Human Suffering in Ancient Civilization

Life is simply too hard – people will not accept the fact that we are alone. Gilgamesh talks of the “house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat. ” How can one invite death if this is the afterlife they have to look forward to? The beliefs espoused in texts such as Gilgamesh shed light on the pessimism the Mesopotamians felt for death. When destiny has predetermined exile to the dark house depicted in Gilgamesh as the final resting place of the dead, then optimism becomes a bit of a scarce commodity. The Greeks believed in the greatness of man, and so the God or Gods played a bit lesser role than in the previous two societies.

The Hebrew civilization had a markedly different view of God, death, and afterlife. It is much easier to accept a omnipotent God handing down punishment to the wicked or deserving members of society than to accept either the randomness of suffering or accept personal responsibility. ” A parallel can be drawn here between Gilgamesh and Achilles, but where Gilgamesh responds with anger towards the gods for their corruption, Achilles has an almost brooding resentment at the injustice of war waged because of Gods. Although many of the elements in their literature are borrowed from the Babylonians, such as the Creation, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, the spin they put on these stories created the foundation for the way society looks upon God today. The western philosophy of men and women having to “measure their actions by God’s laws” was born with the Hebrews. We men are wretched things, and the gods, who have no cares themselves, have woven sorrow into the very fabric of our lives. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and ate from the tree of knowledge, they were driven from the Garden of Eden, thus beginning a cycle of human suffering and evil that has yet to end. The tales in Greek mythology are laced with stories of Gods and Goddesses acting no better than humans. Eventually, Job is repaid in spades – he has passed his test. In Antigone, Sophocles preaches of the greatness of the human being, and also sheds light on their view of suffering: “Only Death, and Death alone he will find no rescue/but from desperate plagues he has plotted his escapes.