East University

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Faculty of Regional Studies

Department of Regional Studies and Historical Disciplines

abstract

discipline Christianity

Scripture Translation into Chinese

Completed by a student of 2 courses

Grigoryan A.V.

Leader A. Yakovlev

Moscow 2010

Introduction

Christianity in China of the twentieth century

Sun Yat-sen and Christianity

New Testament Translations into Chinese

Conclusion

List of references

scripture translation china

Introduction

As Christianity still continues to live in the conditions of Chinese society, this “alien and hostile element,” as many perceive it. But how did it happen that Christianity proved to be necessary for the ruling elite and its opponents?

It cannot be ignored that the Christian factor influenced the development of China. It turned out that for many Chinese, Christianity remains a sign of national shame, but for others, belonging to Christianity is belonging to the elite and the possibility of emigration to the West.

Christianity was annoying because it was brought from outside and was seen as an attempt by the West to intervene in the affairs of the country. Meanwhile, the modernizing role of Christianity in Chinese society cannot be denied. In the first half of the 20th century, missionaries brought modern education and healthcare to China. It is a mistake to believe that Chinese society does not need Christianity. It’s just that he didn’t always have the opportunity to truly learn about him.

Christianity in China of the twentieth century

In this part, we will discuss the situation of Christianity in the People's Republic of China, where the Communist Party is in power, and atheism is a state ideology.

Immediately after the establishment of the communist regime, the Chinese authorities took measures to establish control over the believers. The task was to break all ties between Chinese Christians and foreign religious centers.

In 1950-1970 The fate of Christians in China was difficult. Many were repressed, foreign clergy and missionaries were forced to leave the country. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 actually led to the complete extermination of believers, the destruction of monasteries, temples, archives.

The reform period, which began in 1978, brought some relief. At present, five officially recognized religions are indicated in the PRC constitution: Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. Orthodoxy is regarded as an officially recognized religion only in Northeast China, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. About 10 thousand Orthodox live there. According to the constitution, persons practicing these religions within the framework of state institutions will not be prosecuted.

There are several legislative acts that regulate religious life in the PRC. Created under the slogans of protecting believers, these laws actually allow the authorities to crack down on any undesirable manifestations of religiosity. Due to the wide dissemination of the teachings of the Falun Gong sect, a legislative resolution was passed on the prohibition of heretical sects. In the end, in 2000, the interpretation of the "Rules Relating to the Religious Activities of Foreign Citizens in China" entered into force. None of the foreigners or residents of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau has the right to engage in any religious activity in the territory of China without the official sanction of the relevant authorities.

In addition to official documents, there are secret instructions and oral instructions. For example, people under the age of 18, party members, government officials, and their families are not allowed to attend religious gatherings. Baptism of children, respectively. Also prohibited.

The Catholic Church in China is represented in two ways:

1. officially recognized by the authorities of the church, which is not subordinate to the Vatican.

2. The underground Catholic Church, loyal to the Holy See, despite the absence of diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The underground church is being persecuted.

According to the Hong Kong Catholic Holy Spirit Research Center, there are currently up to 12 million Catholics, 5,000 temples and chapels in China. The ratios of data for the official and underground church, respectively: bishops 79 and 49, priests 1200 and 1000, nuns 2150 and 1500, seminaries 24 and 10, seminaries 1000 and 700. From this it can be seen that the unofficial Catholic church is practically not inferior to the official, despite the repression from the state. In some dioceses there is no official church at all; there is only an underground church.

With Protestants, things are much more complicated. Some Protestants are parishioners of the so-called unregistered “home churches,” and many cannot be baptized due to a shortage of pastors. According to the Emiti Protestant News Center, the growth of Protestant churches began in the 1970s. The statistics are as follows: 70 percent of believers are women, the number of churches is 12 thousand, prayer houses are 25 thousand, pastors are 1500, seminaries 17, and more than 20 million copies of Bibles distributed in Chinese. At the same time, in China there are a huge number of sects of various directions, with which the state is actively fighting. According to statistics, since 1990, 25,354 people were arrested, 4077 were sentenced to imprisonment. Although these figures are the result of unofficial studies, they reflect a tendency to brutally suppress any religious movement whose teachings are not consistent with party politics.

Sun Yat-sen and Christianity

There is anecdotal evidence that for the first time, Sun Yat-sen encountered missionaries when he was 10-12 years old. Christianity fascinated him, Sun Yat-sen received a theological education, and then moved from missionaryism to medicine. Christianity more than once helped him out in difficult situations. For example, once in England, the leader of the revolutionary movement was locked up in the Chinese mission, from where they planned to take him to China and put him on trial. In order to pass the note to his missionary friends, he had to persuade the English servant for a long time, for whom the Christian faith of Sun was one of the decisive arguments. Sun Yat-sen, who escaped the trap after the Xinhai revolution, met with Dan Tinken, who lured him into the London trap. The guards offered to arrest Dan, but Sun ordered him to be released in peace. In the spring of 1922, the leader made a statement that not only he, but also members of his family are Christians.

But Sun Yat-sen's Christian faith was gradually reduced in the process of scientific knowledge. He himself confirmed that while studying in Hong Kong, he, inclined towards evolutionism, began to think that Christian theory lacked logic. This important evidence explains the essence of the subsequent relationship of the “father of the state” with Christianity. But he did not refuse faith. But Sun faced the problem of reconciliation of Christianity and the theory of evolution. The way out of the impasse he found turned out to be classically Chinese. The role of revolutionary theory was assigned to the Gospel doctrine, and the mystical side was discarded as unscientific. Sometimes the statements of the “father of the state” make one doubt his adequate acquaintance with the gospel. Sun Yat-sen often with friends discussed the “ideals of Jesus” and the values \u200b\u200bof the revolution and came to the conclusion that the sacrifice of Christianity and the struggle to save the state and the happiness of the people are one and the same. He equated socialism and humanism. In one of his lectures, he writes that the apostles saw in Jesus Christ a “revolutionary leader” who would free the people from foreign dominion. And the betrayal of Judah explains the disappointment of the unfaithful apostle in the "Christ political revolution", which was defeated.

Sun Yat-sen tried in practice to combine the ideals of Christianity and political ideas. Thus, Christianity was assigned the role of a universal environment in which traditional Chinese values \u200b\u200band socialist ideas were to unite. Christianity seemed to the "father of the state" the road to the moral unification of all Chinese scattered among pagan idols. But at the same time, he stated that the church needed reform and independence from foreigners, which was accepted by some in an anti-Christian context.

Until the end of his days, Sun Yatsen considered himself a Christian, but attempts to find traces of the gospel influence in his writings end in failure, or poorly substantiated conclusions. Perhaps the reason is that he considered his faith to be a purely personal matter.

New Testament Translations into Chinese

The translation of the scriptures into Chinese has a long history. The first biblical texts came to China during the Tang Dynasty, brought from Syria by Nestorian preachers. These texts were translated into the languages \u200b\u200bof the peoples of the west of the country, most of them were not preserved.

In the mid-12th century, Jewish immigrants arrived in China during the reign of the Song Dynasty. They brought with them the Old Testament, which the Chinese called Daojing (the book of the way - 道 经). Through Central Asia, the Bible reached the Mongols even before the rise of Genghis Khan. The founder of the Mongol dynasty, Yuan, began to translate Scripture into Chinese, after which the New Testament and the Psalter were distributed at the court in Beijing. Unfortunately, translations of that time were not preserved.

The translation of the Bible was mainly done by foreigners. At the end of the 16th century (the Ming Dynasty), a Catholic missionary and scholar Matteo Ricci worked at the court in Beijing. Thanks to him, more than 2 thousand preachers arrived in China, working translations of scripture passages necessary for the work of missionaries were made.

The first Catholic translation of the Four Gospels and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul (which has survived to this day) was created by the French missionary J. Basset. At the end of the 18th century, the Jesuit Louis de Poirot made an almost complete translation of the Bible. Both manuscripts have not been published and are kept in museums.

Protestant translations appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1819, the complete Bible translation by R. Morrison and W. Milne of the London Missionary Society was completed. Their translation was published in Malacca under the title “Sacred Book of Divine Heaven” (Schentansheng). In 1835, a group of translators formed to process Morrison's scriptures. As a result, a new text of the New and Old Testament was printed. At the same time, C. Gutzlaf published his updated translation of the New Testament.

In 1843, American and English missionaries gathered in Hong Kong to discuss a draft new scripture translation. Teamwork has begun. The editor was Chinese scientist Wang Tao. The Old Testament was translated with the participation of the synologist J. Legg, who conveyed many theological concepts through the terms familiar to Chinese philosophy, and these concepts did not always adequately reflect the meaning of the original text. This translation was called the "version of the delegates."

Until the middle of the 19th century, the main target of the missionary sermon was the educated sections of Chinese society, then over time the audience expanded, and there was a need for simplified texts. Prior to this, all texts were translated exclusively into the written language of Wenyang. The first text in spoken language was several translations, called Qianvenli Iben. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, many individual translations of scripture appeared. One of the most significant was the work of S. Shereshevsky. It was completed in 1902, despite an almost complete paralysis of the body. This text is currently the most common.

It is worth recalling that all of these translations were made by Protestants. As for Catholics, the first translation of the New Testament from Latin into Chinese was made by priest Xiao Jingshan. Gradually, the Chinese themselves begin to engage in translations, using only the advice of foreign missionaries. In 1939, a translation of the entire Zhu Baohui Bible appeared; in 1967, Xiao Tedi and Zhao Shiguang; in 1970, Liu Zhengzhong.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the translations of the Holy Scripture into the modern colloquial Chinese language “Modernized Chinese Translation”, “Modern Bible”, “New Translation” were released. From a textual point of view, Chinese translations are constantly evolving in the direction of simplifying the language and bringing it closer to the spoken. It should be noted that translations of the Bible and its individual books into the languages \u200b\u200bof national minorities of China were made.

Meanwhile, there remains a need to work on improving translation, due to a number of reasons: historical, linguistic, theological. Briefly consider them.

1. The first European missionaries to enter China were Catholics who did not expect the Bible to be published soon. It was believed that only sermons did not open the way for unauthorized and erroneous interpretation of the Bible. Nevertheless, partial working translations were compiled. There were more than three hundred Protestant translations. The reason for this diversity was the disagreement of various missionary societies on how to best depict Chinese content.

2. Over the past two hundred years, the Chinese language has undergone major changes. The missionaries' desire to make scripture accessible to a wider circle of people led to the advent of translations in simplified Chinese.

3. The problem of transmitting theological concepts that have no analogies in the Chinese language. Different paths were considered.

4. The first was proposed by Catholics and considered it appropriate to use the traditional Chinese philosophical dictionary to convey theological terms. Proponents of the second method believed that this should be avoided, since the use of the traditional vocabulary leads to the "Confucianization" of scripture.

Unfortunately, much of the work of Russian missionaries has been unjustly forgotten. This primarily concerned translations of the Holy Scriptures, liturgical books, and missionary work in the vastness of the Chinese Empire.

The first Orthodox translations belong to such missionaries as the archim. Peter (Kamensky), archim. Iakinf (Bichurin), archim. Daniel (Sibyl). One of the active participants in the translation work can be called Hieromonk Isaiah (Polikin), who spent many years in China.

Systematic work on the translation of liturgical books and the New Testament began hieromonk Guri (Karpov). For four years, he created a draft, which was corrected for two years during mass readings. Then it was necessary to obtain permission from the Holy Synod to use the translation in the practice of the Mission. The sanction of the ecclesiastical department was obtained when the author of the translation had already returned to his homeland, but some amendments were ordered. Archimandrite gurius preferred the classical language, conveying the text not too close to the original, while the rest sought to simplify their translations. The next stage in the compilation of Orthodox translations of the New Testament is associated with the activities of Archimandrite Flavian (Gorodetsky). He decided to conduct a service in Chinese, for which he revised many old translations and made new ones. In 1884, the Guriev translation of the Gospel was revised and re-published. When studying various translations of scripture into Chinese, scholars try to trace the influence of some texts on others. For example, Archimandrite Flavian used the translation of S. Shereshevsky. The latest translation of the New Testament was made at the beginning of the 20th century during a mission led by His Grace Innocent (Figurovsky). His translation is actually a gospel with extensive commentary. A big step was taken towards the modernization of the language, and the text is close to the modern spoken language. Unfortunately, the events of 1917 in Russia interrupted the missionary work of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. Because of this, we do not know whether Orthodox translators used Greek or exclusively Church Slavonic and Russian languages.

Translation Issues

The disagreements of various Christian denominations regarding the correct translation of the Bible into Chinese caused the process of the appearance of more and more new versions. The main debate has always arisen regarding the translation of theological concepts unusual for the Chinese language.

For example, take three texts of the Gospel of John: the Catholic and two Protestant (hehe and lianhe). Unfortunately, Orthodox translations are now considered a rarity.

So, let's take the text of the Prologue: “In the beginning was the Word ...”

For the translation “at the beginning”, Catholics offer the colloquial version 在 起初 (zaitsichu) - at the very beginning, Protestants melt the translation 太初 (taichu) - during the great beginning. The "word" is translated in the Catholic version as 神 言 (Shenyan) - the Divine Logos, and the Protestants translate it in the famous term of Chinese philosophy 道 (Tao). “God” is translated by Catholics as 天主 (tianzhu) - the Heavenly Lord, and Protestants in two ways: 上帝 (shandi) and 神 (shen). Serious discrepancies concern, among other things, names whose translation is sometimes associated with the mother tongue of the translator. For example, Catholics call the Apostle John the Evangelist 若望 (Zhovan), and the Protestants - 约翰 (Yuehan) - John. In the “Orthodox Prayer Book” in Chinese, one can find, for example, a complete hieroglyphic transcription of the phrase “Archangel Michael,” although the generally accepted concept of the Archangel уже 天使 (zuntian) already exists in the theological dictionary of the Chinese language.

Comparisons of three Orthodox translations can be added to this analysis: Archimandrite Gury, Archimandrite Flavian and Bishop Innocent. In the first two, the Name of Christ is conveyed in Church Slavonic sound, while Innocent uses the word Lord (主) to replace “He” or “Him”. To translate the word "bliss" arch. Guri and Flavian use traditionally Chinese "fu" (福 - happiness). And Bishop Innocent uses two characters “fuzai” (福 哉), which mean both knowledge and exclamation, emphasizing this series of messages “Blessed are you ...”. Significantly more difficulties arise with the translation of the word meek. Guri speaks of “good and kind” (Liangshan 良善), Flavian - of “warm and kind” (Wenliang - 温良), Innocent - of “warm and soft” (Wenzhou - 温柔).

Only the Kingdom of Heaven is universally translated in all texts as tiango (田 国), that is, a word is used that has deep roots in traditional Chinese ideology and consciousness.

As you can see, differences in translations give rise to a different understanding of scripture.

Conclusion

Currently, the Chinese Church is in rather poor condition. There is no canonical translation of the Scriptures into Chinese, which causes disagreement among representatives of various movements. This is also followed by the Chinese misinterpretation of the Bible, maybe this is one of the reasons for the small number of Chinese Christians. Recently, the Russian Orthodox Church resumed work on the revival of Orthodoxy in China. Work is planned on the study of Orthodox translations, their updating, editing and reprinting. It is necessary that China ceases to perceive Christianity as something "alien and hostile" and adopt a new religion for it, which, perhaps, will be a unifying factor for a fragmented Chinese society.

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The purpose of the article is to analyze the translation of some biblicalisms into Chinese and identify the conditions for their adaptation in Chinese culture mainly from the standpoint of ethnocultural semantics and semiotics. By biblicalism we mean words, stable phrases or larger sections of text that directly or indirectly go back to the test of the Bible or to biblical subjects.

As sources in Chinese, we took five Bible translations. "和合 本" (hereinafter, 1) is the first translation of the Holy Scripture into spoken Chinese, made in 1919 by Protestants and is the most common among Chinese Christians. “吕振 中 译本” (hereinafter, 2) - The Bible is translated by Chinese theologian Lu Zhenzhong 吕振 中, professor of theological seminary in Fujian. A translation of this Bible appeared in 1970. “文理 本 圣经” (hereinafter 3) - a translation of the Bible, made and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Shanghai, in 1919; translators include J. Griffith of the London Missionary Society and H. Blodget of the American Council of Authorized Overseas Missions. “现代 中文 译本” (hereinafter, 4) - “Modern Chinese translation”, made by a group of translators led by Xu Mushi 许 牧 世, Zhou Lianhua 周 联华 and Luo Weiheng 骆维仁 from Hebrew and Greek based on Today’s English version in 1979. 思 高 本 圣经 (hereinafter 5), published in 1968, is the first full Catholic translation of the Bible into Chinese, which includes deuterocanonical books and commentaries. A team of scientists led by the Franciscan Gabriele Allegra (G.M. Allegra) worked on this translation. The translation was published in Hong Kong by the Franciscan society Studium Biblicum (思 高 圣经 学会).

The selection of biblical words was made arbitrarily, but, as it seems to us, it can be estimated as quite representative and undoubtedly referring specifically to biblisms in terms of its semantics and cultural relevance. When selecting terms, the authors were guided by the idea of \u200b\u200ba book-world, and among them there are “heroes”, “space”, “relations”.

To analyze the translation, we took one proper name, which can be considered as the main marker of Christianity - Jesus Christ. Giving a report that this is a proper name, which has largely lost its semantics, we, at the same time, recognize the unconditional initial significance of this sign-name.

Jesus  - The Greek form of the Hebrew word Yeshua, abbreviated from Jehoshua, means "Jehovah's help", or "Savior", Christos (from other Greek. Χριστός) - literally - "anointed." This is a translation of the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ (Mashiach). In modern usage, the term usually refers to Jesus Christ. “Jesus Christ” means “anointed Jesus” [Dyachenko, p. 796]. Catholics and Protestants translate the name of Jesus Christ as 耶稣 基督 YēsūJīdū, which is a phonetic abbreviation of the medieval Jesuit translation of Jesu Christo 耶稣 基利斯 督 YēsūJīlìsīdū.

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See also in other dictionaries:

BIBLE  - (Greek book Biblia), or a scripture book that includes those written in other Hebrews. in the language of the book of the Jewish canon, called Christians (along with several so-called books of the second canon, which came only in the Greek translation or written ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Bible  - (Greek. τα βιβλια books) the name of a collection of religious literature recognized as sacred in Christian and Jewish religions (the name τα βιβλια is borrowed from the introduction to the book of Wisdom Jesus the son of Sirach, where this name ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

BIBLE  - (Greek: biblion book). Holy books of the Old and New Testaments. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov AN, 1910. THE BIBLE (Greek) means books that the Christian church recognizes as being written as if by the Spirit of God, ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Bible  - - An extensive collection of books of different origin and content (the word "Bible" comes from the Greek. Βιβλία "books"). It is divided into two departments: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of 48 books written from the 11th century. BC e. before the 1st century n. ... ... Dictionary of scribes and books of Ancient Russia

BIBLE  - It cannot be the work of the Almighty just because He speaks too flattering about himself there and too badly about a person. But maybe this just proves that He is its Author? Christian Friedrich Goebbel I read the criminal code and the Bible. The Bible ... ... Consolidated Encyclopedia of Aphorisms

Bible  - “The Bible”, “Biblia”, a collection of sacred books of Jews and Christians, recognized as inspired, and therefore revered as sources of knowledge about the will of God. The name comes from the Greek word "ta biblia" (ta biblia ta hagia holy books) ... Antique writers

Bible  - (Greek biblia, plural of biblion book) - a set of books that make up the Holy Scripture; the Bible consists of two parts - the Old Testament, which represents the holy books of the Christian and Jewish religions, and the New Testament, which contains ... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

Bible  - (from the Greek. τά βιβιλία books) is called in the Christian church a collection of books written by the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit through people sanctified by God, called prophets and apostles. This name is in the most sacred. books not found and ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Bible - The Bible. The word bible comes from Greek. words byblos book. B. is a collection of 66 separate books. For the interpretation of B. see scripture. I. OLD TESTAMENT 1) COMPOSITION OT. In the present OT time is a collection of 39 works of various litas. ... ... Brockhaus Bible Encyclopedia

BIBLE  - wives The Word of God in its entirety, the Holy Scriptures of the old and new covenants; sometimes the latter is separated, and the Bible itself is called one Old Testament. Biblical, biblical, Bible related. Bible man husband. scientist prospector, interpreter ... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

BIBLE  - (from the Greek biblia, literally books), a collection of ancient texts, canonized in Judaism and Christianity as Scripture. Recognized by one and the other, B., the first in time of creation, was called the Old Testament by Christians ... Russian history

Books

• The Bible,. The Bible - a book that has passed through centuries to the present dayWith the advent of Christianity, the Bible is of unprecedented value - to buy it from ...

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The translation of the scriptures into Chinese has a long history. Biblical texts first came to China under the Tang Dynasty, brought by a Syrian preacher, who apparently belonged to the Nestorian heresy, called the "Jinjiao" or "religion of the light." They were translated into the languages \u200b\u200bused by the peoples inhabiting the western regions of the country.

In the middle of the XII century. during the reign of the Song Dynasty, Jewish immigrants arrive in China. They presented the Emperor with the Old Testament, which the Chinese called "Taojing" (the book of the way) or "Zhenjing" (the book of truth). It is assumed that the aliens who subsequently settled in Kaifeng were descendants of the Samaritans. [Wang Weifang. "Shenjing" and Jai Zhongguo (Bible Translations in China). - "Shijie zongjiao yanju", Beijing, 1992, No. 1, p. 72.]

Through Central Asia, the Christian Bible reached the Mongols, which happened even before the rise of Genghis Khan. It is known that the founder of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty, Khubilai, addressed through the relatives of the famous traveler Marco Polo to the Pope asking for help in translating the Holy Scriptures into Chinese. By the end of XII - beginning of XIII centuries. The New Testament and the Psalter were already distributed at the court in Beijing, which, however, did not lead to the conversion of the aristocracy to Christianity. These books were considered by the Mongols as magical or Gnostic.

Unfortunately, translations of the Holy Scriptures into Chinese made in those distant times have not yet been discovered.

The revival of the missionary work of Catholics and Protestants during the reign of the Manchu Qing dynasty led to the emergence of many new translations of the Holy Scriptures that have survived to this day. Currently, foreign science already has studies on the history of compiling some translations of the Bible into Chinese. However, they exclusively consider the experience of Catholics and Protestants, the work done by Orthodox preachers is either sparingly spoken or nothing at all. [Cm. for example, Zhao Weiben. Shenjing suyuan - xiandai ud zhongwen shenjing fanyi shi (Returning to the sources of the translation of Scripture. History of five modern translations of the Bible into Chinese). Hong Kong, 1993; Hai Enbo (M. Broomhall). Shenjing Yu Zhonghua (Bible and China). Hong Kong, 1951.] In domestic publications, the results of purely synological studies of members of the Beijing Theological Mission were traditionally considered, and their works on translating the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books were either mentioned in passing or ignored altogether. Meanwhile, we have many texts compiled by Russian missionaries. All these translations remain completely unexplored, and the contribution of the Orthodox to the preaching of the Word of God in China remains forgotten and unclaimed.

Meanwhile, the missionary work of various Protestant denominations and Catholics aimed at the most adequate translation of the Holy Scripture into Chinese continues. The need for such activities is explained by a number of reasons. Firstly, historical (1), secondly, linguistic (2), thirdly, theological (3). Let us briefly dwell on them.

1. The first European missionaries to infiltrate the Middle Empire were Catholics, whose missionary concept did not imply an early publication of a Bible translation. It was believed that the dissemination of various kinds of teachings, interpretations and sermons is preferable, since it does not open the way for unauthorized and erroneous interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. However, the so-called work translations were compiled.

The oldest that has come down to us is the almost complete translation of the New Testament, made by J. Basset (1662-1707). The first publication of the Catholic translation of the New Testament, made by J. Dejan, dates back to a much later time - 1892. Currently, the Catholic Church uses the translation completed in 1968, which is called "Sggao", on behalf of the missionary society that carried out this project.

Protestant translations are much more numerous, there are more than three hundred. The reasons for this diversity were disagreements among various mission societies on how to best reflect the contents of the Bible in Chinese. The most controversial was the fundamental theological terminology: for example, what characters to mean God and the Holy Spirit, etc. The most famous of the first Protestant translations of the New Testament were made by R. Morrison and J. Marshman, who began his activities in China at the beginning of the 19th century. By the middle of the century, English and American missionaries tried to create a single “cross confessional” translation of the Bible, called the “Bibles of Representatives.” However, each of the churches and sects issued this text, inserting its own version of the translation of the words God, the Lord, and others. Later, translation work continued uninterruptedly, and it is currently underway with the goal of creating an “ecumenical” scripture that is acceptable to Catholics, and for Protestants, and for numerous sects. For this purpose, a Cooperation Committee was established in 1987 to translate the Bible into Chinese. Its main task is to harmonize theological terminology. [Fan Ji-rong. Tianzhujiao yu jidujiao shenjin dy itong (Similarities and differences between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles). Taiwan, 1987, p. 60.]

In this context, when summing up the centuries-old work of translating the Holy Scriptures into Chinese, it seems extremely relevant to find out the specific contribution of the Russian Imperial Beijing Spiritual Mission to the spread of the Word of God in China.

2. It must be borne in mind that the Chinese language has undergone enormous changes over the past two hundred years, which cannot simply be attributed to the process of the natural development of the language. The impact of socio-political history also affected. Bible translations in the first half of the 19th century were made in the classical language, understood only by representatives of the bureaucracy and the intellectual elite. These texts make up the Wenli group. The missionaries' desire to make Holy Scripture accessible to a wider circle of readers was expressed in the appearance in the second half of the 19th century of translations in a simplified classical language. At the same time, the compilation of translations into modern spoken language (goyu or baihua) begins, which after 1919 quickly gained literary status in China. The most famous is the text "lianhe" or "hehe", which took 27 years to compose. It is interesting that this translation was published at the beginning of the 20th century. and had a direct impact on the modernization of the Chinese literary language.

It is important for us that Orthodox translators sought to improve and modernize their translations, to make them more accessible to the people.

3. When translating biblical texts into Chinese, missionaries constantly faced the same problem of how to convey theological concepts that had no analogies in this language. Different paths were suggested. The first was proposed by Catholics, who considered it appropriate to use the traditional Chinese philosophical dictionary, giving only additional explanations for the new usage. Proponents of the second method of translation believed that the use of the traditional vocabulary should be avoided, since it leads to the "Confucianization" of scripture. The stated point of view resulted in a gradual translation to a descriptive and interpretative translation of the Bible, which in turn led to distortions of meaning and inaccuracies.

These are some historical introductory remarks that outline the historical context in which the activities of the missionaries of the Beijing Spiritual Mission to translate scripture into Chinese should be considered.

Hieromonk Isaiah (Polikin), who spent 1858-1871 in China, can be called the pioneer of translation work. An indefatigable preacher and a talented administrator, he left behind numerous texts in Chinese: The Hourglass (almost completely), a brief Usage of Sunday services, the main chants of the twelve holy days, the first week of Great Lent and Holy Week, Holy Easter, the Psalter (translated from Greek into spoken Sukhua language), Paraclisis, Akathist of the Mother of God, beginning of the Servant, memorial service, canon of St. Andrei Kritsky (in literary and colloquial languages), Russian-Chinese dictionary of theological and church utterances. [I.N.A. (Hieromonk Nikolai Adoratsky). The current situation and modern activities of the Orthodox spiritual mission in China. - "Orthodox Interlocutor", Kazan, 1884, August, p. 378.] A huge amount of work performed affected the quality of some translations, which, as it turned out later, differed inaccuracies.

The systematic work of translating liturgical books and the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament was begun by Hieromonk Gury (Karpov, first archimandrite, and at the end of his life Bishop of Simferopol). While still a member of the 12th mission, he was in the 1830s. engaged in the compilation of translations of the Cathedral Epistle of St. Apostle James, Followings to St. Communion, Consequences of the All-night Vigil, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and others ["Chinese Evangelist", Beijing, 1916, No. 9-12. from. 167.] Archimandrite Guri led the 14th mission in Beijing (1858-1864), and from 1859 began to translate the New Testament. This work lasted six years. Answering the slanderers who accused him of using someone else's translation made by a certain anonymous Englishwoman, he wrote: "... I did not call anyone except the Lord God to help me. Only the Chinese master Lun helped me as a scribe. I am usually with the New Testament in hands walked around the room and dictated, and Lun sat at the table and wrote down my translation. " [From a letter from His Grace Guria to I.I. Palimpsestov on the translation of the New Testament into Chinese. - "Russian Archive", St. Petersburg, 1893. No. 11. from. 394.] After four years, the draft was ready. Further, with the participation of the Chinese - teacher Ivan from the missionary school for boys, teacher of the girls' school Maria, her son Nikita and Albazin (a descendant of the Cossacks captured by the Chinese) Moses - oral readings were held for two years. Listeners retold the text they understood, and Archimandrite Guri corrected it if the translation was misunderstood. Subsequently, the aforementioned Nikita and Moses acted as correctors.

On the process of printing his translation about. In 1864, Guriy informed the editor of the Irkutsk diocesan sheets: “We need to prepare a list for the scribe; they will write - I must check. From this list, another artist will write in half-mouth how it should be printed in the book. New verification: are there any omissions, are there any hooks and the dots are in place, whether the hyphenation is correct. The carver takes this sheet, puts it on the board and cuts it according to what is written. But there are some mistakes in this work. The sheet is superimposed on the board so that all the letters are on the contrary. Therefore, the carver has an independent look at things which "No original is a decree, sometimes it will put such a letter, which by no law should it be. New chores. And so every day." [On the occupations of the Beijing Orthodox Mission. - "Irkutsk diocesan sheets", Irkutsk, 1864, No. 11, 185.]

The translations of the order of all the twelve holy days, the Holy and Bright Week, the liturgies of St. St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great and the Presanctified Gifts, as well as the Book of Hours.

The Guriev translation of the Gospel was revised and published again in 1884. [On the occupations of the Beijing Orthodox Mission. - "Irkutsk Diocesan Vedomosti", Irkutsk, 1864, No. 11, 185.] Without dwelling on the analysis of textual differences, we only note that the gospel text in the new edition was interspersed with brief explanations typed in small hieroglyphs. In the future, the trend towards drawing up interlinear interpretations continued. Translators noted significant difficulties regarding the transfer of theological concepts, especially dogmatic truths about the Holy Trinity, the sacrament of incarnation, etc.

When studying various translations of the Holy Scriptures into Chinese, scholars try to trace the influence of some texts on others. [See, for example, Strandenaes T. Principles of Chinese Bible Translation (as Expressed in Five Selected Versions of the New Testament and Exemplified by Mt 5: 1-12 and Col 1). Coniectanea Biblica, New Testamenl Series 19, Stockholm, 1987.] We do not currently have information about what materials Archimandrite Guri used. Regarding Archimandrite Flavian, there is evidence of Fr. Nicholas Adoratsky, that in his work a Protestant translation of the Holy Scriptures made by S. Shereshevsky was used. [Cm. I.N.A. The current situation and modern activities ..., p. 382. S. Shereshevsky, a Polish Jew, a native of the Russian Empire, received a religious Jewish education. Having emigrated to the USA, he becomes a Christian, graduates from the seminary and arrives in Shanghai in 1859 as a preacher of the American Episcopal Church, and later became a bishop. Using knowledge of the Hebrew language, in 1875 he completed the translation of the Old Testament into the Beijing dialect. In 1881, he was paralyzed for ten years. Having the ability to print with only two fingers still operational, by 1902 he had prepared his translation of the Bible into a simplified literary language. This text was most widespread in China until 1919, when the translation of hehe appeared. See Zhao Weiben. Cit. 23-24; Luo Xuzhong. "Shenjing" zai zhungoda Iben (Bible translations in China). - "Jinlong Shenshue-ji," Nanjing. 1988, No. 4, p. 38.]

The last, at the moment, Orthodox translation of the New Testament was made at the beginning of the 20th century, during the 18th mission, its leader, Bishop Innocent (Figurovsky), Bishop Pereyaslavsky, and later Metropolitan of Beijing and China. [Today we have only a translation of the Gospel of Matthew - Matefei shenfuin jing (Matthew the Holy Gospel). Beijing, 1911.] Under him, the publishing activities of the Beijing Spiritual Mission acquired a particularly wide scope. Old translations were re-typed and reissued, for example, in 1911 the Apostle came out in the translation of Archimandrite Guri. The Trebnik was re-translated. ["The Chinese Evangelist," 1907, No. 7-8, p. 9; 1908, No. 9-10, p. 2.] By 1910 the translation of the Four Gospels was completed.

The translation of the Reverend Innocent actually represents the Gospel with an interlinear detailed commentary. A significant step was taken towards the modernization of the language. The text is much closer to modern colloquial language, which is expressed, in particular, in the use of new vocabulary. A distinctive feature of the Baihua language dictionary is the abundance of two-syllable words representing pairs of hieroglyphs. At the same time, service particles and grammatical revolutions of the classic Wenyang language still occur. Unfortunately, the tragic events in Russia interrupted the missionary work of the Beijing Ecclesiastical Mission, which devoted all its strength to feeding the compatriots who found temporary shelter in China, fleeing the Bolshevik persecution.

We don’t know much about how all three New Testament Orthodox translators worked. Today there is still no way to answer whether they used the Greek text (and if so, which edition), or worked exclusively with Church Slavonic and Russian. We do not know how widely the experience of Catholic and Protestant translators was taken into account.

It must be admitted that researchers of other Chinese translations of the Holy Scripture are experiencing these difficulties. To identify the interdependence between the texts, the Swedish pastor T. Strandenas suggested using a comparative analysis of the most representative passages. In his study (see note 17), he thus compared the five translations of Matthew 5, 1-12: two Catholic translations — an old one made by J. Basset and a modern one prepared by the Order of the Franciscans; and three Protestant ones - R. Morrison, the Translation of Representatives, and a modern translation known as the Bible of the Present.

The scope of this communication does not allow us to continue this analysis in detail by adding three Orthodox translations (Father Guria - A; Father Flavian - B; Bishop Innocent - B). However, some points of similarity or difference can be pointed out to illustrate how complex the work of the missionaries was.

Firstly, the translation of proper names, as a rule, reflects the phonetic influence of the language from which the translation was made. In this regard, for example, the Chinese transliteration of names in Catholic publications is traditionally related to the Vulgate. In most Protestant publications, the influence of the English Bible, known as the King James Version, is noticeable. In Orthodox translations, the Church Slavonic sound is obvious. In Matthew 5, 1 A and B begin with the word Jesus Christ - Jesus Christ, which at the same time indicates a connection with other external translations, where this verse begins with the word Yesu. Only in B is the word Lord [Zhu] used to replace “He” with the Russian text and “Him” with Church Slavonic.

In all texts (A, B and C), the Lord refers to disciples who are equally translated as menthus, which coincides with non-Orthodox translations. The transmission in Chinese of the beginning of the Beatitudes in A and B is somewhat different. Although both A and In general do not depart from the custom to use the traditional Chinese dictionary, namely to translate "bliss" as fu, that is, happiness and prosperity (the same is found in R. Morrison, and in the Representatives, and in the Catholic texts). However, B shows a clear intention to reflect in Chinese the point of view that the Beatitudes are a series of solemn addresses: "Blessed are you ...". Therefore, in Matthew 5, 4-11, each verse begins with fuzai, that is, with two characters that mean happiness and exclamation, respectively. As for B, here "blessed" are those who are "called joyful" (chenle). Accordingly, the structure of the sentence in each commandment is changed, ending with an indication of bliss, for example, the poor in spirit. The latter, by the way, are referred to as "having a lack of divinity" (shenpinzhe), which is far from the gospel meaning. B conveys this concept as "modest in heart" (Xinqianzhe), and C as "modest" or "not proud" (syuksinzhen). The understanding of crying as shedding tears is characteristic for A and B, while B is closer in understanding to the translation of Representatives, that is, it speaks of crying in a state of mental distress.

Significantly more options and difficulties with translating the word "meek". And he speaks of "good and kind" (Liangshan), B - of "warm and kind" (Wenliang), and, finally, C - of "warm and kind" (Wenzhou), again in accordance with the translation of the Representatives.

As we can see, in various translations the texts provide the basis for a different understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

As regards fundamental theological terminology, in Orthodox translations God is translated in A and B as "Lord of Heaven" (Tianzhu). We find the same thing in the modern Catholic translation, while R. Morrison uses the word shen, which means in Chinese any god or spirit of the pagan pantheon. As for B, here the word from the traditional Chinese dictionary is used - shandi, that is, "heavenly emperor". The kingdom of heaven is universally translated in all texts as tiango, that is, the word is used, which also has deep roots in traditional Chinese ideology and national mythological consciousness.

So, from the most superficial review, we see that the translations of the New Testament made by domestic missionaries, although they were not completely divorced from the heterodox texts, are notable for their considerable independence.

More recently, the Russian Orthodox Church resumed her care of the fate of Orthodoxy in China. The Chinese Church is now in very poor condition. A lot of work remains to be done on the study of Orthodox translations of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books, their updating, editing and reprinting. It is necessary to do so. so that the works of Russian missionaries who devoted their lives to serving the Lord on Chinese soil cease to be just one subject of antiquarian interest and serve to revive the Orthodox sermon in the Far East.