Chinese practice
承天之祜；倖免於難
receiving Heaven’s blessing; be spared adversity
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片：維基共享資源
(cheng2 tian1 zhi1 hu4; xing4 mian3 yu2 nan4)
《河濱雜誌》從一八九一年一月到一九五○年三月，每個月在英國出版，印行了許多名作家的短篇小說，也連載了亞瑟‧柯南‧道爾爵士所寫的夏洛克‧福爾摩斯的故事。一八九一年，也就是《河濱雜誌》發行的第一年，新發表了一篇福爾摩斯故事──「波士勘谷奇案」，在這篇小說裡，福爾摩斯把劇中另一人的話稍加改變，說道：「There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes」（要不是因為上帝的恩典，我福爾摩斯的下場恐怕一樣糟）。
這句話是在呼應一種既定的說法，一般認為是英國改革家和殉道者約翰‧布拉福德所說，他因得罪了英格蘭女王瑪麗一世，而在一五五五年被燒死。
一七七一年，英格蘭一位教士在佈道中說，布拉福德看到一個涉嫌搶劫和謀殺的人被送去審判，就「謙卑地崇拜上帝的獨特恩典，說道：『我布拉福德沒有陷入同樣的境地，完全是因為上帝的恩典』」。
布拉福德是否真的在這次講道的兩個多世紀前說過這些話，無人可確知。然而，一八〇八年公開的一封信也提到此事，其用詞更接近福爾摩斯的話：「因為他們找不到任何經文來佐證其論點，所以多半就會引用那個約翰‧布拉福德，他在看到有人被押往絞刑架時說過，『啊！是誰讓我有不同的待遇？若非因為上帝的恩典，我布拉福德也會落得如此境地。』」
布拉福德是篤信宗教的人，或許他曾受《聖經》〈哥林多前書〉第十五章第九至十節的啟發──使徒保羅說：「我原是使徒中最小的，不配稱為使徒，因為我從前逼迫神的教會。然而，我今日成了何等人，是蒙神的恩才成的......」。
這句子穿越時空，演變成現今的說法：「There, but for the grace of God, go I」（因為上帝的恩典，我得以倖免於難。）這句話保留了布拉福德較古老的措辭，並由柯南道爾筆下的福爾摩斯所引述，是指當看到不幸的人──比如無家可歸或得重病的人，便自省「只要上帝決定如此，我很容易就會陷入跟那些不幸之人一樣的處境，但祂卻讓我倖免於那種命運。」
「There, but for the grace of God, go I」這句話也可以用來表示，我們不該因別人的缺點而評斷他人，因為我們都有缺點，只是短處因人而異。
這句英文說法很難找到一個完全對應的中文成語，但其義可以用兩句中文短語表示：「承天之祜，我倖免於難」（受到老天的保佑，我僥倖免受災難）。
第一句「承天之祜」可追溯到古中國經典《詩經》，成書於西元前十一至前七世紀，並以稍微不同的形式「受天之祜」，出現在幾首詩中，包括《詩經‧小雅‧信南山》：
中田有廬，疆場有瓜。
是剝是菹，獻之皇祖。
曾孫壽考，受天之祜。
在此上下文中，「承」和「受」字意為「接受」。現今「祜」字（發音為「戶」）較不常使用，代之以「祐」字（發音為「又」），來表示上天的保佑。
「倖免於難」一語，則是出自明末凌濛初（西元一五八○～一六四四年）所著之短篇小說集《初刻拍案驚奇》第十四章。
看到那人的車撞得稀爛，只覺得自己好狗運，在那個路口我也常闖紅燈，想來不禁捏了把冷汗。
(Seeing that guy’s car all smashed up like that, I thought to myself “there, but for the grace of God, go I”: I often run the lights at that junction; thinking about it got me in a cold sweat.)
（台北時報林俐凱譯）
英文練習
there, but for the grace of God, go I
The Strand Magazine, published monthly in the UK from January 1891 to March 1950, printed short fiction by many eminent writers. It serialized the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1891, its first year, the magazine published a new Holmes story, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” in which Holmes paraphrases the words of another character, saying, “There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.”
This was an echo of a known phrase commonly attributed to one John Bradford, an English reformer and martyr who was burned at the stake in 1555 for alleged crimes against Queen Mary I of England.
Apparently, in 1771 a preacher in England mentioned in a sermon that Bradford had seen a man accused of robbery and murder being sent to trial. According to the preacher, “[Bradford] humbly adored the distinguishing grace of God, ‘to which,’ says he, ‘it is entirely owing, that John Bradford is not in that man’s condition.’”
Whether Bradford actually uttered those words, said over two centuries before this sermon, is anyone’s guess. Nevertheless, that same incident was referred to in a letter published in 1808, where the language is closer to the Sherlock Holmes quote: “And because they can find no scripture to countenance them in their pride, they generally quote some old John Bradford, who was used to say when he saw any one going to the gallows, ‘Ah! Who has made me to differ? But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford.’”
Bradford was a religious man. Perhaps he had been inspired by 1 Corinthians 15:9–10 of the Bible, in which the apostle Paul says, “For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…”.
The modern phrase that comes to us from this historical journey is “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” The saying retains the somewhat archaic phrasing of the quote attributed to Bradford and referenced by Doyle’s Holmes. It is used when seeing a person in unfortunate circumstances — say a homeless person or someone with a debilitating disease — and means “I could easily have been in that person’s position, had God decided so, and yet he spared me that fate.”
It can also be used to say that we should not judge others for their flaws, as we are all flawed in one way or the other.
It is difficult to find a perfectly corresponding Chinese idiom, although the meaning of the English saying can come across with the combination of two Chinese phrases of varying antiquity: 承天之祜，我倖免於難 (through receiving Heaven’s blessing, I was spared adversity).
The phrase about receiving Heaven’s blessing, in a slightly different form, comes from the ancient Chinese classic the shi jing (Book of Poetry), which dates to the 11th to 7th centuries BC. The phrase 受天之祜 appears in several songs, one of which was xin nan shan, one of the xiaoya (minor odes).
In the midst of the fields are the huts,
And along the bounding divisions are gourds.
The fruit is sliced and pickled,
To be presented to our great ancestors,
That their distant descendant may have long life,
And receive the blessing of Heaven (受天之祜).
In this context, both 承 and 受 mean “to receive.” The character 祜 (hu4) is not commonly used today, with 祐 (you4) now used for Heaven’s blessing instead.
The phrase 倖免於難 derives from a story in chapter 14 of the late Ming Dynasty collection of short stories Slapping the Table in Amazement I by Ling Mengchu (1580–1644).
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
I realize how fortunate I am, and how things could easily have been different. Whenever I see a homeless person, I say to myself, “there, but for the grace of God...”
(我了解到自己是多麼地幸運，這一切原可能非常不同。每當我看到無家可歸的人，我就會對自己說：「如果不是因為上帝的恩典，我的處境也會一樣悲慘」。)
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