Jesus the Son of Man（英语完整板）

Bernhardt

Phumiah, the high Priestess of Sidon
An invocation

    * Take your harps and let me sing.
    * Beat your strings, the silver and the gold;
    * For I would sing the dauntless Man
    * Who slew the dragon of the valley,
    * Then gazed down with pity
    * Upon the thing He had slain.
    * Take your harps and sing with me
    * The lofty Oak upon the height,
    * The sky-hearted and the ocean-handed Man,
    * Who kissed the pallid lips of death,
    * Yet quivers now upon the mouth of life.
    * Take your harps and let us sing
    * The fearless Hunter on the hill,
    * Who marked the beast, and shot His viewless arrow,
    * And brought the horn and tusk
    * Down to the earth.
    * Take your harps and sing with me
    * The valiant Youth who conquered the mountain cities,
    * And the cities of the plain that coiled like serpents in the sand.
    * He fought not against pygmies but against gods
    * Who hungered for our flesh and thirsted for our blood.
    * And like the first Golden Hawk
    * He would rival only eagles;
    * For His wings were vast and proud
    * And would not outwing the less winged.
    * Take your harps and sing with me
    * The joyous song of sea and cliff.
    * The gods are dead,
    * And they are lying still
    * In the forgotten isle of a forgotten sea.
    * And He who slew them sits upon His throne.
    * He was but a youth.
    * Spring had not yet given Him full beard,
    * And His summer was still young in His field.
    * Take your harps and sing with me
    * The tempest in the forest
    * That breaks the dry branch and the leafless twig,
    * Yet sends the living root to nestle deeper at the breast of earth.
    * Take your harps and sing with me
    * The deathless song of our Beloved.
    * Nay, my maidens, stay your hands.
    * Lay by your harps.
    * We cannot sing Him now.
    * The faint whisper of our song cannot reach His tempest,
    * Nor pierce the majesty of His silence.
    * Lay by your harps and gather close around me,
    * I would repeat His words to you,
    * And I would tell you of His deeds,
    * For the echo of His voice is deeper than our passion.

Bernhardt

Benjamin the scribe
Let the dead bury their dead

It has been said that Jesus was the enemy of Rome and Judea.

But I say that Jesus was the enemy of no man and no race.

I have heard Him say, "The birds of the air and the mountain tops are not mindful of the serpents in their dark holes.

"Let the dead bury their dead. Be you yourself among the living, and soar high."

I was not one of His disciples. I was but one of the many who went after Him to gaze upon His face.

He looked upon Rome and upon us who are the slaves of Rome, as a father looks upon his children playing with toys and fighting among themselves for the larger toy. And He laughed from His height.

He was greater than State and race; He was greater than revolution.

He was single and alone, and He was an awakening.

He wept all our unshed tears and smiled all our revolts.

We knew it was in His power to be born with all who are not yet born, and to bid them see, not with their eyes but with His vision.

Jesus was the beginning of a new kingdom upon the earth, and that kingdom shall remain.

He was the son and the grandson of all the kings who builded the kingdom of the spirit.

And only the kings of spirit have ruled our world.

Bernhardt

Zacchaeus
On the fate of Jesus

You believe in what you hear said. Believe in the unsaid, for the silence of men is nearer the truth than their words.

You ask if Jesus could have escaped His shameful death and saved His followers from persecution.

I answer, He could indeed have escaped had He chosen, but He did not seek safety nor was He mindful of protecting His flock from wolves of the night.

He knew His fate and the morrow of His constant lovers. He foretold and prophesied what should befall every one of us. He sought not His death; but He accepted death as a husband-man shrouding his corn with earth, accepts the winter, and then awaits the spring and harvest; and as a builder lays the largest stone in the foundation.

We were men of Galilee and from the slopes of Lebanon. Our Master could have led us back to our country, to live with His youth in our gardens until old age should come and whisper us back into the years.

Was anything barring His path back to the temples of our villages where others were reading the prophets and then disclosing their hearts?

Could He not have said, "Now I go east with the west wind," and so saying dismiss us with a smile upon His lips?

Aye, He could have said, "Go back to your kin. The world is not ready for me. I shall return a thousand years hence. Teach your children to await my return."

He could have done this had He so chosen.

But He knew that to build the temple invisible He must needs lay Himself the corner-stone, and lay us around as little pebbles cemented close to Himself.

He knew that the sap of His tree must rise from its roots, and He poured His blood upon its roots; and to Him it was not sacrifice but rather gain.

Death is the revealer. The death of Jesus revealed His life.

Had He escaped you and His enemies, you would have been the conquerors of the world. Therefore He did not escape.

Only He who desires all shall give all.

Aye, Jesus could have escaped His enemies and lived to old age. But He knew the passing of the seasons, and He would sing His song.

What man facing the armed world would not be conquered for the moment that he might overcome the ages?

And now you ask who, in very truth, slew Jesus, the Romans or the priests of Jerusalem?

Neither the Romans slew Him, nor the priests. The whole world stood to honour Him upon that hill.

Bernhardt

Jonathan
Among the Water-lilies

UPON A DAY my beloved and I were rowing upon the lake of sweet waters. And the hills of Lebanon were about us.
We moved beside the weeping willows, and the reflections of the willows were deep around us.
And while I steered the boat with an oar, my beloved took her lute and sang thus:
What flower save the lotus knows the waters and the sun?
What heart save the lotus heart shall know both earth and sky?
Behold my love, the golden flower that floats 'twixt deep and high
Even as you and I float betwixt a love that has for ever been
And shall for ever be.

Dip your oar, my love,
And let me touch my strings.
Let us follow the willows, and let us leave not the water-lilies.

In Nazareth there lives a Poet, and His heart is like the lotus.
He has visited the soul of woman,
He knows her thirst is growing out of the waters,
And her hunger for the sun, though all her lips are fed.
They say He walks in Galilee.
I say He is rowing with us.
Can you not see His face, my love?
Can you not see, where the willow bough and its reflection meet,
He is moving as we move?

Beloved, it is good to know the youth of life.
It is good to know its singing joy.
Would that you might always have the oar,
And I my stringed lute,
Where the lotus laughs in the sun,
And the willow is dipping to the waters,
And His voice is upon my strings.

Dip your oar, my beloved,
And let me touch my strings.
There is a Poet in Nazareth
Who knows and loves us both.
Dip your oar, my lover,
And let me touch my strings.

Bernhardt

Hannah of Bethsaida
She Speaks of Her Father's Sister

THE SISTER OF my father had left us in her youth to dwell in a hut beside her father's ancient vineyard.
She lived alone, and the people of the countryside sought her in their maladies, and she healed them with green herbs, and with roots and flowers dried in the sun.
And they deemed her a seeress; but there were those also who called her witch and sorceress.
One day my father said to me, "Take these loeaves of wheaten bread to my sister, and take this jug of wine and this basket of raisins."
And it was all put upon the back of a colt, and I followed the road until I reached the vineyard, and the hut of my father's sister. And she was gladened.
Now as we sat together in the cool of the day, a man came by upon the road, and He greeted the sister of my father, saying, "Good-even to you, and the blessing of the night be upon you."
Then she rose up; and she stood as in awe before Him and said, "Good-even to you, master of all good spirits, and conqueror of all evil spirits."
The man looked at her with tender eyes, and then He passed on by.
But I laughed in my heart. Methought my father's sister was mad. But now I know that she was not mad. It was I who did not understand.
She knew of my laughter, though it was hidden.
And she spoke, but not in anger. She said, "Listen, my daughter, and hearken and keep my word in remembrance: the man who but now passed by, like the shadow of a bird flying between the sun and the earth, shall prevail against the Caesars and the empire of the Caesars. He shall wrestle with the crowned bull of Chaldea, and the man-headed lion of Egypt, and He shall overcome them; and He shall rule the world.
"But this land that now He walks shall come to naught; and Jerusalem, which sits proudly upon the hill, shall drift away in smoke upon the wind of desolation."
When she spoke thus, my laughter turned to stillness and I was quiet. Then I said, "Who is this man, and of what country and tribe does He come? And how shall He conquer the great kings and the empires of the great kings?"
And she answered, "He is one born here in this land, but we have conceived Him in our longing from the beginning of years. He is of all tribes and yet of none. He shall conquer by the word of His mouth and by the flame of His spirit."
Then suddenly she rose and stood up like a pinnacle of rock; and she said, "May the angel of the Lord forgive me for pronoucing this word also: He shall be slain, and His youth shall be shrouded, and He shall be laid in silence beside the tongueless heart of the earth. And the maidens of Judea shall weep for Him."
Then she lifted her hand skyward and spoke again, and she said, "But He shall be slain only in the body.
"In the spirit He shall rise and go forth leading His host from this land where the sun is born, to the land where the sun is slain at eventide.
"And His name shall be first among men."
She was an aged seeress when she said these things, and I was but a girl, a field unploughed, a stone not yet in a wall.
But all that she beheld in the mirror of her mind has come to pass even in my day.
Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead and led men and women unto the people of the sunset. The city that yielded Him to judgment was given unto destruction; and in the Judgment Hall where He was tried and sentenced, the owl hoots a dirge while the night weeps the dew of her heart upon the fallen marble.
And I am an old woman, and the years bend me down. My people are no more and my race is vanished.
I saw Him but once again after that day, and once again heard His voice. It was upon a hill-top when He was talking to His friends and followers.
And now I am old and alone, yet still He visits my dreams.
He comes like a white angel with pinions; and with His grace He hushes my dread of darkness. And He uplifts me to dreams yet more distant.
I am still a field unploughed, a ripe fruit that would not fall. The most that I possess is the warmth of the sun, and the memory of that man.
I know that among my people these shall not rise again king nor prophet nor priest, even as the sister of my father foretold.
We shall pass with the flowing of the rivers, and we shall be nameless.
But those who crossed Him in mid-stream shall be remembered for crossing Him in mid-stream.

Bernhardt

Manasseh, a lawyer in Jerusalem
On the Speech and Gesture of Jesus

YES, I USED to hear Him speak. There was always a ready word upon His lips.
But I admired Him as a man rather than as a leader. He preached something beyond my liking, perhaps beyond my reason. And I would have no man preach to me.
I was taken by His voice and His gestures, not by the substance of His speech. He charmed me but never convinced me; for He was too vague, too distant and obscure to reach my mind.
I have known other men like Him. They are never constant nor are they consistent. It is with eloquence not with principles that they hold your ear and your passing thought, but never the core of your heart.
What a pity that His enemies confronted Him and forced the issue. It was not necessary. I believe their hostility will add to His stature and turn His mildness to power.
For is it not strange that in opposing a man you give Him courage? And in staying His feet you give Him wings?
I know not His enemies, yet I am certain that in their fear of a harmless man they have lent Him strength and made Him dangerous.

Bernhardt

Jephtha of Caesarea
A Man Weary of Jesus

THIS MAN WHO fills your day and haunts your night is repellent to me. Yet you would tire my eyes with His sayings and my mind with His deeds.
I am weary of His words, and all that He did. His very name offends me, and the name of His countryside. I will none of Him.
Why make you a prophet of a man who was but a shadow? Why see a tower in this sand-dune, or imagine a lake in the raindrops gathered together in this hoof-print?
I scorn not the echo of caves in valleys nor the long shadows of the sunset; but I would not listen to the deceptions that hum in your head, nor study the reflections in your eyes.
What word did Jesus utter that Halliel had not spoken? What wisdom did He reveal that was not of Gamaliel? What are His lispings to the voice of Philo? What cymbals did He beat that were not beaten ere ever He lived?
I hearken to the echo from the caves into the silent valleys, and I gaze upon the long shadows of sunset; but I would not have this man's heart echo the sound of another heart, nor would I have a shadow of the seers call himself a prophet.
What man shall speak since Isaiah has spoken? Who dares sing since David? And shall wisdom be born now, after Solomon has been gathered to his fathers?
And what of our prophets, whose tongues were swords and their lips flames?
Left they a straw behind for this gleaner of Galilee? Or a fallen fruit for the beggar from the North Country? There was naught for Him save to break the loaf already baked by our ancestors, and to pour the wine which their holy feet had already passed from the grapes of old.
It is the potter's hand I honor not the man who buys the ware.
I honor those who sit at the loom rather than the boor who wears the cloth.
Who was this Jesus of Nazareth, and what is He? A man who dared not live His mind. Therefore He faded into oblivion and that is His end.
I beg you, charge not my ears with His words or His deeds. My heart is overfull with the prophets of old, and that is enough.

[ 本帖最后由 Bsharribullet 于 2007-1-27 08:50 PM 编辑 ]

Bernhardt

John the beloved disciple in his old age
On Jesus the Word

YOU WOULD HAVE me speak of Jesus, but how can I lure the passion-song of the world into a hollowed reed?
In every aspect of the day Jesus was aware of the Father. He beheld Him in the clouds and in the shadows of the clouds that pass over the earth. He saw the Father's face reflected in the quiet pools, and the faint print of His feet upon the sand; and He often closed His eyes to gaze into the Holy Eyes.
The night spoke to Him with the voice of the Father, and in solitude He heard the angel of the Lord calling to Him. And when He stilled Himself to sleep He heard the whispering of the heavens in His dreams.
He was often happy with us, and He would call us brothers.
Behold, He who was the first Word called us brothers, though we were but syllables uttered yesterday.
You ask why I call Him the first Word.
Listen, and I will answer:
In the beginning God moved in space, and out of His measureless stirring the earth was born and the seasons thereof.
Then God moved again, and life streamed forth, and the longing of life sought the height and the depth and would have more of itself.
Then God spoke thus, and His words were man, and man was a spirit begotten by God's Spirit.
And when God spoke thus, the Christ was His first Word and that Word was perfect; and when Jesus of Nazareth came to the world the first Word was uttered unto us and the sound was made flesh and blood.
Jesus the Anointed was the first Word of God uttered unto man, even as if an apple tree in an orchard should bud and blossom a day before the other trees. And in God's orchard that day was an aeon.
We are all sons and daughters of the Most High, but the Anointed One was His first-born, who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and He walked among us and we beheld Him.
All this I say that you may inderstand not only in the mind but rather in the spirit. The mind weighs and measures but it is the spirit that reaches the heart of life and embraces the secret; and the seed of the spirit is deathless.
The wind may blow and then cease, and the sea shall swell and then weary, but the heart of life is a sphere quiet and serene, and the star that shines therein is fixed for evermore.

Bernhardt

Mannus the Pompeiian to a Greek
On the Semitic Diety

THE JEWS, LIKE their neighbors the Phonicians and the Arabs, will not suffer their gods to rest for a moment upon the wind.
They are over-thoughtful of their deity, and over-observant of one another's prayer and worship and sacrifice.
While we Romans build marble temples to our gods, these people would discuss their god's nature. When we are in ecstasy we sing and dance round the altars of Jupiter and Juno, of Mars and Venus; but they in their rapture wear sackcloth and cover their heads with ashes -- and even lament the day that gave them birth.
Amd Jesus, the man who revealed God as a being of joy, they tortured Him, and then put Him to death.
These people would not be happy with a happy god. They know only the gods of their pain.
Even Jesus' friends and disciples who knew His mirth and heard His laughter, make an image of His sorrow, and they worship that image.
And in such worship they rise not to their deity; they only bring their deity down to themselves.
I believe however that this philosopher, Jesus, who was not unlike Socrates, will have power over His race and mayhap over other races.
For we are all creatures of sadness and of small doubts. And when a man says to us, "Let us be joyous with the gods," we cannot but heed his voice. Strange that the pain of this man has been fashioned into a rite.
These people would discover another Adonis, a god slain in the forest, and they would celebrate his slaying. It is a pity they heed not His laughter.
But let us confess, as Roman to Greek. Do even we ourselves hear the laughter of Socrates in the streets of Athens? Is it ever in us to forget the cup of hemlock, even at the theatre of Dionysus?
Do not rather our fathers still stop at the street corners to chat of troubles and to have a happy moment remembering the doleful end of all our great men?

Bernhardt

Pontius Pilatus
Of Eastern Rites and Cults

MY WIFE SPOKE of Him many times ere He was brought before me, but I was not concerned.
My wife is a dreamer, and she is given, like so many Roman women of her rank, to Eastern cults and rituals. And these cults are dangerous to the Empire; and when they find a path to the hearts of our women they become destructive.
Egypt came to an end when the Hyskos of Arabia brought to her the one God of their desert. And Greece was overcome and fell to dust when Ashtarte and her seven maidens came from the Syrian shores.
As for Jesus, I never saw the man before He was delivered up to me as a malefactor, as an enemy of His own nation and also of Rome.
He was brought into the Hall of Judgment with His arms bound to His body with ropes.
I was sitting upon the dais, and He walked towards me with long, firm steps; then He stood erect and His head was held high.
And I cannot fathom what came over me at that moment; but it was suddenly my desire, though not my will, to rise and go down from the dais and fall before Him.
I felt as if Caesar had entered the Hall, a man greater than even Rome herself.
But this lasted only a moment. And then I saw simply a man who was accused of treason by His own people. And I was His governor and His judge.
I questioned Him but he would not answer. He only looked at me. And in His look was pity, as if it were He who was my governor and my judge.
Then there rose from without the cries of the people. But He remained silent, and still He was looking at me with pity in His eyes.
And I went out upon the steps of the palace, and when the people saw me they ceased to cry out. And I said, "What would you with this man?"
And they shouted as if with one throat, "We would crucify Him. He is our enemy and the enemy of Rome."
And some called out, "Did He not say He would destroy the temple? And was it not He who claimed the kingdom? We will have no king but Caesar."
Then I left them and went back into the Judgment Hall again, and I saw Him still standing there alone, and His head was still high.
And I remembered what I had read that a Greek philosopher said, "The lonely man is the strongest man." At that moment the Nazarene was greater than His race.
And I did not feel clement towards Him. He was beyond my clemency.
I asked Him then, "Are you the King of the Jews?"
And He said not a word.
And I asked Him again, "Have you not said that you are the King of the Jews?"
And He looked upon me.
Then He answered with a quiet voice, "You yourself proclaimed me king. Perhaps to this end I was born, and for this cause came to bear witness unto truth."
Behold a man speaking of truth at such a moment.
In my impatience I said aloud, to myself as much as to Him, "What is truth? And what is truth to the guiltless when the hand of the executioner isalready upon him?"
Then Jesus said with power, "None shall rule the world save with the Spirit and truth."
And I asked Him saying, "Are you of the Spirit?"
He answered, "So are you also, though you know it not."
And what was the Spirit and what was truth, when I, for the sake of the State, and they from jealousy for their ancient rites, delivered an innocent man unto His death?
No man, no race,no empire would halt before a truth on its way towards self-fulfilment.
And I said again, "Are you the King of the Jews?"
And He answered, "You yourself say this. I have conquered the world ere this hour."
And this alone of all that He said was unseemly, inasmuch as only Rome has conquered the world.
But now the voices of the people rose again, and the noise was greater than before.
And I descended from my seat and said to Him, "Follow me."
And again I appeared upon the steps of the palace, and He stood there beside me.
When the people saw Him they roared like the roaring thunder. And in their clamor I heard naught save "Crucify Him, crucify Him."
Then I yielded Him to the priests who had yielded Him to me and I said to them, "Do what you will with this just man. And if it is your desire, take with you soldiers of Rome to guard Him."
Then they took Him, and I decreed that there be written upon the cross above His head, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." I should have said instead, "Jesus of Nazareth, a King."
And the man was stripped and flogged and crucified.
It would have been within my power to save Him, but saving Him would have caused a revolution; and it is always wise for the governor of a Roman province not to be intolerant of the religious scruples of a conquered race.
I believe unto this hour that the man was more than an agitator. What I decreed was not my will, but rather for the sake of Rome.
Not long after, we left Syria, and from that day my wife has been a woman of sorrow. Sometimes even here in this garden I see a tragedy in her face.
I am told she talks much of Jesus to other women of Rome.
Behold, the man whose death I decreed returns from the world of shadows and enters into my own house.
And within myself I ask again and again, What is truth and what is not truth?
Can it be that the Syrian is conquering us in the quiet hours of the night?
It should not indeed be so.
For Rome must needs prevail against the nightmares of our wives.