Mozart: A proof of God

神跡的印證：莫扎特

By Father George Rutler

There have been such, and as a proud pastor I delight in the extraordinary skills of so many of the children in our parish, so adept at piano and violin and so forth.   'Prodigy' means a sign or a gift.  Betraying a prejudice, I'd propose that in addition to the five ways St. Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God from natural evidence, prodigious Mozart would be a sixth.  You cannot compose a symphony at the age of eight and ascribe it just to chemistry or biology.

我作為一個(gè)牧師曾經(jīng)有過(guò)許多引以為傲的經(jīng)歷，我所在的教區(qū)中有許多孩子的非凡技巧感到高興，他們擅長(zhǎng)鋼琴和小提琴等樂(lè)器。“神童”是一個(gè)符號(hào)或饋贈(zèng)。而并不是一種偏見(jiàn)，我認(rèn)為除了托馬斯阿奎那證明上帝的存在的五大理論之外，偉大的莫扎特將是第六個(gè)印證上帝存在的證明。科學(xué)無(wú)法解釋人如何在八歲時(shí)就能譜寫出一首交響曲。

A nice thing about Mozart is that he was nice.  People liked him, and he liked them, and he did not storm about like the self-styled geniuses of the romantic period a couple of generations later.  He thought of himself as a craftsman who enjoyed his craft.  Simple as that.  But he never produced anything second rate, which is why I propose him as a  proof that there exists a God who does great things through his creatures.

莫扎特的一個(gè)優(yōu)點(diǎn)就是他人很好。人們喜歡他，他也喜歡人們，莫扎特不像后世那些固步自封的浪漫主義音樂(lè)天才那樣暴跳如雷。他認(rèn)為自己是個(gè)自得其樂(lè)的工匠。就這么簡(jiǎn)單。但他從未產(chǎn)生過(guò)第二層效果，這就是為什么我認(rèn)為莫扎特的存在證明了造物者的存在。

Mozart said that music is not in the notes but in the silence between the notes.  That might sound like a nice throwaway line, but he meant it, and his music is proof.So it is with our daily lives:  God is to be heard in the silent spaces between all that we say and do.

莫扎特說(shuō)，音樂(lè)不是存在于音符中，而是存在于音符之間的靜默中。這可能聽起來(lái)像是個(gè)不錯(cuò)的金句，但莫扎特對(duì)此是認(rèn)真的，他的音樂(lè)就是最好的印證。我們的日常生活也是如此：在知與行的靜默之間，神的聲音回蕩。

Jesus cannot be filed away in the category of child prodigies.  He is the source of all prodigy.  At the age of twelve in the Temple, he called it his 'Father's house.'  In him was more than genius.  It is true that great artists, like Jesus himself, give the impression that what they do is effortless.  The Latin phrase ars est celare artem means that the essence of art is to give the impression that it is easy.

耶穌雖不能被歸為神童一類，但他是所有天才的源泉。在耶穌十二歲時(shí)把圣殿稱為“父親的房子”。耶穌不僅僅是天才體現(xiàn)。確實(shí)，偉大的藝術(shù)家像耶穌本人，令人感覺(jué)舉重若輕。拉丁語(yǔ)中“ars est celare artem”講的是，藝術(shù)的本質(zhì)在于能夠給人一種輕松的印象。  

Great opera singers would have you think that their sounds are effortless.  Compare that with the rock singers who affect an air of pain when they scream into sound amplifiers, as though they (and not their listeners) were enduring some form of torture.  It is their attempt to make you think that their artlessness is art.

偉大的歌劇演唱家會(huì)使你認(rèn)為他們演唱出美妙的歌聲仿佛毫不費(fèi)力。而當(dāng)搖滾樂(lè)手對(duì)著擴(kuò)音器尖叫時(shí)，他們制造出一種痛苦的氛圍，就好像他們自己，而不是他們的聽眾——正在忍受某種形式的折磨。這是他們的企圖，使你天真的以為認(rèn)為他們演唱的是藝術(shù)。

In the sixteenth century, Baldassare Castiglione coined the term sprezzatura for affected nonchalance, or deliberate casualness. Prodigies receive their talent from God.  Christ is God himself.  Mozart understood that and said:  'It is a great consolation for me to remember that the Lord to whom I had drawn near in humble and childlike faith, has suffered and died for me, and that He will look on me in love and compassion.'

16世紀(jì)，巴爾達(dá)薩雷·卡斯蒂格雷恩創(chuàng)造了“輕松”（sprezzatura）一詞，為了表示出某種裝模作勢(shì)的冷淡，或是刻意的漫不經(jīng)心。但基督神跡的顯現(xiàn)還不止這些。天才接受了來(lái)自上帝的天賦。基督就是上帝。莫扎特理解這一點(diǎn)，他說(shuō)：“我?guī)е拔⑷绾⑼愕男叛鼋咏衩?，為我而受苦，為我而死，他將以?ài)和同情的眼光看著我，這對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)是極大的安慰?！?/span>