本文探索法文世界首見《道德經》翻譯，由學院第一位漢學教授雷慕沙（Jean Pierre Abel-Rémusat, 1788-1832）所譯，1823年於巴黎出版。在此譯本中，雷慕沙僅擷取了《道德經》的五章，並穿插了四段從〈御製性理大全書序〉、《圖書編》、《二程遺書》和《論語》摘錄而來的文字，連同自己的詮釋使譯本成為自成一思想系統的新文本，而為法文讀者所閱讀。在他的翻譯與改寫之後，我們觀察到在雷慕沙的節譯本裡，被選取的五章內容可以用一個四面體的詮釋架構來理解。這個四面體詮釋架構分別以1、25、41～42作為三個支點，以第14章對於「夷、希、微」的討論為其高點，總結地探討了至上者聖名從「希伯來的四字母YHWH」到「老子IHV三字母」的演變，進而呼應與肯認他在此譯本標題已經明示的「老子生平及其意見，我們的紀年前六世紀之中國哲學家，其主張與畢達哥拉斯、柏拉圖及其門生的見解相同」(Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-Tseu, philosophe chinois du VIe siècle avant notre ère, qui a professé les opinions communément attribuées à Pythagore, à Platon et à leurs disciples)。
本文進一步發現，雷慕沙不僅繼承了早期索隱派耶穌會士以來對老子的詮釋，尤其是他們對「夷、希、微」與三一神學的會通，他甚至很獨特地主張：老子書中的「夷、希、微」（IHV）三字母，並非源自漢語，而是有其外部根源，並且比希臘人更精準地把握了至上者的三重屬性：「存在、智能與生命」（l'être, l'intelligence et la vie）。雷慕沙譯本影響了其繼任的儒蓮（Stanislas Julien, 1797-1873）、鐵（Guillaume Pauthier, 1801-1873），和德國哲學家黑格爾（Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831），啟發了近代三種老子思想的詮釋進路：包括漢學的、宗教學的、哲學的，影響不可不謂深遠。

This paper explores the first French translation of Laozi’s Daodejing, published by the first French Chinese professor Jean Pierre Abel-Remusat (1788-1832) in 1823, entitled: Memoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-Tseu, philosophe chinois du VIe siecle avant notre ere, qui a professe les opinions communement attribuees a Pythagore, a Platon et a leurs disciples. This translation contains only five (1, 25, 41~42, 14) out of the eighty one chapters of Daodejing and is reinterpreted systematically as a text that secretes the most sacred mystery of the Sovereign of the world. The significance of Abel-Remusat’s translation of Daodejing is that it lays the foundation of Modern European scholars' interpretations of Taoism. Inspired by Abel-Remusat, three approaches to Daodejing, sinological, religious and philosophical, are proposed by his students Stanislas Julien (1797-1873) and Guillaume Pauthier (1801-1873), as well as the German philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) respectively. The contribution of this paper is the discovery that Abel-Remusat, not only inherits the early figurist Jesuits’theological interpretation of thought of Laozi, goes a step further asserting that the Trigrammaton Yi-Hi-Wei (夷、希、微，IHV) discovered in chapter 14 of Daodejing is a correct Chinese transcription of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH. The former is in his view, very uniquely, a rather more precise symbol as it represents the three attributes of the Creator: “being, intelligence and life.”