Beowulf and The Intent of Christians to Convert Pagans Into Christianit

Before England was the superpower it is known to be today, it was a small country inhabited by many a(prenominal) groups of race over time. First to England came the Celts, then the romans, and then the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons travelled to England from the northern countries of Germany Norway and Sweden. When they arrived, they brought their gods with them. The Anglo Saxons religion consisted of multiple gods and goddesses and their own ruling of Heaven and what it would be like. The Anglo Saxons also loved poetry, and they utilize it to keep track of the history of their people. Beowulf is an epic poem that was past level by the Anglo Saxons from generation to generation. The poem is infused with multiple elements of their pagan religion. However, when they immigrated to England and began to tell the recital of Beowulf, the local inhabitants began to listen and put their twist on it. Douglas Wilson states Through a heroic poem about pagans that never mentions Christ, B eowulf is the opposite of syncretistic compromise. It is compose to highlight the treachery as a way of support that disconcert these pagan societies from within, and the greed and plunder as a way of life that afflicted them from without (whether they were the marauders of the victims.) (30) In an attempt to convert the Anglo Saxons, the Christians of that time changed Beowulf and incorporated many elements of Christianity into the poem. By incorporating elements of Christianity such as portraying Grendel as a descending(prenominal) of Cain, mentioning the one true Gods name, and portraying the hero Beowulf as a Christ figure, the Roman Catholic Christians hoped to convert the Anglo Saxons to Christianity and instill in them the power and hope of the one true God. First, the Christian... ...nd phrases into the characters mouths, and relating the hero, Beowulf, to the Christian hero, the Nazarene Christ, the Roman Catholic Christians hoped to convert the pagans to Christianit y and lead them toward what they believed to be the one and only truth, Jesus Christ. Works CitedBeowulf. The Longman Anthology British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. Vol. 1. innovative York Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 36-107. Print. Bloom, Harold. Blooms Guides Beowulf. New York Infobase Publishing, 2008. Print.Fry, Donald. The Beowulf Poet. Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Print. Streissguth, Thomas. Understanding Beowulf. Farmington Hills Lucent Books, 2004. Print.The MacArthur Study Bible. Ed. John MacArthur. Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2006. Print. Wilson, Douglas. The Anglo-Saxon Evangel. Touchstone. July/ high-minded (2007). 30-34. Web.