旅行的藝術(shù):Ⅵ 壯闊-6

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由于人們習(xí)慣于把比他強大的東西稱為上帝，因此當(dāng)人們開始思及西奈的神靈時，并不讓人覺得奇怪。這里的山和山谷讓人很自然地聯(lián)想到，這個地球是由人類雙手以外的東西建構(gòu)的，他的力量比我們所有人力量的總和還要強大。早在我們出生前他便已存在，并且在我們死后仍會一直存續(xù)下去（路旁的花朵和快餐店就很難讓人聯(lián)想到這點）。

Because what is mightier than man has traditionally been called God, it does not seem unusual to start thinking of a deity in the Sinai. The mountains and valleys spontaneously suggest that the planet was built by something other than our own hands, by a force greater than we could gather, long before we were born, and set to continue long after our extinction (something we may forget when there are flowers and fast-food restaurants by the roadside).

據(jù)說上帝在西奈花了很多時間，最為人們津津樂道的事件是他用了兩年的時間在中原地帶照顧一群脾氣暴躁、經(jīng)常抱怨沒有食物，并且容易受到異教神祇引誘的猶太人。摩西在臨終前說道：“耶和華從西奈而來。”（《申命記》，33.2）“西奈山峰煙霧一片，因為上帝在火中降臨于山上，于是煙霧如同從爐子中向上升起。整座山大力震動。”（《出埃及記》）這樣形容。“眾百姓見雷轟、閃電，角聲、山上冒煙，就都發(fā)顫，遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)地站立，摩西對百姓說：‘不要懼怕，因為神降臨是要試驗?zāi)銈?hellip;…’”

God is said to have spent much time in the Sinai, most notably two years in the central region looking after a group of irascible Israelites, who complained about the lack of food and had a weakness for foreign gods. 'The LORD came from Sinai,' said Moses shortly before his death (Deut. 33.2). 'And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly,' explains Exodus (19.18). 'And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off … And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you … ' (ibid. 20.18-20).

然而，《圣經(jīng)》的記載只是加強了西奈游人必會體驗的一個印象，那就是：肯定是某個存在（或力量）有意塑造了這般景觀。他一定比人還要強大，并且擁有純粹的“自然”所不可能有的智慧。在凡夫俗子眼中，“上帝”似乎可以為這股力量正名。我們或許以為自然的力量，而非超自然的力量，一樣能造就美感和充滿力量的印象。然而當(dāng)我們站在一個沙巖山谷中，看著山谷向上延伸聳起，像是一個巨大的祭壇，而這祭壇之上，正懸著一彎新月……目睹此景，我們還能堅持是自然造就了美感和力感嗎？

But biblical history only serves to reinforce an impression that would anyway have occurred to a traveller encamped in the Sinai: an impression that some intentional being must have had a hand in this, something greater than man and with an intelligence that mere 'nature' does not possess; a 'something' for which the word God still seems, even to the secular mind, a far from unlikely appellation. The knowledge that natural rather than supernatural forces can also create beauty and an impression of power seems peculiarly ineffective as one stands before a sandstone valley rising towards what appears to be a giant altar, above which hangs a slender crescent moon.

早期描寫壯闊之物的作家常把壯闊的景致和宗教聯(lián)系起來：

Early writers on the sublime repeatedly connected sublime landscapes with religion:

1712年，艾迪生《論想象的樂趣》:

Joseph Addison, On the Pleasures of the Imagination, 1712:

“廣闊的空間讓我思考到了一個無所不能的神。”

A vast space naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being.'

1739年，格雷《信札》:

Thomas Gray, Letters, 1739:

“有些景象能讓無神論者心生敬畏，相信上帝的存在，這根本無需任何論證。”

There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief without the help of any other argument.'

1835年，柯爾 [8] 《論美國之風(fēng)光》:

Thomas Cole, Essay on American Scenery, 1835:

“這些孤絕之景不是出自自然之手，上帝才是它們真正的創(chuàng)造者——上帝。這是他完美無瑕之作，讓人思考永恒之物。”

Amid those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, the associations are of God the creator they are his undefiled works, and the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.'

1836年，埃默森《自然》：

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836:

“自然界最崇高的職責(zé)，便是作為上帝創(chuàng)造之奇觀出現(xiàn)。”

The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God.'

西方人為壯闊之景所吸引，正好發(fā)生在傳統(tǒng)的上帝信仰式微之時。這并不是偶然的。這些景觀仿佛使游人體驗到一股超然之感，而這種體驗是他們在城市和已開發(fā)的鄉(xiāng)間無法獲得的。這些自然景觀讓人們和超然的力量保持情感上的聯(lián)系，同時他們也無需再茍同于圣經(jīng)文本和宗教團體中越來越具體卻越來越不可信的論點，因此他們獲得了自由。

It is no coincidence that the Western attraction to sublime landscapes developed at precisely the moment when traditional beliefs in God began to wane. It is as if these landscapes allowed travellers to experience transcendent feelings that they no longer felt in cities and the cultivated countryside. The landscapes offered them an emotional connection to a greater power, even as they freed them of the need to subscribe to the more specific and now less plausible claims of biblical texts and organized religions.