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The old bridges were gone and commerce had come to a standstill. Civilisation-the product of thousands of years of patient labor on the part of Egyptians and Babylonians and Greeks and Romans, which had lifted man high above the most daring dreams of his earliest ancestors, threatened to perish from the western continent.
帝國的大道因年舊失修而塌陷，橋梁斷絕，早已不堪使用。曾經(jīng)興盛的商業(yè)貿(mào)易停頓了，繁榮的意大利變成了一塊死寂之地。世界的文明--一歷經(jīng)埃及人、巴比倫人、希臘人、羅馬人幾千年的辛苦工作所創(chuàng)造的成果，曾把人類的生活提升到他們的遠(yuǎn)祖不敢夢想的境界，如今卻面臨在西方大陸 上消亡的危險(xiǎn)。
It is true that in the far east, Constantinople continued to be the centre of an Empire for another thousand years. But it hardly counted as a part of the European continent. Its interests lay in the east. It began to forget its western origin. Gradually the Roman language was given up for the Greek. The Roman alphabet was discarded and Roman law was written in Greek characters and explained by Greek judges. The Emperor became an Asiatic despot, worshipped as the god-like kings of Thebes had been worshipped in the valley of the Nile, three thousand years before. When missionaries of the Byzantine church looked for fresh fields of activity, they went eastward and carried the civilisation of Byzantium into the vast wilderness of Russia.
當(dāng)然，遠(yuǎn)東的君士坦丁堡作為帝國的中心還繼續(xù)存在了1000年。不過它很難被看作是歐洲大陸 的一部分。它的興趣和心思都朝向東方，忘記了自己是歐洲出身。漸漸地，拉丁語讓位于希臘語，羅馬字母被廢棄不用，羅馬法律用希臘文重寫，并由希臘法官加以解釋。東羅馬皇帝成為受到神一樣崇拜的君主，其情形如同3000年前尼羅河谷的底比斯。當(dāng)拜占庭的傳教士想要尋找新的活動領(lǐng)地時(shí)，他們便向東行進(jìn)，把拜占庭文明帶到俄羅斯的廣闊荒野。
As for the west, it was left to the mercies of the Barbarians. For twelve generations, murder, war, arson, plundering were the order of the day. One thing-and one thing alone-saved Europe from complete destruction, from a return to the days of cave-men and the hyena.This was the church-the flock of humble men and women who for many centuries had confessed themselves the followers of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, who had been killed that the mighty Roman Empire might be saved the trouble of a street-riot in a little city somewhere along the Syrian frontier.
至于西方，已落人了蠻族之手。在大約12個(gè)世代里，謀殺、戰(zhàn)爭、縱火、劫掠成為統(tǒng)治世界的原則。只有這一樣?xùn)|西，它使得歐洲文明免于徹底的毀滅，使人們不至重返穴居與茹毛飲血的時(shí)代。這就是教會--由那些千百年來承認(rèn)是拿撒勒木匠耶穌的追隨者的謙卑男女所組成的群體。而這位卑微的拿撒勒人之死，原是為了使光榮的羅馬帝國免于發(fā)生在敘利亞邊境上一個(gè)小城市的街頭暴亂。
