226
Kangxi was an earlier Manchurian emperor who had followed the movements of Catholic missionaries with great interest, both impressed by some and later revolted by others. His imperial son and successor, the Yongzheng emperor (ruling from 1723-1736), castigated those following the "Lord Of Heaven" as heretics (viduan) in his commentary to the seventh maxim of his father. Legge translated and commented on Yongzheng's authoritative interpretations of the Sacred Edict in lectures presented at Oxford's Taylor Institute in 1877, and later published them in Hong Kong under the title "Imperial Confucianism" in the sinological journal, China Review 6:3-6 (1878), pp. 147-158, 223-235, 299-310, 363-374. A good discussion of the impact of the Sacred Edict as part of the educative dimension of the Qing dynasty's civil servants is provided in Victor H. Mair, "Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict,” in David Johnson, et al., eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 325-359.
20. See the description and reflections of a British journalist at the scene in China Mail #803 (July 5, 1860), pp. 106-107.
21. His age was given in Legge's writings on Ch'ea. The fact that he had a son is verified through the records of the Chinese congregation of Union Church in Hong Kong, where a man named Che who joined the church in the late 1860s is identified as "the son of the martyr." This information was gleaned from Carl Smith's archives.
22. Following Lewis Rambo's lead, we will assume that conversion is a “dynamic, multifaceted process of transformation" including, at the very least, elements of "cultural, social, personal, and religious systems." See Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 6-7.
23. This is one possible literal rendering of the translated title for the "Bible", the phrase also being used as a general reference term in traditional China for the Ruist canon. In contemporary China, that latter association is almost completely lost.
24. One Chinese scholar believes that Wang's influence on Walter Medhurst's translation commitments in the Delegates' Committee were very extensive, but offers no precise historical documentation to support the claim. It is certainly sufficient to know that Wang was Medhurst's "native informant," for the influences could not help but be there, especially when questions of style and phrasing more suitable to Ruist tastes were raised. See Lee Chi-fang, Wáng T'ao (1828-1897): his life, thought, scholarship, and literary achievement (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1992, printing 1973).
25. This is very generally confirmed in I-Jin Loh's essay, "Chinese Translations of the Bible", published as part of An Encyclopedia Of Translation: Chinese-English, English-Chinese, eds. Chan Sin-Wai and David E. Pollard (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), pp. 54-69. Loh explicitly states, "It is generally agreed that the literary style of this version [in both Old Testament and New Testament], which had the benefit of help from a Chinese scholar by the name of Wang Tao, was superior to the rival version [later prepared by American missionaries]" (p. 57). The "literary style" was the form of literary conventions.
226
Kangxi was an earlier Manchurian emperor who had followed the movements of Catholic missionaries with great interest, both impressed by some and later revolted by others. His imperial son and successor, the Yongzheng emperor (ruling from 1723-1736), castigated those following the "Lord Of Heaven" as heretics (viduan) in his commentary to the seventh maxim of his father. Legge translated and commented on Yongzhèng's authoritative interpretations of the Sacred Edict in lectures presented at Oxford's Talor Institute in 1877, and later published them in Hong Kong under the title "Imperial Confucianism” in the sinological journal, China Review 6:3-6 (1878), pp. 147-158, 223-235, 299-310, 363-374. A good discussion of the impact of the Sacred Edict as part of the educative dimension of the Qing dynasty's civil servants is provided in Victor H. Mair, "Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict,” in David Johnson, et. al, eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 325-359.
20. See the description and reflections of a British journalist at the scene in China Mail #803 (July 5, 1860), pp. 106-107,
21. His age was given in Legge's writings on Ch'ea. The fact that he had a son is verified through the records of the Chinese congregation of Union Church in Hong Kong, where a man named Che who joined the church in the late 1860s is identified as "the son of the martyr." This information was gleaned from Carl Smith's archives.
22. Following Lewis Rambo's lead, we will assume that conversion is a “dynamic, multifaceted process of transformation" including, at the very least, elements of "cultural, social, personal, and religious systems." See Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 6-7.
23. This is one possible literal rendering of the translated title for the "Bible", the phrase also being used as a general reference term in traditional China for the Ruist canon. In contemporary China that latter association is almost completely lost.
24. One Chinese scholar believes that Wang's influence on Walter Medhurst's translation commitments in the Delegates' Committee were very extensive, but offers no precise historical documentation to support the claim. It is certainly sufficient to know that Wang was Medhurst's "native informant,” for the influences could not help but be there, especially when questions of style and phrasing more suitable to Ruist tastes were raised. See Lee Chi-fang, Wáng T'ao (1828-1897): his life, thought, scholarship, and literary achievement (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1992, printing 1973).
25 This is very generally confirmed in I-Jin Loh's essay, "Chinese Translations of the Bible", published as part of An Encyclopedia Of Translation: Chinese-English, English-Chinese, eds. Chan Sin-Wai and David E. Pollard (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1995), pp. 54-69. Loh explicitly states, "It is generally agreed that the literary style of this version [in both Old Testament and New Testament], which had the benefit of help from a Chinese scholar by the name of Wang Tao, was superior to the rival version [later prepared by American missionaries]" (p. 57). The "literary style" was the form of literary conventions
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