Segment 12d, church and state in the early empire
12d 羅馬帝國早期的教堂和政府
The roman state religion greatly helped the Roman sense of solidarity and helped enhance the status of the Roman emperors.
羅馬國教極大地幫助了羅馬人團結起來,也幫助增強了羅馬皇帝的地位。
Yet its fixation on maintaining the pax deiorum, peace of the gods, and its contractual 'du ot des',
但是它專注于維持神靈的和平以及
'I give so that you may give' relationship between humans and deities could never have satisfied the Roman's deeper spiritual needs.
人和神明之間相互給予的契約關系,這是不能滿足羅馬人更深層次的精神需求的。
Eastern religions which directly addressed spiritual needs such as Judaism,
而那些直接解決精神需求的東方宗教,例如猶太教,

or the religion of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis were tolerated in Rome
或者古埃及女神伊希斯宗教在羅馬也得到了宗教容忍,
as long as they did not offend the Mos Majorum and sometimes even when they did.
只要它們不侵犯古羅馬的傳統,甚至有時有所侵犯,也會被容忍。
The Asian cult of the Magna mater imported towards the end of the second Punic war in 205 BC
公元前205年簽署腓尼基和約后,
included the self-castrated eunuch priests of their self-castrated god Attis. Ouch.
羅馬引進了眾神之母的信仰包括自我閹割的神阿提斯。
Yet their belief systems were never incorporated into the Roman state religion.
但是它們的這些信仰體系并沒有融入羅馬國教之中。
Indeed religions deemed harmful to the state were actively attacked
被認為對羅馬有壞處的宗教事實上都遭到了攻擊,
as was the case with the Boccic religion of the Greek wine god Dionysus in 188 BC.
例如公元前188年的希臘酒神狄俄尼索斯巴克斯宗教。
It was one thing to embrace the Greeks' Hellenistic art, science, literature and philosophy but the senate was less happy with the prospect of decent Roman men and worse yet, women, actively worshipping the cross dressing Greek god of wine and partying.
羅馬政府愿意接納希臘的藝術,科學,文學和哲學,但是并不樂于見到體面的羅馬男人甚至是女人打扮成希臘酒神,狂歡聚會,崇拜神明。
The consuls were instructed to stamp the Boccic religion out and many Romans chose death over disavowing the divinity of Dionysus.
政府下令讓執政官打壓巴克斯宗教,但是很多羅馬人寧死不屈,不愿推翻狄俄尼索斯神靈。
But the Boccic religion for all that did not go away,
巴克斯宗教也沒有就此消亡,
the rooms of Pompei destroyed by volcanic eruption in 79 AD show evidence of Boccic temples.
公元79年毀于火山爆發的龐貝城遺址顯示當時仍有巴克斯寺廟,
It seems, and this is especially true of difficult times that you just can't keep a good mystery religion down.
看起來在艱難時期,一個神秘的好宗教是難以打倒的。
Beginning with Augustus the Roman state religion included the Hellenistic practice of emperor worship.
從奧古斯都開始,羅馬國教就加入了皇帝崇拜的希臘慣例。
Emperor worship appealed to the people of the Greek East and made sense to the less civilized people of the West,
皇帝崇拜對于希臘東部地區的人民而言很具吸引力,也得到了西部欠開化人民的理解,
but offended educated Romans and offered absolutely nothing to spiritual seekers in general.
卻冒犯了受過教育的羅馬人,對于通常的信徒也沒有什么益處。
The seeds of Christianity would fall upon fertile soil.
基督教的種子擁有了沃土。
Historically Christianity developed from the Jewish faith,
從歷史上看,基督教從猶太信仰發展而來,
Jesus of Nazareth was himself a Jew as were all his earliest followers. So a few words about the Jews are in order.
拿撒勒的耶穌,自己就是個猶太人 他的早期跟隨者也都是。因此我們要稍微講一下猶太人。
Wherever in the world fortune had taken the Jews the Jews retained their unique customs
猶太人不管身處世界何處都保留著自己獨特的風俗
and unique language and their unique faith in one ethical god. Who had selected the Jews as his chosen people.
語言和單一神信仰,猶太人是上帝的選民。