Anglo-Saxon monks now speak Latin; some, since the coming of Theodore of Tarsus,[85] even know a little Greek; an Anglo-Saxon king sleeps at Rome, under the portico of St. Peter's; Woden has left heaven; on the soil convulsed by so many wars, the leading of peaceful, sheltered lives, entirely dedicated to study, has become possible: and such was the case with Bede. Has the nation really changed, and do we find ourselves already in the presence of men with a partly latinised genius, such men as the English were hereafter to be? Not yet. The heart and mind remain the same; the surface alone is modified, and that slightly. The full infusion of the Latin element, which is to transform the Anglo-Saxons into English, will take place several centuries hence, and will be the result of a last invasion. The genius of the Teutonic invaders continues nearly intact, and nothing proves this more clearly than the Christian poetry composed in the native tongue, and produced in Britain after the conversion. The same impetuosity, passion, and lyricism, the same magnificent apostrophes which gave its character to the old pagan poetry are found again in Christian songs, as well as the same recurring alternatives of deep melancholy and noisy exultation. The Anglo-Saxon poets describe the saints of the Gospel, and it seems as though the companions of Beowulf stood again before us: "So, we have learned, in days of yore, of twelve beneath the stars, heroes gloriously blessed." These "heroes," these "warriors," are the twelve apostles. One of them, St. Andrew, arrives in an uninhabited country; not a desert in Asia, nor a solitude in Greece; it might be the abode of Grendel: "Then was the saint in the shadow of darkness, warrior hard of courage, the whole night long with various thoughts beset; snow bound the earth with winter-casts; cold grew the storms, with hard hail-showers; and rime and frost, the hoary warriors, locked up the dwellings of men, the settlements of the people; frozen were the lands with cold icicles, shrunk the water's might; over the river streams, the ice made a bridge, a pale water road."[86] They have accepted the religion of Rome; they believe in the God of Mercy; they have faith in the apostles preaching the doctrine of love to the world: peace on earth to men of good will! But that warlike race would think it a want of respect to see in the apostles mere _pacifici_, and in the Anglo-Saxon poems they are constantly termed "warriors."