Before England became the superpower it is known today, it was a small country inhabited by many groups of people in over time. First the Celts arrived in England, then the Romans and finally the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons traveled to England from the northern countries of Germany, Norway and Sweden. When they arrived, they brought their gods with them. The Anglo-Saxon religion consisted of several gods and goddesses and their own vision of heaven and what it would look like. The Anglo-Saxons also loved poetry and used it to trace the history of their people. Beowulf is an epic poem passed down by the Anglo-Saxons from generation to generation. The poem is imbued with multiple elements of their pagan religion. However, when they immigrated to England and began telling the story of Beowulf, the local people began to listen to it and put their spin on it. Douglas Wilson states: “Through a heroic poem about pagans that never mentions Christ, Beowulf is the opposite of syncretistic compromise. It is written to highlight the treason as a way of life that afflicted these pagan societies from within, and the greed and plundering as a way of life that afflicted them from without (whether they were the marauders of the victims .) (30)In an attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons, Christians of the time changed Beowulf and incorporated many elements of Christianity into the poem. By incorporating elements of Christianity such as the depiction of Grendel as a descendant of Cain, the mention of God's one true name, and the depiction of the hero Beowulf as a Christ figure, Catholic Christians hoped to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and instill power in them. and the hope of the one true God. First, the Christian...... middle of paper ...... and phrases in the characters' mouths, and connecting the hero, Beowulf, to the Christian hero, Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Christians hoped to convert the pagans to Christianity and lead them to what they believed to be the one and only truth, Jesus Christ. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin JH Dettmar. 4th ed. Flight. 1. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 36-107. Print.Bloom, Harold. Bloom Beowulf Guides. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008. Print. Fry, Donald. The poet Beowulf. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Print.Streissguth, Thomas. Understanding Beowulf. Farmington Hills: Lucent Books, 2004. Print. The MacArthur Study Bible. Ed. John MacArthur. Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2006. Print. Wilson, Douglas. “The Anglo-Saxon Gospel.” Touchstone. July/August (2007). 30-34. Internet.