"We are all born as animals and live the life that animals live: We sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however, another order of living, which the animals do not know, that of awe before the mystery of being, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, that can be the root and the branch of the spiritual sense of one's days. That is the birth -- the Virgin Birth -- in the heart of a properly human, spiritual life.

"The motif of birth in a cave is also very ancient. This symbol is associated particularly with the winter solstice, when the sun has traveled to its farthest point away from the tilted earth and the light is in the nadir of the abyss...

"The cave has always been the scene of initiation, where the birth of the light takes place. Here as well is found the whole idea of the cave of the heart, the dark chamber of the heart, where the light of the divine first appears. This image is also associated with the emergence of light in the beginning, out of the abyss of the early chaos, so that one senses the deep resonations of this theme.

"We have then the story and image of the birth of this wondrous child in a richly evocative setting. Let us look at other aspects of it. That there was no room in the inn is also an old story. So, too, is that of the infant in exile as the new world is born outside of the province of the old...

"What it evokes...is the birth of a new King somewhere else, outside of the sphere of the powers that be, and the ultimate overcoming of these powers by this new King."

from Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
by Joseph Campbell
pages 29, 65, and 67