In this Season of Light...

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
The only Son of God,
Eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light…”
Nicene Creed

“Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight, who is recognized by sight. And [the sun] is he whom I call the child of the Good, whom the Good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the Good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind.

Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them?

And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which Truth and Being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence.

Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of Good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the Good, but not the Good; the Good has a place of honor yet higher.

May I ask you to consider the image in another point of view? You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? In like manner the Good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the Good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.”
Plato

“Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and Life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by –
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark, the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the Newborn King!’”
Charles Wesley