给“上帝”换一副洋面孔——19世纪来华传教士所编汉英字典中的“上帝”释义及其影响

Give Shangdi another Name——Explanations of Di and Shangdi in the Chinese-English Dictionaries Compiled by the Protestant Missionaries Coming to China in the Early 19th Century

中国原始宗教信仰中的"帝"和"上帝"的称号,指天上主宰万物的最高神祇。19世纪初基督教新教传教士来华后,从事的两项主要活动是翻译《圣经》和编纂字典。他们在翻译《圣经》的过程中因为要寻找与"God"对应的汉语词而爆发"译名之争",分别出现以"上帝"和"神"对译"God"的两种方式。尽管有些传教士认为汉语中的"上帝"与"God"能够对应,但在传教士编纂的汉英字典中,无论是马礼逊、麦都思还是卫三畏,均未将"上帝"对译为"God"。只是到了翟理士,才在他编纂的汉英字典中直接将"God"作为汉语"上帝"的对应词。随着基督教在中国的传播,"上帝"的译法逐渐占据上风,并被大量中国人接受,汉语的"上帝"一词遂有了基督教"God"的新义,并进入《辞源》等汉语工具书。在流传的过程中,汉语"上帝"的原来意义逐渐消失,人们普遍接受了它的基督教新义。

Di or Shangdi in Chinese primitive religion refers to a deity who watches over human society and regulates the working of the universe. This original meaning had no connection with the Christian sense of God till the arrival of Jesuits. Despite the failure of Jesuits in establishing this connection,the Protestant missionaries resumed their efforts after they came to China in the early 19th century. Since most of them devoted to compiling bilingual dictionaries and translating Bible,they soon dived into an irreconcilable controversy over the proper Chi-nese term to convey the meaning of God. Some preferred Shangdi while others were in favor of Shen,thus provoking the Term Question. Though the dispute was unsolved,none of the missionaries had used God as an equivalent term to translate Shangdi in their Chinese-English dictionaries till Herbert A. Giles who treated God as the exact counterpart of Shangdi in his dictionary. His doings,together with the spread of the Shangdi-version Chinese Bi-ble,had finally brought the Christian sense of God into the meanings of the Chinese term Shangdi,which gradually entered Chinese dictionaries,and eventually replaced its original Chinese meaning.