Beowulf and the Pitfalls of Piety

BEOWULF AND THE PITFALLS OF PIETY JOHN HALVERSON One of the oldest and easily the favourite of the problems of Beowulf is its Christian element. In recent years it has loomed particularly large, provoking energetic discussion and re-examination. In Lewis E. Nicholson 's recent An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism (Notre Dame, 1963), no fewer than ten of its eighteen articles are concerned with the problem. And by far the greatest energy has gone into wide-ranging and freewheeling attempts to establish the "essential Christianity" of the poem. A current general interest in mediaeval allegory has no doubt provided a stimulus for those Beowulf critics no longer content with the simple "Christian colouring" formula of an earlier generation. But whatever the cause, the result has been an extraordinary, and perhaps unprecedented , critical disarray-ranging from minor text-bending to something close to sheer fantasy. Untenable assumptions about both the poem and its audience are accepted with regularity and without question, and even very careful and scholarly writers resOrt to specious argument, farfetched parallels, and rhetorical legerdemain. The basic problem is, notoriously, that Beowulf, though written down in a Christian era and presumably intended for a Christian audience, has an exasperating paucity of overt and unambiguous Christian references (exasperating to one body of readers, anyway, who seem maddened by the dearth of harps). Moreover, the overt allusions are to the Old Testament, not to the New Testament or to specifically Christian doctrine. ReSisting speculation about a Judaic conversion of AngloSaxon England, however, all readers accept a Christian source for the references to Cain and Abel; and most readers also accept as Christian the references to the giants before the Bood and such expressions as deofol, helle heefton, helle gast, etc. Now it has also been increasingly taken for granted that the god of Beowulf is a Christian deity and that Hrothgar's "sermon," as it is tendentiously called, is a Christian homily on the sin of pride. Neither of these assumptions will bear examination, though both are central to a Christian reading of the poem. Miss Hamilton explains the assumption of a Christian deity as follows: "Among the beliefs that underlie the poet's treatment of his heathen Volume xxxv, Number 3, April, 1966 BEOWULF AND THE PITFALLS OF PIE'IY 261 narratives, the most inclusive is the Christian doctrine of Providence, the conception of God as having governed all races of mankind since the creation, and as bestowing all favours, natural or supernatural, that men enjoy.'" And Father McNamee writes similarly: The god referred to throughout by Hrothgar and Beowulf alike is the one, providential God of the Christians, the Creator and Lord of the whole universe and the Creator and Final Judge of man as well.... In estimating the effect of the new Christian revelation upon the poem, it is important to notice that the two most fundamental certitudes which that revelation provided-certitude about man's beginnings and about his end-play an important part in the poem. Professor Gilson has reminded us that no pagan philosopher ever arrived at a clear idea either of Creation as the beginning of life nor of the final judgment and man's destiny after death? vVhat is peculiarly Christian about such a deity? Of the Chinese supreme being, Shang-Ti, it is said, "He represents the moral world order, and justly rules the world he has created and maintains; . .. he has proclaimed laws and prohibitions and punishes evil-doers.'" In Plato's Laws IV (Jowett) we find a similar deity: God, as the old tradition declares, holding in His hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, travels according to His nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of His end. Justice always accompanies Him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who would be happy holds fast, and follows in her company with all humility and order; but he who is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth or rank, or beauty, who is young and foolish, and has a soul hot with insolence, and thinks that he has no need of any guide or ruler, but...