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Augustine was a Christian philosopher, who lived in the 4th and 5th century A.D.,
奥古斯丁是一位公元4和5世纪的基督教哲学家，
on the fringes of the rapidly declining Roman Empire in the North African town of Hippo.
他就生活在迅速衰落的罗马帝国边境的一个南非小镇希波镇。
He served as bishop for 35 years,
奥古斯丁担任主教35年，
proving popular and inspirational to his largely uneducated and poor congregation.
足以证明他在基本上没有受过教育且贫穷的会众中很受欢迎。
In his last days, a Germanic tribe known as the Vandals burnt Hippo to the ground,
在他最后的日子里，一个被称为汪达尔人的日耳曼部落把希波镇付之一炬，
destroyed the legions,
摧毁了军团，
made off with the town’s young women,
带走了镇上的年轻女性，
but left Augustine’s Cathedral and library entirely untouched out of respect for the elderly philosopher’s achievements.
但出于对奥古斯丁成就的尊重，他们没有摧毁这位年长哲学家的大教堂和图书馆。
He matters to us non-Christians today
奥古斯丁对于今天的非基督徒也很重要，
because of what he criticised about Rome, its values and its outlook,
因为他对罗马及其价值观和前景提出了批判，
and because Rome has so many things in common with the modern West, especially the United States.
因为罗马与现代西方，特别是美国有很多共同之处。
The Romans believed in two things in particular.
罗马人特别相信两件事。
One, EARTHLY HAPPINESS.
一是世俗的幸福。
They were on the whole an optimistic lot.
总的来说，他们都很乐观。
The builders of the Pont du Gard, and the Colosseum had faith in technology,
加德桥和斗兽场的建造者们对技术、
in the power of humans to master themselves and in their ability to control nature
人类的自控力、控制自然的能力
and plot for their own happiness and satisfaction.
以及谋求自身幸福的能力充满信心。
Writers like Cicero and Plutarch had a degree of pride, ambition and confidence in the future,
像西塞罗和普鲁塔克这样的作家对未来有着一定程度的自豪感、野心和信心，
which with some revisions wouldn’t be out of place in modern-day Palo Alto or the pages of Wired.
而这些想法在稍加修改之后，便得体地出现在了当代的帕罗奥图或《连线》杂志当中。
The Romans were keen practitioners of what we would nowadays call SELF-HELP
罗马人热衷于我们现在所说的自立，
training their audiences to greater success and effectiveness.
训练他们的受众获得更大成功以及更好的效果
In their eyes, the human animal was something eminently open to being perfected.
在他们看来，人类完全可以变得完美。
Two, A JUST SOCIAL ORDER.
第二是正义。
For long periods, the Romans trusted that their society was marked by justice
在很长一段时间里，罗马人相信他们的社会是正义的
- JUSTITIA -
-正义-
people of ambition and intelligence could make it to the top.
有野心和智慧的人可以将正义发扬光大。
The army was trusted to be meritocratic.
罗马人认为军队是精英。
The capacity to make money was held to reflect both practical ability
罗马人认为赚钱的能力既反映了实践能力，
and also a degree of inner virtue.
也反映了一定程度的内在美德。
Therefore showing off one’s wealth was deemed honourable and a point of pride,
因此，炫耀自己的财富被认为是光荣的，值得骄傲的
and fame, was considered a wholly respectable ideal.
而名望被认为是最崇高的目标。
Augustine disagreed furiously with both of these assumptions.
奥古斯丁强烈反对这两种说法。
In his masterpiece, The City of God,
在他的杰作《上帝之城》中，
he dissected each of these two points, that human life could be perfected and the societies were just,
他剖析了这两点中的每一点，即人类的生活是可以完美的，社会是公正的，
in ways that continue to prove relevant to us today.
他剖析的方式与我们今天的生活息息相关。
It was Augustine who came up with the idea of ORIGINAL SIN.
奥古斯丁提出了原罪的概念。
He proposed that all humans, not merely this or that unfortunate example, were crooked
他提出，所有人都是扭曲的，而不仅是将某一个不幸福的人作为特例，
because all of us are unwitting heirs to the sins of Adam.
因为我们所有人，尽管未意识到，都是亚当的罪恶的继承人
Our sinful nature gives rise to what Augustine called a LIBIDO DOMINANDI,
我们罪恶的本性引出了奥古斯丁所说的支配冲动，
a desire to dominate,
一种支配欲，
which is evident in a brutal, blinkered, merciless way we treat others in the world around us.
这在我们用残酷、狭隘、而无情的方式对待身边的人的时候表现得很明显。
We cannot properly love, for we are constantly undermined by our egoism and our pride.
我们不能恰当地去爱，因为我们不断受到利己主义和骄傲的影响。
Our powers of reasoning and understanding are fragile in the extreme.
我们的理智和理解能力在极端情况下是脆弱的。
Lust haunts our days and nights.
欲望日日夜夜萦绕着我们。
We failed to understand ourselves.
我们不了解自己。
We chase phantoms.
我们追逐幻影。
We are beset by anxieties.
我们被焦虑所困扰。
Augustine concluded his assault by chiding all those philosophers in his words
通过责骂所有的哲学家，奥古斯丁结束了他的攻击，用他的话说，
“have wished, with amazing folly, to be happy here on earth and to achieve bliss by their own efforts.”
“他们非常愚蠢地幻想着在这里获得尘世间地幸福，以及通过自己的努力而得到赐福。”
It might sound depressing,
这听起来可能令人沮丧，
but it may turn out to be a curious relief to be told that our lives are awry not by coincidence but by definition simply because we are human,
但是，如果有人告诉我们，我们的生活是扭曲的，不是因为巧合，仅仅是因为我们是人，
and because nothing human can ever be made entirely straight.
没有什么人可以完全正直，这可能会让人感到奇怪的欣慰。
We are creatures fated to intuit virtue and love, but never quite being able to secure them for ourselves.
我们是注定要凭直觉获得美德和爱的生物，但却永远无法为我们自己而去保护它们。
Our relationships, careers and countries are necessarily not as we’d want them to be.
我们的关系、职业和国家不一定是我们想要的那样。
It isn’t anything specific we have done -
这并不是我们所做的任何具体的事情，
the odds are simply stacked against us from the start.
只是从一开始就对我们不利。
Augustinian pessimism takes off some of the pressure we might feel when we slowly come to terms with the imperfect nature of pretty much everything we do and are.
当我们慢慢接受我们自身和所做的每件事的不完美性质时，奥古斯丁式的悲观主义减轻了我们可能感到的一些压力。
We shouldn’t rage or feel we’ve been persecuted or singled out for undue punishment.
我们不应该愤怒，也不应该觉得自己受到了迫害，或者受到了不应有的惩罚。
It’s simply the human condition,
这不过是人类的状态而已，
the legacy of what we might as well, even we don’t believe in Augustine’s theology, call ORIGINAL SIN.
虽然我们并不相信他那所谓原罪的神学
Romans had, in their most ambitious moments,
罗马人在他们最雄心勃勃的时候，
thought themselves to be running a meritocracy -
认为自己是在管理一个精英统治的社会，
a society where those who got to the top were deemed to have done so on the back of their own virtues.
在这个社会里，那些登上顶峰的人被认为是靠自己的美德来做到这一点的。
After the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity,
君士坦丁皇帝皈依基督教后，
the philosopher Eusebious even proposed that earthly power was God’s instrument for establishing Christianity on earth,
哲学家尤西比厄斯甚至提出，地上的权力是上帝在地球上建立基督教的工具，
so that the powerful in Rome were now not just privileged,
因此罗马的权贵们现在不仅享有特权，
but also blessed and righteous in God’s eyes.
而且在上帝眼中是有福的和正义的。
What arrogant, boastful and cruel claims, responded Augustine,
奥古斯丁回答说，多么傲慢、自夸和残酷的主张啊，
there never was nor ever could be justice in Rome, or indeed anywhere else on earth.
在罗马，甚至在地球上的任何地方，从来没有也永远不可能有正义。
God didn’t give good people wealth and power,
上帝没有给好人财富和权力，
and nor did he necessarily condemn those who lacked them.
也不一定谴责那些缺乏财富和权力的人。
Augustine distinguished between what he called TWO CITIES, the CITY OF MEN, and the CITY OF GOD.
奥古斯丁区分了他所说的两座城市，人之城和神之城。
The latter was an ideal of the future, a heavenly paradise
后者是未来的理想，是一个天堂，
where the good would finally dominate, where power would be properly allied to justice, and where virtue would reign.
在那里，善最终将主宰一切，权力将与正义适当结合，美德将统治一切。
But men could never build such a city alone,
但是，人类永远不可能独自建造这样一座城市，
and should never believe themselves capable of doing so.
也永远不应该相信自己有能力这样做。
They were condemned to dwell only in the city of men which was a pervasively flawed society,
他们被迫只住在人类的城市里，这是一个普遍存在缺陷的社会，
where money could never accurately track virtue.
在那里金钱也永远无法准确衡量美德。
In Augustine’s formulation, true justice has no existence,
在奥古斯丁的表述中，真正的正义是不存在的，
save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ.
除了在那个以基督为创立者和统治者的共和国。
Again it may sound bleak,
同样，这听起来可能很凄凉，
but it makes Augustine’s philosophy extremely generous towards failure, poverty and defeat, our own and that of others.
但它使奥古斯丁的哲学对我们自己的和别人的失败，贫穷和挫败极端慷慨。
It’s not for humans to judge each other by outward markers of success.
人类不能用外在的成功标志来评判彼此。
From this analysis flows a lack of moralism and snobbery.
从这种分析中可以看出缺乏道德主义和势利。
It’s our duty to be skeptical about power and generous towards failure.
我们有责任对权力持怀疑态度，对失败慷慨相待。
We don’t need to be Christians to be comforted by both these points.
即使不是天主教徒 我们也可以接受这些观点
They are the religion’s universal gifts to political philosophy and human psychology.
它们是宗教对政治哲学和人类心理的普遍恩赐。
They stand as permanent reminders of some of the dangers and cruelties of believing that the life could be made perfect
它们永远提醒人们，若相信生活可以变得完美，
or the poverty and obscurity are reliable indicators of vice in a city of men.
或者贫穷和默默无闻是一人之城里邪恶的可靠指标，会有一些危险和残酷。
