“喻象”的释义与考辨——一段概念史

“Figura":Its Semantics and History

'喻象'本意为'立体造型',其语义流变肇始于公元前1世纪罗马教育的希腊化。在其发轫阶段,有三位作家发挥了至关重要的作用——瓦罗、卢克莱修和西塞罗。自公元4世纪起,'喻象'除了形象建构的意义之外,还获得了对基督宗教及其圣经解释极为重要的'预表功能','喻象'的用法以及与之相关的阐述方法,在几乎所有拉丁教会作家中得到全面发展。从'形象'到'喻象'到'兆象',一段概念史的考察表明,一个词如何通过语义发展,进入历史环境,并催生历经几个世纪而不衰的结构。促使圣保罗到异教徒中传道的历史环境,发展了兆象阐释,为它在古代晚期乃至中世纪发挥影响铺平了道路。

Originally'Figura',from the same stem as fingere,figulus,fictor,and effigies,meant'plastic form'.The history of its semantic development begins with the Hellenization of Roman education in the last century BC,upon which three great authors,Varro,Lucretius,and Cicero,exerted significant influences.Since 4th century'figura',apart from construction of images,also acquired a topological function that extremely crucial to Christian religion and exegesis on the Holy Bible,related to which several usages and relevant methods of interpretation on classics were developed and even comprehensively advanced in Latin church in its entirety.So the historical scrutiny of a concept from'figura'to'allegorical figure'and'prophetic figure'would indicate how on the basis of its semantic development a word may grow into a historical situation and give rise to structures that will be effective for many centuries.The historical situation that drove St.Paul to preach among the Gentiles developed figural interpretation and prepared it for the influence it was to exert in late antiquity and the Middle Ages.