Table Of ContentCatholiCs and anti- CatholiCism
in Chosŏ n Korea
hawai‘i studies on Korea
Catholics and
Anti- Catholicism
in Chosŏn Korea
don BaKer
with FranKl in rausCh
University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu
and
Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i
© 2017 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
22 21 20 19 18 17 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Baker, Don, author. | Rausch, Franklin, contributor.
Title: Catholics and anti- Catholicism in Chosŏn Korea / Don Baker with
Franklin Rausch.
Other titles: Hawai‘i studies on K orea.
Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press : Center for Korean Studies,
University of Hawai‘i, [2017] | Series: Hawai‘i studies on Korea | Includes a
complete translation of an anti- Catholic essay and an annotated translation of
the Silk letter of Hwang Sayŏng. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054294 | ISBN 9780824866266 (cloth ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Anti- Catholicism— Korea— History—19th century. | Catholic
Church— Korea— History—19th century. | Hwang, Sayŏng, 1775–1801.
Classification: LCC BX1775.K6 B35 2017 | DDC 282/.51909034— dc23 LC rec ord
available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2016054294
The Center for Korean Studies was established in 1972 to coordinate and develop
resources for the study of K orea at the University of Hawai‘i. Reflecting the diversity
of the academic disciplines represented by affiliated members of the university
faculty, the Center seeks especially to promote interdisciplinary and intercultural
studies. Hawai‘i Studies on K orea, published jointly by the Center and the University
of Hawai‘i Press, offers a forum for research in the social sciences and humanities
pertaining to Korea and its people.
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid- free paper and meet the
guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.
Contents
Acknowl edgments vii
Preface ix
Notes on the Translated Texts and Romanization xiii
Part I the road to PersecutIon 1
Chapter 1 Korea at the End of the Eigh teenth Century 3
Chapter 2 Confucian Criticisms of Catholicism 30
Chapter 3 The Birth of the Korean Catholic Church 59
Chapter 4 A De cade of Hopes and Fears 83
Chapter 5 Nationalism and Evaluations of Hwang Sayŏng
and His Silk Letter 101
Part II In theIr own words 121
Chapter 6 A Conversation on Catholicism by Sunam Ahn
Chŏngbok 123
Chapter 7 The Silk Letter of Hwang Sayŏng 151
Appendix 205
Notes 233
Bibliography 281
Index 301
v
aCKnowl edgments
This translation of A Conversation on Catholicism by Ahn Chŏngbok
and The Silk Letter of Hwang Sayŏng (hereafter referred to as the Silk
Letter) has its roots in the doctoral dissertation Don Baker wrote at the
beginning of his career in the early 1980s. That dissertation examined
the Korean Confucian reaction to Catholicism up to 1791. However, he
was not able to continue that story up to the major anti- Catholic perse-
cution of 1801 u ntil the Acad emy of Korean Studies approached him in
2006 and asked him to prepare an annotated En glish translation of the
Silk Letter, a first- person account of the 1801 persecution by one of its
last victims.
The ensuing proj ect to translate and annotate the Silk Letter was
supported by the Acad emy of Korean Studies (AKS) Promotion Ser vice
Grant funded by the Ministry of Education of the government of the
Republic of K orea, grant number AKS-2007- AC-3002. That funding
made it pos si ble to also translate and annotate another impor tant docu-
ment, A Conversation on Catholicism, which provided much of the ide-
ological justification for the anti- Catholic movement. Thanks to the
support from the AKS, Baker was also able to write an introduction to
those two documents that places them in their historical context.
The funding from the AKS allowed Baker to enlist the support of
his gradu ate students at the University of British Columbia in this proj-
ect. Franklin Rausch was his primary assistant. Together they worked
on the translation of the Silk Letter, and Dr. Rausch (he received his
Ph.D. for a doctorate on Hwang Sayŏng and Ahn Chunggŭn in 2011)
also translated impor tant material from the court rec ords of the Chosŏn
dynasty and uncovered impor tant biographical information about many
of the names that appear in the Silk Letter. The AKS also funded the
vii
viii Acknowl edgments
research of another gradu ate student, Jee- yeon Song, who contributed
to this proj ect by uncovering information about the leading Korean
anti- Catholic officials at the time the Silk Letter was written.
This work could not have been completed with the help of the staff of
the Asian Library of the University of British Columbia. Research for
this book was also conducted at the Library of Congress and was facili-
tated by the staff of the Asian Reading Room. In addition, funding from
the AKS allowed both Don Baker and Franklin Rausch (who received
additional funding from the Korea Foundation and Fulbright Korea) to
visit libraries and consult with scholars in Korea in order to locate
impor tant material and learn about the latest Korean scholarship on
the Silk Letter and the anti- Catholic persecution in Korea in the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Center for Research in Ko-
rean Church History, associated with the Seoul archdiocese, was par-
ticularly helpful, as w ere the scholars Cho Kwang and Yŏ Chinch’ŏn.
Thanks are also due to the anonymous readers for the University of
Hawai‘i Center for Korean Studies who made many useful suggestions
for improving this manuscript. Don Baker, the se nior author and transla-
tor, accepts full responsibility for any errors and infelicitous phrases
that remain.
preFaCe
On the fifth day of the eleventh month of the first full year of the reign of
King Sunjo (r. 1800–1834), according to the lunar calendar, a young Ko-
rean man named Hwang Sayŏng (1775–1801), who had once appeared
to have ahead of him a sterling c areer as a civil servant, was decapitated
by his government’s official executioner for his activities on behalf of
Korea’s young and persecuted Roman Catholic community. Today, over
two centuries later, the Korean attitude toward the Catholic Church is
very diff er ent. In August 2014, Pope Francis traveled from the Vatican
to South K orea to honor many of t hose whom Hwang had worked with
and whose martyrdom in the anti- Catholic persecution of 1800–1801
Hwang had chronicled. Pope Francis was welcomed by hundreds of thou-
sands of cheering Koreans, many of them the descendants of those who
had persecuted t hose the Pope came to Korea to honor.1
Catholicism is clearly no longer a prohibited religion in Korea (at
least in the southern half of the peninsula). In fact, public opinion polls
in the first de cade of the twenty- first c entury have found that the Catho-
lic Church is the most respected religious community in South Korea,
and also the fastest growing.2 Yet t here were no practicing Catholics in
Korea until the late eigh teenth century. Even half a century ago, there
were fewer than one million Catholics on the entire Korean peninsula.
However, according to an official South Korean government census in
1995 and another in 2005, membership in the Korean Catholic Church
grew from slightly less than three million in 1995 to more than five
million in 2005, an increase of almost 75 percent over just one de cade.
Though growth has somewhat slowed since then, the Korean Catholic
Church remains a dynamic ele ment of Korea’s diverse religious culture,
claiming over 10 percent of the fifty million p eople who live in South
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