To Our University Community,
“Light” is, as Dorothy L. Sayers suggests, “the most familiar of all metaphors.” The image of “the light” can be used in so many ways, to illustrate multiple concepts and ideas. Recall the classic cartoon image of a character having a brilliant thought – *bing* – and the lightbulb appears over its head. Of course, light is also associated with life and growth. The cold, dark winter is followed by the lengthening of days, the warming rays of the sun, and plants, dormant during the cold, starting to put forth buds and shoots.
Implicit is always the counterpart of light, darkness. The very first verses of the Bible recount that, before God did anything, there was darkness over everything. “Let there be light” was the first command, driving out the darkness and creating the conditions needed for life. Throughout history and literature darkness is used to represent fear and anxiety because when all is dark and obscure, we cannot see what may be lurking to harm us. A tree root, sticking up in our path that we trip over, a thief hiding in the corner. Light dispels the darkness and reveals the way before us.
“Having light we pass it on to others.”
Wittenberg’s founders never recorded the reason for choosing this quote from Plato’s Republic as our school’s motto. Being Lutheran ministers well familiar with the opening of John’s Gospel, “in [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of all people; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” (John 1:4-5), it seems clear that our founders interpreted Plato’s imagery as an apt metaphor for sharing the Light of Christ to all the world.
Today, not all members of our Wittenberg community are Christians, and neither was Plato, who lived nearly 2,500 years ago (400 years before Jesus was born). Wittenberg President Emeritus William Kinnison writes in his history of the University that while the quote “was not a central idea from The Republic…the image, that of Socrates thinking, conversing, asking questions, and sharing thoughts with others, is not an inappropriate picture of the function of a college,” (Kinnison, Modern Wittenberg, p. 355).
In other words, the light to be passed on to others is knowledge, wisdom, and truth. As a lamp illuminates a room and reveals its contents, so knowledge and truth dispel the darkness of ignorance and uncertainty. Understanding and applying that knowledge and truth is wisdom.
“Having light we pass it on to others” — our motto, our responsibility, and our calling for a lifetime.
Yours,
Christian M. M. Brady, DPhil (Oxon.)
President