第4章　诸神的黄昏

早期教会是很简单的组织。一旦人们明白世界末日并不是迫在眉睫，末日审判也不会在耶稣遇难以后立即到来，而且基督徒还要在灾难中煎熬很长时间时，人们就觉得需要某种形式的统治体系了。

最初基督徒（由于他们都是犹太人）都在犹太教堂集会。当犹太人和非犹太人产生冲突之后，非犹太人就到别人家的屋子里开会，如果找不到足够大的房子容纳所有虔诚（和好奇）的信徒，他们就在露天或废弃的石场开会。

起初这些会议都在星期六举行。但是当犹太基督徒与非犹太基督徒之间的感情恶化之后，非犹太基督徒便放弃了过安息日的习惯，而把耶稣复活的星期日作为聚会时间。

然而，这些庄严的仪式体现了公众特点和感情特点。没有固定的讲演或说教，也没有教士，所有男女只要感到内心被圣火激励，就可以在集会上站起来表白内心的信仰。如果我们相信保罗的描述，有时这些虔诚的弟兄“雄辩的口才”会使这位伟大的圣徒心里充满了对未来的希望。他们当中大多数人是普通百姓，没受过多少教育。没有人怀疑他们即席良言的真诚，但他们常常过于激动，以至于像疯子一样

maniacs and while a church may survive persecution, it is helpless against ridicule. Hence the efforts of Paul and Peter and their successors to bring some semblance of order into this chaos of spiritual divulgation and divine enthusiasm.

At first these efforts met with little success. A regular program seemed in direct contradiction to the democratic nature of the Christian faith. In the end, however, practical considerations supervened and the meetings became subject to a definite ritual.

They began with the reading of one of the Psalms（to placate the Jewish Christians who might be present）. Then the congregation united in a song of praise of more recent composition for the benefit of the Roman and the Greek worshipers.

The only prescribed form of oration was the famous prayer in which Jesus had summed up his entire philosophy of life. The preaching, however, for several centuries remained entirely spontaneous and the sermons were delivered only by those who felt that they had something to say.

But when the number of those gatherings increased, when the police, forever on the guard against secret societies, began to make inquiries, it was necessary that certain men be elected to represent the Christians in their dealings with the rest of the world. Already Paul had spoken highly of the gift or leadership. He had compared the little communities which he visited in Asia and Greece to so many tiny vessels which were tossed upon a turbulent sea and were very much in need of a clever pilot if they were to survive the fury of the angry ocean.

And so the faithful came together once more and elected deacons and deaconesses, pious men and women who were the “servants” of the community, who took care of the sick and the poor（an object of great concern to the early Christians）and who looked after the property of the community and took care of all the small daily chores.

Still later when the church continued to grow in membership and the business of administration had become too intricate for mere amateurs, it was entrusted to a small group

大喊大叫。教会虽然顶得住迫害，却禁受不住冷嘲热讽。于是，保罗、彼得及他们的继承人不得不颇费力气地维持秩序，以抚平人们的精神世界和神圣热情所导致的混乱。

刚开始，这些努力收效甚微，因为规章制度和基督教信仰的民主精神似乎正好是对立的。不过人们最后还是考虑到实际情况，使集会成了固定仪式的东西。

人们以朗读一首赞美诗开始（为的是安抚可能在场的犹太基督徒）。然后，全体教徒合唱为罗马和希腊崇拜者而谱写的赞歌。

唯一预先拟好的演说，是耶稣倾注了一生哲学思想的著名祷文。然而，在几个世纪中，布道完全是自发的，只有那些感到心里有话要说的人才能登台说教。

但随着集会次数的增加，总是对秘密团体保持警惕的警察开始干涉了，因此有必要推选出某些人代表基督徒与外界打交道。保罗曾高度评价过领导的才能。他把他在亚洲和希腊走访过的小团体比作在波涛汹涌的大海中颠簸的小舟，如果要闯过怒涛汹涌的大海，就必须有聪明的领航员。

于是虔诚的信徒又聚集在一起，选出了男女执事。他们是些虔诚的男男女女，是团体的“仆人”，要照顾好病人和穷人（这是早期基督徒非常关心的事情），管理好集体财产，还要料理所有日常琐事。

再后来，教会成员越来越多，事务性管理对兼职的执事来说太复杂了，于是选了几位“老者”担当此任。他们的希腊称呼是“长老”，现在被称为“神父”。

of “elders.” These were known by their Greek name of Presbyters and hence our word “priest.”

After a number of years, when every village or city possessed a Christian church of its own, the need was felt for a common policy. Then an “overseer”（an Episkopos or Bishop）was elected to superintend an entire district and direct its dealings with the Roman government.

Soon there were bishops in all the principal towns of the empire, and those in Antioch and Constantinople and Jerusalem and Carthage and Rome and Alexandria and Athens were reputed to be very powerful gentlemen who were almost as important as the civil and military governors of their provinces.

In the beginning of course the bishop who presided over that part of the world where Jesus had lived and suffered and died enjoyed the greatest respect. But after Jerusalem had been destroyed and the generation which had expected the end of the world and the triumph of Zion had disappeared from the face of the earth, the poor old bishop in his ruined palace saw himself deprived of his former prestige.

And quite naturally his place as leader of the faithful was taken by the “overseer” who lived in the capital of the civilized world and who guarded the sites where Peter and Paul, the great apostles of the west, had suffered their martyrdom—the Bishop of Rome.

This bishop, like all others, was known as Father of Papa, the common expression of love and respect bestowed upon members of the clergy. In the course of centuries, the title of Papa however became almost exclusively associated in people's minds with the particular “Father” who was the head of the metropolitan diocese.When they spoke of the Papa or Pope they meant just one Father, the Bishop of Rome, and not by any chance the Bishop of Constantinople or the Bishop of Carthage. This was an entirely normal development.When we read in our newspaper about “the President” it is not necessary to add “of the United States.” We know that the head of our government is meant and not the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the President of Harvard University or the President of the League of Nations.

过了些年，每个村庄和城市都有了自己的教堂，因此又有必要制定人们共同遵守的政策。于是选出了“总监”（即主教）来监督整个教区，并负责与罗马政府打交道。

不久，帝国的所有大都市都有了主教，安条克、君士坦丁堡、耶路撒冷、迦太基、罗马、亚历山大和雅典的主教都是很有权势的人物，他们和当地的军政长官几乎同样重要。

起初，掌管着耶稣当年曾经生活、受难并死去的地方的主教当然广受尊敬。但自从耶路撒冷被毁以及期待世界末日和天国成功的一代人从地球上消失之后，可怜的老主教在他荒废的宫殿里眼睁睁地看着自己被剥夺了原有的威望。

虔诚信徒首领的位置很自然地被“总监”代替了。“总监”住在文明世界的首都，守卫着西方伟大使徒保罗和彼得当年殉教的地方——他就是罗马大主教。

这个主教与其他主教一样，也被称为“神父”或“圣父”，这是对圣职人员表示热爱和尊敬的一般称呼。但在以后的几个世纪里，“圣父”这个头衔在人们心目中几乎只与主教管区的首领相联系。当人们提到“圣父”时，指的只是一个神父，即罗马的大主教，而绝不会是君士坦丁堡的主教或迦太基的主教。这是个非常自然的发展过程。当我们在报纸上看到“总统”一词时，没必要再加上“合众国”一词，因为我们知道这里指的是政府首脑，而不是宾夕法尼亚铁路局长或哈佛大学校

The first time the name occurred of ficially in a document was in the year 258.At that time Rome was still the capital of a highly successful empire and the power of the bishops was entirely overshadowed by that of the emperors. But during the next three hundred years, under the constant menace of both foreign and domestic invasions, the successors of Caesar began to look for a new home that would offer them greater safety. This they found in a city in a different part of their domains. It was called Byzantium, after a mythical hero by the name of Byzas who was said to have landed there shortly after the Trojan war.Situated on the straits which separated Europe from Asia and dominating the trade route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, it controlled several important monopolies and was of such great commercial importance that already Sparta and Athens had fought for the possession of this rich fortress.

Byzantium, however, had held its own until the days of Alexander and after having been for a short while part of Macedonia it had finally been incorporated into the Roman Empire.

And now, after ten centuries of increasing prosperity, its Golden Horn filled with the ships from a hundred nations, it was chosen to become the center of the empire.

The people of Rome, left to the mercy of Visigoths and Vandals and Heaven knows what other sort of barbarians, felt that the end of the world had come when the imperial palaces stood empty for years at a time; when one department of state after another was removed to the shores of the Bosporus and when the inhabitants of the capital were asked to obey laws made a thousand miles away.

But in the realm of history, it is an ill wind that does not blow some one good. With the emperors gone, the bishops remained behind as the most important dignitaries of the town, the only visible and tangible successors to the glory of the imperial throne.

And what excellent use they made of their new independence! They were shrewd politicians, for the prestige and the influence of their office had attracted the best brains of all Italy. They felt themselves to be the representatives of certain eternal ideas. Hence they

长、国联主席。

“教皇”这个名字第一次出现在正式文件中是公元258年。那时，罗马还是强盛帝国的首都，主教的势力完全处在皇帝的权势之下。但是在接下来的300年中，由于经常受到外侵内乱的威胁，凯撒的继承人开始寻找更加安全的新国土来建立自己的国家。他们在国土的另一个地方找到了一座城市，它叫拜占廷，是根据一个神话英雄拜扎斯的名字而得名的，据说特洛伊战争结束不久，拜扎斯曾在这里登陆。由于拜占廷位于几条将欧亚大陆分割开来的海峡之畔，控制着黑海和地中海之间的商业要道，因此它控制了几个重要的垄断项目，占据着非常重要的商业地位，以至于斯巴达人和雅典人为了争夺这个富足的要塞而打得不可开交。

然而，拜占廷在亚历山大时代以前一直是独立的。它沦为马其顿一部分不久，就被并入罗马帝国的版图。

现在经过1000年的财富积累，这个“金号角”海港中就挤满了来自上百个国家的船只，它被选为帝国的中心。

罗马人民只能听任哥特人、汪达尔人等野蛮人的宰割。当他们看到皇宫接连好几年空荡荡的，看到政府部门一个接一个搬到博斯普鲁斯海峡之滨，看到首都的居民竟要遵守在千里之外制定的法律时，他们感到世界末日已经来临了。

但是在历史的长河中，任何事情都是有得有失。皇帝走了，留下来的主教成了

were never in a hurry, but proceeded with the deliberate slowness of a glacier and dared to take chances where others, acting under the pressure of immediate necessity, made rapid decisions, blundered and failed.

But most important of all, they were men of a single purpose, who moved consistently and persistently towards one goal. In all they did and said and thought they were guided by the desire to increase the glory of God and the strength and power of the organization which represented the divine will on earth.

How well they wrought, the history of the next ten centuries was to show.

While everything else perished in the deluge of savage tribes which hurled itself across the European continent, while the walls of the empire, one after the other, came crumbling down, while a thousand institutions as old as the plains of Babylon were swept away like so much useless rubbish, the Church stood strong and erect, the rock of ages, but more particularly the rock of the Middle Ages.

The victory, however, which was finally won, was bought at a terrible cost.

For Christianity which had begun in a stable was allowed to end in a palace. It had been started as a protest against a form of government in which the priest as the self-appointed intermediary between the deity and mankind had insisted upon the unquestioning obedience of all ordinary human beings. This revolutionary body grew and in less than a hundred years it developed into a new super-theocracy, compared to which the old Jewish state had been a mild and liberal commonwealth of happy and carefree citizens.

And yet all this was perfectly logical and quite unavoidable, as I shall now try to show you.

Most of the people who visit Rome make a pilgrimage to the Coliseum and within those wind-swept walls they are shown the hallowed ground where thousands of Christian martyrs fell as victims of Roman intolerance.

But while it is true that upon several occasions there were persecutions of the adherents

最显赫的人物，他们是皇冠荣耀唯一看得见摸得着的继承人。

他们充分利用了这个新的毫无束缚的机会。教会的声望和影响吸引了意大利最有智慧的人，这使主教们变成了精明的政治家。他们觉得自己就是某些永恒信念的代表，因此他们没有必要那么急，而是采取潜移默化的方法，抓住机会即可；而不必像其他人那样，因为操之过急造成的压力而仓促作出决定，最后出错失败。

但最重要的是，主教们只有一个目标，只向一个目标坚韧不拔地前进。他们所做所说所想的一切，都是为了增加上帝的荣耀，为了使代表上帝意志的尘世教会更强大有力。

以后1000年的历史表明，他们的工作是卓有成效的。

当野蛮部落的洪水席卷欧洲大陆而毁坏了一切时，当帝国的围墙一面面倒坍时，当上千个像巴比伦平原那样古老的体制像垃圾一样冲散时，只有教会仍然坚强地屹立着，它是时代的坚石，更是中世纪的中流砥柱。

然而，虽然最终胜利，但代价却惨重。

基督教起源于马厩，却被允许在宫殿里寿终正寝。它本是以抗议政府发展起来的，但后来自命能沟通人神的神父坚持让每一个普通人无条件地服从教会。这个团体不断地成长，在不到100年的时间里竟发展成为新的拥有超级神权的政治集团。古老的犹太国家与之相比，反而成了幸福快乐的公民居住的自由的联邦。

然而这一切既合乎逻辑而又不可避免。下面我要进一步说明。

of the new faith, these had very little to do with religious intolerance.

They were purely political.

The Christian, as a member of a religious sect, enjoyed the greatest possible freedom.

But the Christian who openly proclaimed himself a conscientious objector, who bragged of his pacifism even when the country was threatened with foreign invasion and openly defied the laws of the land upon every suitable and unsuitable occasion, such a Christian was considered an enemy of the state and was treated as such.

That he acted according to his most sacred convictions did not make the slightest impression upon the mind of the average police judge. And when he tried to explain the exact nature of his scruples, that dignitary looked puzzled and was entirely unable to follow him.

A Roman police judge after all was only human. When he suddenly found himself called upon to try people who made an issue of what seemed to him a very trivial matter, he simply did not know what to do.Long experience had taught him to keep clear of all theological controversies.Besides he remembered many imperial edicts, admonishing public servants to use “tact” in their dealings with the new sect. Hence he used tact and argued. But as the whole dispute boiled down to a question of principles, very little was ever accomplished by an appeal to logic.

In the end, the magistrate was placed before the choice of surrendering the dignity of the law or insisting upon a complete and unqualified vindication of the supreme power of the state. But prison and torture meant nothing to people who firmly believed that life did not begin until after death and who shouted with joy at the idea of being allowed to leave this wicked world for the joys of Heaven.

The guerilla warfare therefore which finally broke out between the authorities and their Christian subjects was long and painful. We possess very few authentic figures upon the total

大多数游览罗马的人都要去瞻仰圆形大剧场，在被风吹拂的围墙里是一块凹陷的土地，数千名基督徒殉道者作为罗马专制的牺牲品，倒在了这里。

不过，尽管在那里的确发生过几次对新信仰拥护者的迫害，却都与宗教的不宽容无关。

这些迫害全都出于政治原因。

基督教作为一个宗教派别，享有最大的自由。

但是，基督徒公开宣称自己由于宗教信仰而拒服兵役，甚至当国家受到外国侵略时还大肆吹嘘和平主义，而且在各种场合公开诋毁土地法律，因此这种基督徒被视为国家的敌人，遭到了应有的处决。

基督徒是按照自己最神圣的信条行事的，可普通的警方法官却不管这个。当基督徒努力解释自己的道德本性时，长官大人却迷惑不解，完全不知道他们在说什么。

罗马的警方法官毕竟只是凡人。他突然发现自己应召来审判犯人，而犯人的官司在他看来却毫不重要时，他简直不知所措。经验告诉他，对神学中的所有争论应采取超然态度；而且他还记得，皇帝的许多敕令曾告诫公职人员，在和新教派打交道时要“策略”些，于是他用了各种手段进行理论。可是当全部争论集中到一个原则问题时，使用逻辑方法也就收效甚微了。

最后，行政长官面临两难的抉择：或者放弃法律的尊严，或者坚持对国家最高

number of victims.According to Origen, the famous church father of the third century, several of whose own relatives had been killed in Alexandria during one of the persecutions, “the number of true Christians who died for their convictions could easily be enumerated.”

On the other hand, when we peruse the lives of the early saints we find ourselves faced by such incessant tales of bloodshed that we begin to wonder how a religion exposed to these constant and murderous persecutions could ever have survived at all.

No matter what figures I shall give, some one is sure to call me a prejudiced liar.I will therefore keep my opinion to myself and let my readers draw their own conclusions. By studying the lives of the Emperors Decius（249～251）and Valerian（253～260）they will be able to form a fairly accurate opinion as to the true character of Roman intolerance during the worst era of persecution.

Furthermore if they will remember that as wise and liberal minded a ruler as Marcus Aurelius confessed himself unable to handle the problem of his Christian subjects successfully, they will derive some idea about the difficulties which beset obscure little officials in remote corners of the empire, who tried to do their duty and must either be unfaithful to their oath of office or execute those of their relatives and neighbors who could not or would not obey those few and very simple ordinances upon which the imperial government insisted as a matter of self-preservation.

Meanwhile the Christians, not hindered by false sentimentality towards their pagan fellow-citizens, were steadily extending the sphere of their influence.

Late in the fourth century, the Emperor Gratian at the request of the Christian members of the Roman senate who complained that it hurt their feelings to gather in the shadow of a heathenish idol, ordered the removal of the statue of Victory which for more than four hundred years had stood in the hall built by Julius Caesar. Several senators protested.This

权力的完全而绝对服从。但监狱和折磨对那些教徒根本不算什么，他们坚信生命只有在死亡之后才会开始，还热烈欢呼能离开这个邪恶的世界去享受天国之乐。

因此，当局和基督教臣民之间爆发的游击战痛苦而漫长。我们没有全部死亡人数的官方数据。但依照公元3世纪著名神父奥利金（他的一些亲戚在亚历山大的一次迫害中被杀死）的说法，“为信念而死的真正基督徒的数目很容易统计出来”。

另一方面，我们只要仔细研究早期圣人的生平，就会发现许多鲜血淋淋的故事；因此我们不禁会感到奇怪，一个屡遭杀戮迫害的宗教究竟是如何保存下来的？

无论我提供什么样的数字，一定会有人指控我是心怀偏见的骗子。因此我保留自己的见解，让读者自己去得出结论。只要研究一下德西厄斯皇帝（249～251）和瓦莱里安皇帝（253～260年）的一生，那我们对迫害行为最猖獗时罗马专制的真正本性就会有比较清楚准确的结论了。

此外，如果读者还记得，就连马可·奥勒留皇帝这样开明睿智的君主都承认自己很难处理基督教臣民的问题，那么对帝国边远地区的无名小官来说，他们面临的困难就可想而知了。那些想尽忠职守的小官们不是必须背弃自己的就职誓词，就是必须处死自己的亲朋好友和邻居，因为这些人不能也不愿遵守帝国政府为了保存自己而制定的几项简单的法令。

与此同时，基督徒没有受同城异教臣民假惺惺的伤感的迷惑，而是稳步扩大自己的影响范围。

公元4世纪后期，格瑞提恩皇帝应罗马元老院基督徒的要求（这些人抱怨说，

did very little good and only caused a number of them to be sent into exile.

It was then that Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, a devoted patriot of great personal distinction, wrote his famous letter in which he tried to suggest a compromise.

“Why,” so he asked, “should we Pagans and our Christian neighbors not live in peace and harmony? We look up to the same stars, we are fellow-passengers on the same planet and dwell beneath the same sky. What matters it along which road each individual endeavors to find the ultimate truth? The riddle of existence is too great that there should be only one path leading to an answer.”

He was not the only man who felt that way and saw the danger which threatened the old Roman tradition of a broadminded religious policy. Simultaneously with the removal of the statue of Victory in Rome a violent quarrel had broken out between two contending factions of the Christians who had found a refuge in Byzantium. This dispute gave rise to one of the most intelligent discussions of tolerance to which the world had ever listened.Themistius the philosopher, who was the author, had remained faithful to the Gods of his fathers. But when the Emperor Valens took sides in the fight between his orthodox and his non-orthodox Christian subjects, Themistius felt obliged to remind him of his true duty.

“There is,” so he said, “a domain over which no ruler can hope to exercise any authority. That is the domain of the virtues and especially that of the religious beliefs of individuals.Compulsion within that field causes hypocrisy and conversions that are based upon fraud. Hence it is much better for a ruler to tolerate all beliefs, since it is only by toleration that civic

在异教偶像的阴影下开会伤害了他们的感情），下令把那座矗立在凯撒建立的宫殿里长达400年之久的胜利女神像搬走。几个元老曾进行抗议，但无济于事，结果还导致他们中一些人被流放。

这时，一位享有非凡荣誉的忠诚爱国者昆图斯·奥勒留乌斯·塞玛楚斯挥笔写下一封著名的信，提出了一个折中的办法。

“为什么，”他问道，“我们异教徒不能和基督徒邻居和平相处呢？我们仰望的是同样的星辰，并肩走在同一块土地上，住在同一片天空之下。每个人自己选择寻求最终真理的道路又有什么关系？生存的奥秘太伟大了，通向答案的道路不可能只有一条。”

他并不是唯一这样分析问题并看出古罗马宗教开放的政策传统正在受到威胁的人。与此同时，随着罗马胜利女神像的搬迁，已经在拜占廷立足的两个敌对的基督教派之间爆发了激烈的争执。这次争执引起了世所未闻的关于宽容的最富有才智的讨论。哲学家西米斯提乌斯是讨论的发起人，他对祖先信奉的上帝忠贞不渝。但当瓦伦斯皇帝在正统与非正统的基督徒论战中偏袒一方时，他觉得必须让皇帝明白自己真正的职责。

他说：“有一个领域，任何统治者都休想在那里施展权威，这就是道德王国，

strife can be averted.Moreover, tolerance is a divine law.God himself has most clearly demonstrated his desire for a number of different religions. And God alone can judge the methods by which humanity aspires to come to an understanding of the Divine Mystery.God delights in the variety of homage which is rendered to him. He likes the Christians to use certain rites, the Greeks others, the Egyptians again others.”

Fine words, indeed, but spoken in vain.

The ancient world together with its ideas and ideals was dead and all efforts to set back the clock of history were doomed beforehand. Life means progress, and progress means suffering. The old order of society was rapidly disintegrating. The army was a mutinous mob of foreign mercenaries. The frontier was in open revolt.England and the other outlying districts had long since been surrendered to the barbarians.

When the final catastrophe took place, those brilliant young men who in centuries past had entered the service of the state found themselves deprived of all but one chance for advancement. That was a career in the Church.As Christian archbishop of Spain, they could hope to exercise the power formerly held by the proconsul.As Christian authors, they could be certain of a fairly large public if they were willing to devote themselves exclusively to theological subjects.As Christian diplomats, they could be sure of rapid promotion if they were willing to represent the bishop of Rome at the imperial court of Constantinople or undertake the hazardous job of gaining the good will of some barbarous chieftain in the heart of Gaul or Scandinavia. And finally, as Christian financiers, they could hope to make fortunes administering those rapidly increasing estates which had made the occupants of the Lateran Palace the largest landowners of Italy and the richest men of their time.

We have seen something of the same nature during the last five years.Up to the year 1914 the young men of Europe who were ambitious and did not depend upon manual labor for their

尤其是个人宗教信仰方面。在那个领域实施强制，必然会导致建立在欺骗上的虚伪和皈依。因此，对统治者来说最好是容忍一切信仰，因为只有宽容才能防止公众冲突。况且，宽容是项神圣法则，上帝自己已经明确表明愿意容忍多种不同的宗教。也只有上帝能够判断人类用以理解神圣玄机的方法。上帝喜欢人们对他的形形色色的崇拜，喜欢基督徒采用的某种礼仪，也喜欢希腊人和埃及人采用的其他礼仪。”

这的确是金玉良言，但没有人听。

这个古老的世界连同它的思想和理想都已经死了，任何倒转历史时钟的企图都注定会失败。生活意味着进步，进步意味着磨难。旧的社会秩序正迅速崩溃。军队是一群叛乱的外国雇佣军。边境发生了公开叛乱。英格兰及其他边沿地区早已落入野蛮人之手。

当最后的灾难爆发的时候，过去几个世纪一直从事国家公职的聪明年轻人发现，自己只有一条晋升之路，而其他路子都被堵死了，这条路就是进教会。作为西班牙的基督教大主教，有望获得以前由地方长官控制的权力；作为基督教作者，只要全身心从事理论方面的研究，就能获得广泛的公众影响力；作为基督教外交官，只要愿意在君士坦丁堡皇宫里代表罗马教皇，或愿意冒险深入高卢或斯堪的那维亚内地，获得野蛮人酋长的友情，就可以平步青云。最后，要是当了基督教财务主管，还有望掌管那片曾使拉特兰宫的占有者成为意大利当时最大的地主和最富裕人家的快速致富的领地而大发横财。

我们在过去5年已经看到了本质相同的事情。直到1914年，那些野心勃勃、不想

support almost invariably entered the service of the state. They became officers of the different imperial and royal armies and navies. They filled the higher judicial positions, administered the finances or spent years in the colonies as governors or military commanders. They did not expect to grow very rich, but the social prestige of the offices which they held was very great and by the application of a certain amount of intelligence, industry and honesty, they could look forward to a pleasant life and an honorable old age.

Then came the war and swept aside these last remnants of the old feudal fabric of society. The lower classes took hold of the government. Some few among the former officials were too old to change the habits of a lifetime. They pawned their orders and died. The vast majority, however, surrendered to the inevitable.From childhood on they had been educated to regard business as a low profession, not worthy of their attention.Perhaps business was a low profession, but they had to choose between an office and the poor house. The number of people who will go hungry for the sake of their convictions is always relatively small. And so within a few years after the great upheaval, we find most of the former officers and state officials doing the sort of work which they would not have touched ten years ago and doing it not unwillingly.Besides, as most of them belonged to families which for generations had been trained in executive work and were thoroughly accustomed to handle men, they have found it comparatively easy to push ahead in their new careers and are today a great deal happier and decidedly more prosperous than they had ever expected to be.

What business is today, the Church was sixteen centuries ago.

It may not always have been easy for young men who traced their ancestry back to Hercules or to Romulus or to the heroes of the Trojan war to take orders from a simple cleric who was the son of a slave, but the simple cleric who was the son of a slave had something to give which the young men who traced their ancestry back to Hercules and

依靠手工劳动谋生的欧洲年轻人几乎都想挤入政府部门工作。他们在不同的帝国和皇家陆军、海军中当上了军官。他们把持着高级法官的位置，掌握着财政，或在殖民地当几年总督或军事司令官。他们并不指望变得很富有，但他们的官职带来了巨大的社会威望，只要足够聪明、勤奋和诚实，就可以过上美满的生活和令人尊敬的晚年。

然后爆发了战争，它把旧社会的封建结构的最后残余涤荡一空，下层阶层掌握了政权。有些前任官员太老了，难以改变一生形成的习惯，便典当了自己的勋章，离开了人世。然而，绝大多数人都接受了无法避免的事实。他们从小接受教育，把做生意当成低下职业，对此不屑一顾。也许做生意是门低贱职业，但他们必须选择是进办公室还是进贫民区。为信念而宁愿挨饿的人总是一小部分，因此大动乱后没过几年，我们便发现大多数前任军官和政府官员都心甘情愿地做起生意来，而十年前他们是绝不会涉足此事的。此外，由于他们大多数人出生于世代从政的家庭，都习惯于指挥别人，因此他们在新的行当中进展得比较容易，比自己所期望的更加幸福和富足。

工商业在今天的情形，正是教会在16世纪以前的写照。

要让一些年轻人（他们把自己的祖先追溯到赫拉克勒斯、罗慕路斯或特洛伊战争的英雄）接受一个奴隶出身的朴素牧师的教诲，可不那么容易；然而，这位奴隶出身的朴素牧师所奉献的东西，正是这些把祖先追溯到赫拉克勒斯、罗慕路斯或特洛伊战争英雄的年轻人所热切盼望的。因此，如果双方都是聪明人的话（他们很可能是这样），很快就能学到彼此的优点并和睦相处。因为这是历史的又一条奇怪法

Romulus and the heroes of the Trojan war wanted and wanted badly. And therefore if they were both bright fellows（as they well may have been）they soon learned to appreciate the other fellow's good qualities and got along beautifully. For it is one of the other strange laws of history that the more things appear to be changing, the more they remain the same.

Since the beginning of time it has seemed inevitable that there shall be one small group of clever men and women who do the ruling and a much larger group of not-quite-so-bright men and women who shall do the obeying. The stakes for which these two groups play are at different periods known by different names.Invariably they represent Strength and Leadership on the one hand and Weakness and Compliance on the other. They have been called Empire and Church and Knighthood and Monarchy and Democracy and Slavery and Serfdom and Proletariat. But the mysterious law which governs human development works the same in Moscow as it does in London or Madrid or Washington, for it is bound to neither time nor place. It has often manifested itself under strange forms and disguises.More than once it has worn a lowly garb and has loudly proclaimed its love for humanity, its devotion to God, its humble desire to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. But underneath such pleasant exteriors it has always hidden and continues to hide the grim truth of that primeval law which insists that the first duty of man is to keep alive.People who resent the fact that they were born in a world of mammals are apt to get angry at such statements. They call us “materialistics” and “Cynics” and what not.Because they have always regarded history as a pleasant fairy tale, they are shocked to discover that it is a science which obeys the same iron rules which govern the rest of the universe. They might as well fight against the habits of parallel lines or the results of the tables of multiplication.

Personally I would advise them to accept the inevitable.

For then and only then can history some day be turned into something that shall have a practical value to the human race and cease to be the ally and confederate of those who profit by

则：事情表面变化越大，就越一成不变。

人类初始以来，就似乎有一条不可避免的规律，即小部分聪明的男女进行统治，而大部分不太聪明的男女则受制于人。这两类人在不同时代分别有不同的名字，其中一方总代表力量和领导，另一方则代表软弱和屈从，分别被称为帝国、教会、骑士、君主和民主、奴隶、农奴、无产者。但无论是在莫斯科，还是在伦敦、马德里和华盛顿，操纵人类发展事业的神秘法则都是一样的，因为它不受时间地点的限制。它常常以怪异的形式或伪装出现。它不止一次披上陈腐的外衣，高喊对人类的爱、对上帝的忠诚和给绝大多数人带来最大好处的谦卑愿望。但是在这宜人的外壳下面，却一直隐藏并继续隐藏着原始法则的严酷真理：它强调人的第一职责是生存。那些痛恨自己出生在哺乳动物世界这一事实的人很容易对这种论点产生反感。他们称我们是“唯物主义者”“愤世嫉俗者”，等等。因为他们一直把历史当作令人愉悦的神话故事，因此当他们发现历史也是一门科学（它受制于操纵宇宙其他事物的铁律）时，便大为震惊。他们也许还会反对平行线法则和乘法口诀表呢。

我个人奉劝他们还是接受不可改变的事实。

这样，也只有这样，历史总有一天才会变得对人类有实用价值，而不再是那些从种族偏见、部落专横和广大居民的无知中坐收渔利的人结成的联盟。

谁要是怀疑这种观点，就请在我前几页所写的这几个世纪的历史中寻找证据吧。

racial prejudice, tribal intolerance and the ignorance of the vast majority of their fellow citizens.

And if any one doubts the truth of this statement, let him look for the proof in the chronicles of those centuries of which I was writing a few pages back.

Let him study the lives of the great leaders of the Church during the first four centuries.

Almost without exception he will find that they came from the ranks of the old Pagan society, that they had been trained in the schools of the Greek philosophers and had only drifted into the Church afterwards, when they had been obliged to choose a career.Several of them of course were attracted by the new ideas and accepted the words of Christ with heart and soul. But the great majority changed its allegiance from a worldly master to a Heavenly ruler because the chances for advancement with the latter were infinitely greater.

The Church from her side, always very wise and very understanding, did not look too closely into the motives which had impelled many of her new disciples to take this sudden step. And most carefully she endeavored to be all things to all men.Those who felt inclined towards a practical and worldly existence were given a chance to make good in the field of politics and economics. While those of a different temperament, who took their faith more emotionally, were offered every possible opportunity to escape from the crowded cities that they might cogitate in silence upon the evils of existence and so might acquire that degree of personal holiness which they deemed necessary for the eternal happiness of their souls.

In the beginning it had been quite easy to lead such a life of devotion and contemplation.

The Church during the first centuries of her existence had been merely a loose spiritual bond between humble folks who dwelled far away from the mansions of the mighty. But when the Church succeeded the empire as ruler of the world, and became a strong political organization with vast real-estate holdings in Italy and France and Africa, there were less opportunities for a life of solitude.Many pious men and women began to harken back

请他研究一下最初4000年教会伟大领袖的生平。

他肯定会发现，教会领袖都出生于古老的异端社会的某些阶层，在希腊哲学家那里受过教育，只是到后来不得不选择一个职业时才转到教会。当然，他们中有几个人是受新思想的吸引而真心诚意地接受基督教诲的，但大多数人从效忠凡世主人转变为效忠天国统治者，则是因为后者晋升的机会更多。

就教会而言，它也总是通情达理，并不细究许多新信徒是出于什么动机而突然改奉基督教的，而是极其认真地为所有人做好事。那些向往实际利益和凡尘生活的人，会得到机会在政治经济领域大显身手。对那些情趣不同、对信仰情深义重的人，会寻找机会离开拥挤不堪的城市，以便在安静中深思生存的罪恶，以达到他们认为使灵魂获得永恒幸福必不可少的个人圣境。

起初，过上这种信仰上帝、沉思冥想的生活非常容易。

教会在最初的几个世纪只是对住在远离权力中心的下层百姓有松弛的精神约束。但是当教会继帝国之后成为世界的统治者，并成为一个在意大利、法国和非洲拥有大片肥沃土地的强大政治组织之后，过隐居生活的可能性便减少了。许多善男信女开始向往“旧日好时光”，那时所有真正的基督徒都可以把时间花在做善事和祷告上。为了重获幸福，他们人为地创造一些条件，再现那种自然形成的生活。

这场争取修道院式生活的运动起源于东方，它对社会在接下来1000年的政治经济的发展产生了巨大影响，并为教会镇压不信教者或异教徒的战争提供了一支忠诚

to the “good old days” when all true Christians had spent their waking hours in works of charity and in prayer. That they might again be happy, they now arti ficially recreated what once had been a natural development of the times.

This movement for a monastic form of life which was to exercise such an enormous influence upon the political and economic development of the next thousand years and which was to give the Church a devoted group of very useful shock-troops in her warfare upon heathen and heretics was of Oriental origin.

This need not surprise us.

In the countries bordering upon the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, civilization was very, very old and the human race was tired to the point of exhaustion. In Egypt alone, ten different and separate cycles of culture had succeeded each other since the first settlers had occupied the valley of the Nile. The same was true of the fertile plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The vanity of life, the utter futility of all human effort, lay visible in the ruins of thousands of bygone temples and palaces. The younger races of Europe might accept Christianity as an eager promise of life, a constant appeal to their newly regained energy and enthusiasm. But Egyptians and Syrians took their religious experiences in a different mood.

To them it meant the welcome prospect of relief from the curse of being alive. And in anticipation of the joyful hour of death, they escaped from the charnel-house of their own memories and they fied into the desert that they might be alone with their grief and their God and nevermore look upon the reality of existence.

For some curious reason the business of reform always seems to have had a particular appeal to soldiers. They, more than all other people, have come into direct contact with the cruelty and the horrors of civilization.Furthermore they have learned that nothing can be accomplished without discipline. The greatest of all modern warriors to fight the battles of the Church was a former captain in the army of the Emperor Charles V. And the man

的突击队。

对此我们不必惊讶。

濒临地中海东岸的国家，拥有古老的文明，而且人们已经筋疲力尽。仅仅在埃及，自从第一批居民在尼罗河谷住下来开始，就有十种不同文化此起彼伏，以不同的方式循环往复。在底格里斯河和幼发拉底河之间的肥沃平原也是这样。生活空虚无聊，人类所有的努力都徒劳无益，路旁边成千上万座庙宇和宫殿的废墟就是写照。欧洲年轻一代接受基督教，是因为它体现了对生活的强烈期望，激发了他们的精力和热情。但埃及人和叙利亚人对自己的宗教生活却有不同的看法。

对他们来说，宗教意味着从“活着”的痛苦中获得盼望许久的解脱。他们沉浸在对死亡的快乐时光的期待中，从他们记忆中的停尸场逃离出去，躲进沙漠，只与悲伤和上帝做伴，而不再理会现实生活。

出于某些难以理解的原因，改革似乎总能对士兵产生特殊的号召力。他们比其他人都更加直接地接触到文明的野蛮和恐怖。此外，他们还明白，没有纪律就一事无成。为教会而战的最伟大的现代勇士，是查理五世皇帝军队中的一个上尉。他第一个把精神落伍者组成了一个简单的组织，曾在君士坦丁大帝的军队中当过列兵。他名叫帕乔米乌斯，是个埃及人。他服完兵役后，加入到一小群隐居者当中，这些人的头目是一个叫安东尼的人，他与帕乔米乌斯来自同一个国家。这些隐居者离开城市，与沙漠上的豺狗和平相处。不过，由于隐居生活往往会产生各种奇怪的思想

who first gathered the spiritual stragglers into a single organization had been a private in the army of the Emperor Constantine. His name was Pachomius and he was an Egyptian.When he got through with his military service, he joined a small group of hermits who under the leadership of a certain Anthony, who hailed from his own country, had left the cities and were living peacefully among the jackals of the desert. But as the solitary life seemed to lead to all sorts of strange afflictions of the mind and caused certain very regrettable excesses of devotion which made people spend their days on the top of an old pillar or at the bottom of a deserted grave（thereby giving cause for great mirth to the pagans and serious reason for grief to the true believers）Pachomius decided to put the whole movement upon a more practical basis and in this way he became the founder of the first religious order.From that day on（the middle of the fourth century）hermits living together in small groups obeyed one single commander who was known as the “superior general” and who in turn appointed the abbots who were responsible for the different monasteries which they held as so many fortresses of the Lord.

Before Pachomius died in 346 his monastic idea had been carried from Egypt to Rome by the Alexandrian bishop Athanasius and thousands of people had availed themselves of this opportunity to flee the world, its wickedness and its too insistent creditors.

The climate of Europe, however, and the nature of the people made it necessary that the original plans of the founder be slightly changed. Hunger and cold were not quite so easy to bear under a wintry sky as in the valley of the Nile.Besides, the more practical western mind was disgusted rather than edified by that display of dirt and squalor which seemed to be an integral part of the Oriental ideal of holiness.

“What,” so the Italians and the Frenchmen asked themselves, “is to become of those good works upon which the early Church has laid so much stress? Are the widows and the orphans and the sick really very much benefited by the self-mortification of small groups of emaciated

矛盾，引起某些可悲的过度虔诚的行为，如爬到古老的石柱顶上或荒芜的坟墓里度日（这给了异教徒极大的笑料，使真正的信仰者伤心欲绝），于是帕乔米乌斯决定把整个运动建立在更加实际的基础上。这样，他就成了第一个宗教秩序的奠基者。从那时起（公元4世纪中叶），住在一起的小群隐居者都服从一个首领，称他为“总管”，他可以任命修道院院长管理不同的修道院，把林立的修道院当成了主的堡垒。

帕乔米乌斯死于公元346年。在他去世之前，他的隐修思想被亚历山大的阿塔纳修斯主教从埃及带到了罗马。数以千计的人借此机会，逃离了现实世界的邪恶和欲壑难填的债主的勒索。

然而，欧洲的气候和人们的本性使得创始人的最初计划必须稍做修改。在冰天雪地里，饥饿和寒冷不像在尼罗河谷那样容易忍受。此外，西方人很实际，作为神圣的东方理想的一个有机组成部分，所表现出来的既肮脏又邋遢的一面，不但不会让他们受到启发，反而让他们觉得恶心。

意大利人和法国人会这样扪心自问：“早期教会呕心沥血做的那些善事有什么用呢？几小群瘦弱的狂热分子住在千里之外深山老林的潮湿帐篷里禁欲苦修，难道寡妇、孤儿和病人就能真的从中受益吗？”

西方人坚持要把修道院体系改变得更合理些，这一改革要归功于一位住在亚平宁山脉的纳西亚镇人。他叫本尼迪克特，通称为圣人本尼迪克特。他的父母送他到罗马去上学，但这座城市使他的基督教灵魂充满了恐怖。他逃到了阿布鲁齐山的苏

zealots who live in the damp caverns of a mountain a million miles away from everywhere?”

The western mind therefore insisted upon a modification of the monastic institution along more reasonable lines, and credit for this innovation goes to a native of the town of Nursia in the Apennine mountains. His name was Benedict and he is invariably spoken of as Saint Benedict. His parents had sent him to Rome to be educated, but the city had filled his Christian soul with horror and he had fled to the village of Subiaco in the Abruzzi mountains to the deserted ruins of an old country palace that once upon a time had belonged to the Emperor Nero.

There he had lived for three years in complete solitude. Then the fame of his great virtue began to spread throughout the countryside and the number of those who wished to be near him was soon so great that he had enough recruits for a dozen full-fledged monasteries.

He therefore retired from his dungeon and became the lawgiver of European monasticism. First of all he drew up a constitution. In every detail it showed the influence of Benedict's Roman origin. The monks who swore to obey his rules could not look forward to a life of idleness.Those hours which they did not devote to prayer and meditation were to be filled with work in the fields. If they were too old for farm work, they were expected to teach the young how to become good Christians and useful citizens and so well did they acquit, themselves of this task that the Benedictine monasteries for almost a thousand years had a monopoly of education and were allowed to train most of the young men of exceptional ability during the greater part of the Middle Ages.

In return for their labors, the monks were decently clothed, received a sufficient amount of eatable food and were given a bed upon which they could sleep the two or three hours of each day that were not devoted to work or to prayer.

But most important, from an historical point of view, was the fact that the monks

比亚克村，躲进了尼禄皇帝时代一座古老的乡村行宫的废墟中。

他在那里过了3年与世隔绝的生活，美德的盛名开始传遍整个乡村，希望与他接近的人很快激增，足以组建六七座完整的修道院。

于是，他告别了地牢，成为欧洲僧侣制度的立法人。他首先制定了法律，字里行间无不流露出他的罗马血统的痕迹。发誓遵守他的规定的僧侣可别指望过游手好闲的日子，在不做祷告和静思的时候，他们就得在田野里耕作。如果年纪太大而不能干农活了，就要教育年轻僧侣如何当一个好基督徒和有用的公民。他们恪尽职守，使本尼迪克特修道院在近1000年中独揽教育，在中世纪大部分时间里获准教育才能超群的年轻人。

作为劳动的报酬，僧侣们得到了体面的衣服、丰富可口的食物和床铺，每天不

ceased to be laymen who had merely run away from this world and their obligations to prepare their souls for the hereafter. They became the servants of God. They were obliged to qualify for their new dignity by a long and most painful period of probation and furthermore they were expected to take a direct and active part in spreading the power and the glory of the kingdom of God.

The first elementary missionary work among the heathen of Europe had already been done. But lest the good accomplished by the apostles come to naught, the labors of the individual preachers must be followed up by the organized effort of permanent settlers and administrators. The monks now carried their spade and their ax and their prayer-book into the wilderness of Germany and Scandinavia and Russia and far-away Iceland. They plowed and they harvested and they preached and they taught school and brought unto those distant lands the first rudimentary elements of a civilization which most people only knew by hearsay.

In this way did the Papacy, the executive head of the entire Church, make use of all the manifold forces of the human spirit.

The practical man of affairs was given quite as much of an opportunity to distinguish himself as the dreamer who found happiness in the silence of the woods. There was no lost motion.Nothing was allowed to go to waste. And the result was such an increase of power that soon neither emperor nor king could afford to rule his realm without paying humble attention to the wishes of those of his subjects who confessed themselves the followers of the Christ.

The way in which the final victory was gained is not without interest. For it shows that the triumph of Christianity was due to practical causes and was not（as is sometimes believed）the result of a sudden and overwhelming outburst of religious ardor.

The last great persecution of the Christians took place under the Emperor Diocletian.

Curiously enough, Diocletian was by no means one of the worst among those many

干活或不祷告的时候还能在床上睡两三个小时。

但从历史的角度来看，最重要的是，僧侣们不再是逃离现实世界和义务而为来世灵魂做准备的凡夫俗子，而是上帝的仆人。为了配得上新的尊称，他们必须在漫长痛苦的试用期内修炼自己，继而在传播上帝王国的力量和荣耀中承担起直接而积极的角色。

在欧洲异教徒中的初步传教工作已经完成了。但是为了不使教徒的成果化为乌有，个别传教士的劳动必须得到常住居民和官员们有组织的支持。于是僧侣们扛着铁锹和斧头，带着祷告书，来到德国、斯堪的那维亚、俄国和遥远冰岛的荒野之地。他们耕耘收获，布道办学，第一次为遥远的土地带来了文明的基本要素，而以前大多数人对它只是道听途说而已。

所有教会的最高管理者——罗马教皇，正是用这种方法激发了各种各样的人类精神力量。

务实的人可以得到机会，使自己有别于他人而名扬天下，正如做梦者能找到丛林静谧深处的幸福一样。没有白做的运动，也没有浪费的事情，它的结果就是权力的增长。不久，如果皇帝和国王不屈尊关注那些自认为基督追随者的臣民的要求，就难坐稳宝座。

取得最后胜利的方法也颇为有趣，因为它表明基督教的胜利是有现实原因的，绝不是（像有时候人们认为的）一时间迸发出来的势不可挡的宗教狂热的结果。

对基督徒的最后一次残酷迫害，发生在戴奥克里先皇帝统治时期。

potentates who ruled Europe by the grace of their body-guards. But he suffered from a complaint which alas!is quite common among those who are called upon to govern the human race. He was densely ignorant upon the subject of elementary economics.

He found himself possessed of an empire that was rapidly going to pieces. Having spent all his life in the army, he believed the weak point lay in the organization of the Roman military system, which entrusted the defenses of the outlying districts to colonies of soldiers who had gradually lost the habit of fighting and had become peaceful rustics, selling cabbages and carrots to the very barbarians whom they were supposed to keep at a safe distance from the frontiers.

It was impossible for Diocletian to change this venerable system. He therefore tried to solve the difficulty by creating a new field army, composed of young and agile men who at a few weeks'notice could be marched to any particular part of the empire that was threatened with an invasion.

This was a brilliant idea, but like all brilliant ideas of a military nature, it cost an awful lot of money. This money had to be produced in the form of taxes by the people in the interior of the country.As was to be expected, they raised a great hue and cry and claimed that they could not pay another denarius without going stone broke. The emperor answered that they were mistaken and bestowed upon his tax-gatherers certain powers thus far only possessed by the hangman. But all to no avail. For the subjects, rather than work at a regular trade which assured them a deficit at the end of a year's hard work, deserted house and home and family and herds and flocked to the cities or became hobos. His Majesty, however, did not believe in half-way measures and he solved the difficulty by a decree which shows how completely the old Roman Republic had degenerated into an Oriental despotism. By a stroke of his pen he made all government offices and all forms of handicraft and

让人倍感奇怪的是，戴奥克里先绝不是借助禁卫军之力统治欧洲的众多君主中最坏的一个，可是他遭到了统治者曾遭到的各种非难。他连最基础的经济知识都一窍不通。

他发现自己的帝国正在迅速走向瓦解。他戎马一生，深知弱点就在罗马的军事体制内部，这一体制把边界地区的防卫任务交给了占领地的士兵，而这些士兵已逐渐丧失了斗志，变成了爱好和平的乡下人，将白菜和胡萝卜卖给那些本来应该远离边界的野蛮人。

戴奥克里先不可能改变这个古老的体制。因此，为了解决当前困境，他建立了一支新型野战军，由年轻机敏的战士组成，几周之内就能开赴帝国任何遭受入侵的角落。

这是个绝妙的主意，但正如所有带军事色彩的好主意一样，它需要大笔可怕的开销。这些钱必须以赋税的方式由国内的老百姓缴纳。不出所料，老百姓群情激愤，大声疾呼，声称再要交钱就家徒四壁了。皇帝答复说他们误解了，并把以前只有刽子手才有的权力交给了收税官。但是一切都无济于事，因为各行各业的臣民辛辛苦苦干了一年，到头来却债务缠身，因此都抛家舍业，蜂拥到城里，或者干脆成为流浪汉。然而，皇帝陛下不想半途而废，又颁布了一项解决困难的法令，这表明古罗马共和国已经彻底堕落为东方专制主义国家。他一纸令下，所有政府机关和手工业、商业都变成了世袭职业。也就是说，官员的儿子注定要做官，不管愿意不愿意；面包师的儿子一定会成为面包师，即使他们在音乐或典当方面极有天赋；水手

commerce hereditary professions. That is to say, the sons of officers were supposed to become officers, whether they liked it or not. The sons of bakers must themselves become bakers, although they might have greater aptitude for music or pawn-broking. The sons of sailors were foredoomed to a life on shipboard, even if they were sea-sick when they rowed across the Tiber. And finally, the day laborers, although technically they continued to be freemen, were constrained to live and die on the same piece of soil on which they had been born and were henceforth nothing but a very ordinary variety of slaves.

To expect that a ruler who had such supreme confidence in his own ability either could or would tolerate the continued existence of a relatively small number of people who only obeyed such parts of his regulations and edicts as pleased them would be absurd. But in judging Diocletian for his harshness in dealing with the Christians, we must remember that he was fighting with his back against the wall and that he had good cause to suspect the loyalty of several million of his subjects who profited by the measures he had taken for their protection but refused to carry their share of the common burden.

You will remember that the earliest Christians had not taken the trouble to write anything down. They expected the world to come to an end at almost any moment.Therefore why waste time and money upon literary efforts which in less than ten years would be consumed by the fire from Heaven? But when the New Zion failed to materialize and when the story of Christ（after a hundred years of patient waiting）was beginning to be repeated with such strange additions and variations that a true disciple hardly knew what to believe and what not, the need was felt for some authentic book upon the subject and a number of short biographies of Jesus and such of the original letters of the apostles as had been preserved were combined into one large volume which was called the New Testament.

This book contained among others a chapter called the Book of Revelations and therein

的儿子必须在船板上漂流一生，即使他们在台伯河划船会晕船。最后，那些出卖苦力的工人虽然名义上仍然是自由的，但必须在出生地生老病死，因此和普通的奴隶没什么区别。

指望一个对自己的能力极度自信的统治者，能够或者愿意容忍一小部分根据个人好恶去遵守或反对某些规定和法令的人继续存在，那就有点儿荒唐可笑了。但是在评价戴奥克里先对基督徒的残暴时，我们必须记住，他已经陷入了困境，有充分的理由怀疑数以百万计的臣民对他的忠诚，这些人只知道在皇帝的庇护下捞取好处，却拒绝替国家分忧解难。

还记得吗？最早的基督徒从未写过任何东西。他们本以为世界随时会毁灭，何必将时间和金钱浪费在那10年之内就会被天国大火焚烧殆尽的文学成就上呢？但是新天国并没有出现，基督的故事（经过100年的耐心等待之后）开始被人添枝加叶、改头换面地口口相传，虔诚的信徒变得

were to be found certain references and certain prophecies about and anent a city built on “seven mountains.” That Rome was built on seven hills had been a commonly known fact ever since the days of Romulus. It is true that the anonymous author of this curious chapter carefully called the city of his abomination Babylon. But it took no great degree of perspicacity on the part of the imperial magistrate to understand what was meant when he read these pleasant references to the “Mother of Harlots” and the “Abomination of the Earth,” the town that was drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs, foredoomed to become the habitation of all devils, the home of every foul spirit, the cage of every unclean and hateful bird, and more expressions of a similar and slightly uncomplimentary nature.

Such sentences might have been explained away as the ravings of a poor fanatic, blinded by pity and rage as he thought of his many friends who had been killed during the last fifty years. But they were part of the solemn services of the Church.Week after week they were repeated in those places where the Christians came together and it was no more than natural that outsiders should think that they represented the true sentiments of all Christians towards the mighty city on the Tiber.I do not mean to imply that the Christians may not have had excellent reason to feel the way they did, but we can hardly blame Diocletian because he failed to share their enthusiasm.

But that was not all.

The Romans were becoming increasingly familiar with an expression which the world thus far had never heard. That was the word “heretics.” Originally the name “heretic” was given only to those people who had “chosen” to believe certain doctrines, or, as we would say, a “sect.” But gradually the meaning had narrowed down to those who had chosen to believe certain doctrines which were not held “correct” or “sound” or “true” or “orthodox” by the duly established authorities of the Church and which therefore, to use the language of the Apostles, were “heretical, unsound, false and eternally wrong.”

无所适从了。于是，人们觉得在这方面需要一本权威性的书，便把耶稣的几篇短传和圣徒的亲笔信综合成一大卷书，这就是《新约》。

这本书中有一章叫《启示录》，它里面有关于一座建立在“七山”之上的城市的预言。自从罗慕路斯时代以来，人们就知道罗马建立在七山之上。的确，这个奇特章节的匿名作者小心谨慎地把他深为憎恶的那个城市称为巴比伦，但帝国官员还是敏锐地发现了这一点；他在书中读到了这座城市是“鸨母”和“地球的污点”，说这座城市浸满了圣人和牺牲者的鲜血，注定要成为所有魔鬼和邪恶灵魂的栖身之所，是一切肮脏可憎的鸟类的巢穴，还有许多诸如此类的贬抑词句。

这些言论可以被说成出自一个可怜的宗教狂热者的胡言乱语，他因为想起了过去50年来被杀害的许多朋友而被怒火蒙蔽了双眼。但这些句子是教堂庄严仪式的一部分，要周而复始地在基督徒聚会的地方传诵，因此旁观者自然会认为，这些话表达了基督徒对台伯河畔这座强大城市的真实感情。我并不是说基督徒没有充分的理由产生那样的感情，但我们也不能因为戴奥克里先没有产生这种热情而责备他。

但这并不是全部。

罗马人对一个闻所未闻的词语日益熟悉起来，这个词就是“异教徒”。起初，“异教徒”的名字只是用于那些“被选定”相信某些教义的人，或称一个“教派”。但渐渐地这一意思缩小到那些不信仰由正统教会权威制定的“正确”“合理”“真实”“正统”教义的人；或者用圣徒的话说，是“异端、谬误、虚假和永

The few Romans who still clung to the ancient faith were technically free from the charge of heresy because they had remained outside of the fold of the Church and therefore could not, strictly speaking, be held to account for their private opinions. All the same, it did not flatter the imperial pride to read in certain parts of the New Testament that “heresy was as terrible an evil as adultery, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, wrath, strife, m urder, sedition and drunkenness” and a few other things which common decency prevents me from repeating on this page.

All this led to friction and misunderstanding and friction and misunderstanding led to persecution and once more Roman jails were filled with Christian prisoners and Roman executioners added to the number of Christian martyrs and a great deal of blood was shed and nothing was accomplished and finally Diocletian, in utter despair, went back to his home town of Salonae on the Dalmatian coast, retired from the business of ruling and devoted himself exclusively to the even more exciting pastime of raising great big cabbages in his back yard.

His successor did not continue the policy of repression. On the contrary, since he could not hope to eradicate the Christian evil by force, he decided to make the best of a bad bargain and gain the good will of his enemies by offering them some special favors.

This happened in the year 313 and the honor of having been the first to “recognize” the Christian church of ficially belongs to a man by the name of Constantine.

Some day we shall possess an International Board of Revisioning Historians before whom all emperors, kings, pontiffs, presidents and mayors who now enjoy the title of the “great” shall have to submit their claims for this specific qualification. One of the candidates who will have to be watched very carefully when he appears before this tribunal is the aforementioned Emperor Constantine.

This wild Serbian who had wielded a spear on every battle field of Europe, from

恒错误”的人。

几个仍抱着旧信仰不放的罗马人可以免遭异端邪说的指责，因为他们仍然待在基督教之外，而且严格来讲也不允许解释他们自己的观点。同样，《新约》中有些话也有伤皇帝的尊严，如“异端邪说是一种可怕的邪恶，犹如通奸、猥亵、淫荡、偶像崇拜、巫术、怒火、争斗、谋杀、叛乱和酗酒”，以及其他一些事情，出于礼貌，在此就不再重复了。

所有这些导致了摩擦和误解，摩擦和误解又导致了迫害。罗马监狱里又一次挤满了基督教囚徒，刽子手杀死了许多基督徒，虽然血流成河，却一无所获。最后，戴奥克里先陷入了绝望，放弃了皇帝宝座，回到了达尔马提亚马海岸的家乡萨洛尼亚，一心一意地做更有趣的事情——在后院里种大白菜消磨时光。

他的继承者没有继续镇压政策。相反，由于无望通过武力铲除基督教，他决定好好做一笔不光彩的交易，通过给敌人一些特殊好处来赢得好感。

这事发生在公元313年，君士坦丁大帝第一次以官方名义“承认”了基督教会。

如果我们有朝一日有一个“国际历史修正委员会”，所有皇帝、国王、教皇、总统、市长等享有“大”称号的人，都要以这个委员会的特定准绳来衡量，那么他们当中站在这个法庭前需要仔细审查的一位，就是上面提到的君士坦丁大帝。

这个狂野的塞尔维亚人在欧洲各个战场上挥舞着长矛，从英格兰的约克郡打到博斯普鲁斯海峡的拜占廷。他还杀死了自己的妻子、姐夫和外甥（一个7岁的男孩），

York in England to Byzantium on the shores of the Bosphorus, was among other things the murderer of his wife, the murderer of his brother-in-law, the murderer of his nephew（a boy of seven）and the executioner of several other relatives of minor degree and importance.Nevertheless and notwithstanding, because in a moment of panic just before he marched against his most dangerous rival, Maxentius, he had made a bold bid for Christian support, he gained great fame as the “second Moses” and was ultimately elevated to sainthood both by the Armenian and by the Russian churches. That he lived and died a barbarian who had outwardly accepted Christianity, yet until the end of his days tried to read the riddle of the future from the steaming entrails of sacrificial sheep, all this was most considerately overlooked in view of the famous Edict of Tolerance by which the Emperor guaranteed unto his beloved Christian subjects the right to “freely profess their private opinions and to assemble in their meeting place without fear of molestation.”

For the leaders of the Church in the first half of the fourth century, as I have repeatedly stated before, were practical politicians and when they had finally forced the Emperor to sign this ever memorable decree, they elevated Christianity from the rank of a minor sect to the dignity of the official church of the state. But they knew how and in what manner this had been accomplished and the successors of Constantine knew it, and although they tried to cover it up by a display of oratorical fireworks the arrangement never quite lost its original character.

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“Deliver me, oh mighty ruler,” exclaimed Nestor the Patriarch unto Theodosius the Emperor, “deliver me of all the enemies of my church and in return I will give thee Heaven. Stand by me in putting down those who disagree with our doctrines and we in turn will stand by thee in putting down thine enemies.”

There have been other bargains during the history of the last twenty centuries.

But few have been so brazen as the compromise by which Christianity came to power.

杀了其他一些地位低卑的亲戚。然而尽管如此，由于他在向自己最危险的对手马克辛提乌斯进攻时，为了获得基督徒的支持，他一时间惊慌失措地大加许愿，结果赢得了“第二个摩西”的声誉，亚美尼亚和俄国教会都推崇他为圣人。他无论生或死都是个野蛮人，虽然他表面上接受了基督教，但他至死都在试图通过蒸祭祀羊的内脏来预测未来吉凶。然而，人们忘记了这些，只是注意到了那部著名的《宽容法》。这位皇帝想通过它来保护可爱的基督教臣民“自由表达个人思想和集会不受干扰”的权利。

我在前面已经讲过，公元4世纪上半叶的教会领袖都是些现实的政治家，当他们终于使皇帝签署了这项永远值得纪念的法令时，基督教就从小教派的行列中上升到了尊贵的国教。但他们知道这一成果是怎样取得的，君士坦丁的继承者也知道，尽管他们想用伶牙俐齿来掩盖它，但终究纸包不住火。

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“交给我吧，强大的统治者，”内斯特主教对西奥多修斯皇帝说，“把教会的全部敌人都交给我吧，我将给你天堂。和我站在一起，把不赞成我们教义的人打倒；我们也将站在你这边，打倒你的敌人。”

在过去20个世纪的历史中，双方还有过其他交易。

但是这种无耻的妥协在历史上很少见，他正是这种妥协使基督教登上了权力顶峰。