追问“上帝”之爱:评墨子与耶稣“对话”史

Searching for “God’s” Compassion: A Review of the History of “Dialogue” between Mozi and Jesus

“1858年1月19日,艾约瑟(Joseph Edkins,1823-1905)发表文章《墨子人格及其作品简论》(Notices of the character and writings of Meh Tsi),将兼爱译为“the doctrine of equal and universal love”,①他在文中表述了自己的惊讶并比较了墨子兼爱和基督宗教的博爱.三年后,即1861年,理雅各(James Legge,1815-1897)在《孟子》英译本的序言中翻译了《墨子×兼爱》上中下三篇并比较兼爱和博爱.作为最早的耶墨“对话”者,两位传教士拉开了以墨子为代表的墨学和以耶稣为代表的基督宗教相遇的历史帷幕.

Since the Late Qing, Christian scholars have conducted deep comparative studies into the potential correlation between Jesus and Mozi represented by questions like: "Is jian’ai 兼爱 a Chinese version of Christian compassion ?""Is Mozi the ‘Jesus of the East’?"Although the questions have been debated for over 150 years, they have attracted little attention in wider academia. This paper attempts to vitalize these discussions by a detailed review of their history, while also exploring their significance for contemporary studies in the field. Missionaries of the Late Qing, intelligentsia of the early Republican period and Christian Taiwan Residents scholars have all offered studies on the question of the potential comparability of the concepts of jian’ai, compassion and Tian(as Heaven or God) represented by Jesus and Mozi. This review explores the reason why scholars of Chinese and foreign backgrounds engaged in such an academic dialog, while also discussing the question of how this dialog has contributed to contemporary Chinese academic discourse. The paper also illuminates the related question of how these scholars evaluated the different concepts within Christian and Mohist thought and their potential relation to each other.