Syncretism: The Religious Context of Christian Beginnings in Korea

Abstract

*editor's introduction:...I believe this study is comparable with similar monumental research done by Dr. L. George Paik..._The History of Protestant Missions in Korea 1832-1910_ (1929)(3) Koreans had organized a church in their capital city by the 1770s before any missions had even begun to direct their organized efforts toward this “hermit nation.” …they were united in an organism, a cell…It was this underground cell that met regularly at Kim Pŏmu’s Myŏngryedong panggol Street, Seoul in the 1770s. and it was a representative of this group, Yi Sŭnghun, who was sent over the forbidden border to Beijing, China, and was baptized by the bishop who resided there and thereby linked the isolated member to the main body.(5) …as early as in 1644 a Jesuit missionary, Johannes Adam Schall von Bell of Germany, approached for the purpose of evagenlism the Korean prince Sohyŏn who had been detained in China at that time. (merge fns.Peter Hwang, Chen-chiao-feng-pao, Changhai, 1904; Yu Nŭnghwa, Chosŏ kidokkyo kŭp oegyosa (History of Korean church and diplomany), Seoul, 1928, p.51.)…Unfortunately the prince died soon after his return without achieving anything… Led by their own curiosity, Korean visitors to the capital city of China were often drawn to the strange men from the West. They were fascinated not only by the Western scientific instruments found among the strangers’ possessions, but by the personalities of the men themselves. Ambassador Chŏng Tuwŏn (鄭斗源, 1581-?) in 1631, reports of his meeting with Hoannes Rodaniguez. …(fn. Ch. Dallet, Histoire de L’Eglise de Coree Vol.1, Paris, p.11f) (윤: 정두원은 천주교와 직접 관련된 것은 아니지만 중국에서 유럽 신부들을 만나 조선으로 새로운 책과 물건을 들여옴.)(34) True to this tradition, most of the Jesuit missionaries, especially those who came to China in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, carried with them special education in science.(36-37) 하멜 Hendrick Hammel과 박연 John weltevree of Amsterdam(62-63) The issue at stake was mainly the question of “the Lord of Heaven.”(66) Nevertheless, it would be a grave mistake to assume Ricci’s oritinal intention was to identify Christianity with Confucianism.(67) 상제. 천주실의. The newness and the familiarity of the literature seem to have caused all the excitement. In commenting upon the 천주실의, Yi Ik, the Korean Confucian scholar says: “In their doctrine, the 천주, lord of Heaven is their supreme deity. The Lord of Heaven ‘is’ no other than the shang-ti of Confucianism though the way of reverence and worship is rather similar to that of the religion of Buddha. They use our familiar concepts of the Paradise and Hell for the purpose of exhortation and premonition. The universal master and savior is Jesus. Jesus is the Western name for the Saviour of the World. (fn.Yi Ik, Collection of Works of Sŏngho, Vol.55, Comment on t’ien-chu chih-i.) [np] In commenting on Ch’i-ko-ch’i-shu Yi Ik says also: “The Ch’i-ko 칠극 is the book written by an author called Pantoja from the West. The contents of the book ‘are’ the teachings of our Confucian wisemen on Self-denial. In short, the book is a Confucian one. (fn. Yi Ik, Collection of Works of Sŏngho, Vol.55, Comment on t’ien-chu chih-i).(108-109) Morphological analogies exist between Confucianism and Christianity. It was “sensed” early by Ricci and brought to the attention of the world by his colleagues in the bitter Controversy of Rites which ensued after his death. In an excessive form the Riccian understanding of Confucianism found an expression in Le Comte, himself a Jesuit missionary to China, who was by the Longobardians “accused of having preached indifference in religion, driven by illusion of a church in China begore Jesus Christ, and of having substituted the Chinese people as the chosen nation in place of Israel, and so forth.