Christmas: wisdom that takes on a human face

Two caves have marked a turning point in human history: Plato's cave and the cave of Bethlehem. The first is a myth narrated by a Greek philosopher in the fourth century BC; the second is a historical event recorded by Luke in his Gospel.

The Platonic myth tells the story of prisoners chained inside a cave since birth, where they only see shadows projected on the wall and mistake them for reality. One is freed, first discovers fire and then, upon leaving, the true world and the sun, the cause of all that is visible. Upon returning to help the others and free them, he is rejected and ridiculed. This allegory describes the transition from ignorance to knowledge and the philosopher's mission to guide others toward the truth, even in the face of resistance (Republic, VII, 514a–517a).

The scene in Bethlehem is very different: a silent night, a humble cave used as a shelter for animals, dark and unadorned. There, Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:6-7).

Four hundred years apart, both stories begin in a cave: a narrow entrance, a wider interior, dim light that soon turns to darkness; cold, damp, and thick air. The floor, uneven and slippery from leaks, is accompanied by echoes that amplify any sound, in a silence that invites contemplation, creating an atmosphere of mystery and sacredness.

In both stories, darkness is the starting point, but both end in light: in Plato, an external light that reveals the truth; in Bethlehem, an internal light that comes from God made man. For Plato, man must go out to encounter reality; in Christianity, it is necessary to go in to encounter the One who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6). Plato's cave requires human effort and philosophical education to reach the good; the cave of Bethlehem shows a God who freely offers himself as our only Good.

In Plato, man emerges from darkness into light to display his most divine faculty: intelligence; in Jesus, on the other hand, Light descends into darkness to manifest the most human dimension of God: a newborn baby.

In the Gospel, the shepherds were sleeping in the open when “the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord enveloped them in light” (Luke 2:8-9); in Plato, the prisoners must be awakened by someone they consider to be mad. The transition from sleep to wakefulness, from chains to freedom, from ignorance to knowledge, the grace of conversion... always involves an awakening to reality. 

The cave in Bethlehem, a place of shadows, was filled with a light that came not from fire or the sun, but from Eternity made flesh. It was as if the sun of Truth, of which the philosophers spoke, had entered the cave of men, not to call them from outside, but to illuminate them from within.

Both accounts agree that light radically transforms our vision of reality, but they differ in the origin and manner of achieving it: in Plato, it is the result of man's ascension; in Christianity, it is the result of God's descent in the Incarnation. For Plato, it is the encounter with reality; for God, it is the encounter with man. As St. Augustine wrote in the Confessions (X, 27): “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you. And you were within me, and I was outside... You were with me, but I was not with you.”.

Christmas reminds us that the Incarnation of the Son of God accomplishes the highest synthesis that the human mind, on its own, could never have imagined: truth is not only a matter of scholarship, but, in Jesus Christ, it is above all a matter of worship. The eternal Logos requires study, but a study that must be done on one's knees.