That moment when you realise that the Greek word used by Plato with regard to the man who escapes from the Cave, referring to ‘an art of turning around’, is literally μετάνοια.
Yes, that μετάνοια.
As in, ‘repentance’.
And then you realise that the religious language Plato has been deploying all around the allegory of the cave in reference to the form of the Good, has a certain inspiration behind it.
And then you recall the rolling away of the stone from the cave of the tomb of Christ four hundred years later, and the way the disciples truly saw Christ for who He was.
And then you begin to understand that the inspired Gospel writers who carried the news of Christ’s resurrection among the Gentiles knew exactly what they were doing and whom they were talking to.
Then, as it seems, this wouldn’t be the twirling of a shell [or the ‘flip of a coin’, to use a modern word-image] but the turning of a soul around from a day that is like night to the true day; it is that ascent to what is which we shall truly affirm to be philosophy.- Plato, The Republic 521c
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