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But Christ had taught that the world's worst sorrows had a meaning, that beggars, those in torment, the persecuted, the sick and the suffering were blessed in their misfortune.
但是基督曾教导：世上最大的痛苦自有其意义，乞丐、哭泣者、受迫害者、受苦难者在其不幸中都是有福的。
And so it was that the Son of God, martyred and in agony, became for the first Christians the very symbol of his teaching.
所以对于第一批基督徒来说，这位受苦难的、受折磨的圣子恰恰就是他学说的象征。
Today we can hardly imagine what that meant.
今天我们几乎再也无法想象，这意味着什么。
The cross was even worse than the gallows.
十字架是某种比绞刑架更恶劣的东西，
And this cross of shame became the symbol of the new teaching.
而这个耻辱的绞刑架则成了这种新学说的标志。
Just imagine what a Roman official or soldier, or a Roman teacher steeped in Greek culture, proud of his wisdom, his rhetoric and his knowledge of philosophy,
你想象一下吧，一个罗马官员或士兵，一个对自己的睿智、自己的演说术和自己的哲学知识,
would have thought when he heard Christ's teaching from one of the great preachers – perhaps the Apostle Paul in Athens or in Rome.
搞到自豪的受过希腊教育的罗马教师必定会有些什么想法，如果他在雅典或在罗马听到大传教士中的一位，譬如师徒保罗传教基督学说的话。
We can read what he preached there today, in his First Letter to the Corinthians: I will show you a more excellent way:
这位在那里这样传教，这是我们今天还可以在他的致哥林多人的第一封信里：我把最妙的道指示给你们：
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am but a sounding gong or a tinkling cymbal.
我若能说万人的方言，并天使的话语却没有爱，我就成了鸣的锣、响的钹一般。
