纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 044辛顿圣玛丽肖像(5)（在线收听）

At this point few people would have wanted to show the victorious, all-powerful Christ with that shameful instrument of suffering, the cross.

很少有人愿意看到胜利的全能的耶稣与他耻辱的受难刑具十字架放在一起。

He had told his disciples that he was the way, the truth and the life, but it's very difficult to show any of these physically.

他曾告诉门徒，他是道路，是真理，是生命，但这些东西都无法用具象表现出来。

He had announced that he was the light of the world, but it's really hard to show light in a mosaic, especially if, as here, you're dealing with a not very good artist.

他也曾宣称自己是世界之光，但马赛克图案很难表现出光芒，尤其当艺术家水平并不算太高明的时候。

The mosaicist at Hinton St Mary, instead of a symbol, gave him a monogram, the Chi Rho'-those two letters of the Greek alphabet that begin Christ's name in Greek, written as though they were X and P in our alphabet.

我们这位亨顿圣玛丽的艺术家没有使用任何象征物，而是釆用了本文开始时提到的希腊字母来表明基督的身份，

In our mosaic, they lie like a halo behind Christ's head.

并将它表现为基督身后的光环。

It was the symbol adopted by the Roman emperor Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity in the year 313.

它是公元313年，罗马的君士坦丁大帝转变了对基督教的态度后所采用的标志。

Our floor was almost certainly made about 40 years later.

我们几乎可以肯定这块地板制作于约40年后。

We can be pretty confident of that, because both Christ and Bellerophon wear their hair in the fashion of about 350.

基督与柏勒洛丰的发型都是公元350年左右流行的发式，即是明证。

It was Constantine's conversion at the battle of the Milvian Bridge that in fact made our floor possible.

米尔维安大桥战役时，君士坦丁改变了对基督的态度，之后才可能有这样的地板出现。

Before he converted, no villa owner would have dared display their Christian faith so brazenly-practising Christians had been persecuted.

此前，没有一个别墅主人敢如此大胆地公开宣扬自己信仰基督，因为基督徒一直受到迫害。

But now, everything was different.

但现在一切都不同了。

Professor Dame Averil Cameron of Oxford University explains:

牛津大学教授埃弗利尔卡迈隆女爵士解释道：

"The Emperor Constantine seems to have converted himself to Christianity, and started to favour the Christians.

据说战前，君士坦丁在天空中看到了十字架，因而改信了基督。

He is supposed to have seen a vision of a cross in the sky some time before the battle, and thereafter he never deviated from giving privileges to Christians, which was a complete overturning of what had been happening when Christians had not even been legal.

之后他始终赋予基督徒极大的特权，彻底扭转了此前基督教不合法时的情况。