The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Symposium, and The Gospel of Saint Mark represent different time periods and cultures. In each story, the main character searches for understanding or knowledge. Although each search uses different methods and looks for different truths and understandings, they all have one thing in common: the outcome of the search greatly affects society.
Gilgamesh concentrates his search on the topic of life and death, and the answers that he finds benefits him more than anyone else. As two-thirds god, he does not understand the necessity of death.  Upset over his best friend’s death, he sets out on a journey that is both physical and mental. At the physical level, his journey takes him through out the desert, and finally into the land of the gods. His wanderings are unlike those in the gospel however, in that Gilgamesh does not roam around from city to city teaching people. He has a basic destination to reach, and he does not really stray from his path. He also journeys through his psyche as he learns to deal with death. He matures as a human being during this inner voyage, and uses the experiences of his physical journey as lessons from which he learns more about what he seeks: life and death. Upon his return, Gilgamesh is different because of his journey. He is no longer rash, wild, and unfair, but now wise, understanding, and just. His journey, although it benefits his entire kingdom as well, is mainly of importance to him. The whole point was to change him so that he would be content.  This is significant because the other searches in the other two stories don’t necessarily benefit the hero in any way. Jesus definitely does not gain much. In fact, he loses his life in his search. Socrates, too, does not personally benefit all that much from his search. All that he gains is the satisfaction that he taught others his theory. Gilgamesh is the only one of these heroes who really gains from his search.
Socrates’ search in the Symposium is for the nature of love and is purely intellectual in nature. After listening to the speeches of the other members of the party, Socrates uses the best parts of them in his speech and then transcends them to give everyone present a deeper understanding of the real nature of love. His search is not physical or spiritual in any way, but is instead one of pure reasoning and intellect. His search is unique between the three because of this. Jesus bases everything that he does on God’s will, and Gilgamesh commences his search because he wants immortality, a divine characteristic. Socrates alone does not search for, or utilize in his search something divine. He does use the gods to explain some parts of the nature of love, but he only uses them describe some basic aspects of human nature. For example, he uses the gods of prosperity and neediness, Poros and Penia, as the metaphorical parents of love to explain why love is poor, but only wants the good. Socrates is the only one who has a purely intellectual search.
Jesus looks for good in humanity and, on his search, stops to teach along the way. Jesus, an already perfect or close to perfect human being, does not really search for knowledge. He already knows everything, so he cannot look for knowledge itself. He can only be searching for understanding. He wants to find out why humans are both capable of such evil acts and of incredibly good acts. His journey, both a physical and spiritual one, takes him throughout the Middle East. He searches out those doing good, but on the way, he tries to teach those doing bad the error of their ways. He does this by giving sermons and performing miracles wherever he goes. He is the only one of the three heroes who does this. Gilgamesh certainly does not teach anyone what he learns on his journey. The most that he does is write it down to glorify himself. Socrates also does not directly teach anyone. Those in the party learn from him, but he does not go out of his way to make sure that they understand. Jesus is the only one who gives everything he has, even his life, in order to teach the people the correct way to live.
Each search in these stories discovers something profoundly useful. The way the hero passes on this discovery greatly influences its affect on society. If the hero keeps the discovery to himself, and only indirectly passes it on, the society will not be greatly affected by it for very long. If the hero passes it along, but does not stress its importance enough,  not enough of the society will be affected.  But if the hero overstress the importance of his discovery, and goes out of his way to ensure that everyone understands, society could be greatly affected for a very long time.