基督徒：反叛應受死Christians:Rebels Deserving Death
Shane
Lems摘錄 Maria Marta譯第一段
我讀過薛華（Francis Schaeffer）的好幾本著作，而這本更受歡的《前車可鑒》（How Should We Then
Live?），我只讀到中間，還沒完成，但到目前為止我已非常享受它的閱讀过程。在開頭第一章，薛華談到羅馬帝國在教會早期幾個世紀對基督徒的迫害。他的見解精辟透徹; 也是對今天基督徒的教誨！
「羅馬是很殘酷的。羅馬的圓形競技場也許是當時殘酷風氣最佳的寫照。觀眾坐在競技場的石階上，觀看角斗士比賽和將基督徒拋向野獸的情形。我們不要忘記基督徒被殺的原因，他們不是為了崇拜耶穌被殺的。當時有許多不同的宗教充斥羅馬帝國，其中一種是祭祀太陽神米特拉（Mithras）的，這種宗教源于波斯的祆教（Zoroastrianism), 于主前六十七年傳到羅馬。在羅馬統治的地方內，誰也不理會別人崇拜甚麼，只要不妨礙國家團結就可以了。而羅馬的國家團結是以崇拜凱撤為中心的，基督徒被殺害，是因為他們是「反叛者」，同時，他們漸漸被猶太人的會堂拒絕，跟著又失去了凱撤猶統賦予猶太人的特權，基督徒所受的逼害便變本加厲了。
當時基督徒『反叛』的真相，我們可以從兩方面來說明。首先，他們敬拜耶穌為上帝，而且只崇奉這一位無限的、有位格的上帝，這是所有羅馬皇帝都不能容忍的。第三世紀及戴克理先（Diocletian，284-305）在位期間，社會上愈來愈多較高層的人物成為基督徒，他們的崇拜變成國家統一的威脅。本來，如果他們同時崇奉耶穌和愷撒，便可保無恙，但他們拒絕把這兩種信仰結合在一起，他們所崇拜的上帝是借舊約聖經、基督及後來逐漸寫成的新約聖經來啟示自己的上帝.他們只奉他為唯一的上帝，不容任何東西混雜，並且視其他所有的神為假神。
第二方面，任何極權政府或獨裁國家，都不能容忍人民用一種絕對的東西來判斷他的國家和國家的行政的。藉著神的啟示，基督徒得到了反叛『絕對』（absolute）。基督徒因有這絕對的、普遍的標準，就用來判斷個人的道德，而且也用來判斷他們的國家，所以他們被視為羅馬極權政府的敵人，要給野兽果腹。」
摘自《前車可鑑──西方思想文化的興衰》How Should We Then
Live? ----The Rise And Decline Of Western Thought And Culture ，20頁，薛華（Francis August Schaeffer）著/梁祖永、梁壽華、姚錦燊、劉灝明譯，宣道出版社，2015年五版。
Christians: Rebels Deserving
Death (Schaeffer)
by
Reformed Reader
Although I have read several books by Francis
Schaeffer, I haven’t read one of his more popular ones called How Should We
Then Live? I’m around the halfway point
and so far I’m enjoying it. Right near
the beginning, Schaeffer talked about Roman persecution of Christians in the early
centuries of the church. I like how he
explained it; there are lessons here for Christians today!
“Rome
was cruel, and its cruelty can perhaps be best pictured by the events which
took place in the arena in Rome itself.
People seated above the arena floor watched gladiator contests and
Christians thrown to the beasts. Let us
not forget why the Christians were killed.
They were not killed because they worshiped Jesus. Various religions covered the whole Roman
world. One such was the cult of Mithras,
a popular Persian form of Zoroastrianism which had reached Rome by 67 B.C. Nobody cared who worshiped whom so long as
the worshiper did not disrupt the unity of the state, centered in the formal
worship of Caesar. The reason the
Christians were killed was because they were rebels. This was especially so after their growing rejection
by the Jewish synagogues lost for them the immunity granted to the Jews since
Julius Caesar’s time.”
“We
may express the nature of their rebellion in two ways, both of which are
true. First, we can say they worshiped
Jesus as God and they worshiped the infinite-personal God only. The Caesars would not tolerate this
worshiping of the one God only. It was
counted as treason. Thus their worship
became a special threat to the unity of the state during the third century and
during the reign of Diocletian (284-305), when people of the higher classes
began to become Christians in larger numbers.
If they had worshiped Jesus and Caesar, they would have gone unharmed,
but they rejected all forms of syncretism.
They worshiped the God who had revealed himself in the Old Testament,
through Christ, and in the New Testament which had gradually been written. And they worshiped him as the only God. They allowed no mixture: All other gods were
seen as false gods.”
“We
can also express in a second way why the Christians were killed: No
totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an
absolute by which to judge that state and its actions. The Christians had that absolute in God’s
revelation. Because the Christians had
an absolute, universal standard by which to judge not only personal morals but
the state, they were counted as enemies of totalitarian Rome and were thrown to
beasts.”
Francis
Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? p.25-6.
Shane
Lems
Hammond,
WI
