, however, have argued that the poem is not primarily concerned with either. (I.e. Kenneth Sisam, “The Structure of Beowulf”, 78).5 The following provide a representative sample of the arguments: Dr. BenjaminSlade argues for an overtly pagan in his paper titled, “Beowulf: Heathen or Christian?” (Based on a paper given at 38th International Congress on MedievalStudies, Kalamazoo, 2003). In 1988, Gernot Wieland published one of the last significant Christian interpretations of the poem in his paper titled, “Moses and Beowulf.” Fred C. Robinson’s book, Beowulf and the Apposite Style offers a mingled approach, viewing the poem as a sympathetic Christian perspective on the pagan past.

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simultaneously. In spite of its paradoxical phrasing, I am confident

that I will be able to support my thesis without violating the law of

non-contradiction.6

To begin, the assumption of a Christian poet gives rise to

several propositions. First is the implication that while the matter

of the poem is essentially pagan, the form of the poem must reflect— or

at least, not contradict—a Christian perspective. To anticipate

objections I should clarify that my assumption of a Christian poet is

to be taken in a literal, rather than nominal sense. Either the poet

was Christian or not. I am not interested in the depth, sincerity,

and/or knowledge of the poet’s faith; those are questions for a

different sort of paper. My point is simply that, if the poet was a

Christian, the poem necessarily is the product of a Christian

worldview. Yet in claiming the total form of Beowulf is Christian I do

not mean to suggest that the pagan elements symbolize or somehow imply

Christian elements7; only that, for the poet and his audience, the

pagan matter of the poem would have necessarily been viewed in light of

Christian doctrine.

6 Marijane Osborne presents a similar tack, asserting that “There is no pagan-Christian "problem" in Beowulf, as scholars have argued for over a century and a half, usually showing their prejudices by taking one side or theother. 7 Claims presented in Jeffrey Helterman’s “Beowulf: The Archetype Enters History”and Margaret Goldsmith’s “The Christian Perspective in Beowulf”

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A second implication of the poet’s Christianity is a shift in

attitude toward paganism. At some level we should expect an

adversarial posture towards rejected pagan belief. The poet’s

portrayal of the Germanic warrior should therefore not be viewed as an

affirmation of pagan values but an artistic re-creation. While it is

not clear how rapidly this value shift occurred after Christianity was

first introduced to Anglo-Saxon society—and here the dating of the

poem would be significant, since we know the Church in England

continued to battle pagan religious practices throughout the early

medieval period8—it is accepted that this shift had generally occurred

from the top down by the end of the 8th century. By this time the

educated class of Anglo-Saxons had embraced the teachings of

Christianity to the exclusion of paganism and its attendant system of

values. Though we are unable to determine the extent to which the

older habits influenced the poet’s attitude towards his material, the

poet’s Christianity presented a fundamental rift. For the doctrine of

eternal life had negated the psychological force of paganism by

eliminating the drive to achieve permanence through fame. To the

extent that the old customs remained, they existed as a matter of

8 For example, in 747 it still seemed necessary to the churchmen assembled at the synod of Clovesho to instruct priests to take measures against heathen practices (Fisher 66).

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habit rather than conviction. This is an important distinction that I

will address later on.

Fundamentally, I would argue that the poem functions as an

apologetic of Christian faith, though the poet’s aims are not as overt

as many similarly-intentioned poets have taught us to expect. Beowulf is

not an ironic critique or a multi-layered allegory. The poet rows with

muffled oars—convincing by example rather than precept—presenting

pagan virtues writ large in a hero whose flawless adherence leads to

his downfall and that of his nation. This is a complex perspective

balancing veneration for pagan virtue with a tempering consciousness

of its failures. While this view has received little attention from

critics—perhaps in part due to a reductive tendency among critics,

perhaps also to critics’ reserve in granting such artistry to an

unknown poet writing within a literary tradition that does not reflect

such complexity in its surviving corpus—still, this view has been

defended by several eminent scholars, and it is my opinion that this

tension need not pose an impasse. As Marijane Osborne writes in

“Scriptural History and Strife in Beowulf”:

There is no pagan-Christian “problem” in Beowulf, as scholars

have argued for over a century and a half, usually showing

their prejudices by taking one side or the other. Rather

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than being in opposition, these two elements form an

epistemological scheme embracing both secular and spiritual

understanding like that presented more traditionally in The

Wanderer. (979)

Rather than affirming one or the other it seems reasonable to say the

poem holds both perspectives simultaneously, demonstrating that

ability to articulate paradox which Coleridge defines as a mark of

genius.9

While the narrator alerts his audience at the very beginning that

his tale undertakes a look back on days of yore (géardagum), the

intention however is not simply to spin a familiar yarn, but like

Hrothgar’s scop, to “link a new theme to strict meter” (874). And

while we may only speculate the degree of liberty the poet took with

his sources, it is unlikely he tampered much with the basic formula.

Many of the poem’s elements assume the guise of stock material: we

recognize the agonistic pattern; the strength of the hero; the

emphasis on loyalty, generosity, the avenging of kinsmen; and the

presence of ancient weapons. Yet even within this traditional formula

there is a revolutionary principle at work.

9 According to Coleridge, the romantic imagination recasts objects of the exterior world into a new and more profoundly "true" reality, giving the materials with which it chooses to work a unity and meaning which they do not possess in their original form. Biographia Litteraria I. 202.

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A disjunction arises between the narrator and his tragic

characters who, for all their courage are hooped within the great

wheel of necessity.10 The poet is relentless in his pursuit of this

effect, as each victory in the poem is tainted with tragedy at the

very places the poet is within his rights to inspire confidence. The

feast following Grendel’s defeat, which is the celebration of the

removal of a twelve-year curse, contributes some of the most exuberant

passage of the poem; yet the poet immediately breaks to the image of

Hildeburh weeping over the corpses of her son and brother in a tale

that highlights the uncertainty of peace. The feast itself is

undermined by dark intimations of future strife, disclosed in the

following, pregnant remark by the poet: “No false treacheries did the

Scyldings plot at this time” (nalles fácenstafas Þéod-Scyldingas         þenden

fremedon, 1017-18), foreshadowing Hrothulf’s usurpation of the Danish

throne after Hrothgar’s death. It is clear that few have any

forebodings of danger (with the exception of Wealtheow, whose anxiety

for her son’s future is palpable). The poet reveals their error,

“they did not know their fate” (wyrd ne cúþon, 1233), revealing soon

after that one paid dearly for his night’s rest (1251-52). The next

morning the fate of Aeschere is made known. Despair hovers around the

edges as the poem ends, with the audience anticipating the invasion of

10 Heaney’s phrase, taken from his introduction to the poem, page xviii.

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Geatland and the burning of Heorot. The poet’s intentional,

interwoven structure insinuates a terrifying sense of futility

highlighting the fact that no one, not even the wise Hrothgar and the

mighty Beowulf, are free of the inevitability of violence.

Overall, the effect is not unlike the testimony of Coifi, the

bluff priest of Bede’s Ecclesiastica, who declares to Edwin’s court: “I

frankly admit that, for my part, I have found that the religion to

which we have hitherto held has no virtue in it.” 11 Like the priest,

the Beowulf poet sees no virtue in the pagan customs of the past. While

it must be admitted that beside a solitary condemnation of pagan

worship (179-188), the Beowulf poet offers no direct comment on

religion, I do not see this as a difficulty, since Christianity was

unknown in the world the tale describes. Lesser poets writing in the

same tradition traverse similar difficulties either by supplying the

characters with anachronistic knowledge (as in The Song of Roland), or

simply ignoring distasteful elements of the pagan past as many Anglo-

Saxon historians have done.12 The poet of Beowulf avoids such a specious

11 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. And trans. BertramColgrave and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1969) 182-87.] qtd. in R.M. Liuzza, appendix C., 276-77.12 Hill provided this point, offering Bede as such an example of a Christian author who provided “muted” treatment of the pagan, Anglo-Saxon past, which Hill argues would not have been so quickly dismissed by an Anglo-Saxon aristocrat whose claims to authority rested in part of ancient and therefore necessarily pagan lineage (199).

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approach with a penetrating awareness of the human condition,

particularly the limits of human knowledge. In the same passage of the

Ecclesiastica quoted earlier, the priest describes human experience as a

flash of light that begins and ends in darkness, like a sparrow

winging its way through the warmth of the hall on a winter‘s night.

The priest concludes: “So this life of man appears but for a moment,

what follows or indeed what went before, we know not at all” (Liuzza

277). The sentiment expressed (whether dictation or Bede’s own

opinion) reveals that a permissive or at least sympathetic regard for

the pre-Christian era was not without precedent in 8th century England.

It seems to me that Bede’s tale supplies a fitting homiletic

analogy. For Heorot, like the hall of Bede’s sparrow, offers an

ephemeral comfort. It is a closed perspective, enveloped in spiritual

as well as material darkness. To the characters of Beowulf, all events—

whether wyrd or providence, good or ill—invade human experience from a

place beyond (wyrd ne cúþon). Such sensitivity to the limits of human

knowledge precludes censure of past sins committed out of ignorance,

and Beowulf offers nothing of the sort.13 Rather, in the world the poet

describes, morality is self-contained, determined by the present,

manifest in action. In Beowulf, morality is defined as human conduct in

13 The matter of the pagan shrines is another matter, and will be discussed further on.

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accordance with revealed knowledge. The hero is the poet’s exemplar of

this principle, as demonstrated in Beowulf’s admonition: “It is always

better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning” (1384-85).

The absence of a Christian gloss has presented stumbling block

for scholars, many of whom expect that a good Christian of this period

must have responded to paganism with censure; but as I mentioned at

the start, such closed-mindedness is not a characteristic of the

milieu in which Beowulf was composed.14 In fact, rather than denounce or

correct, many have argued that the poem was motivated by a strong

desire to redeem the past. This is worth exploring, given the

importance of history in the oral tradition of Anglo-Saxon culture. In

his magisterial study, Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong describes the unique

thought process observable in oral cultures with the term “pre-

logical.” Rather than by abstraction, Ong suggests that oral cultures

like the Anglo-Saxons would have viewed the world immanently, as they

always had, through a common body of knowledge handed down through

custom. This mode of thinking is situational rather than analytic,

based on examples rather than abstractions. Such an inherently

conservative thought process rendered the Anglo-Saxon substantially

resistant to cultural change, a serious obstacle to the reformative

14 Thomas Hill comments that Beowulf reflects the positive and receptive attitude of Christian writers extended to outside perspectives during the HighMiddle Ages, 197.

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purposes of the Church. Gregory’s letter to Mellitus may therefore

demonstrate greater prescience than scholars have realized, as

requiring the Anglo-Saxons to abandon all vestiges of their pagan

customs very well may have been an impossible task. For, as a culture

recently emerged from an oral tradition that remained a powerful

influence for many years, Anglo-Saxon identity was fairly fixed,

rooted in a pagan past that was bound in their blood, not in books.

Arguing from this position, Thomas Hill discusses several

practical factors which may have influenced a Christian poet to defend

his pagan heritage, delivering a cogent summary of these factors in

his essay “The Christian Language of Beowulf” in a passage so deliberate

and perspicacious that I am compelled to quote it at length:

I would submit that a young Anglo-Saxon warrior who was

schooled in Germanic heroic legend, whose claim to

aristocratic status extended far into the pagan past, whose

law was the old law confirmed by his people since time

immemorial, whose homeland had been won by pagan warriors,

who bore on his person ancient pagan ornaments, who defended

himself with an old sword purportedly made by WeIand and

certainly made by pagan craftsmen, and whose landscape was

dominated by magnificent burial mounds in which the great

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men (and women) of his race were buried in pagan splendor,

had much reason to respect the pagan heritage of his people

no matter how pious he was and no matter how deeply he

venerated the Church and the priests, the monks, and the

nuns who served It. Such a young (or old) aristocrat faced a

deep cultural conflict since the dominant authorities in the

Church in this period would not, or to put the case more

accurately, could not accept the claim that the paganism was

a legitimate mode of religious and cultural self-

understanding. If paganism was legitimate, if pagans too

could be saved, what was the point of Christian faith and

Christian ascesis? (200)

Hill’s down-to-earth perspective illustrates how pagan history may

have impacted the composition of Beowulf on several practical levels,

including: education, family title, and law, as well as national and

individual identity. His analysis introduces a new level of

psychological dimensions to understanding the poet’s motivations,

which were incredibly complex. Hill’s study lends its support to

Osborne’s statement that there is no pagan-Christian ‘problem’ in

Beowulf by suggesting that these competing modes are not mutually

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distinct. I would suggest that if there is such a problem in Beowulf, it

lies in the poet himself.

Hill proposes that the poet, as a member of the aristocratic

warrior class,15 would have strong incentives to validate a secular

literary tradition, surmising that medievalists have put too much

stock in that ubiquitous expression: “What has Ingeld to do with

Christ?” After all, Alcuin’s “rock-star” status presents a problem for

scholars as his célébrité would have ensured the preservation of his

writings to the exclusion of his lesser-known contemporaries. There

are no dissenting voices, leaving Alcuin’s impassioned charge to

resonate through empty space. This tells us little about the debate

(or if there was much of one). However, Hill conjectures that the poet

may have set about penning Beowulf partly with the view to prove Alcuin

wrong. This conflict between the Church and secular literature is an

old one, appearing time and again throughout ecclesiastical history.

In fact, Alcuin’s phrase is an adaption of a 600 year-old statement by

Tertullian in which the pugnacious churchman denounces the profusion

of Greek philosophy within the priesthood with his acerbic charge:

“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”16 Just as Augustine responded

15 Eric John rejects the concept of a clerk-poet, stating: “[The poem] seems to me impregnated with the social and personal experience of the retainer” (“Beowulf and the Margins of Literacy,” 73).16 De praescriptione, vii

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to Tertullian’s criticism by means of counterexample,17 Beowulf may have

meant to function as a poetic counterexample. One can see how the poem

would have served this intention beautifully, serving as a

demonstration of suffering that results from spiritual rebellion and

ultimately, the insufficiency of human power. Beowulf offers a glimpse

of a world without Christian hope where victories achieved by men like

Ingeld and Beowulf are unutterably hollow.

We should remember that such a world actually existed, perhaps

within a generation or two of the Beowulf audience. The stories may have

passed down first hand from parents and grandparents. If the extant

literature is any indication, the past exerted a haunting influence on

the Anglo-Saxon consciousness for many years after the fact. The oral

tradition carried these memories into the present as reenactments of

the violent ethics of the pagan world, and in which the audience were

able to observe these customs augmented the sufferings of their

ancestors. Like the retainers of the poem, they remembered hell.18

Generation by generation, this anxiety was kept alive through tales

obsessed with murder, vengeance, betrayal, warfare, and stolen gold.

In light of this, it is a curiosity that the Beowulf poet, an

intelligent Christian, determined not to resolve his tale with a much-

17 Augustine cites Exodus 12, in which the Israelites ransack the wealth of Egypt before the flight through the desert. (On Christian Doctrine II.40.)18 Adapted from Seamus Heaney’s translation, 179-180.

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needed cultural catharsis: the Christian hope of salvation. For when

the poem ends the Geats have no hope whatsoever. They have a dragon’s

hoard of treasure but no king. Invasion is immanent. Why did the

Christian poet leave them there? The answer I suggest is that both he

and his audience knew the sequel.19 Having had been taught the doctrine

of the Resurrection, tragedy had lost its sting; they had come to

trust in a peace and rest not of this world20.

This relationship between the audience and the material creates

what Margaret Goldsmith has called a “double focus.”21 Indeed, a

certain poetical imagining must have been essential to the conversion

of the Germanic peoples for whom the concept of a meek and humble

Savior would have been incomprehensible. Dorothy Bethurum observes

this impulse in Aelfric’s Lives of the Saints, that it establishes “a

connection between the saints and the early Germanic heroes, with the

idea of replacing the latter by the former, but clothing the story of

the saints in a form familiar to his heroes” (qtd. In Wogan-Brown

216). Similarly, Eric Auerbach has ventured the opinion that the

19 The point, and phrasing were borrowed from Douglas Wilson, “The Anglo-SaxonEvangel”. 20 Dorothy Whitelock argues that the literate audience would have been well-acquainted with New Testament doctrine. The Audience of ‘Beowulf’, pg. 21.21 She refers to the second level of significance similar to that achieved by modern authors through the allusion to stories from Greek mythology, citing Anouilh's Antigone, T. S. Eliot's Family Reunion, and Joyce’s Ulysses as examples. This reading of Beowulf is shared by several other notable critics, including E.J. Stanley, Marijane Osborne, and Thomas Hill.

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Germanic and Celtic peoples could be taught the Old Testament only in

its typological and not in its literal meaning,22 a belief advanced by

Gernot Wieland in “Moses and Beowulf”, in which he argues that “Beowulf

should be viewed in the same light as an Old Testament figure,

possibly as a shadow, or typos of Christ” (88).

The poet accomplishes this effect by contrasting well-known

archetypal figures from Germanic myth and history with figures of

spiritual—and therefore eternal—significance. While there is nothing

inherently compelling about fratricide, the Cain myth is archetypal

for the sheer intensity of the situation: the introduction of violence

into a world-as-yet untainted by the fall, where mankind still

remembers Eden and speaks with God.23 The significance of this myth is

not murder but rebellion against the creator. The invocation of this

myth at the beginning of Beowulf sets into contrast all the subsequent

events of the narrative. The implication is not simply the

condemnation of fratricide, but of rebellion against Natural Law, the

consequence of which is explicit in the opposition between the exile

and the community. The theme of “one against the many” adumbrates

throughout the poem in the examples of Grendel, who rules “one against

22 Eric Auerbach’s claim is stated by William Whallon in “The Christianity of Beowulf”, pg. 83.23 Genesis 4:6,9-15

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all” (ána wið eallum, 145), and Heremod, who “grew not for his people,

but for their slaughter” (ne gewéox hé him tó willan       ac tó wælfealle, 1713).

A key to the poet’s method may be found in the poet’s style,

particularly in the balance of opposing principles Andy Orchard has

characterized as a structure of variation and repetition “setting

separate elements side by side for the purposes of comparison and

contrast” (Companion to ‘Beowulf’ 57). The poet’s judgment þæt wæs gód cyning

following his peroration on the reign of Scyld is repeated three more

times in the poem, in reference to Hrothgar (863, 1486) and Beowulf

(2390), signaling that the standard in effect is the same Germanic

ideal presented in the prologue. Conversely, the name of Heremod is

invoked negatively (by the characters themselves) on two occasions as

the antithesis of this ideal (901, 1709). However, the principles

contrasted here (we might call them political) are indicative of the

larger thematic balance the poet accords to the archetypal24 battle

between God and Cain:

wonsæli wer weardode hwile,

siþðan him scyppend         forscrifen hæfde

in Caines cynne.         þone cwealm gewræc

24 I mean “archetypal” in the ordinary sense, as “an original model or pattern, prototype” (Collins English Dictionary), and not in any way suggestive of the ideas of Jung, Campbell, Eliade, etc.

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ece drihten,         þæs þe he Abel slog;

ne gefeah he þære fæhðe, ac he hine feor forwræc (105-9)25

The Cain reference introduces the most inclusive set in a series of

mutually defining antitheses by which the poet distinguishes between

two principles of human action: the rule of God and man’s rebellion.

While the poet draws an explicit link to the feuds of Germanic tribal

custom (ne gefeah hé þaére faéhðe), the feud in this case functions not as

cause but as consequence of the more basic crime. According to the

poet’s source in the Old Testament book of Genesis,26 the slaying of

Abel constituted the first crime against the created order, which is

the subject of the scop’s song in Heorot (90–98). That Grendel’s feud

is instigated by this song (86–111) reveals a conscious design in

which the poet connects the present conflict with the first Biblical

feud. In Beowulf this feud is passed down to mankind not only

symbolically as the forces of chaos which threaten the community

(feuds), but also as the material representations of the ontological

enmity between two types of beings:

þanon untýdras         ealle onwócon  

eotenas ond ylfe         ond orcnéäs  

swylce gígantas         þá wið gode wunnon  

25 Extended passages in Old English are copied from Benjamin Slade’s website, www.heorot.dk.com.26 Genesis 4:8

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lange þráge·         hé him ðæs léan forgeald. (111-114)

There is a symbolic method at work. And yet, because the poet has

provided the tools by which the poem is to be understood, there is no

need to consult the Church Fathers for exegesis or the New Testament

for allegory, because the poem explains its method of signification.

The poet’s juxtaposing style generates a series of implicit

similes which seem to say: this is like that. Grendel is like Cain. The

relation between Grendel and Cain in the poem is analogous to the

relation between the first two terms in a syllogism: the universal is

applied to the particular by means of the middle term, in this case

supplied by the Grendel episode, which functions as the intermediary

term between the universal consequence of Cain’s rebellion and the

poem’s particular events. Beginning with the sin of Cain and

reverberating out from that first crime, the accumulating stock of

balancing principles creates a visible pattern demonstrating how

rebellion against God unleashes the forces of chaos upon the world of

men.

Such a claim will require further explanation. But to anticipate

objections by critics who are skeptical of the soft science of

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figurative exegesis,27 I will remind the reader that this study is

only interested in making explicit what is warranted by the text. I

would argue that, to reject the possibility of a figurative level in

Beowulf is to misunderstand the essential character of the Anglo-Saxon,

whose poetry was, with few exceptions, deeply symbolic. To grant to

the Anglo Saxon on the one hand the metaphorical complexity of the

kenning and kend heiti, and no less the riddle with its duple modes of

signification, and deny to the most complex surviving work of poetry

in Old English any intention beyond the literal seems to me a glaring

non sequitur. But I suspect that few medievalists may be won over so

easily. So much for the defense of symbolism.

The narrative voice undertakes not only a “looking back”

temporally, but a reevaluation informed by the moral perspective of

the Christian religion.28 If we accept the conclusion (which seems

27 Patrick Wormald, Roberta Frank, and John Niles are just a few critics who have voiced criticism against a second level of meaning in the poem. Additionally, the Marxist historian Eric John (Hobsbawn) made a serious mark on Beowulf scholarship with his incisive historiographical approach in his essay "Beowulf and the Margins of Literacy." 2000. The Beowulf Reader. By Peter S.Baker. New York: Garland Pub., 2000. 51-77. Print.28 While I mention only two levels, in “The Authenticating Voice in Beowulf,” Stanley Greenfield offers four perspectival lenses through which the narrating voice responds to the characters and events presented—

First by historicizing or distancing them from its own and its immediate audience’s time and way of life; second, contrariwise, by contemporizing them, suggesting a continuity between the past and the present; third, by commenting on the morality involved in the actions of the characters; and fourth, by putting the accidents and eventualities of human existence into a perspective which emphasizes the limitations of human knowledge.

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inevitable) that meaning in the poem is contingent upon the interplay

between perspectival shifts emphasizing the progressive nature of

human knowledge, then it would be logical to assume that the poet is

not interested so much in the facts of the events narrated, but their

quality. After all, the poet does not judge the pagans by their

conformity to a Biblical law they do not know, but by their adherence

to Natural Law they know intuitively. In minimizing the importance of

the facts I am not suggesting that any physical aspect of the

narrative should be interpreted in an abstract sense. Grendel, for all

his dark associations, is real: a monstrous android creature stalking

the hinterlands, as real and creepy as, to use Heaney’s phrase, “a dog

breath in the dark” (xviii). Grendel is not Cain and Heorot is not

Eden. As mentioned previously, the primary vehicle is simile;

therefore, Beowulf is like Sigemund, but he is not Sigemund (or Christ);

Grendel is like Cain, yet is himself. But while the contrasted

characters are factually distinct, the qualities of their actions are

not. Rather, Grendel’s violence shares the ontological essence of

Cain’s—for both amount to rebellion against God. Another point

requiring elaboration.

The basis of this rebellion resides in the poet’s doctrine of the

providence of God. According to the poet, all good things are from the

22

Lord. If the following examples are representative, the poet includes

in God’s providence the blessing of children, as he does the son of

Scyld (þone god sende folce tó frófre ,10-11); honor (woroldáre forgeaf,17);

success in war (herespéd gyfen, 64); Beowulf’s strength (hwæþre hé gemunde

mægenes strenge/ gimfæste gife         ðe him god sealde,1270-71); comfort and support

(Ac him dryhten forgeaf…frófor ond fultum, 696,698). Even Hrothgar (who is not a

Christian29) is able to apprehend this doctrine though he lacks

knowledge of its source. We see how the implications such a belief

determines Hrothgar’s morality, since he acknowledges that kingship

and all other goods are bestowed through God’s providence:

Wundor is tó secganne

hú mihtig god       manna cynne

þurh sídne sefan        snyttru bryttað

eard ond eorlscipe       hé áh ealra geweald

hwílum hé on lufan        laéteð hworfan (1724-8)

Hrothgar’s sense of morality is an outgrowth of his belief that the

king’s duty is to reflect divine generosity through his own. This

ethical code is first introduced in the prologue when the narrator

declares that a prince should bring about good with gifts from his

29 While Klaeber argued for Hrothgar’s essential Christianity, a host of critics have pointed out the flaws in this view, including Brodeur, Obsborne, Donahue, and others.

23

father’s possessions (fæder bearme, 21), implying at once that all goods

are inherited goods, and that their proper use is for distribution

among the people. But Hrothgar is not the only character conversant

with this moral system. Wealtheow likewise, after the defeat of

Grendel, encourages her king to be true to his word and render to

Beowulf his due, admonishing Hrothgar to “be mindful of gifts” (geofena

gemyndig, 1173), and to use his rewards while he can (177-78). The

whole of this operative principle is summed up in the hero’s speech

before his death:

'Ic ðára frætwa        fréan ealles ðanc

wuldurcyninge       wordum secge

écum dryhtne       þé ic hér on starie

þæs ðe ic móste       mínum léodum

aér swyltdæge        swylc gestrýnan

nú ic on máðma hord       minne bebohte

fróde feorhlege (2794-3000)

The informing principle of this ethical code is a sort of natural

theism analogous to Aristotle’s theory of God, in which the

philosopher defines God as the “uncaused cause” which is the basis of

his Great Chain of Being.

24

This philosophy, which we might call the ethics of causation, is

reflected in the poet’s language. Swords are described as “battle

light” (beadoleoma), “flashing light” (hildeleoma), “edge-hate” (ecghete),

and “sword-storm” (ecgþracu). They are given proper names out of action

verbs, like “Thrusting” (Hrunting) and “Nailing” (Naegling).

Additionally, these weapons drink blood (hiorodrycnum swealt) and sweat

(swatig). These are living objects. In the parlance of anthropology, the

term illustrated is numina,30 and it refers to the unseen powers

primitive cultures attributed to every visible effect. Alvin Lee

believes that in this sense, Beowulf displays “a radically

anthropocentric ontology” (57), which his starkly opposed to the

modern concept (derived from the Cartesian sundering of mind and

matter). Lee suggests that in this sense, Beowulf is psychologically

primitive:

Its psychology is founded on a model of knowledge that is

stored in the metaphorical powers of the word-hoard. The

deeply traditional, radical metaphors found in abundance

throughout the text have been forged by wordsmiths into

fusions of identities, between things or beings in the world shaped by

30 This term was originated by Randolph Otto, in his seminal work on comparative religion “The Idea of the Holy.”

25

God and the human (and other) beings in that world, and between all these and

the narrator. (59)31

As a case in point, the kenning demonstrates a preoccupation with

effect rather than substantive fact.32 That is to say, the poet’s

description of a line of troops as “shield wall” (scildweall) and swords

as “edge-hate” may be possible because the audience understood that

the physical barrier presented by a line of shields and the velocity

of a sword’s edge were more important than the empirical designation.

We are nearing the realm of myth, and the point where Beowulf comes

closest is in the fight with Grendel’s mother, where the poet explains

the “wondrous thing” (wundra sum, 1607) of the hildegicelum and the

disappearing sword blade. As the blade melts, the poet says, it

“melted entirely/ just like ice, when the Father loosens frost’s

fetters, / unwraps the water’s bonds (1608-1610). In addition, the

lair is filled with light “as from heaven the firmament’s candle”

(1571), just as when Beowulf slew the nine sea monsters in his match

with Breca and “Light shone from the East, God’s bright beacon” (568-

569). Here the poet identifies through his language the essential

power of victory with God’s power manifest in the created order. This

31 Italics added.32 Of Aristotle’s Ten Categories of Being, that which exists in-itself is substance and the rest are determined by “accidental” qualities. I argue that the latter nine categories are given prominence in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

26

identity/with metaphor33 is contrasted with Beowulf’s sarcastic

description—which also implies divine power, but with ironic effect—

of the Dane’s strength as “atole ecgþræce” (596). Beowulf’s confidence

proceeds from his faith that all power is God-given, and consequently

that God’s will is unalterable, as revealed in his declaration that

ðaér gelýfan sceal/ dryhtnes dóme      sé þe hine déað nimeð/ wén' ic

þæt hé wille      gif hé wealdan mót (441-43) and in later in his beot:

“Afterward, let him who will/ go to bravely to mead, when the morning

light/ of a new day, the sun clothed in glory,/ shines from the south

on the world of men!” (603-606). The latter example comprises part of

a rich verbal texture in which the poet contrasts the victory of

divine order over chaos, reflected symbolically in the triumph of

light over darkness and in the literal restoration of order to Heorot

through the defeat of Grendel.

This divine power is counterbalanced by the forces of opposition

in the poem represented in the three monsters, as well as by the

poem’s negative human characters. Rather than amplify the backlog of

scholarship surrounding the figurative significance of the monsters,

the following outline by R.M. Liuzza will supply a far more eloquent

demonstration of this point:

33 As opposed to identity/as, which is closer to true metaphor and myth.

27

Grendel can be regarded as a monstrous embodiment of the

principle of fratricide, his mother a manifestation of the

harsh economy of revenge and the dark powers of the primal

claims of tribal kinship against the masculine world of the

warrior band or commitatus, and the dragon a kind of perverse

king hording his wealth in a morbid anti-hall. (17)

The progression Liuzza describes not only reflects the evolution of

human society from family to tribe to state, but also a widening scope

of victims, exhibiting once again the reverberating effects of Cain’s

rebellion. To varying degrees the characters presented negatively in

the poem represent different aspects of each of these monsters:

Onela’s betrayal shares features of the fratricidal principle, Hengest

and Ingeld that of revenge, Heremod of destructive hording. The last

of these presents the most complete contrast with the providential

doctrine of Hrothgar’s philosophy. In his sermon, Hrothgar warns

Beowulf lest he succumb to the dangers Heremod represented, for

Heremod ruled for his own good at the expense of his people—

ne gewéox hé him tó willan    ac tó wælfealle

ond tó déaðcwalum    Deniga léodum (1711–12)

and coveted his nation’s wealth—

28

hwæþere him on ferhþe gréow

bréosthord blódréow    nallas béagas geaf

Denum æfter dóme·    dréamléas gebád

þæt hé þæs gewinnes    wærc þrówade

léodbealo longsum (1718–22)

The prominence of ring-giving—and the poet’s harsh condemnation of

failing to practice it—is due to the poet’s conception of the

reciprocal nature of divine providence. Because kingship is viewed as

a divine gift, and because the king’s position is secured by the

loyalty and courage of his people, all the wealth that passes into his

hands is not his to keep. The plagues of the dragon and of Heremod

share the same ontological quality of hoarding, which is not only a

sin against the people, but a curse, and rebellion against the divine

order.

From a Christian perspective, rebellion against God is the core

of paganism. At this juncture it is necessary to define what is meant

by paganism, since the term can be applied either to religious ritual

or the customs derived from them. In Beowulf, the rituals appear only

indirectly in the poet’s denunciation (swylc wæs þéaw hyra haéþenra hyht,

178-79), while the traditions are so fundamental to the world in which

the action occurs that the poet’s criticism is more subtle. The poet’s

29

condemnation of pagan ritual is indicated in his use of the word

haéþen. The word appears only four other times in the poem, twice in

reference to Grendel (haéþene sáwle, 852) and twice to the dragon’s hoard

(haéðnum horde, 2216). Dr. Benjamin Slade, a senior lecturer at the

Linguistics Department at the University of Texas, comments on this

issue through the perspective of an essay written by Anne Payne,

titled “The Dane’s Prayers to the Gastbona”:34

Payne alerts us to the fact that '“heathen”, as the Beowulf

poet's metaphorical description of a state of mind, means

not only “non-Christian”, but also “dead”, “confined”,

“uncreative”. It refers to those who in the face of the

spiritual space open to man do not avail themselves of their

options, who do not in the face of symbolic and literal

death maintain a belief in the dimensions of possibility, in

the freedom to live, exert power, hear music, taste wine,

fight for joy. (Slade)

Payne concludes that the Dane’s pagan ritual indicates a failure in

imagination. This may be understood as a failure to distinguish

between the world of phenomena and noumena, placing value in the

material aspect of reality of objects, rather than their final,

34 Anne Payne,'Danes' Prayers to the "Gastbona"', NM 80-1979.

30

teleological end. The poet associates this impulse with violence and

with hoarding, and ultimately with destruction. Fire, the purest

expression of destructive power, is a consuming force that

extinguishes everything, even those who wield it. Sigemund’s dragon

melts in its own heat (wyrm hát gemealt, 897), and it is fire that will

consume Heorot and fire that consumes Beowulf’s kingdom. It this fire

heathen worship embraces:

Wá bið þaém ðe sceal

þurh slíðne níð         sáwle bescúfan

in fýres fæþm,         frófre ne wénan,

wihte gewendan (182–5)

Heathen worship signifies an obsession with power in its visible forms

—wealth and weaponry; it is the worship of the physical symbols of

power, which is idolatry. Idolatry achieves its ends essentially

through magic. It is the science of the efficacious sign, the

manipulation of representation for practical ends.35 This semiotic

failure is the impulse behind hoarding, the poet’s attitude toward

which has already been described.

Historically, this heathen impulse has been manifest in a

tendency to fetishize two symbols of power, the phallus and the sword:

35 David Hawkes. Introduction. Paradise Lost. By John Milton. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. xxii. Print

31

principles of creation and destruction. Yet the only generative

principle in Beowulf is that of the troll dam, mother of an eternal feud

threatening to annihilate the community from the inside. The dragon,

as a symbol of the hoarding principle, represents another anti-

prōcreātus; rather than producing wealth and health for the community,

the dragon’s hoard sterilizes material goods by hoarding them in the

ground. In the poem, these demonic forces are analogues to the human

failure of the imagination which cannot see beyond the sensible sign.

There is a mythic potency in the image of the last member of an

extinct race vainly guarding the physical embodiment of a nation’s

wealth, hoping: þæt hé lýtel fæc        longgestréona/ brúcan móste (2240-41). Yet

even he realizes admits that such riches are empty without a community

to share it, because: hwá sweord wege/ oððe fægrie        faéted waége/ dryncfæt

déore       duguð ellor séoc (2252-54). The poem demonstrates that objects

divorced from their telos are powerless. Appropriately, as Wiglaf enters

the dragon’s lair, the scene that confronts him is not of wealth but

decay: orcas stondan/ fyrnmanna fatu        feormendléase (2760-61). The drinking

vessel becomes a recurring motif in the final episode, an artifact of

social harmony rendered inoperative as an object of treasure.

Just as objects robbed of their proper use becomes impotent, the

text demonstrates that in themselves, objects lack sufficient cause to

32

determine their proper function. A cup does not make a party, and a

sword doesn’t make an army. Hrunting and Naegling both fail in their

application against the monsters, the former a matter of quality and

the later of quantity. For in order to defeat the troll dam Beowulf

requires a different kind of sword (the giant sword) and the dragon a

greater number of them (the aid of his retainers, whose cowardice results

in Beowulf’s death). The first implies a kind of divine revelation and

the second the need for the human community to reflect this revelation

in its moral behavior. If anything, this illustrates that in the

poet’s perspective, a sword in itself does not signify power. One

could even say that in the wrong context swords actually exert an

obverse power over the bearer, as demonstrated by Wiglaf and Finn,

both of whom possess weapons that mark them for death by avenging

kinsmen.36

Another example of this interpretive failure is in Grendel’s

inability to approach the giftstol: nó hé þone gifstól         grétan móste,/ máþðum for

metode,         né his myne wise (168-9). I favor Robinson's interpretation37

that here gretan has the same specific sense as in line 347: gif hé ús

36 In the case of Wiglaf this is merely an implied possibility, as retributionfor the murder of Eanmund by Wiglaf’s father would be expected by the former’sbrother Eadgils (2999-3005).37 The following argument is adapted from Benjamin Slade’s commentary on Fred Robinson’s essay “Why is Grendel's Not Greeting the Gifstol a Wræc Micel?” www.heorot.dk (Source).

33

geunnan wile/ þæt wé hine swá gódne         grétan móton. 346-47)38 where the scene

presented is that of a retainer approaching a king. This is the sense

given in Bosworth-Toller: “to address respectfully, salute a superior.”

Thus, Grendel’s refusal to submit to the proper order of things,

evident in his refusal to pay weregild several lines earlier (154-160),

renders him ineligible to participate in the salutary relationship the

giftstol represents. Without the proper relation [king>retainer], the

gift throne is simply a chair. To put place this against the broader

context, consider the Biblical source of the Cain and Abel story in

which the purported cause of the division is explicitly stated:

3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought

of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4 And

Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of

the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to

his offering: 5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not

respect. (Genesis 4:3-5)

While scholars have long debated over the specific cause of the Lord’s

disfavor with Cain’s sacrifice—whether the failure was in the nature

of it (Cain’s attitude) or the quality (vegetable versus livestock)—it

is clear in this passage that the objects sacrificed are simply means

38 C.f. 1646, 1816, and 2010.

34

to an end, that being to incur the Lord’s favor. 39 My comparison

suggests that objects viewed as ends-in-themselves are rendered

sterile, while objects used in their proper sense, as means-to-ends,

reward the user with all of that object’s expected virtues.

Here we arrive at the fundamental difference between the poem’s

pagan and Christian elements. Joseph Marshall’s essay, “Goldgyfan or

Goldwlance” provides compelling evidence for this perspective through

the examples of three Doctors of the Church. Marshall cites St.

Ambrose, who wrote in an exegesis of Luke 16:9, “Make unto you friends

of the mammon of iniquity,” asserting that riches are good (bona sunt)

to him who knows how to use them wisely, whereas riches are evil (recte

mala) to him who does not.40 Marshall asseverates that St. Ambrose

defined wealth as neither right nor wrong in itself, but simply a

means to an end; that, “Earthly riches are instruments, and for those

who know how to employ them properly, they pose no threat” (8).

Marshall’s compact summary of Ambrose’s argument is that the right use

of wealth is to help the needy and the poor so that God becomes the

debtor in a kind of “pious usury” (8). Next, Marshall includes a

sampling taken from the writings of John Chrysostom. In a sermon on

39 C.f. Proverbs 15:8, Isaiah 1:1340 The argument and all quoted material in this passage is taken from Marshall’s essay. De Nab., 7, trans. Charles Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (London: Orbis Books, 1983), 69 and 181. qtd. In Marshall, 8.

35

Luke 16, Chrysostom emphasizes that wealth is not evil, but the

illegitimate use of it is: “Money is called chremata so that we may use

it (chresometha), and not that it may use us.”41 Chrysostom supports his

statement by calling attention to the etymology of the Greek word for

money—chremata, which means, “use.” Marshal’s final example is

furnished by Augustine, who in his De Doctrina Christiana, argues that

material goods (temporalia) are created by God so that they may be

“used” on our return journey to Him. Marshall asserts that Augustine’s

position is that material goods such as gold and silver function as an

aid to our journey, so long as they are not “enjoyed” in this world

for their own sake: “If we wish to return to our native country where

we can be happy, we must use this world and not enjoy it.”42 Marshall

concludes that, given the prominence of Ambrose, Chrysostom, and

Augustine, it is possible that the Beowulf poet expresses their concept

of appropriate use instead of an outright condemnation.

To summarize: this Christian attitude towards material goods is

displayed in the virtuous characters of Beowulf; the cause of which, as I

have argued, stems from their acknowledgment of a divine source, ylda

waldend, which results in the prosperity of their nations. The

41 In Inscrip. Altaris 1, 2, trans. Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching, 88 and 190. qtd. In Marshall, 8.42De Doc. Christ, i, 3-4, trans. Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching, 109 and 200. qtd. In Marshall, 9.

36

contrasting ethic, as I have attempted to show, is typified in the

character Heremod, whose hoarding separates his people from the

blessings of God (ne gewéox hé him tó willan       ac tó wælfealle), which is

symptomatic of rebellion against God, the essence of heathenism

expressed in the poem. Recalling once again my thesis—that the poem

reflects the antithetical ideals of paganism and Christianity

simultaneously—it is apparent that this division is insufficient to

settle the matter in a satisfactory way. The matter of idolatry can be

dismissed out of hand as a straw man, since this clearly does not

reflect the poet’s values. Rather, the answer must be located in the

poet’s disposition towards Hrothgar and Beowulf, men the poet

describes with unqualified approbation.

The kernel of Christianity reflected in these characters is the

apprehension of and submission to, a divine Creator. These men are in,

but not of, the violent retributive economy into which they exist. In

the poet’s view, the nascent Christian element of Beowulf is fulfilled

in the doctrine of Christianity, specifically in the incarnation of

Christ, whose mission on earth was to demonstrate with perfection the

ideal relationship between man and God that these men attempt to

reflect in their limited capacity by the light of natural reason.43

43 “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” (Romans 2:15)

37

This is the view adopted by Thomas Hill, who characterizes these

characters as Noachites—“that is, gentiles who share the religious

heritage and knowledge of Noah and his sons without having access to

the knowledge of God that was granted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”

(202) . As Martin Carmago explains:

The juxtaposition of heroic virtue, on the one hand, and

innocent suffering and kin-killing on the other seems

incongruous only to one determined to find in the

glorification of the former the purpose of the poem. To a

less partial observer, they are but two sides of the same

coin, while to a Christian they are the same side viewed in

different lights. For as every Christian knows, and as the

poet keeps reminding us (104-14, 1261-6), the origin of all

strife was Cain's vengeful murder of his brother Abel. From

the poet's Christian perspective, all strife involves

kinsmen because all men are brothers. Any code which has for

its central tenet the duty of revenge is therefore, from

that same perspective, fundamentally defective. (130)

As Carmago puts it, the poet does not condone pagan ethics, but

approves how they are observed by his virtuous exemplars. As members

of a pagan society Hrothgar and Beowulf straddle two worlds, honoring

38

pagan ethics with temperance conditioned by an agnostic faith in God.

Therefore, the paganism of these men should be viewed as a secular,

rather than religious principle.

The reality of the matter is that in the pagan world of Beowulf and

for many years afterward, the unavoidable fact that order could only

be achieved by the sword. Consequently, a saint-king could not exist

in the world of Beowulf. The world of Beowulf is not conducive to such

heroes. Had the poet portrayed Hrothgar and Beowulf as New Testament

saints we would have a very different tale indeed. The poem instead

would recount how the Geats and Danes experienced the very Christian

habit of being slaughtered like lambs. It would have made a completely

different kind of story, less rooted in the world of mud and grit

familiar to the Anglo-Saxon retainer. Such tales would not be relevant

in England for many years, until the Anglo-Saxon retainer had become

more thoroughly Christianized. By the tenth century, once this had

occurred, we see that this is in fact what came about. Poets began to

jettison the Germanic heroic ethos in favor of hagiography. In the

tenth-century poem Aelfric’s Life of St. Edmund, for example, the hero is

of a completely different kind. Jocelyn Wagoner-Brown explains:

“[Edmund] himself does not die fighting, but refusing to fight. He

throws away his weapons and is beaten, pierced with arrows, and

39

executed by the Vikings (218). But for the Beowulf poet, and for his

time, that was not the story that needed to be told.

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