Chapter 13 Taking away the fire given to mankind

There is no doubt that the prophet Prometheus is a young and energetic god who is smart, wise and has the ability to predict.

Like young people, he doesn't like to give up. No matter what difficulties and obstacles lie ahead, he will do his best to overcome them with wisdom.

But he also has shortcomings, that is, his wisdom has not accumulated over the years and does not have enough experience to support it.

Although he has experienced two changes in the position of god king, his two brothers, Epimetheus, the foolish god, and Atlas, the giant god who holds the sky, have always protected him and prevented him from being swept away by conspiracies.

So as soon as Prometheus returned to the world and saw that the humans he created lived in caves, he instantly became selfish.

Gods are not heartless, they also have joy, anger, sorrow, love, hate and separation, and they also have their own preferences.

Of course, intelligent humans are more likely to be favored by Prometheus, the creator, than animals without intelligence.

He found all the humans he created one by one, and used his divine power to move them to a large river that entered the sea. In the distance was the boundless blue sea, and on the side were forests and grasslands full of berries and inhabited by cattle and sheep. Not only that, he

He also strictly drove away the ferocious beasts that were a threat to humans around him.

For living creatures, food and water are two essential survival conditions. Prometheus solved these two major problems at once and gave "security" to mankind as a gift.

There is no need to run around for food, and human thoughts are liberated, allowing more time to think about the connection between man and nature, what is my ideal, where will I go in the end, and so on, among which new life

What humans think about most is what is the difference between humans and gods, and how they should get along with each other.

For the next period of time, Prometheus and the newborn humans ate and lived together.

He gave humans writing so that they could exchange ideas with each other, taught them how to make ships and sails so that they could sail far away, and also asked them to try to tame cattle and sheep to share their labor, and also helped build houses to resist the cold wind.

Of course, he did not forget his mission and led mankind to build the temples of the gods. He also built the temple of the God King Zeus into the largest and most exquisite one.

But in the sacrifices offered to the gods, Prometheus took a trick. He wanted to retain as much of the property of his creation as possible.

His clever brain keenly noticed one thing: gods don't care what kind of sacrifices humans offer, they only care about piety or not.

What kind of sacrifice can be called pious?

Human faith has never been touched by gods before, because the faith of a single human is too weak, so weak that gods cannot feel it.

That can only be judged from the scale of the sacrifice and the property owned by the person. A person who has nothing, his only possession is a cow, but he still sacrifices the cow to the gods.

Doubt, this person must be pious.

Prometheus had a plan in mind.

He ordered the humans to slaughter the largest bull, cut the sacrificial bull into pieces, and divide it into two piles.

One pile was full of beef, covered with cowhide; the other pile was full of beef bones, wrapped in cow suet. This pile was much larger than the other pile.

Following Prometheus's plan, humans placed two piles of broken pieces in the temple of Zeus, placed the larger pile on the sacrificial altar, and openly took away the smaller pile, which was all beef.

That pile.

Prometheus successfully deceived the God King Zeus, and humans not only kept the meat of the cattle, but also had a good harvest the next year.

Human beings who have tasted the benefits will use this trick every year in the future, and the results are proven time and time again.

…

When there is a good harvest, Prometheus will gather the newly born humans to have heart-to-heart conversations with them and answer their questions.

He will tell the stories of the gods to humans, starting from the chaos of the world, telling how the gods were born, how humans were born, and how humans in the golden age have eternal life, will not die, and how they will be destroyed.

Yes, humans in the Silver Age were just like them, with a lifespan of only a hundred years.

Newly born humans have no concept of death at all. Although they, like humans in the Silver Age, only have a lifespan of a hundred years, they have not even reached half of their lives and are still in their youth.

So someone asked: "What is death."

The person who asked the question was called Kalus. He was the wisest and studious among the first humans. Prometheus liked him very much. Although he and he were not masters and disciples, they were actually masters and disciples. Prometheus used

The cow bones deceived the god king Zeus, and he was also involved.

Prometheus answered him: "Death is death."

"Unlike gods who have eternal life, you will all face it a hundred years later."

"The body is destroyed, and the soul goes to the desolate underworld, becoming an undead soul in the dark kingdom of death, and then stays there forever."

Kallus became frightened: "The desolate underworld? Wouldn't it be difficult to find food, and it would be easy to starve?"

Prometheus told him, and also told all humans present: "The dead do not need to eat."

"They won't be hungry or thirsty."

"But I can only stay in the underworld forever and cannot come to the human world."

Kallus showed an expression of relief: "I won't be hungry or thirsty. Wouldn't that be great?"

"Anyway, mortals can't go to the underworld. Isn't this just like the undead can't come to the human world?"

"Looking at it this way, death is nothing special."

Prometheus looked at him lovingly: "Because you are still young, Kallus."

"Every year that passes, you become a little stronger than the last year."

"You can't feel the feeling of aging when you are young."

"But one day it will happen."

"You will look death in the face and understand its true meaning."

"Then, fear it."

But Kalus said proudly: "Then I will wait for that day to see how death makes me awe!"

…

Time flies, and a hundred years quickly slip through our fingers.

On the earth, human beings have replaced crops with new ones.

As one of the few old men still alive, Kalus was respected by the new humans and was called a wise man.

In the darkness, the old Kalus knelt in the temple of Zeus, with a slaughtered cow in front of him. There was no lie, the bones and flesh of the cow were clearly visible under the candlelight of the temple.

Everyone around him had already fallen asleep, and no one thought that their wise men would sneak into the temple of the God King in the middle of the night.

The flames on the candlestick danced, making Kallus's thin, wrinkled face look uncertain and unreal.

He thought again of what he had said in his youth: 'Then I will wait for that day and see how death will awe me!'

Now, he sees it.

His body was exhausted and his appearance became ugly. Although he was called a wise man by the newly born youth, it could not fill his heart torn by fear.

He... doesn't want to die.

Similarly, he also found the answer to the question he pondered in his youth: "What are the differences between humans and gods, and how should they get along with each other?"

His answer is simple: God is eternal, and people should fear God.

After a long time, he seemed to have made up his mind, and he began to recite the prayer song of Zeus, praying that the king of gods would look down on him with pity.

The empty temple echoed with Kallus's soft chanting:

"Honorable Zeus, indestructible Zeus."

“We pray to you for forgiveness:”

"O king, you bring such holiness to light."

"Mother Earth and the reverberating barrier of the mountains."

"The water of the ocean and the stars in the vast sky."

"Zeus, son of Cronus, the god-king, shouts smoke and thunder."

"Father of all, the beginning and end of all things."

"You shake the earth, you increase and purify."

"Shaker of the world!"

"Zeus with lightning, thunder and thunderbolts, the power of reproduction."

"Listen to me!"

"Grant me perfect health, divine peace, and the glory of blameless wealth."

Then Kalus began to tell, how he feared Zeus, how Prometheus used cow bones to deal with the gods, and how he hated Prometheus' behavior.

Finally, Kalus finally stated his purpose: "God! I believe in you so devoutly, please grant me eternal life!"

A beam of moonlight shined into the corner of the temple and also illuminated Zeus standing in the dark corner.

There are people in the world who chant his name and praise his holiness, so he comes.

His face was expressionless, as if he was looking at Kallus kneeling in the center of the temple, trying to find the pious qualities in him.

However, he couldn't find it.

This mortal only has fear in his heart and no pious faith.

Halfway through, Zeus looked to the sky, and a bolt of thunder streaked through the night, shattering the dome of the temple and falling on Kalus' head.

At the same time, Prometheus was awakened by thunder, and the voice of Zeus suddenly appeared in his ears: "From today on, take back the fire given to mankind."
Chapter completed!