Some slippage in practice (ll. 175-88)

[bdNM]

I wondered about the following passage from the poem.  After Grendel has been attacking the Danes for a while, they resort to pagan practices.  The translation is Kennedy's.

"From time to time in their heathen temples

paying homage they offered prayer

that the Slayer of souls would send them succor

from all the torment that troubled the folk.

Such was the fashion and such the faith

of their heathen hearts that they looked to hell,

not knowing the Maker, the mighty Judge,

nor how to worship the Wielder of glory,

the Lord of heaven, the God of hosts.

Woe unto him who in fierce affliction

shall plunge his soul in the fiery pit

with no hope of mercy or healing change;

but well with the soul that at death seeks God,

and finds his peace in his Father's bosom."

When first I read this section, I wondered about this Slayer of souls, and what was intended.  The author of the poem, writing in the 8th c. or later, is likely a Christian author looking back on a pagan time.  He certainly considers this "Slayer of souls" (gastbona) equivalent to Satan.  I'm thinking that the Danes, though, around 500, are not yet converted (or many are not) to Christianity, and so go to their own gods for comfort, which here gets equated with demon worship.  Of course, Beowulf is portrayed as being Christian and prays to the Christian god, but he apparently is saving a people who are largely pagan.  One thing to look for in reading through the epic are all the references made to the Judaeo-Christian God, and one way to read the work is as a cautionary tale -- in the uncertain world of the Germanic hero, the only certainty is God and Christ. 

Below is a passage from Gregory of Tours about the conversion of Northumbria in England, about 582 A.D.  The spirit that informs this passage seems to me to be a lot like the spirit that informs this section of Beowulf.  I'm afraid that I don't know the translator here.

The conversion of Northumbria

[Edwin, the king of Northumbria, urged by his Christian wife Ethelberga, and by the bishop Paulinus,] answered that he was both willing and bound to receive the new faith which the bishop taught, but that he wished, nevertheless, to confer about it with his principal friends and counselors, to the end that, if they also were of his opinion, they might all be cleansed together in Christ, the Fount of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine and the new worship that was preached.

To which the chief of his priests, Coifi, immediately answered: "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for verily I declare to you that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I, and who are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for anything, they would rather forward me who has been more careful to serve them. It follows, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached to us better and more efficacious, we should immediately receive them without any delay' "

Another of the king's chief men, approving of Coifi's words and exhortations, presently added: " The present life man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.'

The other elders and king's counselors, by divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect., But Coifi added that he, wished more attentively to hear Paulinus' discourse concerning the God whom he preached. So the bishop having spoken by the king's command at greater length, Coifi, hearing his words,- cried out: "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshiped, because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I freely confess that such evident, truth appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated out reaping any benefits from them."

In short, the king publicly gave his permission to Paulinus to preach the gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declare he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, the high priest answered, ,I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which been given me by the true God ? "

Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, and mounting the latter, he set out to destroy the idols ; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to ride on any beast but a mare. Having, therefore, girt on a sword and carrying a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding him, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire.

[Redcatlady]

---

bdNM wrote:

I wondered about the following passage from the poem.  After Grendel has been attacking the Danes for a while, they resort to pagan practices.  The translation is Kennedy's.

"From time to time in their heathen temples

paying homage they offered prayer

that the Slayer of souls would send them succor

from all the torment that troubled the folk.

Such was the fashion and such the faith

of their heathen hearts that they looked to hell,

not knowing the Maker, the mighty Judge,

nor how to worship the Wielder of glory,

the Lord of heaven, the God of hosts.

Woe unto him who in fierce affliction

shall plunge his soul in the fiery pit

with no hope of mercy or healing change;

but well with the soul that at death seeks God,

and finds his peace in his Father's bosom."

When first I read this section, I wondered about this Slayer of souls, and what was intended.  The author of the poem, writing in the 8th c. or later, is likely a Christian author looking back on a pagan time.  He certainly considers this "Slayer of souls" (gastbona) equivalent to Satan.  I'm thinking that the Danes, though, around 500, are not yet converted (or many are not) to Christianity, and so go to their own gods for comfort, which here gets equated with demon worship.  Of course, Beowulf is portrayed as being Christian and prays to the Christian god, but he apparently is saving a people who are largely pagan.  One thing to look for in reading through the epic are all the references made to the Judaeo-Christian God, and one way to read the work is as a cautionary tale -- in the uncertain world of the Germanic hero, the only certainty is God and Christ. 

Below is a passage from Gregory of Tours about the conversion of Northumbria in England, about 582 A.D.  The spirit that informs this passage seems to me to be a lot like the spirit that informs this section of Beowulf.  I'm afraid that I don't know the translator here.

The conversion of Northumbria

[Edwin, the king of Northumbria, urged by his Christian wife Ethelberga, and by the bishop Paulinus,] answered that he was both willing and bound to receive the new faith which the bishop taught, but that he wished, nevertheless, to confer about it with his principal friends and counselors, to the end that, if they also were of his opinion, they might all be cleansed together in Christ, the Fount of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine and the new worship that was preached.

To which the chief of his priests, Coifi, immediately answered: "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for verily I declare to you that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I, and who are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for anything, they would rather forward me who has been more careful to serve them. It follows, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached to us better and more efficacious, we should immediately receive them without any delay' "

Another of the king's chief men, approving of Coifi's words and exhortations, presently added: " The present life man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.'

The other elders and king's counselors, by divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect., But Coifi added that he, wished more attentively to hear Paulinus' discourse concerning the God whom he preached. So the bishop having spoken by the king's command at greater length, Coifi, hearing his words,- cried out: "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshiped, because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I freely confess that such evident, truth appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated out reaping any benefits from them."

In short, the king publicly gave his permission to Paulinus to preach the gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declare he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, the high priest answered, ,I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which been given me by the true God ? "

Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, and mounting the latter, he set out to destroy the idols ; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to ride on any beast but a mare. Having, therefore, girt on a sword and carrying a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding him, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire.

---

Andy Orchard writes about this passage on pp. 152-153:  (Bolding of phrase in the translation is mine, to help drive home his point)

At times they vowed at heathen temples homage to idols, asked in words that the spirit-slayer grant them succor against their dire distress.  Such was their custom, the hope of heathens:  they recalled hell in their hearts.  They did not know the Creator, the Judge of Deeds, nor did they recognise the Lord God, nor truly did they know how to praise the Protector of the Heavens, the Ruler of Glory.  It shall be woe for the one who must through cruel emnity thrust his soul into the fire's embrace, not hope for comfort, or any change; it shall be well for the one who mays eek the Lord after his death-day, and ask for protection in the father's embrace.

According to Orchard, "The damning phrase 'hope of heathens' [Anglo-Saxon word that I can't type follows, line 179a) says it all; in Christian eyes, heathens have no hope: 'to be a heathen is sin enough'.  But, as we have seen, the Beowulf-poet often seems to sanctify his heathen references, and this, the most explicit reference to heathen practice in the entire poem, is no exception:  the fervent variation on titles for God (there are five such in the three lines 180b-3a) is presumably intended to have an apotropaic effect.  The stark choice between Christianity and paganism is spelt out as that between 'the fire's embrace' (Anglo-Saxon word, line 185a) and the father's embrace (Anglo-Saxon word, line 188a); for some it shall be 'well' (wel, line 186b), for others 'woe' (wa, line 183b).  Such parallel structures .....and other ornamental devices ..... [how I wish I could type this script!] clearly mark this passage out as a set-piece, but the content of these lines has proved difficult for some to swallow; as Tolkien put it: 'unless my ear and judgment are wholly at fault, they have a ring and measure unlike their context, and indeed unlike that of the poem as a whole'.  Tolkien's 'ear and judgment' are justly celebrated, and it is perhaps no surprise that this brief passage contains two half-lines that [Alan J.] Bliss was unable to make comply with his complicated metrical system.  That the two half-lines in question clearly have the same structure ....... which Hal Momma detects in no fewer than eighteen other cases in the extant Old English poetic corpus, might suggest that the problem lies with Bliss's system, were it not also for the fact that the same structure is quite widely attested in Old English homiletic prose, and may ultimately derive from the Beatitudes.  Once again, the Beowulf-poet seems to be sanctifying his pagan content through Christian language."

Is there any way I could be able to type in Anglo-Saxon script?  I feel so inadequate with this post.

Redcatlady

[MissElinorDash…]

I found a passage further on that makes it seem that king Hrothgar is a Christian. 

"For this sight let us swiftly offer thanks

to the Almighty!  Much have I endured

of dire grief from Grendel, but God may always

work, Shepherd of Glory, wonder upon wonder."(928-931) 

Could it be that the nobility were not Pagan as their country men were?

---

bdNM wrote:

I wondered about the following passage from the poem.  After Grendel has been attacking the Danes for a while, they resort to pagan practices.  The translation is Kennedy's.

"From time to time in their heathen temples

paying homage they offered prayer

that the Slayer of souls would send them succor

from all the torment that troubled the folk.

Such was the fashion and such the faith

of their heathen hearts that they looked to hell,

not knowing the Maker, the mighty Judge,

nor how to worship the Wielder of glory,

the Lord of heaven, the God of hosts.

Woe unto him who in fierce affliction

shall plunge his soul in the fiery pit

with no hope of mercy or healing change;

but well with the soul that at death seeks God,

and finds his peace in his Father's bosom."

When first I read this section, I wondered about this Slayer of souls, and what was intended.  The author of the poem, writing in the 8th c. or later, is likely a Christian author looking back on a pagan time.  He certainly considers this "Slayer of souls" (gastbona) equivalent to Satan.  I'm thinking that the Danes, though, around 500, are not yet converted (or many are not) to Christianity, and so go to their own gods for comfort, which here gets equated with demon worship.  Of course, Beowulf is portrayed as being Christian and prays to the Christian god, but he apparently is saving a people who are largely pagan.  One thing to look for in reading through the epic are all the references made to the Judaeo-Christian God, and one way to read the work is as a cautionary tale -- in the uncertain world of the Germanic hero, the only certainty is God and Christ. 

[bdNM]

Given the time period (c. 500 AD), it seems unlikely that any of the Danes, or even our hero, Beowulf, would be Christian.  The author, though, is clearly Christian -- some think he was a monk who loved the old heroic stories and saw a means of setting them in a Christian context.  We know that these stories were popular even in the monasteries.  The cleric, Alcuin of York, wrote a famous diatribe against the reading of heroic poetry in the monasteries entitled "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"  In a way, this reference to them going to the heathen temples suggests a recent conversion, and may speak to an issue in the poet's own day.  Though nominally Christian, Anglo-Saxon England must have had a lot of backsliders.  The passage, for some reason, resonates (to me) with the back sliding the Jews do in the desert, when Moses is on the mountain, and they make a golden calf.  In times of stress, people are likely to fall back on other, earlier ways of coping. For the author, though, that is not the right way to go.

[Redcatlady]

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Redcatlady wrote:

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bdNM wrote:

I wondered about the following passage from the poem.  After Grendel has been attacking the Danes for a while, they resort to pagan practices.  The translation is Kennedy's.

"From time to time in their heathen temples

paying homage they offered prayer

that the Slayer of souls would send them succor

from all the torment that troubled the folk.

Such was the fashion and such the faith

of their heathen hearts that they looked to hell,

not knowing the Maker, the mighty Judge,

nor how to worship the Wielder of glory,

the Lord of heaven, the God of hosts.

Woe unto him who in fierce affliction

shall plunge his soul in the fiery pit

with no hope of mercy or healing change;

but well with the soul that at death seeks God,

and finds his peace in his Father's bosom."

When first I read this section, I wondered about this Slayer of souls, and what was intended.  The author of the poem, writing in the 8th c. or later, is likely a Christian author looking back on a pagan time.  He certainly considers this "Slayer of souls" (gastbona) equivalent to Satan.  I'm thinking that the Danes, though, around 500, are not yet converted (or many are not) to Christianity, and so go to their own gods for comfort, which here gets equated with demon worship.  Of course, Beowulf is portrayed as being Christian and prays to the Christian god, but he apparently is saving a people who are largely pagan.  One thing to look for in reading through the epic are all the references made to the Judaeo-Christian God, and one way to read the work is as a cautionary tale -- in the uncertain world of the Germanic hero, the only certainty is God and Christ. 

Below is a passage from Gregory of Tours about the conversion of Northumbria in England, about 582 A.D.  The spirit that informs this passage seems to me to be a lot like the spirit that informs this section of Beowulf.  I'm afraid that I don't know the translator here.

The conversion of Northumbria

[Edwin, the king of Northumbria, urged by his Christian wife Ethelberga, and by the bishop Paulinus,] answered that he was both willing and bound to receive the new faith which the bishop taught, but that he wished, nevertheless, to confer about it with his principal friends and counselors, to the end that, if they also were of his opinion, they might all be cleansed together in Christ, the Fount of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine and the new worship that was preached.

To which the chief of his priests, Coifi, immediately answered: "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for verily I declare to you that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I, and who are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for anything, they would rather forward me who has been more careful to serve them. It follows, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached to us better and more efficacious, we should immediately receive them without any delay' "

Another of the king's chief men, approving of Coifi's words and exhortations, presently added: " The present life man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.'

The other elders and king's counselors, by divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect., But Coifi added that he, wished more attentively to hear Paulinus' discourse concerning the God whom he preached. So the bishop having spoken by the king's command at greater length, Coifi, hearing his words,- cried out: "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshiped, because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I freely confess that such evident, truth appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated out reaping any benefits from them."

In short, the king publicly gave his permission to Paulinus to preach the gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declare he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, the high priest answered, ,I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which been given me by the true God ? "

Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, and mounting the latter, he set out to destroy the idols ; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to ride on any beast but a mare. Having, therefore, girt on a sword and carrying a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding him, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire.

---

Andy Orchard writes about this passage on pp. 152-153:  (Bolding of phrase in the translation is mine, to help drive home his point)

At times they vowed at heathen temples homage to idols, asked in words that the spirit-slayer grant them succor against their dire distress.  Such was their custom, the hope of heathens:  they recalled hell in their hearts.  They did not know the Creator, the Judge of Deeds, nor did they recognise the Lord God, nor truly did they know how to praise the Protector of the Heavens, the Ruler of Glory.  It shall be woe for the one who must through cruel emnity thrust his soul into the fire's embrace, not hope for comfort, or any change; it shall be well for the one who mays eek the Lord after his death-day, and ask for protection in the father's embrace.

According to Orchard, "The damning phrase 'hope of heathens' [Anglo-Saxon word that I can't type follows, line 179a) says it all; in Christian eyes, heathens have no hope: 'to be a heathen is sin enough'.  But, as we have seen, the Beowulf-poet often seems to sanctify his heathen references, and this, the most explicit reference to heathen practice in the entire poem, is no exception:  the fervent variation on titles for God (there are five such in the three lines 180b-3a) is presumably intended to have an apotropaic effect.  The stark choice between Christianity and paganism is spelt out as that between 'the fire's embrace' (fyres fæþm, line 185a) and the father's embrace (fæder fæþmum, line 188a); for some it shall be 'well' (wel, line 186b), for others 'woe' (wa, line 183b).  Such parallel structures (and there are others, such as the pattern ne cuþon . . . ne wiston . . . ne cuþon in lines 180b-2b) and other ornamental devices (such as the soundplay on sliðne nið, line 184a)  clearly mark this passage out as a set-piece, but the content of these lines has proved difficult for some to swallow; as Tolkien put it: 'unless my ear and judgment are wholly at fault, they have a ring and measure unlike their context, and indeed unlike that of the poem as a whole'.  Tolkien's 'ear and judgment' are justly celebrated, and it is perhaps no surprise that this brief passage contains two half-lines that [Alan J.] Bliss was unable to make comply with his complicated metrical system.  That the two half-lines in question clearly have the same structure (Wa bið þæm ðe sceal, line 183b, and wel bið þæm þe mot, line 186b) Hal Momma detects in no fewer than eighteen other cases in the extant Old English poetic corpus, might suggest that the problem lies with Bliss's system, were it not also for the fact that the same structure is quite widely attested in Old English homiletic prose, and may ultimately derive from the Beatitudes.  Once again, the Beowulf-poet seems to be sanctifying his pagan content through Christian language."

Redcatlady

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[Redcatlady]

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Redcatlady wrote:

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Redcatlady wrote:

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bdNM wrote:

I wondered about the following passage from the poem.  After Grendel has been attacking the Danes for a while, they resort to pagan practices.  The translation is Kennedy's.

"From time to time in their heathen temples

paying homage they offered prayer

that the Slayer of souls would send them succor

from all the torment that troubled the folk.

Such was the fashion and such the faith

of their heathen hearts that they looked to hell,

not knowing the Maker, the mighty Judge,

nor how to worship the Wielder of glory,

the Lord of heaven, the God of hosts.

Woe unto him who in fierce affliction

shall plunge his soul in the fiery pit

with no hope of mercy or healing change;

but well with the soul that at death seeks God,

and finds his peace in his Father's bosom."

When first I read this section, I wondered about this Slayer of souls, and what was intended.  The author of the poem, writing in the 8th c. or later, is likely a Christian author looking back on a pagan time.  He certainly considers this "Slayer of souls" (gastbona) equivalent to Satan.  I'm thinking that the Danes, though, around 500, are not yet converted (or many are not) to Christianity, and so go to their own gods for comfort, which here gets equated with demon worship.  Of course, Beowulf is portrayed as being Christian and prays to the Christian god, but he apparently is saving a people who are largely pagan.  One thing to look for in reading through the epic are all the references made to the Judaeo-Christian God, and one way to read the work is as a cautionary tale -- in the uncertain world of the Germanic hero, the only certainty is God and Christ. 

Below is a passage from Gregory of Tours about the conversion of Northumbria in England, about 582 A.D.  The spirit that informs this passage seems to me to be a lot like the spirit that informs this section of Beowulf.  I'm afraid that I don't know the translator here.

The conversion of Northumbria

[Edwin, the king of Northumbria, urged by his Christian wife Ethelberga, and by the bishop Paulinus,] answered that he was both willing and bound to receive the new faith which the bishop taught, but that he wished, nevertheless, to confer about it with his principal friends and counselors, to the end that, if they also were of his opinion, they might all be cleansed together in Christ, the Fount of Life. Paulinus consenting, the king did as he said; for holding a council with the wise men, he asked of every one in particular what he thought of the new doctrine and the new worship that was preached.

To which the chief of his priests, Coifi, immediately answered: "O king, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for verily I declare to you that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who receive greater favors from you, and are more preferred than I, and who are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if the gods were good for anything, they would rather forward me who has been more careful to serve them. It follows, therefore, that if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached to us better and more efficacious, we should immediately receive them without any delay' "

Another of the king's chief men, approving of Coifi's words and exhortations, presently added: " The present life man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.'

The other elders and king's counselors, by divine inspiration, spoke to the same effect., But Coifi added that he, wished more attentively to hear Paulinus' discourse concerning the God whom he preached. So the bishop having spoken by the king's command at greater length, Coifi, hearing his words,- cried out: "I have long since been sensible that there was nothing in that which we worshiped, because the more diligently I sought after truth in that worship the less I found it. But now I freely confess that such evident, truth appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness. For which reason I advise, O king, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those temples and altars which we have consecrated out reaping any benefits from them."

In short, the king publicly gave his permission to Paulinus to preach the gospel, and, renouncing idolatry, declare he received the faith of Christ: and when he inquired high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols, with the enclosures that were about them, the high priest answered, ,I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others, through the wisdom which been given me by the true God ? "

Then immediately, in contempt of his former superstitions, desired the king to furnish him with arms and a stallion, and mounting the latter, he set out to destroy the idols ; for it was not lawful before for the high priest either to carry arms or to ride on any beast but a mare. Having, therefore, girt on a sword and carrying a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and proceeded to the idols. The multitude, beholding him, concluded he was distracted; but he lost no time, for as soon as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which he held. And rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he commanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire.

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Andy Orchard writes about this passage on pp. 152-153:  (Bolding of phrase in the translation is mine, to help drive home his point)

At times they vowed at heathen temples homage to idols, asked in words that the spirit-slayer grant them succor against their dire distress.  Such was their custom, the hope of heathens:  they recalled hell in their hearts.  They did not know the Creator, the Judge of Deeds, nor did they recognise the Lord God, nor truly did they know how to praise the Protector of the Heavens, the Ruler of Glory.  It shall be woe for the one who must through cruel emnity thrust his soul into the fire's embrace, not hope for comfort, or any change; it shall be well for the one who mays eek the Lord after his death-day, and ask for protection in the father's embrace.

According to Orchard, "The damning phrase 'hope of heathens' (hæþenra hyht, line 179a) says it all; in Christian eyes, heathens have no hope: 'to be a heathen is sin enough'.  But, as we have seen, the Beowulf-poet often seems to sanctify his heathen references, and this, the most explicit reference to heathen practice in the entire poem, is no exception:  the fervent variation on titles for God (there are five such in the three lines 180b-3a) is presumably intended to have an apotropaic effect.  The stark choice between Christianity and paganism is spelt out as that between 'the fire's embrace' (fyres fæþm, line 185a) and the father's embrace (fæder fæþmum, line 188a); for some it shall be 'well' (wel, line 186b), for others 'woe' (wa, line 183b).  Such parallel structures (and there are others, such as the pattern ne cuþon . . . ne wiston . . . ne cuþon in lines 180b-2b) and other ornamental devices (such as the soundplay on sliðne nið, line 184a)  clearly mark this passage out as a set-piece, but the content of these lines has proved difficult for some to swallow; as Tolkien put it: 'unless my ear and judgment are wholly at fault, they have a ring and measure unlike their context, and indeed unlike that of the poem as a whole'.  Tolkien's 'ear and judgment' are justly celebrated, and it is perhaps no surprise that this brief passage contains two half-lines that [Alan J.] Bliss was unable to make comply with his complicated metrical system.  That the two half-lines in question clearly have the same structure (Wa bið þæm ðe sceal, line 183b, and wel bið þæm þe mot, line 186b) Hal Momma detects in no fewer than eighteen other cases in the extant Old English poetic corpus, might suggest that the problem lies with Bliss's system, were it not also for the fact that the same structure is quite widely attested in Old English homiletic prose, and may ultimately derive from the Beatitudes.  Once again, the Beowulf-poet seems to be sanctifying his pagan content through Christian language."

Redcatlady

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[rbehr]

I noticed the many Christian comments made by the poet in Beowulf.  It struck me that these comments read as if they could have been "grafted" into an earlier poem/text.  

I'm using the Norton Critical Edition and there is an article by Thomas Hill, The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf, that discusses the religious nature of the poem.  Here are a couple of the points made by Hill:

- Most comparable medieval texts are either militantly Christian or unapologetically pagan or secular in their viewpoint -  Beowulf is neither.

- Looking at it from the poet's viewpoint, Hill thinks the Beowulf poet is presenting a "radical" synthesis of page and Christian history.  He respected his ancient Germanic heroic legend and the recent arrival of his Christian Church.

- Some Christians of that age totally rejected pagan history and some had a more receptive attitude toward their page heritage. 

It seems  to make sense that there would be a variety of different viewpoints. 

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bdNM wrote:

Given the time period (c. 500 AD), it seems unlikely that any of the Danes, or even our hero, Beowulf, would be Christian.  The author, though, is clearly Christian -- some think he was a monk who loved the old heroic stories and saw a means of setting them in a Christian context.  We know that these stories were popular even in the monasteries.  The cleric, Alcuin of York, wrote a famous diatribe against the reading of heroic poetry in the monasteries entitled "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"  In a way, this reference to them going to the heathen temples suggests a recent conversion, and may speak to an issue in the poet's own day.  Though nominally Christian, Anglo-Saxon England must have had a lot of backsliders.  The passage, for some reason, resonates (to me) with the back sliding the Jews do in the desert, when Moses is on the mountain, and they make a golden calf.  In times of stress, people are likely to fall back on other, earlier ways of coping. For the author, though, that is not the right way to go.

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[bdNM]

Thanks for the posting -- some of the works are explicitly Christian -- they are Christian apologetics or sermons.  But poetry was largely the realm of the bards, who had largely told stories of heroes of the pagan past.  Even in explicitly religious poems like "The Dream of the Rood" in which someone dreams about Christ on the cross -- we don't have a Jesus crucified as much as a Germanic hero leaping onto the cross as a Viking leaps aboard a ship.  I think that the poet here is taking a pagan heroic story, and trying to view it through a Christian lens.  And so we have a sense of the futility of life (certainly from a Christian view, the old Germanic ways, with the Norse gods, would seem truly futile).  And yet, even with the hope of the afterlife that Christianity offers, and a God who doesn't die (unlike Thor and Wotan), the feeling of loss and futility is there. And this will really come home in the final section of the poem. 

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rbehr wrote:

I noticed the many Christian comments made by the poet in Beowulf.  It struck me that these comments read as if they could have been "grafted" into an earlier poem/text.  

I'm using the Norton Critical Edition and there is an article by Thomas Hill, The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf, that discusses the religious nature of the poem.  Here are a couple of the points made by Hill:

- Most comparable medieval texts are either militantly Christian or unapologetically pagan or secular in their viewpoint -  Beowulf is neither.

- Looking at it from the poet's viewpoint, Hill thinks the Beowulf poet is presenting a "radical" synthesis of page and Christian history.  He respected his ancient Germanic heroic legend and the recent arrival of his Christian Church.

- Some Christians of that age totally rejected pagan history and some had a more receptive attitude toward their page heritage. 

It seems  to make sense that there would be a variety of different viewpoints. 

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bdNM wrote:

Given the time period (c. 500 AD), it seems unlikely that any of the Danes, or even our hero, Beowulf, would be Christian.  The author, though, is clearly Christian -- some think he was a monk who loved the old heroic stories and saw a means of setting them in a Christian context.  We know that these stories were popular even in the monasteries.  The cleric, Alcuin of York, wrote a famous diatribe against the reading of heroic poetry in the monasteries entitled "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"  In a way, this reference to them going to the heathen temples suggests a recent conversion, and may speak to an issue in the poet's own day.  Though nominally Christian, Anglo-Saxon England must have had a lot of backsliders.  The passage, for some reason, resonates (to me) with the back sliding the Jews do in the desert, when Moses is on the mountain, and they make a golden calf.  In times of stress, people are likely to fall back on other, earlier ways of coping. For the author, though, that is not the right way to go.

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