道真理命 michi shinri inochi John 14-6 The Way, The Truth, The Life
This is a philological study of the Japanese phrase 道真理命 (michi shinri inochi), John 14:6 reduced to its three nouns. It spans the record from the Greek of the Gospel and the katakana John of 1837 to the colloquial Japanese Bible of 1955, and examines why no Japanese Bible wrote these three characters before 1955, and why the verse was heard for seventy-five years before that as three native words, michi, makoto, inochi.
Abstract
道真理命, michi shinri inochi, is John 14:6 reduced to its three nouns, in the characters of Japan's 1955 colloquial Bible. No Japanese Bible wrote these three characters before 1955: the Meiji Bible of 1880 had 途・眞・生命 and the 1917 revision 道・眞理・生命, both read with the native ruby michi, makoto, inochi. The colloquial Bible gave the phrase its characters and, with them, the unglossed reading shinri. Both readings are true of the characters; the older one is a verse two hymnals once sang in Japanese words.
Overview
The sense. One: the three things Jesus says he is; the phrase keeps the nouns and drops the sentence around them, as the Latin motto via veritas vita has done for centuries.
The words. 道 is michi, the way, and the 日本国語大辞典 lists it under one headword with three other spellings, 道・路・途・径; among its senses are the course a person should take, the standard for one's conduct and the teaching of gods, buddhas and sages. The Bible of 1880 wrote it 途; the revision of 1917 wrote it 道, and 道 is what a reader now expects for a way of life [1].
真理 is shinri, truth, and it is older in Japan than Christianity by eleven centuries: the 懐風藻 of 751 uses it in the Buddhist sense, the true and unchanging principle, and the ordinary sense, the real state of things, the true reason, is cited from 1810. In the Japanese Bible the word was heard differently. The 1837 John wrote ホントノコト, the true thing. The 1880 Bible wrote a single character, 眞, and read it makoto. The 1917 revision wrote 眞理 and kept the reading makoto in its ruby, and so did the hymnals: the 1910 讃美歌 sings 眞理と生命と道なるきみを with the ruby まこと, いのち, みち on the characters, and the 1922 古今聖歌集 sings the same stanza in kana, まことと いのちと みちなる エスを. The Catholic Bible of 1910 read it shinri, and the colloquial Bible of 1955 prints 真理 with no ruby at all, so shinri is what a reader says of it today [2].
命 is inochi, life, the oldest of the three in Japanese, 伊能知 in the 古事記 of 712. The Bibles before the war wrote it 生命 and read it inochi; the colloquial Bible of 1955 wrote 命; the 新改訳 writes いのち in kana. The dictionary has one more sense: from the 色道大鏡 of 1678, lovers tattooed the single character 命, or a name with 命, on the upper arm, pledging themselves for two lives and three. The character has a Japanese tattoo history of its own, as a pledge [3].
The text in English. The verse is in every English Bible, and the three-noun formula has served as a motto since the Middle Ages.
The historical record
1st century to 1611. The Greek, the Vulgate, and the English Bibles. The verse is John 14:6. Thomas has asked how they can know the way, and Jesus answers: Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή, I am the way and the truth and the life. The Vulgate's ego sum via et veritas et vita gave Europe the three nouns as a formula, and English has had them in the same order since Wycliffe (Y am weie, treuthe, and lijf, about 1395), Tyndale (I am ye waye ye truthe and ye life, 1526) and the King James Bible (I am the way, the truth, and the life, 1611) [4].
1852 to 1896. Chinese gave Japan its characters. The Delegates' Version of 1852 wrote 我卽途也、眞理也、生命也, and when the Japanese committee finished its New Testament in 1880 it kept two of the three, 途 and 生命, and shortened the middle one to 眞. That Bible reads 我は途なり眞なり生命なり, and its ruby says michi, makoto, inochi: three native words, which is how the verse sounded in Japanese for seventy-five years. The 1904 annotated printing shows the ruby on the page; a 1896 household anthology quotes the verse whole; the Protestant hymnal of 1910 sets it as the epigraph to Thou art the Way, to Thee alone [5].
1893 to 1927. The 1917 revision, and the writers who ran ahead of it. The 1917 revision changed two characters and no readings: われは道なり、眞理なり、生命なり, with the ruby michi, makoto, inochi still on the page in a 1927 printing. The Catholic Bible of Émile Raguet had already, in 1910, written 道 and 眞理 and read them shinri and seimei (on the transcription). Writers had run ahead of the revisers too: a commentary of 1893 and a study of 1911 already quoted 途なり眞理なり, and the 1910 hymnal's own verses wrote 眞理 with the ruby makoto while its epigraph kept the Bible's 眞. In a local mirror of the National Diet Library's digitized prewar books, 9,870 of them, the Meiji wording appears in 14 books from 1896 to 1932 and the revised wording in 36 from 1907 to 1964 [6].
1955 to 1987. The colloquial Bible, and after. The colloquial Bible of 1955 wrote わたしは道であり、真理であり、命である. Those are the phrase's three words, character for character: 道, 真理, 命. The 新改訳 (1970, in its 2017 text) writes the third in kana, わたしが道であり、真理であり、いのちなのです. The 新共同訳 of 1987 is reported to read 命, as the 1955 Bible does [7].
The sense across time. One sense, and the commentators reach for the same thing: the 1904 annotator says the truth is God himself and the life is the wellspring of life, not three virtues; 倉長巍 in 1916 lists the verse among the Gospel's I am sayings and notes in passing that the Logos of John 1 is also translated 道; 金子白夢 in 1922 reads it as Christ himself being what religion is. What changed was the sound. For the first hundred years the three nouns were native words, michi, makoto, inochi, sung in two hymnals; the postwar Bibles, printing without ruby, let 真理 be read as the Chinese-derived shinri [8].
What is not a source. The four characters together. 道真理命 as a run-together string is in none of the 9,870 books of the archive, is not a dictionary headword, and returns no page on the Japanese web; the near-misses are a different formula, the 一貫道 sect's 道真理真天命真. Japanese writes the three words with commas when it lifts them from the verse, 道、真理、命, as a Yokohama church and a Bible channel title their sermons and as the Catholic bishops wrote in 1997. The phrase's arrangement, four characters without a separator, is the house's. Nor is the Japanese 道 the Union Version's Chinese 道路: the Union Version of 1919 gave Chinese 道路 for the way, and the Catholic 思高 Bible of 1968 kept it, but the Japanese 道 of 1917 is the Japanese word already used in verses 4 and 5 for the way Thomas asks about [9].
The phrase in English
The Middle Ages to 1894. The three-noun formula has served as a motto since the Middle Ages: the University of Glasgow's arms carry Via, Veritas, Vita (formalized in the 1890s on roots the university dates to the fifteenth century), James Drummond's Hibbert Lectures of 1894 took it as a title, and a dozen schools from Chicago to Singapore use it. The Internet Archive's full text holds the English phrase 184,430 times, which measures a corpus of religious publishing and not a fashion [10].
Today. As a phrase, the English is common, printed on shirts and cut files, usually with a cross. The house's title, The Way, The Truth, The Life, is the King James order with the articles, and needs no source but the verse. The house's romaji follows the 新改訳 sentence, and its reading of the middle word, shinri, is the postwar one.
A reading
The phrase is not a paraphrase but a reduction, and an honorable one: the three nouns in the Greek order, as the Latin motto does. What the history adds is that the three characters have a date. Before 1955 no Japanese Bible wrote 道真理命's characters; the Meiji Bible had 途・眞・生命 and the 1917 revision 道・眞理・生命, and both read the middle word makoto. The colloquial Bible gave the phrase its characters and, with them, the reading shinri. Both readings are true of the characters. Shinri is what the characters say unglossed today; michi, makoto, inochi, three native words, is how a Japanese Christian's grandparents heard this verse.
References
- 「道」・「路」・「途」・「径」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/道
- 「真理」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/真理
- 「命」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/命
- Greek New Testament, eight editions (Nestle 1904, Westcott-Hort 1881, NA27/UBS4, RP 2005, Textus Receptus 1550/1894, Tischendorf), John 14:6, at biblehub.com; the Vulgate, at vulgate.org; Wycliffe (c. 1395), Tyndale (1526/34), the Geneva Bible (1560), at textusreceptusbibles.com; the King James Bible (1611), at biblehub.com.
- Delegates' Version (委辦譯本), 1852, at zh.wikisource; 明治元訳 (New Testament, 1880), in 三浦徹, 新約全書略註, 1904, scan 218 (p. 374). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825539/1/218
- 大正改訳, 1917, in a 1927 printing, scan 142 (p. 277); ラゲ訳 (Émile Raguet, Catholic), 1910, at ja.wikisource (transcription); 三谷久太郎, 基督教之根拠, 1893; 井口, 1911; 讃美歌, 1910, hymn 172, scan 120. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1053815/1/142 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825386/1/120
- 口語訳, 1955, at wordproject.org; 新改訳 (2017 text), at seishonyumon.com; 新共同訳, 1987, as reported at bible.com.
- 三浦徹, 新約全書略註, 1904 (the note beneath the verse); 倉長巍, 約翰伝五十講, 1916, scan 11; 金子白夢, 神秘の宗教, 1922. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/944159/1/11
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, local full-text archive search on 道真理命 and related forms (9,870 books); 和合本 (Union Version), 1919, and 思高聖經, 1968, at zh.wikisource / ccreadbible.org.
- University of Glasgow arms (formalized 1890s); James Drummond, Via, Veritas, Vita: Lectures on Christianity in Its Most Simple and Intelligible Form (Hibbert Lectures, 1894), at Internet Archive (cu31924008788436); Internet Archive full-text search, "the way, the truth, and the life."