There Shall Be Neither Birth Nor Death (Part 1/2)

Have you ever heard of the island of Delos?  It is a small island in the middle of the Aegean sea about a forty-minute boat ride away from Mykonos, Greece.  Today, nobody lives there, except for a handful of archaeologists – and even they only live there for a short period of time.  However, thousands of years ago, it was one of the most populated and wealthy places on planet earth.  Homer, in The Odyssey, even mentions the idyllic island.  “Wonder takes me as I look on you.  Yet in Delos once I saw such a thing, by Apollo’s altar.”  (Book VI, 161-162).  The inhabitants of Delos unsurprisingly worshipped pagan gods.  Moreover, they believed themselves to be immeasurably blessed by the gods; based on the panoramic sea views and the extreme wealth that was concentrated on the island, it is easy to understand why they determined they were the gods’ chosen people.  However, this erroneous belief went one step further.  The island of Delos was so blessed and sacred that its inhabitants believed that no births and no deaths should take place on the island; a group of Delos inhabitants would be there now and forevermore, or at least until the end of time.  Practically speaking, when someone was approaching death, they were taken to a neighboring island to die.  And of course the same was true for an expectant mother; she’d be shipped to a nearby island, and then she and her child would return after the delivery.  There was to be no beginning and no end to the Delos community.  Prior to Jesus of Nazareth, the sentiment of the people of Delos was “I am.”  

Aside from the idolatry and hedonism, the Delos population had a fatal flaw.  They believed themselves to be so abundantly blessed and could only conceive of a prosperous future; thus, they had no military whatsoever and no way to defend themselves.  The gods would protect them, after all.  And perhaps the gods did protect them, at least until 88 BC, when adversaries invaded the island, torched many of the buildings, and killed thousands.  Within just a matter of days, the blessed people of Delos were essentially destroyed.  A few survived and remained until another slaughter in 69 BC.  In the Ancient world, the island of Delos essentially played the modern day role of Manhattan or London; and in just a few days, it was all but destroyed.  And within two decades, it was wiped out entirely.  

That begs the questions: What was the reason for Delos’s downfall?  To put it in terms that Homer would understand, it was their hubris.   More specifically, it was the belief that they were so abundantly blessed by the gods that times would always be prosperous.  Most perniciously, however, it was the societal eradication of the basic human concept of birth and death.  When a society never encounters the reality of death (until the moment of one’s personal demise), or  experiences the sacredness of birth, that society is bound to be prideful and disordered. 

Liam

10/5/2024 

In Part 2, we shall discuss how we in 2024 are making the same mistakes as the people of Delos.