##奥古斯丁《忏悔录》译本对比（第一卷 • 第一段落）
奥古斯丁的《忏悔录》，原文系拉丁文。周士良的译本，亦是根据Pierre de Labriolle校订的拉丁文版本迻译成书。余不谙此语言，乃退求其次，以英译本代之。英文与中文之对比，属译本与译本的参照，仅此而已。
《忏悔录》英译本，遴选出三本佼佼者：最广泛使用的Pine-Coffin译本（PC），讲究字句的Ryan译本（R），以及注重文风的Sarah Ruden近代译本（SR）。中译本则以周士良译本为主，向云常译本为辅，后者不列出全文。
此次对照，乃《忏悔录》第一卷之第一段落，实为沧海一粟。然能力有限，学业未了，万不敢贪多。由于非翻译专业，此文仅作观点归纳，饭后茶余，不具学术意义。如有谬解误写之处，还望批评指正。
【主，你是伟大的，你应受一切赞美；你有无上的能力、无限的智慧。】
PC: CAN any praise be worthy of the Lord’s majesty?How magnificent his strength! How inscrutable his wisdom?
R: You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and to your wisdom there is no limit.
SR: You are mighty, Master, and to be praised with a powerful voice: great is your goodness, and of your wisdom there can be no reckoning.
异于中译本，本段的英文译本皆非以“主”起头。向云常译本加上“耶和华”，据英译本判断，应非出自原著。拉丁文的“主”（Lord）系dominus，SR译本以Master表达之，以示dominus拉丁文语境更具家主之意。该译者亦根据奥古斯丁写作，推断其心中对人和神的关系，系家庭式概念，而非政治统治者形式。
从英译本看不出“一切赞美”的含义，而是“要大大有力地赞美”。R译本用了三个great，十分优美。PC译本大胆用了设问句加强主的无可比拟，应非原著原味，却更具英语本色。
【一个人，受造物中渺小的一分子，愿意赞颂你；这人遍体带着死亡，遍体带着罪恶的证据，遍体证明“你拒绝骄傲的人”。 但这人，受造物中渺小的一分子，愿意赞颂你。你鼓动他乐于赞颂你，因为你造我们是为了你，我们的心如不安息在你怀中，便不会安宁。】
PC: Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you thwart the proud. But still, since he is a part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.
R: And man, who is a part of your creation, wishes to praise you, man who bears about within himself his mortality, who bears about within himself testimony to his sin and testimony that you resist the proud. Yet man, this part of your creation, wishes to praise you. You arouse him to take joy in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
SR: Yet to praise you is the desire of a human being, who is some part of what you created; a human hauling his deathliness in a circle, hauling in a circle the evidence of his sin, and the evidence that you stand against the arrogant. But still a mortal, a given portion of your creation, longs to extol you. In yourself you rouse us, giving us delight in glorifying you, because you made us with yourself as our goal, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
中译本着重人的渺小，这点在英译本并不显著。英译本把人看作众多受造中之一员，进而强调人有着赞美其主人的本能和渴望——是发自内在的本能，是神内置在人心中，非死亡和罪恶能泯灭的本能，远非“愿意”那么简单。向云常译本的“生就是为了赞美你”，较贴近英译本的翻译。
SR译本中hauling/hauling、in a circle/in a circle、evidence/evidence这样的叠法，增加阅读之愉悦。同时比起“遍体……”更显画面感，是否原著亦是要表达被圈在里面拖着走的意思？
【主啊，请使我得知并理解是否应先向你呼吁而后赞颂你，或是先认识你然后向你呼吁。但谁能不认识你而向你呼吁？因为不认识你而呼吁，可能并不是向你呼吁。或许向你呼吁是为了认识你？但“既然不信，怎会呼吁？无人传授，怎会相信”? “谁追寻主，就将赞颂主”，因为追寻主，就会获得主；获得主，也就会赞颂主。】
PC: Grant me, Lord, to know and understand whether a man is first to pray to you for help or to praise you, and whether he must know you before he can call you to his aid. If he does not know you, how can he pray to you? For he may call for some other help, mistaking it for yours. Or are men to pray to you and learn to know you through their prayers? Only, how are they to call upon the Lord until they have learned to believe in him? And how are they to believe in him without a preacher to listen to? Those who look for the Lord will cry out in praise of him, because all who look for him shall find him, and when they find him they will praise him.
R: Lord, grant me to know and understand which is first, to call upon you or to praise you, and also which is first, to know you or to call upon you? But how does one who does not know you call upon you? For one who does not know you might call upon another instead of you. Or must you rather be called upon so that you may be known? Yet “how shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher?” “And they shall praise the Lord that seek him,” for they that seek him find him, and finding him they shall praise him.
SR: Grant me, Master, to know and understand whether a person ought first to call on you or to praise you; and which of the following is first, to know you or to call on you? But who invokes you without knowing you? In his ignorance, he might call on the wrong thing. Or instead, are you invoked in order to be known? But how will people invoke a being in whom they don’t believe already? And how will they believe without a preacher? But those who search for God will praise him, since by seeking him they will find him, and by finding him they will praise him.
本段首句务必先请出向云常译本：“主啊，请让我知道，让我了解，人该先祈求你的帮助，还是先赞美你？” 如此断句，简洁明了。
各个译本在此段落的翻译基本相似，唯中译本和R译本有两句话使用了引号。不知原著的这两句话是否照抄经文，但已知中文和英文并非逐字引用圣经，那就有些画蛇添足了？然引号部分在PC译本系斜体字，使用斜体字的尚有开篇的设问句，以及thwart the proud，可是为了强调抑或别有他意？
【主，请使我向你呼吁，同时追求你；使我相信你，同时向你呼吁，因为你已经传授给我们。主，我的信仰要向你呼吁；你所给我的信仰，你通过你的“圣子”的人性，通过布道者的工作而灌输给我的信仰向你呼吁。】
PC: I shall look for you, Lord, by praying to you and as I pray I shall believe in you, because we have had preachers to tell us about you. It is my faith that calls to you, Lord, the faith which you gave me and made to live in me through the merits of your Son, who became man, and through the ministry of your preacher.
R: Lord, let me seek you by calling upon you, and let me call upon you by believing in you, for you have been preached to us. Lord, my faith calls upon you, that faith which you have given to me, which you have breathed into me by the incarnation of your Son and through the ministry of your preacher.
SR: Let me search for you, Master, even while calling on you, and while believing in you, let me call on you. The faith you gave me—which you breathed into me through your son’s human life and through the service your preacher performed—calls on you, Master.
[注：关于本段开头，除却R译本无分段，其余英译本（以及向云常译本）其实皆把上段末句作为本段首句：“‘谁追寻主，就将赞颂主’，因为追寻主，就会获得主；获得主，也就会赞颂主。” 但为配合周士良译本，便都归到了上段。]
首句之“传授”，翻译出现差异，可分三组：或主亲自传授，或传教士所传授，或省略不提传授之事。思及R译本着重精准的字句翻译，且有部分参考周士良译本依据的Labriolle合校本，两者皆得出由主传授之意，将优先采纳此版本。PC译本加上“传教士“，或是译者聪明之举，为与下句的“传教士”相呼应？向云常译本亦是“因为已有传教士带来你的信息”。
有件趣事，便是R译本和SR译本用了“breathed into”（吹入）表达上帝借着祂儿子赐予人信心/信仰的过程。如若系出自原著，本段岂不是提起父、子、圣灵了吗？
中译本在此段有两处翻译值得商榷：一处是faith，为何译为“信仰”，而非“信心”？第二处则是向云常译本将圣子人性译为“‘圣子’的行谊”，与原意大相径庭。“圣子”在中译本带有引号。
以上乃《忏悔录》第一卷第一段落之译本对比。译本对比之乐趣，在于同一文本，能尝出迥然不同的滋味，就如把一份菜肴里头所用的食材一一细品，再构想出接近正宗的口感。若有幸能看懂原著，还可直接加以验证，免去构想的偏差。诸君恭读圣书时，亦不妨博览译本，若能学习原文更佳。
走笔文末，必须说说Sarah Ruden对《忏悔录》书名本身的翻译见解。不论英文书名Confessions，或中文《忏悔录》，乍看都与拉丁文书名Confessiones意思相近。然而这个词在拉丁文，是与新约教会在逼迫中的“见证”相关，亦即：公开承认信仰。就词义而言，并就著作文本而言，《忏悔录》更确切的翻译应为The Testimonies。这就是奥古斯丁在其自传中所要做的。
明白书名真义，顿时豁然开朗。愿读此书的人，不只是双腿发软跪着痛哭忏悔，更是双脚坚固起来宣告天国近了。
