文明的故事3：恺撒与基督

• 避風距離

  2021-10-31
  无疑，他们创建了历史上最具影响力、最迷人的城市。他们做出了人人都能懂的造型艺术、绘画艺术和建筑艺术，构筑了每一位市民都能使用的城市。自由的大众虽然是贫穷的，但从某方面来说，他们却拥有大部分罗马的财富：他们食用国家的玉米，他们几乎不用花费，就能坐在戏院里、马戏场中、大竞技场与运动场上看表演；他们在大浴室中运动、休息、娱乐及教育自己，他们享受几百条列柱下的阴凉，他们在街道上长约数英里的柱廊之下漫步，仅在战神校场就有3英里长。城中心是个喧的广场，里面商业繁忙、雄辩之声不绝于耳，活跃着震撼帝国的辩论；其次是一圈壮丽的庙宇、会堂、宫殿剧场及浴室等，繁富无比，再次，是一圈煕攘的店铺及林立的公寓另外还有一圈房屋与花园，然后又是神殿及公共浴场；最后是一圈别及房含，把城市挤到乡下去了，大海围绕着山密：这就是恺撒治下的罗马一骄做、威风、辉煌、现实、残、邪恶、混乱而又高。
• Lc

  2012-06-14
  To have God as our maker, father, and guardian- shall not this suffice to keep us from grief and fear? And wherewithal shall I be fed, asks one, if I have nothing? But what shall we say of... the animals, every one of which is sufficient to itself, and lacks neither its own proper food nor that way of life which is appropriate to it, and in harmony with nature?
• Lc

  2012-06-14
  Never say about anything, "I have lost it," but only "I have given it back." Is your child dead? It has been given back. Is your wife dead? She has been returned. "I have had my farm taken away." Very well; this, too, has been given back. So long as God gives it to you take care of it as something not your own.... "Alas, that I should be lame in one leg!" Slave! do you then, because of one paltry leg, blame the universe? Will you not make a free gift of it to the whole?... I must go into exile: does anyone keep me from going with a smile, serene?... "I will throw you into prison." It is only my body you imprison. I must die; must I then die complaining?... These are the lessons that philosophy ought to rehearse, and write down daily, and practice.... A platform or a prison are places, one ...
• Lc

  2012-06-06
  LAW was the most characteristic and lasting expression of the Roman spirit. As Greece stands in history for freedom, so Rome stands for order; and as Greece bequeathed democracy and philosophy as the foundations of individual liberty, so Rome has left us its laws, and its traditions of administration, as the bases of social order. To unite these diverse legacies, to attune their stimulating opposition into harmony, is the elemental task of statesmanship.
• Lc

  2012-05-23
  On the evening of March 14, to a gathering at his home, Caesarproposed as topic of conversation, "What is the best death?" His ownanswer was, "A sudden one."
• Lc

  2012-06-29
  Plato had set a theme by picturing the Ideas of God as thepatterns on which all things were formed; the Stoics had combinedthese Ideas into the Logos Spermatikos or fertilizing wisdom of God;the Neo-Pythagoreans had made the Ideas a divine person; and Philo hadturned them into the Logos or Reason of God, a second divineprinciple, through which God created, and communicated with, theworld. If we reread the famous exordium of the Fourth Gospel withall this in mind, and retain the Logos of the Greek original inplace of the translation Word, we perceive at once that John hasjoined the philosophers:-In the beginning was the Logos; the Logos was with God, and theLogos was God.... All things were made by the Logos; without himnothing was made that was made. It was by him that all thi...