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To the artist, expression is the only mode under which he can conceive life at all. To him what is dumb is dead. But to Christ it was not so. With a width and wonder of imagination, that fills one almost with awe, he took the entire world of the inarticulate, the voiceless world of pain, as his kingdom, and made of himself its eternal mouthpiece[105a]. Those of whom I have spoken, who are dumb under oppression and “whose silence is heard only of God,” he chose as his brothers. He sought to become eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, and a cry on the lips of those whose tongue had been tied. His desire was to be to the myriads who had found no utterance a very trumpet through which they might call to Heaven. And feeling, with the artistic nature of one to whom Sorrow and Suffering were modes through which he could realise his conception of the Beautiful, that an idea is of no value till it becomes incarnate and is made an image, he makes of himself the image of the Man of Sorrows, and as such has fascinated and dominated Art as no Greek god ever succeeded in doing.

对艺术家来说,表达是他得以体察生活的唯一方式。对于他,没有声音的就等于没有生命。但是对于基督,情况就不是这样。靠着那令人肃然起敬的想象力,其宽宏其神妙,他把整个说不出话的世界、无声的痛苦世界,当作他的国度,使自己成为它永恒的喉舌[105a]。我提到过的那些人,那些无言地受着压迫,“沉默只有上帝听到的人”,他认他们为兄弟。他尽力要成为盲者的眼睛、聋者的耳朵、口舌被困者的一声呼喊。他期望的就是为有口无言的芸芸众生当一把号角,他们好向上天呼唤。靠着他那份艺术的天性——一个人具备了这天性,悲怆和受苦就成了实现自己对美的观念的方式——他感觉到一个理念,要是没道成肉身化作形象,便没有价值,于是就让自己化成了悲怆之人的形象。正因为此,艺术为之倾倒,尊他为上,而纵观希腊诸神,哪个也没能如此独领风骚过。

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