Christian and Pagan and Good and Evil in Beowulf

	In Beowulf, we find a fundamentally pagan story transformed by Christian 
themes.  In examining the tale we should therefore expect that the Christian alterer would 
leave some parts of the work as pagan, either by missing a pagan theme, or in deference 
to the continuity of the tale.  As we look at the idea of good and evil as differently 
defined by pagan and Christian values, we find each ideal of good and evil strongly 
embodied in the characters of Beowulf and Grendel respectively.  
	Beowulf is both the pagan hero who is considered good because of his immense 
abilities and his ability to benefit his allies, and the Christian hero who praises God at 
every turn.  Yet since this originally Nordic barbarian tale is filled with Beowulf bragging 
and telling stories of his bravery, the Christian retoucher must choose between leaving 
Beowulf as lacking Christian humility, or editing out almost half the tale.
	On the other hand it is enough, in pagan thinking, for Grendel to be a powerful, 
dishonorable enemy for him to be called evil.  Clearly the text about Grendel being 
banished from God and a descendent of Cain is all insertion, and this insertion brings to 
Grendel a very standard Christian view of evil.
	Besides the Christian teller of Beowulf having placed Grendel in the role of 
Satan, what other notions of evil appear in the text, or is Grendel such a focal point that 
he absorbs all bad will, leaving everyone else as beatific?  He is not.  In the ending of the 
tale, as Beowulf finds himself unable to defeat the 'dragon' alone, all his retainers but 
Wiglaf flee into the forest, ready to save their lives over their king's.  Here the Pagan 
notion of evil is spelled out for us: that it is better to die in battle than to outlive one's 
lord.  In addition, the notion of evil as ungratefulness appears as Wiglaf scolds the 
soldiers who fled, reminding them of Beowulf's generosity.  This scene is reminiscent of 
Telemakhos reminding the suitors to Penelope of the gentle wisdom of Odysseus' rule.


Boethius: Christian Plato

	Boethius seems to me a Christian Plato who has replaced "the Good" with the 
Christian God.  Plato's dialectic is made the style of the Consolation, despite the fact that 
Boethius is in jail, and must invent a fellow philosopher.  Both philosophers count poetry 
as something far less than reasoning, albeit for differing reasons.  Plato's conception of 
"the Good" as a larger set than reality is echoed by Boethius' understanding of God as a 
higher dimension than the space and time that people live in.  Plato regards men as 
aspiring to the good, able to perceive it in part as worldly joy.  Boethius similarly calls 
worldly joys components of the joy that is God that are mistaken for the pure joy that is 
God.
	In addition, where the split between these two philosophers should be strongest, 
at the moment that Plato tries to portray what the Good is and Boethius tries to describe 
God's existence, the split is simply not there.  Neither gives the Good or God a 
personality, though glorifying God as a sentient should be Boethius chief concern as a 
Christian.  When Boethius is done defining God, we are a left with an entity outside our 
visible reality, an entity which contains knowledge and concepts.  When Plato is done 
defining the Good, we are left with exactly the same thing.
	Obviously this similarity is due in part to Boethius classical studies, yet perhaps 
there is a deeper link.  Has Boethius simply unearthed Plato's concept of the Good, 
decided Plato had it a bit wrong, and changed the appropriate wording to give the Good 
the status of Christian creator?
	Clearly not entirely, for Boethius has gone on to solve 'determinism vs. free will' 
and has suggested several novel ideas such as 'unity is the principal of all life'.  Yet 
Boethius is still on the classical end of the spectrum in as much as we would put Plato 
there.


Augustine deserved Sainthood

(all of the most major themes in this work:  good and evil, Augustine's thought as 
medieval vs. classical, conversion attempts and free will, I covered in my two papers, so 
in order to avoid regurgitation, this essay is a bit fuzzy)
	Before Augustine's Confessions, few attempts were made by the Church to come 
to grips with how to move from sinfulness into the life of a Christian.  The sudden 
awareness of the glory of God was assumed to be enough.  To someone aware of God, it 
would be inconceivable that anyone else would have trouble accepting God.  For a fresh 
perspective, we have Augustine, someone who could not simply feel the glory of God and 
join the faith, someone who has in fact set himself up not to accept the Christian God.  
The tale of his conversion is meant for those who were similarly sinful and who had held 
definite beliefs that God did not exist.
	This is one of many ways in which Augustine's work requires his Sainthood in the 
Church.  His conversion attempt is focused specifically on the sinners of the world, as 
opposed to the many books which simply glorified God, leaving those who felt 
disconnected to wonder what all the commotion was about.  In addition Augustine bares 
all.  Instead of a focus on God, Augustine shifts to a focus of how to know God, carefully 
keeping God entirely in the picture by directly addressing and praising him at every 
opportunity.  In his painful recounting of his pre-Christian days, Augustine embodies 
humility at every step, criticizing his old egotistical manner, and his old ways of sin.  Few 
others were willing to be so honest about themselves.  Yet Augustine seems to see his 
own privacy as a worldly concern just like any other, and throws open his entire mind for 
inspection on the chance that it could help someone to heaven.
	



Dante's Scoldings

	Dante's allegory, while focused on the politics of Florence and in that sense not 
exactly timeless, does give a timeless look into the kind of Christian Dante was.  First of 
all, his friendship with Virgil, Virgil's position of power, and the placement of the great 
classical men in a Limbo above hell all suggest a strong classical bent.  Dante was not 
prepared to throw classical thinking or even classical literature out the window even 
when dealing directly with the nature of God's judgment.  Yet Dante differs from, for 
instance, Boethius, in that he recognizes that something far greater than classical logic is 
required to know and understand God.  Dante's placement of Beatrice as the one who 
must lead him to heaven is a profound statement: that worldly love is something 
equivalent or slightly lesser than heavenly love, something strong enough that it can serve 
as a portal to heaven.  In one way this seems to foreshadow Petrarch's final conclusion, 
wherein pagan love is transformed to a way to love God.
	Beyond the hints about Dante's mode of belief implicit in the placement of 
Beatrice and Virgil are the lessons we learn directly from Virgil.  Dante uses Virgil to 
point out that no one should enjoy another's suffering, even when it is ordained by God, 
and to teach us a few other elusive Christian lessons.  Is Dante simply showing his 
readers that he is aware of these lessons, and that the Inferno is not just something 
written for fun?  Or does Dante have a moral agenda besides the political agenda that is 
already evident?  More likely, Dante combines the two in an obvious ( in retrospect ) 
synthesis.  Dante is not abstractly defining some new political system like Plato's 
Republic here.  His political commentary is rather a scolding, a moral scolding, of the 
people in power in Florence.  So in some sense Dante may have gotten political to be all 
the more moral.