晚清“秉笔华士”群体的滥觞——对近代早期传教士中国助手群体及其编译出版活动的考察

The Origin of the"Chinese Scholars with Pen"in the Late Qing Dynasty——An Investigation into the Chinese Assistants of Missionaries and Their Translation and Publishing Activities in Early Modern Times

在近代中国开埠前的30多年时间里,伴随早期新教传教士的东来,一批中国文士以助手身份及独特工作活跃于广州、澳门地区及南洋地区。其作为一个群体的出现,是早期中西交流的地域特征、传教士对汉语与中国文化知识的需求及中国文士的谋生考量等因素共同促成的。他们协助传教士编纂双语词典等汉语学习书籍,与其合作翻译《圣经》等基督教文献,合力编译出版西学中文期刊及著述,在双方共同演绎的近代早期跨文化传播史上发挥了重要作用。作为传教士的身边人,他们明显受到基督教的不同层面的影响,有的还比较深入,但保守儒家理念的特征同样明显。他们作为下层文士的身份构成,中国传统教育的背景与文化素养,与传教士雇佣合作关系形成的历史动因,在双方合作编译出版活动中的角色作为,徘徊于儒耶之间的文化思想倾向,无不具有后来大规模涌现的“秉笔华士”群体的基本特征。可以说他们是晚清“秉笔华士”群体的滥觞。

In the more than 30 years before the opening of China in modern times,with the arrival of early Prot-estant missionaries,a group of Chinese scholars were active in Guangzhou,Macao region and Nanyang region Areas as assistants and with unique work.Their emergence as a group was jointly promoted by the regional charac-teristics of early Sino-Western exchanges,the missionaries'demand for Chinese and Chinese cultural knowledge,and the Chinese scholars'consideration for making a living.They assisted the missionaries in compiling bilingual dictionaries and other Chinese learning books,cooperated with them in translating the Bible and other Christian literature,and jointly compiled and published Western Chinese journals and works,playing an important role in the cross-cultural communication history in early modern times.As the people around the missionaries,they were obviously influenced by different kinds of Christianity,some of which were even deeper,but the characteristics of conservative Confucianism were also obvious.Their identity as lower-level scholars,the background of traditional Chinese education and cultural accomplish-ment,the historical motivation for the formation of employment and cooperation with missionaries,the role they played in the compilation and publication activities of both sides,and the cultural and ideological ten-dency between Confucianism and Protestantism all have the basic characteristics of the"writers"group that emerged later.They are the origin of the"writers"group in the late Qing Dynasty.