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At this point few people would have wanted to show the victorious, all-powerful Christ with that shameful instrument of suffering, the cross.
很少有人愿意看到勝利的全能的耶穌與他恥辱的受難刑具十字架放在一起。
He had told his disciples that he was the way, the truth and the life, but it's very difficult to show any of these physically.
他曾告訴門徒，他是道路，是真理，是生命，但這些東西都無法用具象表現出來。
He had announced that he was the light of the world, but it's really hard to show light in a mosaic, especially if, as here, you're dealing with a not very good artist.
他也曾宣稱自己是世界之光，但馬賽克圖案很難表現出光芒，尤其當藝術家水平并不算太高明的時候。
The mosaicist at Hinton St Mary, instead of a symbol, gave him a monogram, the Chi Rho'-those two letters of the Greek alphabet that begin Christ's name in Greek, written as though they were X and P in our alphabet.
我們這位亨頓圣瑪麗的藝術家沒有使用任何象征物，而是釆用了本文開始時提到的希臘字母來表明基督的身份，
In our mosaic, they lie like a halo behind Christ's head.
并將它表現為基督身后的光環。
It was the symbol adopted by the Roman emperor Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity in the year 313.
它是公元313年，羅馬的君士坦丁大帝轉變了對基督教的態度后所采用的標志。
Our floor was almost certainly made about 40 years later.
我們幾乎可以肯定這塊地板制作于約40年后。
We can be pretty confident of that, because both Christ and Bellerophon wear their hair in the fashion of about 350.
基督與柏勒洛豐的發型都是公元350年左右流行的發式，即是明證。
It was Constantine's conversion at the battle of the Milvian Bridge that in fact made our floor possible.
米爾維安大橋戰役時，君士坦丁改變了對基督的態度，之后才可能有這樣的地板出現。
Before he converted, no villa owner would have dared display their Christian faith so brazenly-practising Christians had been persecuted.
此前，沒有一個別墅主人敢如此大膽地公開宣揚自己信仰基督，因為基督徒一直受到迫害。
But now, everything was different.
但現在一切都不同了。
Professor Dame Averil Cameron of Oxford University explains:
牛津大學教授埃弗利爾卡邁隆女爵士解釋道：
"The Emperor Constantine seems to have converted himself to Christianity, and started to favour the Christians.
據說戰前，君士坦丁在天空中看到了十字架，因而改信了基督。
He is supposed to have seen a vision of a cross in the sky some time before the battle, and thereafter he never deviated from giving privileges to Christians, which was a complete overturning of what had been happening when Christians had not even been legal.
之后他始終賦予基督徒極大的特權，徹底扭轉了此前基督教不合法時的情況。
