CHAPTER 1 Europe Classical and Medieval
第一章 从希腊说起，讲到日耳曼
——古典时期到中世纪
EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION IS UNIQUE because it is the only civilization that has imposed itself on the rest of the world. It did this by conquest and settlement; by its economic power; by the power of its ideas; and because it had things that everyone else wanted. Today every country on Earth uses the discoveries of science and the technologies that flow from it, and science was a European invention.
欧洲文明是独特的，因为它一直是唯一能让世界其他地区马首是瞻的文明。它之所以做得到这点，是靠着不断的征服和定居、强大的经济势力和思想观念，以及拥有其他人向往的东西。今天，全球所有国家普遍运用的科学发现和科技都起源于它，而科学本身就是欧洲的发明之一。
At its beginning European civilization was made up of three elements:
1. the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome
2. Christianity, which is an odd offshoot of the religion of the Jews, Judaism
3. the culture of the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire.
European civilization was a mixture: The importance of this will become clear as we go on.
在欧洲文明发端之初，它的组成元素有三：
1.古希腊和罗马文化。
2.基督教——犹太教（犹太民族之宗教）的一个奇特分支。
3.对罗马帝国进行侵略的日耳曼蛮族的战士文化。
欧洲文明是个混合体。随着继续往下读，这个混合特质的重要性，就会慢慢地彰显出来。
IF WE LOOK FOR THE ORIGINS of our philosophy, our art, our literature, our math, our science, our medicine, and our thinking about politics—in all these intellectual endeavors we are taken back to Ancient Greece.
• 现代文明的源头:古希腊
如果我们去找哲学、艺术、文学、数学、科学、医学以及政治思想的源头，所有这些智识，都会把我们带回到古希腊。
In its great days Greece was not one state; it was made up of a series of little states: city-states, as they are now called. There was a single town with a tract of land around it; everyone could walk into the town in a day. The Greeks wanted to belong to a state as we belong to a club: It was a fellowship. It was in these small city-states that the first democracies emerged. They were not representative democracies; you did not elect a member of parliament. All male citizens gathered in one place to talk about public affairs, to vote on the laws, and to vote on policy.
在希腊的辉煌时期,它并不是一个单一制国家，而是由数个小聚落分区统治，也就是今天我们所称的城邦。一个城邦就是一个城镇，四周有一圈土地环绕，每个人都可以在任何时刻进城去。希腊人喜欢加入城邦，就像我们归属于某个俱乐部一样，是基于一种同谊情感。民主政治的原型就是从这些小城邦里萌生，但它并不是代议式的民主，用不着选举国会议员。所有的男性公民群聚于某个场所就公共事务进行讨论，法律和政策的制定都透过投票表决。
p1-1 Ancient Greek cities and colonies. Greek civilization thrived in trading and agricultural colonies around the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
As these Greek city-states grew in population, they sent people to start colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean. There were Greek settlements in what is now Turkey, along the coast of North Africa, even as far west as Spain, southern France, and southern Italy. And it was there—in Italy—that the Romans, who were then a very backward people, a small city-state around Rome, first met the Greeks and began to learn from them.
随着城邦人口日益增长,希腊开始派人到地中海其他地区去开拓殖民地。在当今的土耳其、北非沿岸,甚至远至西班牙、法国南部和意大利南部,都找得到希腊人安家落户的踪迹。而就在意大利这里，罗马当时只是今日罗马城周遭的一个小村落，与希腊人首度遭逢，进而向他们学习。
In time the Romans built a huge empire that encompassed Greece and all the Greek colonies. In the north the boundaries were two great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, though sometimes these were exceeded. In the west was the Atlantic Ocean. England was part of the Roman Empire but not Scotland or Ireland. To the south were the deserts of North Africa. In the east the boundary was most uncertain because here were rival empires. The empire encircled the Mediterranean Sea; it included only part of what is now Europe and much that is not Europe: Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa.
•罗马国•希腊味
罗马人慢慢建立起一个庞大帝国,连希腊和希腊所有的殖民地都在它的疆域范围之内。这个帝国，北以两大河流“莱茵河”及“多瑙河”为界,不过有时也会超越;西边则是大西洋。英格兰是罗马帝国的一部分，但苏格兰和爱尔兰不是。帝国南边远抵北非沙漠，东边疆界最难确定，因为此处还有一些与它敌对的帝国。罗马帝国涵盖了整个地中海;但它的领土只有一部分属于今日的欧洲,大部分是在土耳其、中东和北非地区。
p1-2 The extent of the Roman Empire around the second century AD.
The Romans were better than the Greeks at fighting. They were better than the Greeks at law, which they used to run their empire. They were better than the Greeks at engineering, which was useful both for fighting and running an empire. But in everything else they acknowledged that the Greeks were superior and slavishly copied them. A member of the Roman elite could speak both Greek and Latin, the language of the Romans; he sent his son to Athens for a university education or he hired a Greek slave to teach his children at home. So when we talk about the Roman Empire being Greco-Roman it is because the Romans wanted it that way.
罗马人比希腊人更骁勇善战。他们用来治理帝国的法律比希腊人高明，对打仗和治国方面都极为有用的工程建筑，水准也在希腊人之上。可是，在其他方面，就连罗马人也承认希腊人比他们高明，心甘情愿地卑躬屈膝、复制仿效。罗马的精英分子除了说自己的母语拉丁语，也会说希腊语;他们把儿子送到雅典上大学，要不就雇个希腊奴隶在家教小孩。因此,我们谈到罗马帝国时，常形容它是 “希腊罗马风格”，是因为罗马人乐见这样的发展。
Geometry is the quickest way to demonstrate how clever the Greeks were. The geometry taught in school is Greek. Many will have forgotten it, so let’s start with the basics.
•希腊人有多聪明？
从几何学中最容易看出希腊人有多聪明。我们在学校里学的几何就是承袭自希腊。很多人可能已经忘了几何,所以我们从最基本的说起。
That is how geometry works; it starts with a few basic definitions and builds on them. The starting point is a point, which the Greeks defined as having location but no magnitude. Of course it does possess magnitude, there is the width of the dot on the page, but geometry is a sort of make-believe world, a pure world. Second: A line has length but no breadth. Next, a straight line is defined as the shortest line joining two points. From these three definitions you can create a definition of a circle: In the first place, it is a line making a closed figure. But how do you formulate roundness? If you think about it, roundness is very hard to define. You define it by saying there is a point within this figure, one point, from which straight lines drawn to the figure will always be of equal length.
几何学的运作是:从几个基本定义出发，从中延伸出其他规则。它的起始是“点”，希腊人为“点”下的定义是: 有定位但没有量值的东西。其实它当然也有量值，像这页下方的点就有宽度（直径），不过几何可说是一种假想的世界，一个纯粹的世界。其次是有长度但没有宽度的“线”, 再来是“直线”的定义:两点之间最短的线。根据这三个定义，你可以建立出圆的定义:首先，它是一条能造出一个封闭图形的线。可是,你要怎么形容“圆”呢？仔细想想,圆还真难描述。它的定义是:这个图形当中有个中心点，从这个固定点连接到这个图形的所有直线都是等距。
Along with circles, there are parallel lines that extend forever without meeting, and triangles in all their variety, and squares and rectangles, and other regular forms. These objects, formed by lines, are all defined, their characteristics revealed, and the possibilities arising from their intersection and overlapping explored. Everything is proved from what has been established before. For example, by using a quality of parallel lines, you can show that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees (see box, page 7).
除了圆形,你还可以定义出可无限延伸但永远不会相交的平行线,以及各式各样的三角形、正方形、长方形等常见形状。这些形体，无一不是由线组成，除了各有定义明确、清楚的特征外，连彼此之间各种交集和重叠的可能性, 都被希腊人一一探讨过。一切都可借由前面已建立的定义得到证明。举例来说，只要利用平行线的特性，即可证明三角形的三个角加起来一共是180度。
Geometry is a simple, elegant, logical system, very satisfying, and beautiful. Beautiful? The Greeks found it beautiful and that they did so is a clue to the Greek mind.
几何学是个简单、优雅、逻辑的系统，非常赏心，也非常之美。美？希腊人确实认为它很美。
The Greeks did geometry not just as an exercise, which is why we did it at school, nor for its practical uses in surveying or navigation. They saw geometry as a guide to the fundamental nature of the universe. When we look around us, we are struck by the variety of what we see: different shapes, different colors. A whole range of things is happening simultaneously—randomly, chaotically. The Greeks believed there was some simple explanation for all this. That underneath all this variety there must be something simple, regular, and logical that explains it all. Something like geometry.
而从希腊人学习几何的动机，也可窥见他们的心智。 我们在学校里做几何，是把几何当习题来做，但希腊人并不仅以习题视之，也不是因为它在测量或导航方面有实际用途。在他们眼里，几何学是引导人类认知宇宙本质的一个途径。当我们环顾四周，被眼前形形色色、丰富多样的世界吸引,所有事物都随机又漫无章法地出现。但希腊人相信,这一切都可用简单的道理来解释。这些多元样貌的背后,必然有种简单、规律、有逻辑的原理在支撑,像几何学就是。
Geometry in action
Parallel lines do not meet. We can define this characteristic by saying that a line drawn across them will create alternate angles that are equal. If they were not equal, the lines would come together or they would diverge—they would not be parallel. We use letters from the Greek alphabet to identify an angle—and on the diagram on the left α marks two angles that are equal. The use of letters from the Greek alphabet for the signage in geometry reminds us of its origins. Here we use the first three letters: alpha, beta, and gamma.
几何的活用
平行线不会相交。我们可以为这个特色下个定义：一条线穿过两条平行线，会造成两个相等的错角；如果这两个角不相等，两条线一定会交集或岔开，换句话说，就是不平行。我们用希腊字母来代表角度，左图中的α即是两个相等的错角。将希腊字母用在几何里，是提醒人们不忘本。我们这里用了三个字母：α 、β 、γ。
From this definition we can determine the sum of the angles within a triangle. We put the triangle ABC on the right within two parallel lines: Knowing how to bring into play what is known to solve what is unknown is the trick of geometry. The angle α at point A has an angle that is equal to it at point B, on the basis that they are alternate angles across parallel lines. Likewise the angle γ at C has an angle equal to it at point B. The top parallel line at B is now made up of three angles: α + β + γ. Together they make a straight line, and we know that straight lines make an angle of 180 degrees.
从这个定义出发，可求出三角形三个内角的总和。右上图中，我们把三角形ABC置于两条平行线当中。利用已知数去求未知数，是几何学的奥妙所在。由于平行线的错角相等，可知A点的α角与B点的α角度相同。同样，C点的γ角也与B点的γ角相同。上面那条平行线的B点是由三个角所组成：α + β + γ。这三个角组成一条直线，而我们知道，直线是180度。
So α + β + γ = 180 degrees. And we have established, using parallel lines, that the sum of the internal angles of the triangle is also α + β + γ. So the sum of the internal angles of a triangle is 180 degrees.
因此,α + β + γ=180。前面我们已利用平行线，得知三角形的内角和也是α + β + γ，因此，三角形的内角和也是180度。
We have used parallel lines to prove something about triangles.
就这样，我们利用平行线证明了三角形的一些特质。
The Greeks did not do science as we do, with hypotheses and testing by experiment. They thought if you got your mind into gear and thought hard you would get the right answer. So they proceeded by a system of inspired guesses.
希腊人研究科学,并不像我们是先有假设再用实验去验证，他们认为，只要你开始思索，努力推敲，就可以得出正确答案。因此,他们根据灵感，大胆揣测。
One Greek philosopher said all matter is made up of water, which shows how desperate they were to get a simple answer. Another philosopher said all matter is made up of four things: earth, fire, air, and water. Another philosopher said all matter is actually made up of little things that he called atoms—and hit the jackpot. He made an inspired guess which we came back to in the twentieth century.
有位希腊哲学家认为,所有的物质都是水做的,这显示他们对“简单的答案”多么求之若渴。另一位希腊哲学家说，所有的物质都是由四样东西组成:土、火、水和空气。 还有一个哲学家说，其实万物皆由一种微小物质组成，他称之为原子——这可是中了大奖。他根据灵感而做出的猜测，让20世纪的我们又回头去研究它。
When science as we know it began 400 years ago, 2,000 years after the Greeks, it began by upsetting the central teachings of Greek science, which remained the authority. But it upset the Greeks by following this Greek hunch that the answers would be simple and logical and mathematical. Newton, the great seventeenth-century scientist, and Einstein, the great twentieth-century scientist, both said you will only get close to a correct answer if your answer is simple. They were both able to give their answers in mathematical equations that described the composition of matter and how matter moves.
•听随灵感的“科学精神”
我们现在所认知的科学始于四百年前的17世纪科学革命,古希腊的两千年后。现代科学一开始就推翻了当时依然是主流和权威的希腊科学的中心教义，但它之所以能推翻希腊科学，遵循的正是这种希腊灵感:答案应该简单、符合逻辑、能以数学表达。牛顿和爱因斯坦,这两位分属于17世纪和20世纪的伟大科学家异口同声说，唯有答案简单,才可能近乎正确。这两位科学大师都能用数学公式提出解答,用方程式描述物质的组成和物质的移动。
The Greeks were often wrong in their guesses, very wrong. Their fundamental hunch that the answers would be simple, mathematical, and logical could have been wrong too, but it turned out to be right. This is the greatest legacy that European civilization still owes to the Greeks.
其实，希腊人的灵感常常是错的，有时候还错得离谱。 希腊人认为答案应该简单、符合逻辑、能以数学表达的基本直觉也可能是错的。不过后来事实证明,欧洲文明的最伟大成就仍应归功于希腊人。
Can we explain why the Greeks were so clever? I don’t think we can. Historians are meant to be able to explain things but when they come up against the big things—why, for example, in these little city-states there were minds so logical, so agile, and so penetrating—they have no convincing explanation. All historians can do, like anyone else, is wonder.
希腊人为什么这样聪明？我认为我们解释不了其中的原因。照理说历史学者应该能够释疑，可是当他们碰上这样的“大哉问”----譬如说，为什么这些小小城邦能培养出这样深富逻辑、灵活敏捷、心神专注的头脑时,却始终提不出有力的解释。所有的历史学者，就跟其他人一样，只有纳闷的份。
Here is another miracle. We are coming to the second element in the European mix. The Jews came to believe that there was only one god. This was a very unusual view. The Greeks and Romans had the more common belief that there were many gods. The Jews had an even more extraordinary belief that this one god took special care of them; that they were God’s chosen people. In return, the Jews had to keep God’s law. The foundation of the law was the Ten Commandments, given to the Jews by Moses, who had led them out of captivity in Egypt. Christians retained the Ten Commandments and they remained the central moral teaching in the West until recent times. People knew the commandments by number. You might say of someone that he would never break the eighth commandment, but sometimes he broke the seventh. Here are the Ten Commandments, as recorded in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, Chapter 20.
•唯一的神，绝对的真理
再来说另一个奇迹。我们即将谈到欧洲这个混合体的第二个元素——基督教。犹太人一直相信，宇宙间只有一个真神,这是极不寻常的观点，希腊人和罗马人崇奉多神,这比较普遍。犹太人还有个更异乎寻常的信念，他们认为自己是上帝的选民，所以这个唯一真神会对他们特别照顾。因此，犹太人必须遵守上帝的律法作为回报，这套律法的基石是“十诫”，是摩西将犹太人从埃及的为奴之地带领出来时告谕给他们的。直到近些年“十诫”一直是西方道德的核心，基督徒对它滚瓜烂熟，光说第几诫就知道内容是什么。你可以说，某个人永远会严守第八诫，不过有时候会触犯第七诫。下面是“十诫”的内容，根据的是 《圣经-出埃及记》第二十章的记载。
And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving to you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not desire for yourself your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.
神吩咐这一切，说:“我是耶和华你的天主， 是我领你出了埃及地奴隶之所。
“除我以外，你不可有别的神。
“不可为自己雕刻偶像，也不可作什么形象，仿佛上天、下地和地底下、水中的百物。
“不可妄呼耶和华你天主的名；因为凡妄呼他名的人，耶和华决不让他们免受惩罚。
“当纪念安息日，守为圣日。六日要劳碌做你一切的工，因为六日之内，耶和华造天、地、海和其中的万物，第七日便安息，所以耶和华赐福与安息日并定为圣日。
“当孝敬父母，好使你在耶和华你的天主所
赐绐你的地方延年益寿。
“不可杀人。
“不可奸淫。
“不可偷盗。
“不可作假见证陷害人。
“不可贪你近人的房屋，也不可贪恋人的妻 子、仆婢、牛驴及他一切所有的。”
The Ten Commandments were only the beginning of the moral law. The Jews had a very complex, detailed system of law that covers the matters law usually does—crime, property, inheritance, and marriage—but also diet, cleanliness, the running of a household, and how to make sacrifices to God at the temple.
“十诫”只是这套道德法规的开端而已。犹太人的法规极其繁复琐细，除了包含一般的实质律法,例如犯罪、财产、继承、婚姻，就连饮食、清洁、如何治理家务、如何在教堂中献祭上帝也都涵盖在内。
Though the Jews believed they were the chosen people, they didn’t have a dream run. They were frequently humiliated; they were conquered and taken into exile; but they didn’t doubt that God existed or that he cared for them. If disaster struck they concluded that they had not been following the law properly, that they had offended God. So in the religion of the Jews, as in Christianity, religion and morality are closely linked, which is not the case with all religions. The Romans and Greeks had gods who acted immorally, who had affairs and plotted against each other. In the Roman religion the gods might punish, but usually not for any moral offense; it might be that you hadn’t sacrificed correctly, or often enough.
虽然犹太人相信自己是上帝的选民，但他们并没有逐梦的空间。他们常常遭受屈辱，被外族占领、放逐;可是, 他们从不怀疑上帝的存在或他对他们的关爱。当苦难降临,他们的结论是自己没有恪遵上帝的规定，以至于触怒了神。因此,在犹太民族的宗教里，一如基督教中,道德与宗教是密不可分的，但其他宗教就不见得如此。罗马人和希腊人的神祇就常有失德之事，拈花惹草、钩心斗角什么都来。罗马宗教里，神也可能对人类施以惩罚，不过通常不是因为你做了什么败德恶行。说不定只是你没有好好祭拜他或祭拜的次数不够多而已。
Jesus, the founder of Christianity, was a Jew, and his first followers were all Jews. When Jesus taught, the Jews were again not in control of their country; Palestine was a distant province of the Roman Empire.
耶稣，基督教的始祖，就是个犹太人,他所有的门徒也都是犹太人。在耶稣传道之时，犹太人再度丧失了国家主权;巴勒斯坦是罗马帝国的一个偏远省份。
Some of the followers of Jesus looked to him to lead a revolt against Rome. His opponents tried to trick him into a declaration to this effect. Should we pay taxes to Rome, they asked him. Hand me a coin, he said—whose image is on it? Caesar’s, they replied. Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
•恺撒的归恺撒，上帝的归上帝
耶稣一些徒众对他寄予厚望，希望他能领导起义，对抗罗马。他的敌人设计于他,想骗他说出带有谋反意图的话。他们问，我们应该纳税给罗马吗？耶稣回答,拿一个银钱给我看——这上头是什么图案？对方回答，是恺撒的像。耶稣就说:“恺撒的,就应归给恺撒，天主的就应归还天主。”
Jesus knew the Jewish law and teaching very well and his own teaching grew out of this. Part of his teaching was to sum up the essence of the law. This was one of his summations: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
耶稣熟知犹太人的律法和教训,从中延伸出他自己的教义。他的教诲有一部分就是这套律法的精华摘要。其中一条是:你应当全心、全灵、全意爱耶和华你的天主，要爱你的邻居如同爱你自己。
It is not clear whether Jesus was saying you can take the summary and forget all the detail. Or whether he was saying that the detail is important—about cleanliness, sacrifice, and all the rest—but the summary is a guide to the most important things. Scholars argue about how far Jesus remained within Judaism or was breaking out of it. But one thing is clear: He extended the old moral teaching in ways which were very demanding and which you might think impossible to follow. Just consider what he said about loving your enemies in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 5:
我们不清楚耶稣有没有说过你可以忘掉所有细节，只管记得这些精要结论就好;或者他曾说过细节，例如清洁、献祭等也很重要,现在我们不得而知。耶稣的训示有多少是在犹太教义之内或有多少逾越了界线，学者迄今依然争论不休。不过有件事是清楚的:他把那些已经非常严格,你可能认为要做到简直是痴人说梦的古老道德教训更推而广之，发扬光大。只要看看他的“山中圣训”，《马太福音》第五章的记载：
Our forefathers were told, love your neighbor, hate your enemy. But what I tell you is this: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. Only so can you be children of your Heavenly Father, who makes his sun rise on good and on bad alike and sends the rain on the honest and on the dishonest. If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? Surely the tax-gatherers [the hated Roman tax-gatherers] do as much as that. And if you greet only your brothers, what is there extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much. You must therefore be all goodness. Just as your Heavenly Father is all good.
你们一向听说过：你应爱你的近人，恨你的仇人！我却对你们说：你们当爱你们的仇人，当为迫害你们的人祈祷，好使你们成为你们在天之父的子女，因为他使太阳上升，光照恶人,也光照善人；降雨给义人，也给不义的人。你们若只爱那爱你们的人，你们还有什么赏报呢？税吏（大家对罗马税吏深恶痛绝）不是也这样做吗？你们若只问候你们的弟兄，你们做了什么特别的呢？外邦人不是也这样做吗？所以，你们应当是成全的，如同你们的天父是成全的一样。
On this occasion, Jesus was transforming the Jewish code into a system of universal love.
在这次传道中，耶稣把犹太人的道德教训转化成了宇宙大爱。
Jesus was only one of many teachers and prophets at this time. They aroused the suspicion of the leaders of the Jewish faith, and in Jesus’s case the leaders of the Jews cooperated with the Romans in having Jesus executed. But Jesus was different from these other teachers because after he was dead he came alive again—or so his followers believed.
当时有许多讲道人和先知，耶稣只是其一。犹太教的领导阶层对这些讲道人心生疑忌，跟罗马人联手合作,并将耶稣处以死刑的也是这些犹太领袖。但不同于其他精神导师的是，耶稣在死后复活了---至少他的信徒这样相信。
So he was not just a teacher, a prophet, or a good man, which is probably the belief of many church-going people today. His followers believed that he was God’s son and that something of cosmic significance had happened when Jesus was crucified. God had sacrificed himself to save humankind from damnation, a consequence of man’s original sin that brought evil into the world. If you believed in Christ you could save yourself and after death you would not be condemned to hellfire but you would be forever with God in heaven.
在今天，很多上教堂的人或许以为耶稣不过是个心灵导师、先知或贤善之人，但他不仅如此。耶稣的信徒相信他是上帝的儿子，他被钉在十字架上，是一件惊天动地的事。那代表着为了拯救人类,使其免于毁灭——这是人类原罪的后果。因为他们把邪恶带入这个人世，上帝牺牲了自己的儿子。只要相信耶稣，你就能够得救，死后不但不会被打入地狱受火烧之苦，更能升入天堂,永远与上帝同在。
Was this religion just for the Jews or was it for everyone? Jesus’s followers after his death were divided on this question. The traditionalists said that you could only become a Christian if you became a Jew first and so followed all the strict rules that were laid down for the Jews in the Old Testament. That would have included circumcision, which for adult males is a rather painful operation. If this path had been taken, Christianity would have remained a very small sect of the Jewish faith and probably have died out or certainly been of no great significance.
这样的教义是只对犹太人有效,还是所有人类共有? 耶稣死后，他的跟随者对这个问题意见分歧。传统派主张，唯有先变成犹太人，遵奉《旧约》中针对犹太人订下的所有严格规定，包括割包皮，一种对成人男子来说颇为痛苦的手术，你才有可能成为基督徒。当初如果这一派获胜，今天的基督教很可能就只是犹太信仰的一个小旁支而已，甚或已经灰飞烟灭，就算不灭绝也势必无足轻重。
The other side won, the side that said, this is a totally new religion. You don’t have to become a Jew first; all the restrictions of the law can go; Christ has set us free from all that; his teaching about love surpasses anything that the law could offer. This is the view of Paul, the great early missionary of the church and, according to some, the founder of Christianity, because when Jesus died this faith was a Jewish affair only. Jesus was a Jew, and his followers were Jews, some of whom wanted to keep it that way. It was Paul who most clearly said this is a religion for everyone and so from that time Christianity became, potentially at least, a world religion. Within 300 years it had spread right throughout the Roman Empire.
结果胜出的是另一方。他们说，这是一种完全不同的崭新宗教。你不必先变成犹太人，所有法规都可以置诸脑后，基督已经把我们从那些戒律当中解放出来;他关于爱的教诲凌驾于一切律法之上。这是早期基督教会一位伟大传教士保罗的观点，有人甚至尊保罗为基督教的鼻祖, 因为耶稣死的时候,这个信仰还只是犹太人的家务事。耶稣是犹太人,他的徒众也是，有些人希望就这样保持下去, 而因为保罗确凿地指出这是所有人的宗教，自此而后，基督教就成了一种世界性的宗教——至少开启了这样的可能。接下去的三百年间，它被广为传播，在罗马帝国的每个角落开花结果。
The third group in the mixture are the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire. They lived on the northern borders and in the 400s they flooded in. By AD 476 they had destroyed the empire in the west. It was here in France, Spain, and Italy that the mixture of European civilization first took shape.
•日耳曼蛮族的逻辑
这个混合体的第三组人马，是入侵罗马帝国的日耳曼蛮族。他们原本住在北方边界处，在公元400年之后大举入侵，到了公元476年,西罗马帝国已被他们毁灭。欧洲文明这个混合体，就在法国、西班牙和意大利这些地方粗具了它的雏形。
The Germans were illiterate and left no written records, and so we have very little information about them before they invaded.
这些蛮族粗野不文，没有留下任何文字记载,我们对他们在侵略帝国之前的事迹所知极少。
The best account—probably not a firsthand account—is by a Roman historian, Tacitus, in the first century AD. He describes the chiefs and companions who lived and fought together and who lived for fighting:
关于他们的记述,最好的描述当属公元1世纪的罗马历史学者塔西佗（Tacitus）,但这也可能不是第一手的资料。据他形容，这些蛮族的首领和战士一起生活、一起打仗,简直是为打仗而活：
On the field of battle, it is a disgrace for the chief to be outdone in courage by his companions, and for the companions not to equal the courage of their chief. As for leaving a battle alive after your chief has fallen, that means lifelong infamy and shame. To defend and protect him, to put down one’s own acts of heroism to his credit; that is what they really mean by allegiance. The chiefs fight for victory, the companions for their chief.
在战场上，首领的勇气要是被战士比下去, 或是战士的勇气比不过首领，都是可耻的事。如果首领倒下而你离开战场独活，那更是一生也洗刷不掉的污名和耻辱。对首领极尽保护、捍卫，贬抑自己的英雄行为而把功劳归给首领，是服从的真实意涵。首领为胜利而战,战士则为首领而战。
Many noble youths, if the land of their birth is stagnating in a long peace, deliberately seek out other tribes where some war is afoot. The Germans have no taste for peace. Fame is easier won among perils and you cannot maintain a large body of companions except by violence and war. The companions are always asking things of their chiefs: Give me that warhorse or give me that bloody and victorious spear. As for meals, with their plentiful if homely fare, they count simply as pay. Such openhandedness must have war and plunder to feed it.
很多贵族子弟，如果出生地承平了好一段时间，会刻意去挑衅其他正有战事进行的部族。这些蛮族对和平毫无胃口，在危难中博得名声比较容易，更何况，要养得起旗下的战士大军，唯有凭借暴力和打仗一途。战士们总是伸手向首领要东西:把你的战马赐给我吧，要不那根血迹斑斑、代表胜利的箭矛也行。至于吃饭,不管伙食是丰盛还是普通，都被当做报酬看待。既然这样慷慨，你非得靠战争和掠夺,才供养得起。
You will find it harder to persuade a German to plow the land and to await its annual produce with patience than to challenge a foe and to earn the prize of wounds. He thinks it is spiritless and base to gain by sweat what he can buy with blood.
你会发现，要劝动一个日耳曼人下田耕种， 耐心等着一年一度的收成，要比劝他去挑战敌人、赢得受伤的奖赏来得困难。他认为，能靠流血换到的东西却去流汗得来，是没骨气、等而下之的事。
These are the people who, 300 years later, took over the Roman Empire.
这样的蛮族，在三百年后取代了整个罗马帝国。
We have now examined the three elements. Let us summarize them.
我们已经检视完这三个组成元素，在此做个归纳。（见上图）
The Greek view was that the world is simple, logical, and mathematical. The Christian view was that the world is evil, and Christ alone saves. The German warriors’ view was that fighting is fun. It is this unlikely mixture that comes together to make European civilization.
希腊人的观点:这是一个简单、符合逻辑、能以数学表达的世界。基督教的观点:这是个邪恶的世界，唯有耶稣能拯救它。日耳曼蛮族的观点则是:打仗是好玩的事。这些看似天差地远的元素组合在一起，造就了欧洲的文明。
HOW WERE THE THREE ELEMENTS brought together? First, consider Christianity’s connection with the Greco-Roman world. The Roman authorities from time to time tried to stamp out Christianity. They seized the holy books; they confiscated church property; they arrested and tortured Christians; they executed those who wouldn’t deny Christ.
•如果持续迫害下去……
这三种元素是如何组合在一起的呢？首先，想想基督教和希腊罗马世界的关联。基督教时常遭到罗马政府的迫害。他们没收《圣经》典籍,查封教会财产，逮捕基督徒施以酷刑，处死那些不肯背弃基督的人。
The Romans were usually very tolerant. They ruled an empire that was composed of a variety of races and religions; if you kept the peace the Romans were prepared to let you follow your own path. You could govern yourself. You could practice your own religion, with this exception: You had to sacrifice to the emperor. The Romans believed the emperor was something like a god.
罗马人是很包容的。他们所统治的帝国是由许多种族和宗教所共同组成，所以只要你规规矩矩不惹事，罗马人都会让你走自己的路。你可以自己管理自己，你可以信奉自己的宗教，只除了一点:你必须对皇帝敬拜，因为罗马人相信，君主的地位与神明无异。
The sacrifice you were required to make was trifling. There might be a portrait or statue of the emperor and, in front of it, a flame. You had to take a pinch of salt and drop it in the flame. The flame would flare up. That was enough. It was like saluting the flag or singing the national anthem. The Christians wouldn’t do it because, like the Jews, they said they must worship only one god and they would not treat the emperor as in any way a god.
你必须做的敬拜其实也微不足道。比如说，君王的一张肖像或一尊雕像前面有一团火，你必须拿一小撮盐洒在火里，让火苗蹿大，这样就够了，颇类于今日向国旗致敬或是唱国歌。但基督徒不肯这样做，因为他们跟犹太人一样,说自己只能崇拜唯一的真神，因此无论如何都不肯把君王当做神一般对待。
The Romans usually excused the Jews from honoring the emperor. They thought of them as cranky and volatile, but recognizable, an ancient people with their temple and their god, occupying a certain tract of country. By contrast, Christians were following a new religion and Christians could be anyone, anywhere. The Romans thought of them as subversives who had to be eliminated. They might have succeeded in this if they had consistently maintained the persecution.
只不过，犹太人不肯对君王致敬，罗马人通常会放他们一马，因为在罗马人眼里，犹太人只不过是个古怪、反复无常但面目容易辨识的古老民族，它据于国土的一方，有自己的神庙和守护神;对比之下，基督徒却在奉行一种新宗教，而且什么人都可能是基督徒,什么地方都可能有基督徒。罗马人认为基督徒是颠覆分子，必须铲除而后快。只不过罗马人当时如果持续迫害下去,这个目标说不定早已得逞。
Then a miracle happened. An emperor, Constantine, in AD 313 became a Christian or at least gave official support to the Christian churches. He thought their god might look after him and the empire better than any other. When Christianity was still far from being a majority faith, the ruler of the state embraced it; he gave the churches money and endorsed the rule of the bishops. Fifty years later, another Christian emperor outlawed all other religions. Four hundred years after Jesus taught in a troubled and distant province of the Roman Empire, Christianity became the official and sole religion of the empire.
•从追杀到独尊
可是,奇迹发生了。公元313年，君士坦丁大帝成为 一位基督徒，或者说至少公开表态支持基督教会。他认为基督教的神可以眷顾他，让他的帝国超越其他所有帝国。当时基督教距离跻身主流信仰尚远，这个一国之尊的统治者却张臂拥抱;他拿钱资助教会，为主教的统治权背书。五十年后，另一位信奉基督教的君主更禁止异教,独尊基督教为国教。如此这般，在耶稣于罗马帝国一个纷争不断的偏远省份传教四百年后，基督教成了这个帝国正式也是唯一的宗教。
The bishops and priests now paraded around the towns and marched into the countryside to destroy the pagan temples. This is the first link among the three elements: The Roman Empire becomes Christian.
主教和教士们现在可以大摇大摆走在各个城镇里，甚至进军乡村，大肆摧毁异教的寺庙。这是三大元素的第一个连结:罗马帝国变成了基督教的天下。
Constantine (272–337), the Roman emperor who gave official support to Christianity in AD 313.
By this stage the church was very different from what it had been in its early days. At first, groups of Christians had met in private houses. Now, three or four centuries later, there was a complete hierarchy of full-time paid officials: priests, bishops, and archbishops. One of the bishops—the bishop of Rome—had managed to make himself into the pope and to govern the church. The church had its own system of law and its own courts and jails to enforce its law. The church governed quite important matters like marriage and inheritance, not just church affairs. The church ran and enforced its own system of taxation because everyone was obliged to pay money to support it.
这时候的教会跟早期教会已有非常大的不同。一开始，基督教团体是在私人屋宅里聚会，如今，三四百年之后，他们已有完整的层级组织:堂区司铎（神父）、主教、大主教,神职人员不但是全职，还有薪资可拿。其中一名主教，也就是罗马的主教，更让自己坐上教皇的尊座，掌理了整个教会。这个教会有它自己的法律制度,也设有法庭、监狱以执行法律。而教会不只管教务,还管到其他重要大事，例如婚姻、继承。教会也有它自己的税收体系，因为所有人民都有义务掏钱来供养它。
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the church survived— it was like a government in itself. The pope was a parallel figure to the Roman emperor, controlling a hierarchy of officials beneath him. Here we see the second link in the making of the mixture: The church becomes Roman.
罗马帝国灭亡后，教会幸存下来——俨然一个独立政府。教皇和罗马帝王的角色平起平坐，治理麾下所有层级的文武百官。造成这个组合体的第二个连结就是:教会变成了罗马人的教会。
After the Roman Empire collapsed, the church preserved the learning of Greece and Rome (which it had already begun to do). This is an amazing development because all the writers, philosophers, and scientists of ancient Greece and Rome were pagan, not Christian. Why would the Christian church bother with such people? There was one group in the Christian church who said that they should not, that their writings were falsehoods and the only truth is in Christ. “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” said Tertullian. But that view did not prevail.
•从利用到融合
罗马帝国崩灭后,教会把希腊和罗马的学术保存了下来（它先前就已经这么做）。这是个令人惊讶的发展，因为古希腊和罗马的作家、哲学家和科学家全都是异教徒,不是基督徒。基督教会为什么要为这些人如此费事呢？教会中有一派说他们不该这样做，因为这些文字记述都是假的，唯一的真理只有耶稣基督。“雅典和耶路撒冷哪有什么关联?”德尔图良（Tertullian，基督教著名神学家）如是说。不过这派观点最后并没有获胜。
The Christians did not set up their own system of education, so when Christianity began to order and systematize its beliefs it relied on educated people who were steeped in the Greco-Roman tradition. They used Greek philosophy and Greek logic to explain and defend Christianity. These Christian scholars thought of the great philosophers and moralists of Greece and Rome as possessing some of the truth, though Christianity was of course the full truth. But the Greek philosophers could be used as a guide to the truth and to argue about the truth. So although they were pagan, the church preserved and used their writings. This is the third link: The church preserves Greek and Roman learning.
基督徒并没有自订一套教育体制，因此，在基督教会下令将这套信仰制度化之初，非常仰赖熟谙希腊罗马传统的高级知识分子的协助。这些人利用希腊的哲学和逻辑学替基督教教义解释、辩护。信奉基督的学者认为，古希腊和罗马的伟大哲学家与道德学家只触及了部分的真理, 基督教教义才理所当然是完整的;不过，这些希腊哲学家可以作为引导，让大众走向真理、辨明真理。因此,虽然他们是异教徒,基督教会还是保存了他们的著作并善加利用。这是第三个连结:基督教会将希腊和罗马的智识成就保存下来。
When the Germans invaded the Roman Empire, they did not intend to destroy it. They were coming for plunder, to get the best lands, and to settle down and enjoy the good things in life. They were happy to acknowledge the emperor’s rule. But the trouble was that in the 400s so many Germans came and took so much land, there was nothing left for the emperor to control. In effect, the Roman Empire came to an end because there was nothing left to rule.
日耳曼蛮族侵犯罗马帝国的时候，并没有摧毁它的意 图。他们的目的在于攻城略地，想占夺最肥沃的土地以安家落户，好好享受人生的美好东西。他们愿意承认罗马君主的统治权。问题是，在公元400年之后，太多蛮族来到，侵占了太多土地，罗马的君王已落得无辖地可治。事实上,罗马帝国之所以走到尽头，就是因为疆土已无剩余，没有领地可以统治了。
For their part the German warriors found that they had to run the societies they had invaded, which is not really what they expected to do, and they had to do so in very difficult circumstances. They themselves were illiterate; in the chaos that they had caused, the remaining Roman administration collapsed; trade and the towns shrank. The warrior chiefs set themselves up as kings and created little kingdoms; they fought among themselves; kingdoms rose and fell rapidly. It was many centuries before the outlines of the modern states of Western Europe appeared: France, Spain, England.
至于日耳曼蛮族们，发现必须开始统治自己所占领的社会，这不但令他们始料未及，而且处境非常棘手。他们目不识丁，在他们所制造出的混乱中，一息仅存的罗马政权终于断了气，而商业交易和所有城镇都在萎缩。各拥武装的蛮族首领们纷纷自立为王,建立起小邦小国;王国之间自相残杀,迅速楼起迅速楼塌。在西欧，一直要到数百年后，现代国家的雏形——法国、西班牙和英国——才终于出现。
Governments in these circumstances were extremely weak. They were so weak they were not able even to collect taxation. (To us this seems like a contradiction in terms—a government that doesn’t tax!) Instead of being the chief, the German warrior now turned himself into a king and allotted land to his companions, who were turning themselves into the nobility, on the condition that when the king needed an army the nobles would provide it for him. They would send so many soldiers. But the nobles began to treat the land as if it were their own and to have their own views about how many soldiers they would send, and of what quality and for what purpose.
处于这些情境下的政府脆弱不堪，弱到连个税都征不到。（在我们看来，这些词汇本身就是矛盾的:一个征不了税的政府!）这位已不光是蛮族首领的日耳曼人现在已化身为国王，他把土地分封给他的战士，而这些战士则化身为贵族，条件是一旦国王需要军队,这些贵族就得供应,要多少就给多少。可是,渐渐地，这些贵族开始视这些土地为己有，对于出兵多少、精良与否、为什么出兵，也开始自作主张。
Today, heads of state inspect guards of honor. They move along the ranks, appearing to scrutinize the soldiers, perhaps saying a word or two. This is a carryover from an early medieval practice when the king was really scrutinizing the soldiers he had been sent and saying to himself: What sort of garbage have they sent this time?
• 土地你拿去，其他留给我
在今天，各国领袖都会阅兵。他们从三军将士前面走过,状似检查军容，口中偶尔吐出一言两语,这是沿袭早前 中古时期的习俗;当时那些国王真的是一面检查贵族派来的士兵，一面自言自语：这回他们又送了什么东西来?”
There was a long fight for kings to get more power: to be able to rule without being in the hands of the nobles; to get their own system of taxation; to have an army that they fully controlled; to get their own bureaucracy. But because they started from such a weak position, there were some things that they were never able to threaten. Private property became sacrosanct; the nobles had turned land held on condition into private property. This always put a limitation on governments, so that though the powers of European kings grew they never became like Eastern rulers, who owned everything in their realm. If a despot was in need of assets he would simply seize someone’s property or send his troops down to the bazaar to grab a pile of merchandise. European governments, even when called “absolute,” could never act like that. Not everything is the king’s was the foundation of European thinking about government. From the right to private property derives the notion of individual rights, which is a central part of the Western tradition. The notion that government must be limited arose because, at the beginning, government, in fact, was extremely limited.
国王长年征战不休,原因可能是为了争权，为了保住统治权以免落入贵族手里，为了自订税收,为了拥有一支 自己能完全掌控的军队，为了设立自己的官僚体制。可是,因为他们一开始就立足薄弱，有些事永远也威吓不了人。私有财产变得神圣不可侵犯，那些贵族已把借着条件交换得来的土地变成了私有财产。这对政府来说永远是个束缚，因此，虽然欧洲国王的权力日增一日，却不曾演成东方的专制君王。东方的专制暴君把领土上的一切都据为己有,如果需要什么物资，只要没收某人物产或派兵到市集拿一堆东西回来就是。反观欧洲的政府，虽然号称“绝对权力”，却从未这样做过。“并非所有东西都归国王所有”，是欧洲政府思维的基石。从私有财产权出发，衍生出人权观念，是西方价值的核心。政府权力必须有所限制，这样的观念之所以勃兴，其实是因为这些政府从一开始就处处受限。
This limitation on government was also important for economic development. The security that merchants enjoyed was an important reason why it was in Europe that economic growth took off in a way not matched anywhere else.
“对政府有所设限”对经济的发展也有举足轻重的影响。欧洲经济之所以能一飞冲天，成长速度非其他地区所能比拟，“商人有保障”是个关键。
Knowing what we do about these warriors and their attitude, we should not be surprised that soon after invading the empire, they became Christian. The church was the only institution that survived the collapse of the Roman Empire. It was often the bishop who went out to negotiate with the warrior band as it arrived bent on plunder. It was the bishop who said: “You can have the land on that side of the river, but please leave the rest to us.” He might point out the palace of the former Roman governor, which the chief would no doubt claim for himself, and suggest that he would visit him there soon to help in running the place. Quite quickly the bishops were able to persuade the warriors that they would kill more of their enemies if they accepted the Christian god. These were conquerors of a special sort: They accepted the religion of the people they had conquered. The church made it quite clear to these new rulers, kings, and nobles, that one of their duties was to uphold the Christian faith. This is our last link: German warriors support Christianity.
了解这些战士的背景和心态后,对于他们在侵略罗马帝国后纷纷成为基督徒，我们就不至于感到意外。罗马帝国崩塌后，教会是唯一幸存下来的机构。当这帮战士兵临城下打算掠夺之际，前去打交道的常是基督教的主教，他这样说“河流那头的土地你们可以拿去，但其他的请留给我们。”他遥指的可能是前罗马的总督府，说自己过不久还会登门叩访以协助治理国事，日耳曼蛮族首领想当然耳, 也就开始以总督自居。很快地，这些战士就被主教们说服了-一主教告诉他们,只要接受基督教的上帝，就更能克敌制胜。罗马帝国变成了基督徒国度，基督教会变成了罗马人的教会，教会将希腊和罗马的学术成就保存下来 日耳曼蛮族变成基督徒 可以得到这个结论：日耳曼蛮族支持罗马基督教会保存古希腊罗马学术 敌制胜。这是一群很特别的征服者:他们接受了被征服者的宗教。教会明白告诉这些新来的统治者、国王和贵族, 他们的职责之一就是奉行基督信仰。这是最后一个连结点：日耳曼蛮族支持基督教。
If we summarize all the links:
ROMAN EMPIRE becomes CHRISTIAN
CHRISTIAN CHURCH becomes ROMAN
CHURCH preserves GREEK & ROMAN LEARNING
GERMAN WARRIORS become CHRISTIAN
we reach this conclusion:
It is a very odd mixture, isn’t it? These are not natural allies. It is an unstable mixture. Eventually it will break open, but it held together for about a thousand years—from around AD 476, the date of the fall of the Roman Empire, to about 1400. This is the period historians call the Middle Ages or the medieval period. Historians who take a large view of things regard 1400 as the beginning of modern times. Here are the three eras of European history: ancient or classical; medieval; modern.
如果我们把以上这些连结点做个归纳：这是个非常怪异的组合，对不对？他们并不是自然而然的结盟,是个不稳定的组合。它最后终于瓦解,但在分崩离析之前，它维系了将近千年之久——从公元476年罗马帝国崩灭开始，直到1400年左右。历史学家称这段时期为中古时期或中世纪。有些历史学者采用宏观角度，认为公元1400年即是现代（近代）的起点。以这种观点来看，欧洲历史可分成三个时代;古代或称古典时期、中世纪、近代。
Throughout the Middle Ages this odd trio holds together, but the elements do change. Consider Christianity. Whatever else it was, it wasn’t a warlike religion.
这个怪异的三角组合虽然撑过了整个中世纪,不过个中元素一直在变。就拿基督教来说,不管你怎么定义它, 它都不是一个倾向开战的宗教。
Jesus said: “Love your enemies.” The early Christians refused military service, one reason the Romans were suspicious of them. But now the Christians are in partnership with German warriors. This turn-the-other-cheek religion is supported by iron men. What sort of contradiction is this? It is not as great as it seems, because once Christianity had been taken up by Constantine and become an official state religion it had to change its views about violence. Governments must fight, and if the church wanted the support of governments it had to agree that governments can sometimes fight justly.
耶稣说:“要爱你的敌人。”早期的基督徒拒绝服兵役, 罗马人会对他们心生疑忌，这就是原因之一。但是，基督徒和日耳曼蛮族现在却是伙伴关系。这种“如果有人打你耳光，你就转过另一边让他打”的宗教，却受到一群好战的钢铁硬汉的撑持，这是何等地矛盾？不过,表面上看似矛盾，其实不然，因为自从君士坦丁大帝改信基督教并订其为正式国教后，这个宗教对于暴力的想法也开始有了转变。既然政府不可能不打仗，教会如果希望得到政府支持,就得点头同意，认可政府有时可以因为公平正义而出兵打仗。
Yet, when the church teamed up with these warriors it did not fully accept their values. Over the centuries, the warrior changed into the knight. A knight loved fighting, was proud of his ability to fight, but fought for good causes. The church encouraged him to fight non-Christians—that was a very good cause indeed. The church promoted the crusades to the Holy Land, which had fallen into Muslim hands. Special dispensation was offered if you went and fought there.
•好战者与基督徒的矛盾结合
不过，教会虽然跟蛮族成为搭档，对他们的价值观却是照章全收。经过几个世纪，这些战士已经演变成骑士。骑士热爱战斗，对自己的战斗能力深以为傲,但他们是为了正当理由而战。教会鼓励他们去攻打非基督徒——这个理由确实再正当不过。教会也鼓励十字军远征，前往已落入伊斯兰教手中的东方圣地。如果你愿意出征到那边打仗，你会得到特别的奖赏。
A knight also protected the weak, especially highborn women. So with this new moral overtone to his fighting, a man became a knight in a sort of religious ceremony. His sword was placed on the altar in a Christian church and then buckled onto the knight, who would then go off and do good things with it.
骑士也要保护弱者，尤其是保护出身贵族的名门淑女。由于战斗被赋予了这种新的道德意涵,一个男人要借由一种犹如宗教的仪式才能成为骑士。他把剑放在基督教堂的圣坛上，由国王为他佩戴后,这名骑士才能拿它到外头去行善除恶。
This attitude of protecting and honoring ladies was longlasting in European culture. After the knights disappeared it became the attitude of a “gentleman,” the descendant of the Christian knight. A gentleman showed respect for women by standing when women came into the room, by refusing to be seated while women were standing, and by tipping his hat to women. I was taught this at school and find it hard to forget. In this, I’m a living relic of the Middle Ages.
保护女士、敬重女士的风范在欧洲文化中源远流长。骑士绝迹之后，演变成为 “绅士”风度。绅士是基督教骑士的后裔, 有女士进入屋内，即刻起身以示尊重；女 士不落座，自己不可就座，见到女士必须点帽檐致意。这些都是我以前在学校里学到的，而学到后就很难忘记。在这方面，我发现自己活脱是个中世纪的遗迹。
Feminists in recent times fought against this respect. They did not want to be honored on a pedestal; they wanted to be equal. In their campaign for equality they had the advantage of height; better to start on a pedestal than ground firmly underfoot. It was because women had this degree of respect in European culture that feminism was fairly readily accepted. It is a different story in other cultures.
但近代的女性主义者却对这样的尊重抱持不以为然的态度。她们不希望自己被捧得高高的受人致敬,她们要 的是平等。在争取平权的运动中，她们占有高度的优 势——从高台上起步当然胜过从脚下的平地。由于欧洲文化原本就有这种程度的尊重,大众对女性主义可说是相当平和地接受。这点与其他文化有很大的不同。
Let us look at another tension in this mix: the Christian church’s preservation of Greek and Roman learning. This was an active process of preservation; it wasn’t as if the church merely put the clever books in a cupboard and left them there. They have only survived—and we can only read them now—because the church copied and recopied them right through the Middle Ages. There was no printing; books rot and perish. It was the monks in the monasteries, often not knowing what they were copying—hence the many mistakes—who preserved so much of the treasures of Greece and Rome.
接下来我们来看看这个组合的另一个紧张关系:基督教会对古希腊和罗马学术进行了积极主动的保存;教会并不光是把一些智慧典籍放在橱柜里束诸高阁。这些文献能够留存下来，让今天的我们有机会拜读，是因为整个中世纪基督教会都在抄写,一再地抄写。当年没有印刷术, 书本会腐烂、会枯朽。诸多希腊罗马的珍贵文物之所以留存至今，是拜修道院里的修士之赐，虽然他们常常不知道自己在抄写什么，因此错误百出。
If read in its own terms, this literature presents a philosophy, a system of values, an attitude to life which is un-Christian, pagan. But the church in the Middle Ages was able to maintain such command over intellectual life that no one ever looked at this literature in its own terms. Instead, the church borrowed what it wanted, reassembled the parts it had taken, put them with passages from the Bible, and so constructed a Christian theology, that is, an account of God and God’s world and his plan of salvation. So Greek philosophy, Greek learning, and Greek logic were all pressed into service in support of Christianity. New discoveries of ancient texts did not disturb the scholars; they wove new discoveries into a new version of their theology.
•神学为什么这么神?
如果光读原始文字,这些文献代表的是一种非属基督教的异教徒的哲学、价值观和人生态度。然而，中世纪的基督教会对知识生活的把持是如此铺天盖地，以至于竟然没有人看过这些典籍原本的文字。教会的做法是截取它想要的段落，把这些断章取义的点点滴滴汇集起来，再将它和摘自《圣经》的段落编在一起,构筑出一套基督教神学，也就是一套关于上帝的世界和上帝救赎计划的记述。 如此这般，希腊的哲学思维、学术知识和逻辑观念全都被征去服侍、支持基督教了。若有新发现的古文献出土，这些学者们也不惊不扰，把它编进新版的神学里不就得了。
Let us summarize how the mix was working in the Middle Ages. We have warriors becoming Christian knights, we have Greek and Roman learning supporting Christianity. The church, in the middle of this odd alliance, is managing to hold the whole thing together. Learning is Christian, the knights are Christian, the world is Christendom, the realm of Christ.
我们且将这个组合在中世纪的运作做个归纳。 我们知道，蛮族现在变成了信奉基督的骑士，也知道 希腊和罗马的学术被拿来支持基督教。而教会，就居于这个怪异的结盟体之间运筹帷幄，努力维系这个体制于不坠。学术是基督教的，骑士也是基督徒，这个世界成了基督教王国,是耶稣基督的天下。
After the year 1400, this strange alliance begins to break apart and what historians call modern times begin.
公元1400年后，这个怪异的联盟开始崩裂，历史学者所称的“近代”于焉展开。
