Where are we come from? It is the question that human considered for many years. The book named “Genesis” gave the answer. “And God created the human in his image, in the image of God he created him male and female. He created them,” (Genesis 2, P159) Human was created by God. As the Old Testament, The Hebrew Bible gave the idea about the form of the world and human. Why we can be the human living in this world? Who choose us be born? In the first century, the Christian bible, The New Testament Gospels shows the answer, which human was living in this world through experience suffering to get the God bless for survival. The New testament Gospels expanded the theocracy, and used as the rules to rule people at that time. But these ideas were be challenged in the eighth century. A book named “Homer” shows the other answer about those questions. Human was born by fate. The fate choose you as the person lived in the world. Born with the mission and finish it before the time, it was the task that fate give to you. As the word “fate” came up, it began the competition between the God and Fate.
Before first century, about ca.1900-250 B.C.E., in the southern Mesopotamia, there has spread a story about a hero-Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the story about the life experience of Gilgamesh. The story was talking about life and death, nature and civilization, adventure and friendship. And focus on the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh was two-thirds divine and one-third human. And Enkidu was created by God. Gilgamesh had strong physique and smart brain and Enkidu had the extraordinary knowledge. Their combination made their adventures always head off disaster but also lead the death of Enkidu. Enkidu dead for illness, but we can think about the other side. Who made Enkidu’s life to the end? It should be god. The combination of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu had been threat to the existence of god. God had to choose one of them to die. As the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh survived, but he lost his best friend. No matter how good person you is, the death means nothing, which was Gilgamesh get from the death of Enkidu. The death of Enkidu was based on god. God can give you everything, such as the extraordinary knowledge, but also can bring those things back.
This great friendship was under the theocracy, but later in eighth century, the another friendship that on the story of Iliad, shows the influence about the fate.
Joseph-Benoit Suvee, Achilles Depositing the Body of Hector at the Feet of Patroclus, 1769
The Iliad is a poem about the Trojan War. The war begin with the three goddess’ bet, and showed some conflicts between Greeks and Troy. Achilles was kind of main character of the Iliad. Patroclus as the best friend of Achilles, he was killed by the prince of Troy. “For you to hear, and I wish it were not true. Patroclus is down, and they are fighting, For his naked corpse. Hector has the armor.”(Volumes A, P284, 20-23) Achilles couldn’t accept Patroclus’ dead, and the dead of naked body. It was the humiliation of a fighter. “Hector has the armor.” It was unacceptable of Achilles. He couldn’t forgave Hector, the person killed his best friend. If Briseis represented the honor of himself, the death of Patroclus made Achilles to abandon his glory. The hatred of Hector would be the armor of him, and the revenge would be the sword of him. Achilles went back to battle to fight for Patroclus’ glory. The war was end by the death of Hector. Achilles completed his revenge. If looking at the relationship between the Achilles, Patroclus and Hector, Patroclus was killed by Hector, it should be the fate of him. If he wasn’t die, Achilles couldn’t change his mind to fight for Greek, and the ending of this story would be different. So, the death of Patroclus was the requirement of the fate, and the fate of him was direct refer to the Achilles and Hector’s.
God and Fate, which one was the controlling human’s life? When God meet Fate, which one have the irresistible force? In the book of Iliad XVI, “Fate has it that Sarpedon, whom I love more, Than any man, is to be killed by Patroclus. Shall I take him out of battle while he still lives And set him down in the rich land of Lycia, Or shall I let him die under Patroclus’ hands?” (Volumes A, P273) It’s the communication from the Zeus to Hera. God have some emotion behaviors, he can change everyone’s life based on his favors, but fate was not. Once your fate was be set up, nothing can change it, God bless to a person, to give him a better life, but he cannot change a person’s fate. Why? Because each person’s fate was be connected. Just like the relationship of Patroclus, Hector and Achilles. This connection leads to the later, the father of Hector was came alone to the Greek ship.
Beowulf prepares to fight a fire-breathing dragon
In the ninth century, a book named “Beowulf” shows a hero’s life, and the relationship between the God, Fate and him. Beowulf has something similar to the Iliad, but the Iliad is much more like a poem, and Beowulf is much more like a song. Beowulf was a hero, who be selected by fate, to fight to the monster Grendel. With the God bless, he successfully defeat Grendel and his mother, and became the king of Scandinavia. But when he was old, there has some people hurt by a Dragon. As the king of Scandinavia, Beowulf chose to fight for his glory. “What occurs on the wall between the two of us will turn out as fate, overseer of man, decides. I am resolved.” (Volume B, P169) It was the task of Beowulf, from the fate to him. If the fate of Achilles was through revenge to protect Greek, the fate of Beowulf was through fight to protect the people. The Dragon was died at the end of story. Beowulf finished his task that fate gave to him, and then it was the time to go.
To compare the God and Fate, one is the spiritual redemption, and the other one is the guidelines of life. In the book of Genesis tell us the god created the world and human, so the god was supreme. The epic of Gilgamesh was the story about Gilgamesh’s adventure. The journey of the adventure shows how strong of Gilgamesh and how knowledge of Enkidu. So, we can see humanity power was noticed and brought to the literature. But the born and the death of Enkidu shows us the human rights was still under the god’s control. The Iliad was focusing on the human rights. The writer used the war between two countries to show the human’s fate. Beowulf was expand the human powers, to shows us how strong that human is. Those four stories was spread in different times. The epic of Gilgamesh was been spread on 1900-250 B.C.E., and The Genesis was been spread on 1000-300 B.C.E. At that time, people didn’t have some knowledge about the world, and a lot of people’s life were not really well. They created the god as their belief, to support to their live. So, the early literature was more praising to the god, and ignore the human rights. The Iliad was been spread on 8th century, and Beowulf was been spread in 9th century. At that time, people had the further understanding of the real world, and began to seek to human rights. In the book of The Iliad, people was living for fate. Each person’s birth was to finish the task that the fate gave to him. When you finished your work, it was the time to go. These literatures have the different comprehension of the human rights and theocracy. To see those literatures, we can figure out the power’s shift, from the theocracy to human rights.
