圣经所描述的天主形象与作为“天主的肖像(Imago Dei)”的读者的“我”——埃迪特·施泰因(Edith Stein)的贡献

Biblical Images of God and the Reader’s“I”as Imago Dei The Contribution of Edith Stein

德国犹太裔女哲学家、赤足加尔默罗会修女埃迪特·施泰因,师承其“灵性导师”圣十字若望(St.John of the Cross)的“否定神学”之路,发展了自中世纪神秘主义哲学家伪狄奥尼修斯以降的“象征神学”。她所探究的问题是,作为“天主之肖像”的读者如何认识并理解在圣经之中隐含的天主形象、并借其丰满自身之中的天主的肖像。这也是她在胡塞尔门下写作的博士论文《论共情》所探究的课题,即对他者的理解如何成为可能。施泰因认为,在灵魂最核心处所形成的“我”本质上是“主体间性”(inter-subjective)的,因为它始自对作为“他者”的天主的自我抛弃与自我臣服。“我”的最终形成是在与天主的神婚(bridal union)之中,因为在这里,灵魂在自由的、完全的自我臣服中,融入了其所由出的天主的肖像(Imago Dei),融入了居住在她之内的、具有创造能力的天主的圣言,并藉之融入三位一体的天主(Trinity):“所谓神秘婚姻,就是与天主圣三的联合”。施泰因,如同圣十字若望,选择“十字架”作为会名。这个具有象征性的称谓表达了天主在她之中的“内在形象”:她通过天主圣言中的“神秘之夜”接纳并转化了大屠杀的“恐怖之夜”,并主动背负起十字架踏入其中。

Edith Stein,a well-known Jewish German philosopher and a nun in the Dislaced Carmelite Order,inherited the“negative theology”from her“Spiritual Father”St.John of the Cross,and developed the“Symbolic Theology”of the Medieval mystic Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.The topic of her research is the way through which reader of the Bible as Imago Dei could understand the images of God hidden in the Bible,and further,to develop and realize the Imago Dei in himself.This topic is related to her doctoral dissertation On The Problem of Empathy,directed by E.Edmund Husserl,in which she discusses how the understanding of the other could become possible.The“I”that is formed at the innermost point is radically inter-subjective for Stein,because it arises out of self-abandonment and self-surrender to an Other,namely God.In its bridal union with God,the“I”is finally formed,as the soul is joined,in a free and total self-surrender,to the Imago Dei in which she was created,to the creative Word of God living within her,and through him,to the Trinity:“Mystical marriage is union with the Triune God.”Stein,like St.John of the Cross,chose the name“of the Cross”—an emblematic title to express her“inner image”of God.Through the mystical night of the Word of God,she eventually took up her cross and entered the terrible night of the Shoah.