Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 526

488

Animadversions upon Phils.

SEP.

Turn now to the Theology of the Chinese, (page 4.) and read of the " Ti k'i," or "that which brings up all things;" further on, (page 5.) again read, thus, "the expanding Spirit of Heaven is that which leads out all things." What this Expanding Spirit is, "in the estima- estimation of the Chinese" is stated, on the same page, in these plain words: it is Heaven that sends down its k'i breath or spirit to influence or lead out all things; and the expanding spirit, spoken of above, is this k' or spirit. Philo does not think that the Chinese be- lieve "the expanding spirit” and the k'i here spoken of are identical; yet they are, in the Theology of the Chinese, so represented; and, passim, k't is translated, "spirit," soul," or that which "travels abroad," and which is “in no case divested of knowledge.”

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CASE SECOND. The messenger of Heaven and earth is Fung or Spirit. 使之地天者風

The critic translates these six characters thus: The winds are the messengers of heaven and earth;" this, it will be seen, is not very unlike the other, except that he prefers the plural form of the words "winds" and "messengers," and rejects the capital letters in heaven and earth, a matter of no importance; in a note he says:

“Philo has quoted this passage also, and translated it, "the messenger of heaven and earth is spirit;" because shé, when connected with kwoh, a nation, means a national messenger, or an envoy, Philo would argue that it is here a title of honor, equivalent to our word ambassador, and therefore implies an intelligent messenger. The passage adduced by him from the Psalins. "Who maketh his angels spirits" if rendered as it ought to be “who maketh the winds his messengers," would indeed correspond to the quotation from the Chinese author, in which case wind would be equivalent to fung and messenger to shé. The Hebrew poet, however, did not, as we conceive, mean to say, that the winds are employed as intelligent envoys, but that they are used by the Author of all to accomplish his purposes as flames of fire are also his ministers. When Philo goes on to say, that “the Chinese be- lieve heaven and earth to be the chief of all their gods, and the invisible agent of which we discourse (viz. wind), they regard as the ambassador of these high divinities,-every where abroad exciting to life and bringing into their rroper forms all the myriads of beings that fill the universe-he has drawn entirely on the resources of his own imagination, and laid to the charge of the Chinese things which they know not.”

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Philo agrees with those who think that in the quotation from the Hebrew poet, Ruach may well be rendered by fung or “winds ;” and will only further remark, in this connection, that while the two He- brew words, here used for "angels and spirits" or winds," corre- spond most exactly with the two Chinese words she and fung, the notions of the Chinese regarding such messengers,-be they celestial, terrestrial or infernal, material or immaterial, are inere “ phantasma.” Whatever others may have done, Philo did not believe and did not