Did Plato predict the coming life of Jesus Christ?

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

…my question is: how do we know Plato was speaking of Jesus and not of any other spiritual leaders (or "one who leads others out of the cave") throughout history?

I think Plato was referring to anyone, actually.

In the end after coming out of the cave and realizing we've been duped, he asks the question, do we go back into the cave and rescue others?

I don't remember him mentioning any one person with that duty. We are all responsible to share what we have learned with others, right?

The Internet is that amazing sword of truth that cuts chains nowadays…

a reply to: cooperton

Plato was one of the greatest minds of all time, and he predicted that someone preaching the truth, who came from outside the cave (heaven), would be put to death. I think this validates Jesus' message. He was put to death for speaking the truth, and nothing else. .

Plato died of natural causes at an old age. You're thinking of Socrates. The philosopher Plato is referring to.

a reply to: intrptr

Yeah I agree. Jesus was just the archetypal figure that came to mind when I read that particular part about being put to death only for speaking the truth.

Most importantly, it reaffirms that Plato's Allegory is an accurate depiction of our current realm. Our 9-5, mortgage, keeping-up-with-the-kardashians lifestyle is not real. We must seek truth and find our real existence, and the reward is great. Here is an excerpt that I think is very relevant:

"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would[c] do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

“I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”" (John 8:31-51)

a reply to: Lucid Lunacy

yeah Socrates fits the allegory very well since he was also put to death for telling the truth. Christ can refer to any anointed figure, and I think Socrates fits that description fairly well. The only thing is, Jesus directly claimed to have come from out of the cave (heaven) whereas Socrates never claimed to be Godly, but in my opinion he was very close. Jesus came back from the dead too, I think he's the best fit as a messenger of God (the light outside the cave).

a reply to: cooperton

Jesus was just the archetypal figure that came to mind when I read that particular part about being put to death only for speaking the truth.

MLK was killed for speaking out… they shot him in the mouth.

Tear gas is an anti free speech tool used to silence protesters. Kind of hard to redress grievances when gagging and choking.

a reply to: cooperton

Plato profoundly affected Christianity, but did not predict Jesus.

a reply to: cooperton

I don't view the passage as a prediction of the coming or death of Jesus. It is a fable on a common dark aspect of human nature:
"Kill the messenger."

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
If Plato predicted Jesus then he also predicted Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, Vishnu, or any other religious god/leader whose adherents believe lead them out of the "cave". The name Jesus is never said by Plato so I wonder why you assume he was predicting him instead of any of the thousands of other religious or spiritual leaders throughout history.

Part of the allegory, which I quote in the original post, is that the cave-dwellers would kill the person who came proclaiming the truth. Jesus was the only one who was killed by cave-dwellers. buddha, krishna, etc were not killed by cave-dwellers. You're quick-triggered to attack any pro-Christian sentiment, you should read the post thoroughly and think out a better argument before rushing to bash the conclusions.

Muhammad was poisoned to death, but since he received the Quran in a cave, that probably doesn't apply to your theory.

a reply to: cooperton

Have you heard of Justin Martyr and Philosopher? He was an early Christian saint (100 AD) who talked about the "seeds of Christianity".

He basically said that many philosophers, including Socrates and Plato, were unknowing Christians. His evidence is really compelling. He was well versed in philosophy before becoming a Christian, and his works are really enlightening.

From Wiki

Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue did survive. The First Apology, his most well known text, passionately defends the morality of the Christian life, and provides various ethical and philosophical arguments to convince the Roman emperor, Antoninus, to abandon the persecution of the fledgling sect. Further, he also makes the theologically-innovative suggestion that the "seeds of Christianity" (manifestations of the Logos acting in history) actually predated Christ's incarnation. This notion allows him to claim many historical Greek philosophers (including Socrates and Plato), in whose works he was well studied, as unknowing Christians.

I thought I would mention that since you seemed to have come to a similar conclusion about Plato.

a reply to: cooperton

So naive. Our cave is any construct holding us in place. It can be societal. It can be economical. It can be political. It can be religious. It could be scientific. There is ALWAYS ignorance to be overcome that is hindered by the ones who like to wallow in the ignorance and attack the ones who ask questions. You can make this allegory fit any number of different control structures both natural and artificial.

Seeing the truth IS enlightening, but the problem with the cave allegory is that you never truly exit the cave. You just leave a smaller chamber and enter a bigger and brighter chamber, but make no mistake, you are still in the cave. There is still ignorance clouding your mind from truth.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
So naive.

enlighten me, oh great enlightener!

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
the problem with the cave allegory is that you never truly exit the cave.

Do not plague people with your pessimism. This is the whole point of my post, Jesus claims you can escape the cave, and people persecuted him and killed him. Many others have preached similar ideals, but Jesus trolled death itself to demonstrate that we could go beyond this world. Stay in the cave all you want, but you should stop telling others that there is no escape


“Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:8)

“Through the abandonment of desire, the deathless state is realized.”
(Buddhism: Samyatta Nikaya xlvii 37)

"He who drinks the nectar of the Bhagavad Gita through purification of
the heart and regular meditation, attains immortality, eternal bliss, everlasting peace and perennial
joy. There is nothing more to be attained beyond this."
(Bhagavad Gita viii)

"His form is not to be seen. No one can see Him with the
eye. He is perceived by the heart, by the intellect and by
the mind. They who know this become immortal."

(Upanishads 6, IX)

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
(John 5:24)

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
There is still ignorance clouding your mind from truth.

What is your truth that I am ignorant of? hopelessness? If hopelessness is your truth I strongly insist you re-evaluate life

a reply to: shieldmaiden

EXACTLY! that's what makes this so mysterious, they were initiates into a higher Being before the whole truth was told of this Being. In Dante's Inferno, he claims that the only reason that Plato, Socrates, etc, died rather than attain heaven was because they did not go and act upon their ideals. Dante called this "limbo". Others argue that they were in limbo (the border of heaven) because they were not Christian, but this is inaccurate. Both Elijah and Enoch were purported to have ascended into heaven and they both were not technically Christians:

"...everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven." (Luke 12:10)

In other words, you can attain heaven without ever having known about Jesus because the ideals he preaches can be presented by the Spirit within you.

a reply to: cooperton

I see you completely missed the point of my post. Jesus can't get you out of the cave. He is no more enlightened to the whole truth than anyone else. The fact remains, you will NEVER know everything there is to know, and the cave represents the things we don't know. You can call it truth or reality or anything, but you will never know all there is to know about reality. Neither will anyone else, so don't fret there.

Studying the bible and following Jesus isn't going to get you out of the cave. First off, you don't know if what Jesus is saying is true and second the bible isn't the entire truth of the universe. There just isn't enough information there to explain everything. This is why I call you naive. You have strict boundaries as to what is and isn't the cave, when the cave clearly represents the gaps in our knowledge.

What is your truth that I am ignorant of? hopelessness? If hopelessness is your truth I strongly insist you re-evaluate life

I'm not a preacher. I don't claim to know the truth any more than any other person knows it. I acknowledge that my knowledge has holes in it therefore I don't know the entire truth. I am open to evidence that heavily suggests certain things (like science), but science isn't complete nor will it be complete within my lifetime. No philosophy or religion on earth can point you to the absolute truth since no one on the planet knows it.

The cave is MUCH larger than you think it is, and the fact that you cannot see that shows how deep in the cave you are.

a reply to: cooperton

Interesting take on it. I don't believe in limbo, but there is an explanation offered about what happened with those who died before Christ was on earth. But first, I want to expand a bit on the concept of the "seeds".

What the "seeds of Christianity" means is that the whole concept of Jesus Christ is written into us. C.S. Lewis actually talked about this as well. The whole concept of God condescending to us in human form to save humanity from eternal death is foreshadowed in many religions before Jesus Christ was born in to flesh. This is because it was written into us, we are made in the image of God (if you read closely, it says "let us make man in Our image", this is seen as the Trinity).
There were bits of truth scattered here and there, but Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of what all those religions were looking for. He is the complete embodiment of Truth and the Way that many were trying to find. Throughout the Old Testament the stories foreshadow Christ, and for this reason the Christian Bible still includes it. The Hebrews were the ones that were chosen by God to reveal Himself to. Now it is said to be those who choose God (the Christians). When Revelation talks about "New Jerusalem" and Israel, it is talking about His church, those who choose Christ, not literally the Jews of today.

As for Enoch and Elijah, the tradition is that they did not die, but will return before the time of the end to witness to people at the time of the antichrist, in which the antichrist will let them preach for a time and then have them killed. They are the ones believed to be the 2 witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11. The Trinity has always existed, so in essence, Enoch and Elijah are part of that tradition. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Trinity) are there at Creation. If you look at John 1:1-18 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God...." The Word is Jesus Christ. And He was there at the beginning of it all.

As for those before Christ, when Christ died on the cross, within those 3 days after His death he descended in to Hades, and broke the chains of death, and ministered to those who did not know Him (this included the philosophers (Plato) and others). Here is a picture of Christ pulling Adam and Eve out, with other saints from the Old Testament surrounding them.
Icon

It is interesting to note that there are Christian depictions of many of the philosophers. Here is an article talking about iconography of philosophers like Hippocrates, Solon, Sybil, Plato...
Article

As for the cave, I found an article that talks about Plato's allegory of the cave and Christian Salvation. There is also a video attached to the article, but I haven't seen it.
Article


Nice discussion

a reply to: shieldmaiden

yes great discussion. Amazing how productive conversation can be when people are on the same wavelengths, thank you for the insight (about to go read revelations regarding the two witnesses). Well said about the seeds of Christianity, is this related to the mustard seed analogy? or, faith in general, as a means of facilitating the true human potential that Jesus demonstrated?

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: cooperton

I see you completely missed the point of my post. Jesus can't get you out of the cave. He is no more enlightened to the whole truth than anyone else.

No, you completely missed my point. There IS a way out of the cave. Jesus demonstrated that there is a way out of the cave and so have many others. Aren't you starting to understand the point of why he came to earth? To tell us how to get out of this slave state of mind. I am sick of this pessimistic slumber that everyone is in, but I can't blame anyone, I was once at that point too in my life. Just keep seeking and you will find the answers. The only thing I want you to know is that there is an answer, do not give up

a reply to: cooperton

Yea, I've heard all this before. I used to hear it all the time when I was a Christian. It isn't true buddy. Christianity has been wrong on so many things about the universe, there is no way that it is the correct answer to getting out of the cave. You have a long way to go in your search for truth; though it would help if you admitted that you knew nothing first then worked from there.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I already went through my atheist phase. Atheism is like a blind man claiming colors don't exist. Or a cockroach wandering around a bathroom floor thinking that it is the paramount of intelligence in the universe. If you do not think there is a way out of the cave, what are you even searching for?

a reply to: cooperton

Because it's all about the journey not the destination. Religious folks forget about this and only focus on the destination when the point of it all is the journey.

a reply to: cooperton

I'm not sure if Justin Martyr used that terminology as a way to relate back to the mustard seed. I think the mustard seed was used to show an amount of faith (the mustard seed is very very small), and Justin Martyr used it to show how the Truth(Christ) was revealed in smaller bits to those before Christ, and Christ is the fulfillment of what they were looking for.