APART FROM THE fact that the language of Beowulf is Old English, only one objective basis for the view that it was written by an Old English author remains, namely the presence of a number of Christian elements in the text. Let us therefore examine the nature of these, how they stand out from the picture of society and outlook on life that inform the rest of the poem, and how the pagan elements in the poem relate to the Christian ones.

For much of the nineteenth century, many scholars believed that they could discern in Beowulf an original pagan core overlaid secondarily with Christian elements. Perhaps the most explicit proponent of that view was Blackburn (1897), who was the first of many to talk about the “Christian colouring” of the poem. That expression was also used by Frederick Klaeber, despite his opinion that the poem had been created by a Christian poet (Klaeber 1950, xlviii–li).

Over a hundred years ago, Klaeber catalogued what he regarded as a series of distinct Christian elements in Beowulf (Klaeber 1911 and 1912). Others have claimed to have detected hidden reflections of and allusions to Anglo-Saxon patristics, liturgy, and homiletics. It has also long been a common view that the poem was composed by a Christian poet who gave it a clear Christian content from the very outset, particularly since, in purely literary terms, the Christian dimension appears to be well integrated into the poem (Fulk et al. 2009: lxvii–lxxix). According to that school, the Christian poet incorporated pagan features in the poem from the start to give it a credible archaic character.

Opinions on the subject in fact differ widely. Many scholars have regarded the Christian element as limited and superficial.

It should also be noted that there is a clear imbalance here as far as sources are concerned, in that we have an extensive frame of reference for the Christian, Anglo-Saxon tradition of the time, but know relatively little about the pagan Germanic thinking of the same period. Hidden Christian allusions may therefore easily be read into the text where they do not exist.

In pagan times, the spiritual dimension and its practices—referred to in the Christian age as forn siðr or heiðinn siðr (“the old way of life” or “the pagan way of life”; Sundqvist 2005b)—were an integral part of existence which people never felt any need to justify.