Beowulf

The Sale of Christianity When reading Beowulf, one must carefully consider the time era with which it is associated with. Consider, if you will, a life that has been based upon numerous fictitious Gods and Goddesses. Your life was truly fated to be whatever the Gods wanted it to be, anything could be blamed on, “fate.” The afterlife could have been possibly the hardest bit to swallow. Only soldiers dying in battle could gain admission …

…conversing the exact rules of either side, the recipients were free to fall in wherever they liked to in between the two beliefs. It seemed like the best of both worlds. In this way, the story of Beowulf seems to me to be a slow sale of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon people, where the people are free to chose the benefits of both values due to the consistencies and inconsistencies of pagan and Christian elements.