恶魔麦诺克（英文原著 Memnoch the Devil）

　　" 'It's all wrong, Lord. That God should be so degraded in humanform, that in itself is unspeakable; but that men should be allowedto do this to God . . . But will they know what they're doing, thatyou are God? I mean, they couldn't . . . Lord, it will have to bedone in confusion and misunderstanding. That spells chaos, Lord!

　　Darkness!'

　　" 'Naturally,' He said. 'Who in his right mind would crucify theSon of God?'

　　" 'Then what does it mean?'

　　" 'Memnoch, it means I subjected myself to the human for thelove of those whom I have made. I am in the flesh, Memnoch. I havebeen in it for thirty years. Would you explain yourself to me?'

　　" 'To die like that, it's wrong, Lord. It's a filthy killing, Lord, it'sa bloody horrible exemplum to lay before the human race! And yousay yourself they will remember you for this? More than for yourrising from the death, from the light of God exploding out of yourhuman body and making this suffering fall away?'

　　" 'The Light won't burst out of this body,' He said. 'This bodyshall die. I shall know death. I shall pass into Sheol and there forthree days remain with those who are dead, and then I shall return tothis body and raise it from the Dead. And yes, it will be my Deaththey will remember, for how can I Rise if I do not Die?'

　　" 'Just don't do either one,' I pleaded. 'Really, I'm begging you.

　　Don't make yourself this sacrifice. Don't dip down into their mostmisguided blood rituals. Lord, have you ever drawn near to thestench of their sacrificial altars? Yes, I used to say to you, listen totheir prayers, but I never meant that you would dip down from yourgreat height to smell the stink of the blood and the dead animal, or tosee the dumb fear in its eyes as its throat is slit! Have you seen thebabies heaved into the fiery God Baal?'

　　" 'Memnoch, this is the way to God which man himself hasevolved. All over the world the myths sing the same song.'

　　" 'Yes, but that's because you never interfered to stop it, you let ithappen, you let this humankind evolve and they looked back inhorror on their animal ancestors, they beheld their mortality, and theyseek to propitiate a god who has abandoned them to all this. Lord,they look for meaning, but they find none in this. None.'

　　"He looked at me as if I were mad, truly. He stared at me in silence.

　　'You disappoint me,' He said softly and gently. 'You woundme, Memnoch, you wound my human heart.' He reached out and putHis roughened hands against my face, hands of a man who hadworked in this world, labored as I had never labored in my brief visit.

　　"I shut my eyes. I didn't speak. But something had come to me! Arevelation, an insight, a sudden grasping of everything here that wasin error, but could I reason it out? Could I speak?

　　"I opened my eyes again, letting him hold me, feeling the callouseson his fingers, looking into his gaunt face. How he had starvedhimself; how he had suffered in this desert, and how he had laboredthese thirty years! Oh, no, this was wrong!

　　" 'What, my Archangel, what is wrong!' He demanded of me withinfinite patience and human consternation.

　　" 'Lord, they chose these rituals which involve suffering becausethey cannot avoid suffering in the Natural World. The natural worldis what must be overcome! Why must anyone suffer what humanssuffer? Lord, their souls come to Sheol distorted, twisted by pain,black as cinders from the heat of loss and misery and violence whichthey have witnessed. Suffering is evil in this world. Suffering is decayand death. It's terrible. Lord, You can't believe that to suffer like thiswould do any good to anyone. This suffering, this unspeakablecapacity to bleed and to know pain and to know annihilation, is whathas to be overcome in this world if anyone is to reach God!'

　　"He didn't answer. He lowered his hands.

　　" 'My angel,' He said, 'you draw from me even more affectionnow that I have a human heart. How simple you are! How alien youare to the vast Material Creation.'

　　" 'But it was I who urged you to come down! How am I alien? Iam the Watcher! I see what other angels don't dare to look at for fearthey'll weep, and it will make you angry with them.'

　　" 'Memnoch, you simply don't know the flesh. The concept is toocomplex for you. What do you think taught your souls in Sheol theirperfection? Was it not suffering? Yes, they enter perhaps twisted andburnt if they have failed to see beyond suffering on Earth, and somemay despair and disappear. But in Sheol, over the centuries ofsuffering and longing, others are purged and purified.