One such divider is the doctrine of Purgatory. Studying the faith was a critical part of the ancient church.ĬS Lewis never wants to get bogged down in the typical controversies that so often divide Christians, especially in the social media. Indeed, when an illiterate initiate first joined an ancient monastery, they were often compelled to learn to read so they could read the Psalters and the Gospels. If you listen to our videos on the teachings of the Eastern Church Fathers in the Philokalia, you will find that they do not make an overly sharp distinction between the intellect and the spiritual side of man. The difference is not that great, both are a climb away from a willful ignorance, and St Gregory of Nyssa is suggesting that we need to make Plato’s journey out of the cave before we can take the bus to heaven. You may object that analogy is flawed, since the deluded in Plato’s cave make an intellectual journey, while the riders in the CS Lewis’ divine bus that lifts in the heavens to travel to the outskirts of heaven is a spiritual journey. This is the blog on St Gregory of Nyssa’s first sermon on the Beatitudes, where he discusses Plato’s Allegory of the Cave:
The YouTube video that includes this blog along with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: St Gregory of Nyssa, in his first sermon on the Beatitudes, commented that before the Christian could climb the mountains that Isaiah proclaimed, the mountain where he could hear the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, he would first need to muster the courage to climb out Plato’s cave of willful ignorance and face the bright sun, the bright outside world.Īnother allegory similar to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the central story in the Republic and Platonic philosophy, is CS Lewis’ great book, the Great Divorce, about how Hell itself is a another type of dark cave of deceptions, where the brave few can still choose to board the bus to climb into the bright sun and visit a brighter place, the fields surrounding the mountain the faithful climb in their eternal quest for perfection and union with Christ.
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