世界小史 第166期:受苦難者
But Christ had taught that the world's worst sorrows had a meaning, that beggars, those in torment1, the persecuted2, the sick and the suffering were blessed in their misfortune.
但是基督曾教導：世上最大的痛苦自有其意義，乞丐、哭泣者、受迫害者、受苦難者在其不幸中都是有福的。
And so it was that the Son of God, martyred and in agony, became for the first Christians3 the very symbol of his teaching.
所以對于第一批基督徒來說，這位受苦難的、受折磨的圣子恰恰就是他學說的象征。
Today we can hardly imagine what that meant.
今天我們幾乎再也無法想象，這意味著什么。
The cross was even worse than the gallows4.
十字架是某種比絞刑架更惡劣的東西，
And this cross of shame became the symbol of the new teaching.
而這個恥辱的絞刑架則成了這種新學說的標志。
Just imagine what a Roman official or soldier, or a Roman teacher steeped in Greek culture, proud of his wisdom, his rhetoric5 and his knowledge of philosophy,
你想象一下吧，一個羅馬官員或士兵，一個對自己的睿智、自己的演說術(shù)和自己的哲學知識,
would have thought when he heard Christ's teaching from one of the great preachers – perhaps the Apostle Paul in Athens or in Rome.
搞到自豪的受過希臘教育的羅馬教師必定會有些什么想法，如果他在雅典或在羅馬聽到大傳教士中的一位，譬如師徒保羅傳教基督學說的話。
We can read what he preached there today, in his First Letter to the Corinthians: I will show you a more excellent way:
這位在那里這樣傳教，這是我們今天還可以在他的致哥林多人的第一封信里：我把最妙的道指示給你們：
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am but a sounding gong or a tinkling6 cymbal7.
我若能說萬人的方言，并天使的話語卻沒有愛，我就成了鳴的鑼、響的鈸一般。
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