“环形运动”还是“线性超越”——也谈中西“游历-朝圣叙事”兼与谢大卫教授商讨

“Circular Movement” or “Linear Transcendence”:A Brief Study of Chinese and Western “Travel-Pilgrimage Narrative” and Discussion with Professor David Lyle Jeffrey

以《西游记》为例,谢大卫将古代中国的“游历-朝圣叙事”概括为“环形运动”。若与此相应,则其所分析的《埃涅阿斯纪》和《上帝之城》亦不妨被称作“线性超越”。在西方的殖民历史与宗教扩张中,这种“线性超越”又呈现为“罗马帝国模式”与“基督教模式”的张力性混同。而鲁迅在《破恶声论》中所倡之普崇万物、回复本根的“环形运动”,则不仅直接否定了其时欲以基督教救国的线性方案以及基督教教义中的排他性和超越性,而且还为当今世界的知识与信仰提供了某种前宗教和前世俗的可能性。

Taking the Journey to the West as an example,David Lyle Jeffrey summarizes the “travel-pilgrimage narrative” in ancient China as a “circular movement”.By contrast,the characteristic form of the Aeneid and The City of God could be termed “linear transcendence”,as Jeffrey analyzes.Further,such “linear transcendence” evolved into the tension of the “Roman empire mode” and “Christian mode” in the colonial history and religious expansion of the West.By review of Lu Xun's “A Refutation of the Voices of Evil”,however,his “circular movement” of general reverence of all things and return to origin not only directly negates the linear project of saving China with Christianity at that time and the exclusivity and transcendence in the Christian doctrine,but also provides a pre-religious and pre-secular possibility for the learnings and beliefs in the world today.