Gold and the heathen polity in Beowulf

In Beowulf, in which there is public gold, personal gold and the hidden gold which can send its owner to hell, King Hrothgar gives Beowulf more of the first kind in order to withhold from him the second, so helping him to the third. Not only the hero of Beowulf but virtually everyone else in this poem is heading for damnation, and yet the poet points to King Beowulf’s. Because the dead king is his theme, and because ignorance of Christ defines the difference between Beowulf’s polity and his own, the poet makes Beowulf the best of his bygone world and then shows how the drive for gold destroys him.