Reconciling Ingrained Traditions with Newly Emerging Christianity

Before the eighth century, England was a pagan society, the English originated from a society marred in idolatry and polytheism. The intermingling of Christian and pagan elements in Beowulf are consistent with the attitudes toward religion that are found in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Beowulf was written in the Middle Ages (500-1000) on Scandinavia, which was a highly pagan society, however the narrator is telling this story within the timeframe of medieval Anglo-Saxon Britain, which was undergoing Christianization. Hence, within the author’s structure of the poem bear a resemblance to the society presented in Bede. Both books while highlighting the intermingling of Christian and pagan elements did not shy away from praising Christianity and condemning polytheism. For Bede, the emergence of Christianity created a civilized Britain different from the violence that was inherent in the pagan past. Even though the two authors presented Christianity positively, the frictions between the emergence of Christianity and the pre-existing pagan customs was apparent. Therefore, as Christianity spread the people often slipped back into pagan practices eliminating the idea of a pure Christian practice instead in its place emerged a hybrization of the pagan customs and Christian beliefs. This intermingling in both cases reflected the reality of the British people at the time as they did not depart from their pagan past immediately. What is evident within both writings is the pagan culture that pre-dated Christianity in England continued to persist during the eight century or often took new forms.

The intermingling of Christian and pagan elements visible in Bede are persistent in the Beowulf poem from the start. The ...

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...hin the portrayals of Bede and Beowulf, Christianity and pagan beliefs were not antithetical even though the ideologies were incongruous. Radical discontinuity of pagan practices did not occur as Christianity spread. This is because Christianity did not occur in a vacuum but emerged within an already pagan world that had certain sets of traditions and beliefs. Therefore, an ethos that develops is one in which the church has to reconcile the presence of pagan practices (at least temporarily) until the English people are ready to fully engross in the practice of “authentic” Christianity.

Bibliography

Bede, David Hugh Farmer, R. E. Latham, Egbert, Bede, and Cuthbert. Ecclesiastical History of the English People; With Bede's Letter to Egbert. London, England: Penguin, 1990.

Beowulf. Trans. R.M. Liuzza. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2013.