So, as we continued walking through the city, I played a game, trying to separate what I thought was inspired by a true faith in God, and what was not. It quickly became difficult: for every almshouse there was a wealthy patron who'd paid for it; the money made in the market might have raised the tower in the square but it also bankrolled the foundling homes and the schools, too. And of course the paintings weren't done pro bono. After a while I gave up. It was impossible to tell. This city - like many great European cities - was a complex meld of venal ambition, artistic brilliance, social climbing and sincere kindness and charity. Faith was in the mix, some of it pure some of it bogus. But it wasn't easy to separate the human from the divine. A bit like life.
因此，接下來我們穿行于這座城市時，我留了個心眼，試圖分辨出哪些是因真正信仰上帝而產生的畫作，哪些不是。很快，這件事就變得艱難起來，因為每一家公立救濟院背后都有一位富有的資助人在支撐；市場經濟中掙來的金錢也許堆高了廣場上的高塔，但也為育嬰堂和學校提供了資金。當然這些畫本來也不是為了公共利益而作的。沒多久，我放棄了。根本分不清嘛。跟許多其他歐洲城市一樣，這座城市也是個大熔爐，貪污腐敗，藝術成就，趨炎附勢，善意仁慈，所在皆有。信仰就在這熔爐中，真真假假。人群好壞難辨，就像人生。
In his recent biography, the former Bishop of Edinburgh - Richard Holloway - identifies this tension when he writes: "My mistake was to think religion was more than human." He goes on: "I was less sure whether God was also just a human invention, but I was sure religion was." As with the art and architecture of Christendom - much of it obviously a human construct - it's sometimes hard to know where God is in it all.
前愛丁堡主教Richard Holloway在他最近的傳記中這樣描述這種張力：“我的錯誤就在于認為宗教高于民眾。我不是很確定上帝是不是民眾一手造就的，但我很肯定宗教是民眾創造的?！被浇探绲乃囆g和建筑很明顯絕大部分是人的杰作，有時候很難講上帝到底在哪里。
And yet Paul once described Jesus as "the invisible image of God for whom all things - visible and invisible - were created." This cosmic claim reminds us that when God got involved with man - he also got involved with culture. I confess, I found it hard to match the image of Jesus - so skillfully depicted by Memling - with the image I carry in my mind. But perhaps that's how it's meant to be: a messy mix of imperfect people trying to imagine and interpret a perfect God who can never be perfectly pictured.
Paul曾這樣形容耶穌：“所有一切有形或無形的事物都是為了看不見的上帝而創造的?！边@則重大宣言提醒我們，當上帝與人產生牽連，他就跟文化有了牽連。我坦誠，我發現很難將Memling精美畫作中的耶穌形象跟我腦海中的耶穌形象重疊起來。但恐怕事情本來就是這樣的，一大群不完美的普通人試圖想象和詮釋一個無法徹底展示出來的完美上帝。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/Article/201510/404578.shtml
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