Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 390

352

Defense of an Essay &e

JULY,

that auswers to God, in having been actually used as one of the many names of the Supreme Being (i. e. the true God)," we should not under these circumstances seek for an absolute generic, but a relative term to render Elohim and Theos, because these words are relative and not absolute."

The first point made by Dr. Legge's argument, as expressed above, coincides with the proposition marked a ; the other points come under propositions b. and c. We shall postpone the discussion of them until we take up those propositions.

Dr. Medhurst, in his "Inquiry," expresses himself very indefinitely on the point whether the Chinese know the true God or not. We have seen above that he acknowledges, at the outset, that he has been unable "to find any one term that fully answers to the words" Elohim and Theos as employed in the Old and New Testaments." He then proceeds to mention the important particulars in which “the Chinese ideas of God fall short of the truth." These are, that the "creation of heaven and earth are not ascribed to any being," the highest being known to them, variously designated Tien F, Ti††, or Shángti E

, is never said to be self-existent, nor described as existing from eternity." He then, after mentioning several attributes of the being styled Ti, proceeds to say, "There can be no doubt that, the Chinese use the word T in the same way in which western writers use the word God; that they ascribe to Ti such attributes, as were usually ascribed to the Divine Being by the Pagans of Greece and Rome." "We therefore conclude that, by Ti, the Chinese mean the Supreme God, so far as they are acquainted with him. They also use the word Ti when speaking of inferior spiritual beings, who have some superin- tendence over different parts of the universe, and who, in the estima- tion of the Confucianists, were entitled to religious worship; while the word was applied by both Táuist and Buddhist writers to beings, whom they considered as gods. The inference therefore is that Ti is descriptive of a class of beings, beginning with the highest and passing down to inferior divinities, and is therefore generic for God in Chinese." See "Inquiry " pp, 5,6.

Dr. Medhurst here clearly advocates the use of the word Ti to ren- der Elohim and Theos on the ground that it is the "generic for God in Chinese." It is not so clear, however, what he means by the sentence, "We therefore conclude that by Ti the Chinese mean the Supreme God, as far as they are acquainted with him." This last seems a very unsatisfactory and indefinite phrase, and it is much to be regretted that Dr. Medhurst did not express his opinion more clearly.

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