Page 54 [54]
comes from afar is probably an alien, and they can be dangerous.
Their gods are also dangerously alien. And on top of that, their
gods travel with them, as Schelling claims about astral religions.
(Kierkegaard 2001. Notes 37/38, SKS 19. 11.) This is not by accident.
The gods are as present to the Greeks under the mystical influence
of Greek mythology as our neighbors are to us, that is to say and
it is important to emphasize this: the Greeks did not believe in
the gods as a Christian or Muslim believe, but they knew that the
gods were among them. They lived together. Sometimes they even
fooled around with them.
The story continues and this is less well known that the girl’s
father, King Alcinous, heaps gifts on Odysseus even though the
latter is a suspicious alien (although the alien is always suspicious,
in fact the two are synonymous). In return, the guest tells the ad¬
venturous story of his travels. The hospitality is unmatched, and
the king commissions a wonderful ship for the use of the ocean
traveler, so that he may return comfortably to Ithaca. Poseidon,
however, punishes the Phaeacians. Why? Because they were so fair
to the alien. This, then, does not pay. The king draws his conclu¬
sions in kind, and perhaps this is the first “don’t be welcoming to
strangers” that we find in history:
Oh no—my father’s prophecy years ago ... it all comes home to me
with a vengeance now! He’d say Poseidon was vexed with us because
we escorted all mankind and never came to grief. He said that one day,
as a well-built ship of ours sailed home on the misty sea from sucha
convoy, the god would crush it, yes, and pile a huge mountain round
about our port. So the old king foretold. Now, look, it all comes true!
Hurry, friends, do as I say, let us all comply: stop our convoys home
for every castaway chancing on our city! As for Poseidon, sacrifice
twelve bulls to the god at once— the pick of the herds. Perhaps hell
pity us, pile no looming mountain ridge around our port.” (Homer
1999. Book XIII.)