Christian
    references and influences pervade the Old English epic poem , perhaps in
    part because the poem was probably transcribed by an early English Christian monk.  In any case,
    the poem is full of Christian ideas and , as in some of the following examples (taken from the
    Seamus Heaney translation):
- In lines 12-17, God is credited with
 assisting the Danish nation by giving them yet another good king. This very early reference to
 God makes the important point that everything good comes from God and that all people (and all
 peoples) depend on Gods favor and mercy.
- Hrothgar, the latest in a long
 line of good Danish kings, is praised for dispensing his God-given gifts to young and old
 among his people (72).
- After Hrothgar has built and occupied his glorious
 hall, he and his people sit and listen as a poet celebrates Gods creation of the earth; they
 listen to
. . . the clear song of a skilled
poettelling with mastery of mans beginnings,
how the
Almighty had made the eartha gleaming plain gilded with waters . . . .
(90-93)
- Grendel, the evil and destructive
 monster who now begins to torment the Danes, is explicitly associated with
Cains clan, whom the Creator had outlawed
and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
the Eternal Lord
had exacted a price . . . . (106-08)
- References to God recur repeatedly during the opening sections of the poem,
 as when the Almighty is said to have made Cain anathema (110); and when the poet mentions
 giants . . . who strove with God (113); and when Grendel is called God-cursed (121); and
 especially when some of the Danes are condemned for religious back-sliding when they worship
 Satan as a way of coping with the threat posed by Grendel (175-86). In response, the poet offers
 an emphatic declaration of Christian belief:
.
. . blessed is hewho after death can approach the Lord
and find friendship in the Fathers embrace. (186-88)
It would be easy to offer an extremely long list of such references to the Christian
    god as they appear throughout Beowulf and as they profoundly color the tone
    and meaning of the poem.
 
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