One of the first ancient tales past down through eons stretching back before our ancestor’s ancestor’s is the Epic of Gilgamesh. The oldest extant version of the story from Old-Babylonian Empire dates to around 3800 years ago, and it is probable that the story is as old as 4100 years. For context, this would predate the Greco-Roman world, and it’s epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, by more than a millennium. The story recounts the tale of Gilgamesh the first king of the first walled city, Uruk. Gilgamesh is a demigod sent to rule his people by the pantheon of the ancient near east. He abuses his power and no one is strong enough to stop him so his people cry out to their gods to do something about this. In answer they form the wild man Enkidu. Coming to the city Enkidu seeks to defend the people and fights Gilgamesh to a stand still. The two having each finally met a warrior equal to their abilities become friends and direct their strength to slaying great beasts. After some victories and acquiring more fame through their feats they slay a favorite creature of the gods. In retaliation, Enkidu is struck with a deadly illness, and while he fades in and out of consciousness he relays his vision of an afterlife. Dead trees stand on a barren plain, crows perched on bare branches, watching. People of every social class including a king wallowing in the dust of the earth, and for lack of food eating it too. The gods address him, though the relevant parts of this tablet are damaged so we do not know what is said, and then Enkidu, the only friend that Gilgamesh had, dies.

The death of his friend shakes Gilgamesh to his core and puts the fear of death into him he goes on a mighty quest to seek the secret to immortality, known only by one person, the man who had saved mankind from the great deluge, Utnapishtim. After many trials Gilgamesh finds him on his island home and pleads with him to let him know the secret to immortality. Utnapishtim eventually tells Gilgamesh that there is a single plant that grows at the bottom of the sea around the island that if it is consumed will grant eternal life. Gilgamesh rows to the spot where the ancient sage said he would find his prize and he dives down, and down, and down. There he finds the plant as he is running out of air, he yanks it out of the sea floor and returns to the surface, where, exhausted from his trials, he passed out on shore. When he awoke he found that a serpent had stolen the plant that gave immortality. There was nothing left to do. He returns home. On seeing the walls of his city he helped make, there seems to be a recognition that it is the legacy of a person that make them immortal in a different kind of way than he had sought before. With this in mind he lived out the rest of his days building up the city, that he had terrorized in his youth. In death he is hailed as one of the greatest men to have ever lived. (Full texts are freely available online, in text or audio, there are several different versions compiled from several different sources and fragments)

This text tells us a number of important things about the narrative or capital “M” mythology of the ancient near east but much of it will also apply to our interests. In the narrative even the mightiest of people die, just as all regular people do. There is no “positive space” afterlife. True immortality may be impossible, but it is what one accomplishes that are recorded in stone, and what one builds in stone that last. It is clear that the existential fear of death is one of our oldest. It is also clear that legacy in the mind of a community is what keeps someone “memory” alive. How does one inhabit this space that we call life? How do we build? How do we live? Can we and how do we move on from our mistakes? These are the kinds of questions that Gilgamesh asked its original listeners and that it still asks us now.

Historical Patterns

In examining the past we must ask ourselves, given similar circumstances in different cultures spatially or temporally, and without the benefit of a different moral or ethical understanding than the subject, how would we fair differently? We may indeed do better, or we may fair worse it is not a trivial question. It seems though that there are patterns that arise when groups of people(s) interact. The common sayings about history repeating itself, or rhyming with itself or dooming you if you don’t do your homework are there as a reminder. Similar types of things tend to propagate over time. To this effect we may be individually different, and our cultures may vary over space and time but as a whole humanity and human nature remains on the large scale unchanged. One of the first observations of this was by the Greek writer and historian Polybius.

Polybius summarized his theory of history as three types of government which evolve overtime. States of chaos known as Anarchy are eventually brought to heel by an strongman or military leader establishing a Monarchy. This state will last some few generations until the head of state becomes too corrupt and violent to their subjects in a state known as Tyranny. The elites of a society rise up to unseat the Tyrant, and seek to rule themselves in an Aristocracy. This may work for some time before the elites exploit the lower classes too much becoming an Oligarchy. The lower classes rise up to establish a Democracy. This system works until demagogues manipulate the weaknesses in this system introducing violence into the political system which devolves into Anarchy. Here the cycle repeats.

Now it should be noted that Polybius’ inspiration was in documenting the rise and fall of Greek civilization and why it could not stand up to expansion of the Romans. The explanation was that the Romans at the time had found a means of balancing the powers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy in the republican system by having checks on all of the sectors of social power from falling into the corrupted form of any of the above. It is important to note that this is a major influence on the establishment of modern republics as started in the United States. It is also important to note that Polybius lived during the upward swing of Republican Rome’s power in the 200s BCE (~147 generational cohorts ago per the convention in previous essays). Republican Rome began to see the cracks in its systems begin to form towards the end of that same century which culminated in the rise of Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar, and finally Caesar Augustus the first Emperor of Rome a system which would last, in one form or another, until 476 in the west and 1453 in the east.

Some doubt can be cast on the efficacy of this model by noting that the pattern of changing types of systems seems to not always occur in the order as laid out by Polybius, nor does the symmetrical appearance of his work reliably play out. Though the American War for Independence was fought against the tyranny of King George rhetorically, it was also in part to the actions of Parliament. Though the French Revolution, and subsequent revolutions in modern history don’t neatly fit this mold either. American history has had a few bouts with oligarchy, which have not changed the governmental system as described, and if anything have brought about a stronger centralized government. So what is important to understand in Polybius as it relates to the study of history is that he was one of the first people to try to come up with a theory of history as it relates to interpreting his current moment. In this way he expanded the motive of history from simply how we got here, to why we got here. This examination is important as it helps us begin to think not only about how we move forward from where we are but also about how to avoid the pitfalls of previous generations.

Multi-polar Patterns

Where the difficulty lies is that no generation is exactly like another and it is important to note that the ends of a historical progression such as the French Revolution collapsing into another monarchy do not mean that any similar circumstances will yield the exact same results, nor does it mean that the events in question were inevitable from the beginning. The events of D-day could have gone a lot differently if the whether had changed and the current geopolitical situation could have been a lot different even if the allies still managed to win. For that matter if Charlemagne had desired to give his kingdom to only one of his sons instead of breaking it up between them then the whole of western Civilization would be different. There are a lot of these “what if” scenarios that sit on the brink of what could have been, given different choices or sets of circumstances.

This brings us back to the mechanics of human history. Without consistent patterns that neatly fit as “inevitabilities” what remains are sets of forces on societies which pull in certain directions. These forces include but are not limited to social, economic, political, military power, and the legitimacy of a ruling system. With in this framework one can think of each element like a dial on a lock, or sequential numbers in a line of code (XXXXX). Each of these elements possess certain but unknown number of states, so just because the first three numbers in the sequence are the same (123XX) for one situation the variables introduced by the other elements in the chain are going to make the output at least somewhat different than the case of the Great ____ of year ____ given (12345). Resulting elements say (12372) may or may not make a significant difference in the outcomes, but given enough time and data one can say that the number of possible outcomes of a particular situations are statistically more likely to fall within a predictable range in this case 00-99. It is naturally not quite this simple but hopefully this helps illustrate.

Why is this important? Despite the fact that causality, in these cases, is tricky to nail down in totality, it is important to remember that given enough precedent, that the “flavor” or vibe of outcomes can can be approximated. Think of scatter plots there can be trends of data even if there the data does not all neatly fit in an equation. And it is for this reason that I have set out with the daunting task of examining the history of the “Church and State” question, by going back into the ancient world, to establish the framework by which it becomes relevant today. Where do things work for the good of a society? When do they not? These are not one dimensional questions! As above, there are a number of other variables that are often at play in these scenarios that change the outcomes. I hope to provide a healthy trellis for those unfamiliar with the examination of this element of history, I hope that those who are more qualified than myself will bare with me, and I hope that I learn along the way as well.