The Saxons were no more immune to change than the Romans before them.
撒克逊人与罗马人一样对转变毫无抵抗力
To look at the relics recovered from Sutton Hoo burial site is to be teased by a powerful question:
见到萨顿胡遗址所复原的遗迹 让人们不禁提出一个讽刺而强力的问题
Did the Saxon lord buried here find his resting place in a pagan Valhalla or in a Christian Paradise?
撒克逊首领安葬的这方土地 究竟是异教英灵殿还是基督教的伊甸园呢
The history of the conversions between the sixth and eighth centuries
公元六到八世纪的历史转变
is another crucial turning point in the history of the British Isles.
是不列颠群岛上又一次历史转折点
But while the legions had long gone,the shadow of Rome fell once again on these islands.
在罗马军团的退散已久之后 罗马的影子再次笼罩在这片土地之上
This time though, it was an invasion of the soul and the warriors were carrying Christian gospels rather than swords.
而这一次 是灵魂的入侵 战士们带来的不再是长剑 而是基督教信条
The process began in a country that had never been touched by Roman rule in the first place the land the Romans called Hibernia - Ireland.
这次入侵开始的地方 是上次罗马统治者未曾染指之地 罗马人曾称之为西伯尼亚 即爱尔兰
We have to remember that the most famous of the early missionaries to Ireland, St Patrick,was a Romano-British aristocrat,
我们一定还记得最著名的 游离至爱尔兰的传教士圣帕特里克 曾是罗马不列颠尼亚的贵族
the patrician or Patricius as he called himself.
他自称为显要 或是贵族
So there was nothing remotely Irish about the teenager who was kidnapped and sold into slavery by Irish raiders,in the early fifth century.
因此他与偏僻的爱尔兰本毫无瓜葛 直到十五世纪早期 被爱尔兰入侵者 诱拐并贩卖为奴
It was only after he escaped, probably to Brittany, and ordained,then visited by prophetic dreams,that he returned to Ireland as a messenger of the gospel.
在逃往布列塔尼之后被授予神职 紧接着他做了一个先知之梦 他梦到他将作为传教士返回爱尔兰