Korea occupies a unique spot on a religious map of the world. No other country in the world has a religious community in which the numbers of Buddhists and Christians is as closely matched, and none is as equally divided between believers and non-believers. The 2005 census found that almost 23% of Koreans call themselves Buddhists, a little over 18% call themselves Protestant Christians and another 11% call themselves Roman Catholics. Another 47% say they have no particular religious affiliation, though they may patronize the more than 100,000 shamans said to be active in Korea today and probably honor their ancestors with the Confucian chesa ritual. Despite this great diversity of religious beliefs and practices, there is little religious conflict in Korea. Aside from the rare hard-line Protestant defacing Buddhist sacred art, the members of the various religious (and non-religious) communities live side-by-side in peace.

As a historian, I find the religious tolerance I see in Korea today quite remarkable, considering the violence that the Chosŏn dynasty inflicted on believers, particularly Christians and followers of Tonghak, up until a little more than a century ago. This issue of Acta Koreana is dedicated to examining one of the most deadly episodes of religious violence in Korea, the persecution of Korea’s small Catholic community that began in the late eighteenth century and lasted through most of the nineteenth century.

When that persecution began, the Korean Catholic community was newly born and struggling to survive. Emerging in the midst of the Chosŏn dynasty’s staunchly Confucian society, it soon encountered vocal criticism from theConfucian scholar elite and violent repression from the state. Our five authors ask why, nonetheless, a few brave Koreans became Catholics, why their government worked so vehemently to eradicate any traces of Catholicism in Korea, and how nevertheless Catholicism survived to push Korean society and culture in a totally new direction.

When the persecution began in 1785, Catholic ideas were not completely new to Korea. Early in the seventeenth century, Yu Mongin (1559–1623) wrote a short note on Western religion, drawing on what he had learned from Catholic missionary publications he had picked up on a trip to Beijing.1 About the same time, Yi Sugwang (1563–1628) also included in his encyclopedic collection of short essays a brief discussion of things Western, including the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).2 And a Korean official, Chŏng Tuwŏn (1581–?), reported to the court on a meeting he had with a Jesuit missionary, João Rodriques (1561–1633), in 1631.3 Moreover, there were a few Western Christians living in Korea in the 17th century. They were shipwrecked Dutch sailors, though it’s not clear how much Koreans learned about Christianity from them.4

Even after the shipwrecked Dutchmen escaped back to Holland, Koreans continued to have opportunities to learn about Catholicism. We know of several Korean envoys to Beijing in the eighteenth century who visited the Catholic churches there. In some cases, they were able to meet with one or two of the European priests.5 However, it was not until Yi Sŭnghun (1756–1801) visited Beijing in 1783 that we hear of a Korean actually becoming a Catholic as a result of such contacts. Yi was baptized Peter, after promising that he would forego the normal Confucian practice of having concubines in addition to a primary wife, and returned to Korea in 1784, bringing Catholic books with him. He then proceeded to convince several of his friends to join him in forming a Catholic community in Korea.6

Why 1784? Why, after over a century and a half of exposure to Catholic ideas, did a few Koreans suddenly decide to adopt it as their religion? Some scholars would have us believe that the Korean Catholic Church was actually born in 1779, when a group of young Korean Confucians spent a few days in an abandoned Buddhist hermitage discussing how to become better human beings. At least one of the contributors to this volume sees 1779 rather than 1784 as the beginning of Catholicism in Korea. However, a careful examination of documents from that time reveals that the 1779 meeting was a Confucian meeting, not a Catholic meeting. Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836), who was not at that meeting but learned about it from his brother Yakchon (1758–1816), who was, describes it explicitly as a Confucian retreat. He writes that the participants spent that retreat reciting the “Admonition on Rising Early and Retiring Late” by the Song Neo-Confucian Chen Bo. When the sun came up, they chanted Zhu Xi’s “Admonition on Seriousness.” At noon they intoned the “Four Things Not Done.” And at sunset they chanted the “Western Inscription” of Zhang Zhai.7 Those are all Confucian texts, not Catholic texts.8

However, whether the first Catholic gathering in Korea was in 1779 or 1784, the question remains: why then? What had changed to make Catholic ideas and practices suddenly so appealing when for the previous century and a half Koreans had displayed little interest in them? Kevin Cawley, in his contribution to this issue, argues that Koreans began abandoning Neo-Confucianism for Catholicism because they found Neo-Confucianism unable to fill a “spiritual void” in their lives, which Catholicism filled with its loving God. He doesn’t explain, however, why Confucianism was unable to meet their spiritual needs in the last quarter of the eighteenth century when it apparently had been able to do so for centuries before that.

The problem that Cawley, and other scholars as well, face in trying to explain the sudden interest in Catholicism is that the first Catholics don’t tell us explicitly why they became Catholics. We have records of interrogations in which some of the first Catholics were questioned, and tortured, because of their Catholic beliefs. Those Catholics, rather than condemning Confucianism, usually argued that they became a Catholic to become a better Confucian, or at least to help them express their filial piety more sincerely and provide them with a better way to display loyalty and obedience. However, they don’t explain why they felt that becoming a Catholic would help them become more moral.9

For a possible explanation of why a few Koreans decided to believe in a Supreme Personality in the heavens above, we need to turn to Chŏng Yagyong. He was a Catholic for a few years in the 1780s but abandoned the church when he discovered that it outlawed spirit tablets in ancestral memorial rites, and that was a crime punishable by death.10 However, he continued to believe in a personal deity for the rest of his life, a belief he felt was supported by a correct reading of the Confucian Classics.

Chŏng argued that belief in God was necessary if we wanted to find the strength to overcome our natural human tendency to choose what felt good over what was good. He says that, in order for us to consistently adhere to the path of righteousness and overcome our own selfish desires, we need more incentive than just the general desire to be a good person. We need to feel that we are being watched so that we will be ashamed every time we do or think something we shouldn’t do or think. He writes that, if we constantly remind ourselves that, always and everywhere, everything we do or even think is being observed, we will be careful to think and act properly so that we won’t feel ashamed of any misdeeds. But who can possibly watch us always and everywhere? Chŏng’s answer is God above, whom he called by the ancient Chinese title Sangje, the Lord Above. In a commentary on the Doctrine of the Mean, he poses the rhetorical question, “what makes us behave properly even in the privacy of our own room and make sure that even our thoughts are proper thoughts? The only reason a superior person is watchful over his thoughts and behavior even in the privacy of his own room is that he knows that there is a Lord Above watching him.”11

Of course, Chŏng’s explanation doesn’t tell us why the many Confucian scholars who preceded him in Korea, and read the same Confucian Classics he read, didn’t come to the same theistic conclusion he and his friends, such as Yi Sŭnghun, came to. I have argued in an earlier issue of this journal that a possible explanation is a growing sense of human moral frailty, which clashed with the Neo-Confucian assumption of innate human virtue.12 Confucians may have turned to Catholicism out of frustration at their growing awareness of how difficult it was to meet the high moral demands Confucianism imposed on them. They may have thought, as Chŏng did, that a belief that Lord Above was watching them would inspire them to try harder.

However, let’s put aside the question of why a few Confucians turned to Catholicism in the late eighteenth century and instead look at what the contributors to this special issue have to tell us about what happened after those few Confucians became Catholics. Cawley argues that Catholicism threatened both the Neo-Confucian dependency on Principle (his translation for li, the fundamental patterns of appropriate interactions that generate and direct the cosmos) as well as the rigid hierarchical social structure Confucian Principle supported. That, he explains, is why Chosŏn’s Confucian government and so many Confucian scholars were hostile to Catholicism.

Franklin Rausch and Pierre-Emmanuel Roux offer a more nuanced explanation. Rausch shows that the government viewed Catholics as a moral threat to the very foundations of Confucian civilization, which the government believed was the only true civilization, and therefore the Catholic community had to be eradicated. He points out that the frequent charge was that Catholics “were without father or king,” meaning they didn’t show proper respect for their rulers or their parents, and therefore threatened to unravel the web of social obligations that held civilized society together. In fact, Rausch argues, since human beings were defined as moral beings, once Catholics were defined as immoral to the core, they were seen as not real human beings and therefore could be treated as dangerous animals. Concrete evidence for Catholic disregard for normal human moral obligations, and therefore their lack of a true human nature, was their refusal to honor the memory of their parents with spirit tablets at ancestor memorial rituals.

Rausch makes a strong argument. It was the Catholic refusal to follow the Confucian prescriptions for mourning ritual that sparked the first execution of Korean Catholics, in 1791. Catholics, by deciding to follow the dictates of Rome rather than the order of their king, challenged what I call the “ritual hegemony” of the Confucian state.

Confucian governments normally claimed the authority to determine which gods could be worshipped, who could worship them, and when and where they could be worshipped. This was both a positive and a negative authority. Not only did the government claim the authority to tell its subjects when they could not perform certain religious rituals, it also claimed the authority to tell them when they had to do so. When Catholics refused to follow government orders in ritual matters, insisting that they had to honor God when, where, and how they felt God wanted them to do so, regardless of what their king told them to do, they threatened to undermine the very ritual foundations on which the Confucian government stood. The government had no choice but to treat them as criminals.

The government found further justification for treating Catholics as criminals late in 1801, when they discovered a letter one young Catholic, Hwang Sayŏng (1775–1801), had written to the bishop of Beijing detailing the major persecution that had gotten underway earlier that year. That letter mentioned that the government had executed Fr. Zhou Wen-mo (1752–1801), a Chinese subject who had been smuggled into Korea in 1795 to minister to the infant Korean Catholic community. The Korean government was worried about the repercussions if the Qing government in Beijing found out that Korea had executed one of its subjects. But more worrisome was what was found near the end of that letter. Hwang pleaded for foreign assistance to force the Korean government to stop persecuting Catholics.

Hwang was quite specific in the suggestions he made to the bishop of Beijing. First of all, he asked for financial assistance from France for Korea’s Catholic community. He followed that up with a suggestion for secret meetings between Korean Catholics and Chinese Catholics on the Qing-Chosŏn border. His third suggestion was that another Chinese priest sneak into Korea to replace the martyred Fr. Zhou. Hwang even suggested how to disguise that priest so he could pass as a Korean. Then he went farther, not expecting that the Korean government would intercept his letter. He asked that the Pope send a message to the Qing emperor asking him to order the Korean government to stop persecuting Catholics. If that didn’t work Hwang suggested that it might be a good idea for the Qing to simply absorb Korea and put it under its direct rule, since Hwang believed that Catholics enjoyed religious freedom in the Qing Empire.

He went on to suggest that, if the Qing appeared reluctant to absorb Korea, the bishop should tell the Qing emperor about Korea’s many violations of its tributary status, such as minting its own currency and calculating its own calendar. That might make the Qing angry enough to take direct control of Korea. Finally, as a last resort, Hwang suggested that the bishop should ask France to send a fleet of warships to threaten Korea with a military attack unless Korea stopped persecuting Catholics.13

Rausch points out that what had been primarily a ritual threat to the authority of the Chosŏn state became, thanks to Hwang’s letter, a threat to the very sovereignty of the nation. This ensured that Catholics would continue to be treated as enemies of the state for several more decades, into the 1870s. However, as Roux shows, the persecution of Catholics, though it took more lives than any other religious persecution in Korean history (several thousand were killed before the persecution ran its course), was not an arbitrary attack on those whose religious beliefs the government did not favor. Instead, the government was careful to follow its own laws, laws based on the Ming Code that provided the basis for Korea’s own law code.

Rather than convict Catholics of violating the ritual hegemony of the state,14 which called for the lesser death penalty of strangulation and then only for the leader, the government decided to follow the example China had set when dealing with secret societies, some of whom had proved a threat to the Chinese state in the past. The government convicted Catholics of using magic (an alternative translation would be “bewitching words and writings”) and of plotting treason.15 This allowed the stronger penalty of beheading. Beheading was considered worse than strangulation because Confucianism decreed that children should leave the body their parents gave them intact, so the separation of the head from the body was a much worse penalty than strangulation, which left the head attached.

Roux adds that, even though the persecution of Korea’s Catholic community was done in accordance with legal norms, it was inspired by politics as much as it was by fear of the threat Catholics posed and the illegality of the actions Catholics took. He notes that factional rivalries often exacerbated anti-Catholic sentiment. Moreover, he points out, Koreans felt compelled to take whatever steps they deemed necessary to defend Confucianism in Korea because, since China had fallen under the control of the barbarian Manchu, Korea was the last bastion of true Confucianism on earth.

These three articles, by Cawley, Rausch, and Roux, give us a number of reasons why the Catholic Church faced such vehement opposition in Korea in its first century. We are told it was because Confucians felt threatened by the loving God of Christianity (Cawley), by the challenge to traditional morality Catholics posed (Rausch), by the threat Catholics posed to the Confucian state (Rausch and Roux), and by political considerations as well as a perceived need to keep Confucianism alive and well in Korea (Roux). The remaining two articles on Catholicism in this special issue go beyond the reasons for the persecutions to examine the impact the adoption of Catholicism had on Korean society and culture.

The year 1801 was just the beginning of a series of bloody attacks by the Korean government on the Catholics among its subjects. Persecution was not continuous. Catholics sometimes went for years without losing any of their coreligionists to government violence. But they could not let down their guard because they never knew when another persecution might arise. Kyŏngsang province was hit by an anti-Catholic persecution in 1815, and Chŏlla province in 1827. A major persecution swept across the nation in 1839–40, costing the lives of the three French priests who had been smuggled into the country a few years earlier, as well as the lives of over a hundred Korean Catholics. A minor persecution in 1846 took the life of the first Korean priest, Fr. Andrew Kim Taegŏn.16 Then, in 1866 the worse persecution of all broke out when the Taewŏn’gun learned that there were a dozen French priests in Korea and that they had even established a seminary in a hidden mountain valley. Nine of those priests were executed, along with several Korean Catholics. However, three priests escaped. One of them quickly returned to Korea on a French warship, which intensified the persecution of Catholics as not only traitors to Confucian morality but also traitors to the Korean throne. When the persecution finally quieted down in 1873 (though Catholics did not gain religious freedom until a treaty with France was forced on Korea in 1886), approximately 8,000 of Korea’s Catholics were dead.17

Despite the martyrdom of so many of its members and its priests, the Catholic community survived. Moreover, it managed, despite its isolation and small numbers, to have a significant impact on Korean society and culture. For most of the nineteenth century, Korean Catholics avoided the larger society. Fearing persecution, they lived apart from the communities around them, producing earthenware pottery and then traveling from market area to market area, peddling their wares and maintaining contact with other Catholic potter settlements. This strategy for survival led to the term “onggi chaengi (ongiware peddler)” becoming almost synonymous with “ch’ŏnjugyo chaengi (papist),” both serving as common derogatory terms expressing contempt for the religion and the occupation of the Catholic potters.18

Nevertheless, we can notice changes in the nineteenth century which are at least partially the result of the Catholic presence. For example, Catholicism introduced the notion of monotheism, that there is only one God and no worship should be offered to other spirits. This theological break with Korea’s traditional polytheism is one of the factors behind the emergence of Korea’s first organized indigenous religion, Tonghak, in 1860. Catholics also introduced the idea that there are limits on the power of the state. Though Catholics were only concerned about limiting the state’s control over religious ritual, this idea that the government’s authority was not unlimited expanded until, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, South Koreans were able to erect enough barriers to state power to enjoy a democracy.

Choi Seon-hye argues in her contribution to this volume that Catholicism also introduced what she calls “irreversible ruptures” in the patriarchal family system prevalent in Korea at that time. She insists that, under Confucianism, women were hardly treated as human beings at all. However, the reverence Catholics showed for the Holy Mother, the mother of Jesus, undermined the Confucian disdain for women. This was a challenge to the basis of not just the patriarchal family system but of the ruling system as a whole. That is why, she argues, the government acted so decisively against the small Catholic community. It could not allow such a threat to persist.

Her argument is not as persuasive as it could be. She builds her argument with citations from a Catholic text, the Sŏnggyŏng kwangik (C. Shengjing guangyi) [Broadly benefiting from the Bible], which we know was in Korea as early as the 1790s and was translated into Korean not long after it arrived on the peninsula.19 However, we don’t know how widely it was read. She provides no concrete examples of Catholic teachings changing the patriarchal nature of even Catholic Korean families.

Moreover, to most observers, Korean Catholics remained Korean despite their conversion to a Western religion. The hierarchical and patriarchal socialization of their childhood influenced the way they structured their church organizations and the way they assigned roles within those organizations. A literate elite with a respectable pedigree (primarily descendants of yangban and chungin martyrs) continued to dominate the upper levels of the Korean Catholic church in the nineteenth century just as yangban dominated the upper level of Korean society at large. Women continued to do much of the work of the church (providing over half of the Korean martyrs recognized officially as saints in 1984) while being kept from positions of responsibility in church organizations. In other words, Korean Catholics acted less to undermine the old patriarchal and hierarchical social order than to replace it with an alternative but similar social order. Korean Catholics did not reject their tradition. They restructured and affirmed it. Even as they withdrew from the larger society around them, they remained traditional Koreans. They introduced no noticeable democratic or egalitarian ideas into Korean intellectual, cultural, or political life.

In addition, women may not have had as low a status as she says they had before Catholicism arrived. After all, the first Catholic martyr, Yun Chich’ung (1759–1791), was executed because he failed to perform the prescribed mourning ritual for his mother. Moreover, the idea of a holy woman was not new to Korea. As Choi herself notes, many of the sanshin, the mountain gods Koreans had worshipped for centuries, were actually mountain goddesses. And one of the most popular Buddhist Bodhisattvas, Kwanŭm (C. Gwanyin), was usually perceived in Korea as female.

Nevertheless, there is some indirect evidence supporting her assertion that Catholic writings may have caused Korean men to reassess their attitude toward women. Chŏng Yagyong, who, as was mentioned earlier, was a Catholic in his youth, made an interesting observation on women to his brother Yakchŏn, also a Catholic apostate. In a letter to Yakchŏn, Tasan wrote:

It is difficult to determine, however, if Chŏng’s remarks about the role women play in procreation are the result of his reading Catholic books about the Holy Mother of God. There is more evidence, both in Chŏng’s writings and in the writings of others influenced by Catholicism, that Catholicism did stimulate another significant change in Korean attitudes. In Neo-Confucianism, a person is less a separate and distinct individual than he or she is the sum total of all the relationships he or she has with other people in society, of all the social roles he or she plays. It would not be an exaggeration to say that you are nothing more than a parent, a child, a subject, a friend, a student, a teacher, a neighbor, a colleague, and so on. There is no “you” apart from the roles you play in society.

In her contribution to this special issue, Torrey argues that Catholicism changed that. Under the influence of Catholic teachings, Koreans began to more and more think of themselves as separate and distinct individuals. She points out that Catholicism may have originated with a mix of Confucian and Catholic concepts, as noted earlier, but even in the beginning we can see the emergence of a non-Confucian interest in the individual. This comes, Torrey argues, from the Catholic stress on personal salvation, and on the personal relationship with a transcendent Supreme Being Catholicism encouraged. This led to a greater focus on the individual as separate and distinct and valuable in her or her own right, rather than being defined primarily by his or her relationships with other human beings. We see this increased recognition of the individual as an individual in early Catholic literature, in which people are viewed as distinct from the world rather than being defined by the world.

The literature Deberniere Torrey points to in her contribution may not have been the best to support her thesis. She relies on the Manch’ŏn yugo [The posthumous works of Manch’ŏn], a collection of Catholic texts believed by some to contain material written by Yi Pyŏk (1754–1786), Chŏng Yakchŏn, and Yi Sŭnghun, three of the founding members of Korea’s Catholic community. (Cawley relies on the same collection.) She also draws on the Ryuhandang ŏnhaeng sillok [A record of the words of Ryuhandang], said to have been written by the wife of Yi Pyŏk. Both works are of doubtful authenticity. Those texts were unheard of until the second half of the twentieth century. They are not mentioned in any government records during the persecutions of the nineteenth century, although the government often went to great lengths to catalogue everything it found in the possession of Catholics they had arrested. Nor are they mentioned in Charles Dallet’s two-volume history of the early decades of the Catholic Church in Korea.21 They are written in a pre-twentieth century style, so, even though they are written on twentieth-century paper, it is possible they are nineteenth-century texts that were recopied later. However, there is no evidence, other than the claims in the texts themselves, that they were originally written in the eighteenth century.22

Torrey is on firmer ground when she discusses Chŏng Yakchong’s Chugyo yoji [The essential principles of the Lord’s Teachings], another text she shares with Cawley. We know that Chong Yakchong (1760–1801), a devout Catholic though he was the brother of two apostates, Chŏng Yagyong and Chŏng Yakchŏn, wrote that Catholic catechism because, as Torrey notes, it is mentioned in Hwang Sayŏng’s 1801 Silk Letter.23 We also know it was widely circulated within the Korean Catholic community during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century.24

Torrey’s argument is actually stronger if the Manch’ŏn yugo material and the Ryuhandang ŏnhaeng sillok are placed in the mid-nineteenth century rather than the late eighteenth century. They would then provide evidence for a shift from the Confucian-Catholic synthesis of the early church to a more purely Catholic, and individual-oriented, approach of the maturing Catholic community five or six decades later.

Torrey’s argument that the Catholic shift from the Confucian focus on selfcultivation in order to create a more harmonious society to the Catholic focus on the salvation of the individual soul, and the shift from the Confucian focus on the obligations intrinsic to relationships between human beings to the Catholic focus on the obligation of every human individual to maintain a good relationship with God above, focusing more attention on the individual as individual makes a lot of sense, and is supported by the increasingly personal tone of literature in the nineteenth century. However, there may have been other reasons for the growth of consciousness of individuality.

Because of the off-and-on again persecution for most of the nineteenth century, Catholics were forced to sever most of their ties with the larger society. Clustered in small villages in remote valleys, fearful of contact with non-Catholic neighbors, it is only natural that these Catholics would begin to think of themselves more as distinct from the world rather than as defined by the world. This individualistic, other-worldly orientation may have been reinforced by the particular spiritual orientation of the priests ministering to that beleaguered community. The Jesuits, who believed that God was best served within the world He created, had been replaced in East Asia in the last quarter of the eighteenth century by priests from the Paris Society for Foreign Missions. The priests in this society represented a form of Catholicism that, though within the parameters of mainstream Catholicism, nevertheless was influenced enough by the Jansenist heresy which had flourished in France in the seventeenth century to promote a theology which favored a withdrawal from, rather than engagement with, society.

The first European priests to minister to a Korean congregation on Korean soil painted a pessimistic picture of a morally degenerate humanity on a perilous earth under the watchful eye of a stern God above. The priests encouraged these Catholics to always keep in mind their own impending death and the divine judgment they would face immediately afterwards. To prepare to face their maker and judge, Korean Catholics were encouraged to recognize their helplessness in the face of God’s power, to stress ascetic and devotional practices, and to detach themselves from the secular world, which they should view with disdain. This was not a social gospel church. Aid to the sick, the hungry, and the poor was encouraged but only as means to gain merit toward personal eternal reward, not for its own sake.25 Nor was it a church concerned with political or social change. This was a Catholicism in which the individual was encouraged to put concern for individual salvation first. Such individualism can be seen as a step toward modernity, since one of the distinguishing features of both modern literature and modern values is the attention paid to the wants, needs, and emotions of the individual.

The articles in this issue by Cawley, Rausch, Roux, Choi, and Torrey help us gain a better understanding of the first hundred years of Catholicism on the Korean peninsula. Much more has been written, in both Korean and English, on Protestant Christianity in Korea than on Korean Catholicism. That is understandable since Protestants outnumber Catholics two to one in Korea, even though the Korean Catholic community is a century older than the Korean Protestant community. Moreover, the Protestant contribution to modernization has been more noticeable, since the Catholics were slow to begin building modern schools and hospitals.26 Nevertheless, the impact of Catholicism should not be overlooked, especially now when, according to the 2005 census, the Korean Catholic Church is the fastest growing major religious community in South Korea. To comprehend modern Korea, it is essential to understand the role Christianity has played in shaping Korean beliefs, values, and behavior over the last two centuries. And to under-stand the impact of Christianity, it is necessary to understand the history and impact of both Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism. This special issue of Acta Koreana makes a significant contribution to that broader understanding.

1Yu Mongin, “Ch’ŏnch’uk-chi sŏ yu kuk wŏl Kurap’a [There is a country to the west of India called Europe],” Ŏu yadam [Tales told by Ŏu Yu Mongin in Sŏ Taesŏk, ed. Chosŏnjo munhŏn sŏrhwa chibyo (I) [A selection of documents containing tales from the Chosŏn dynasty] (Seoul:Chimmundang, 1991), p. 81.  2Yi Sugwang, Chibong yusŏl [Classified Notes by Chibong Yi Sugwang], vol. I pp. 488, 515, vol. II, p. 623 (Seoul, Ulyusa munhwasa, 1975).  3Kukcho pogam [Precious Mirror for Succeeding Reigns] kwŏn 35:17–18 (Seoul: Sejong Daewang Kinyŏmhoe reprint, 1976); Michael Cooper, Rodriques the Interpreter (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1974), pp. 347–49.  4Gari Ledyard, The Dutch Come to Korea (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, 1971); Br, Jean-Paul Buys, trans., Hendrik Hamel, Hamel’s Journal and a description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1652–1666 (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, 1994).  5Shin Ik-cheol, “The Experiences of Visiting Catholic Churches in Beijing and the Recognition of Western Learning in the Journals of Travel to Beijing,” Review of Korean Studies 9:4 (December 2006), pp. 11–31; “The Relationship between Joseon Envoys and Western Missionaries in Beijing in the Early 18th Century: Focusing on Lee Gi-ji’s Iramyeon-gi,” Review of Korean Studies 9:4 (December 2006), pp. 33–43; Lee Hung-dae, “Hong Dae-yong’s Beijing Travels and His Changing Perception of the West—Focusing on Eulbyeong yeonhangnok and Uisan mundap,” Review of Korean Studies 9:4 (December 2006), pp. 45–62.  6For more on Yi Sŭnghun, see Kyohoesa yŏn’gu no. 8 (1992), a special issue on Yi Sŭnghun and his role in the founding of the Korean Catholic Church.  7Chŏng Yagyong, Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ [The complete works of Chŏng Yagyong], I, “Sŏnjungssi myojimyŏng” [An epitaph for my older brother], 15:39A.  8For more on the controversy over the relationship between that meeting and the birth of a Catholic Church in Korea, see Yun Min-gu, Han’guk Ch’ŏnjugyo ŭi kiwŏn [The Origins of the Catholic Church in Korea] Seoul: Kukhak Charyowon, 2002.  9See, for example, Don Baker, “The Martyrdom of Paul Yun: Western Religion and Eastern Ritual in Eighteenth-century Korea,” Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, no. 54 (1979), pp. 33–58. Also see the records of the interrogations of the first members of Korea’s Catholic community in Ch’uan kŭp Kugan [Records of special investigations by the State Tribunal], vol. 25 (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1978).  10Don Baker, “Tasan Between Catholicism and Confucianism: A Decade Under Suspicion, 1791 to 1801,” Tasanhak, no. 5 (2004), pp. 55–86.  11Chŏng Yagyong, “Chungyong Chajam” [Admonitions for myself upon reading the Doctrine of the Mean], Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ II:3, 4b–5a.  12Don Baker, “Danger Within: Guilt and Moral Frailty in Korean Religion” in Acta Koreana Vol. 4, July, 2001, pp. 1–25.  13Kim Yŏngsu, Hwang Sayŏng Paeksŏ [Hwang Sayŏng’s Silk Letter] (Seoul: Sŏng Hwang Sŏktu Luga Sŏwŏn, 1998).  14“Kŭmji samu sasul” [The law prohibiting shamans and their evil practices], Taemyŏngnyul chikhae [An explication of the Ming Law Code] (Seoul: Pŏpchec’ŏ, 1964) (p. 294).  15“Moban” [Plotting to overthrow the state and the royal family] and “Cho yosŏ yoŏn” [Producing bewitching writings and chanting bewitching words], Taemyŏngnyul chikhae, pp. 382–83.  16Andrew J. Finch, “A Persecuted Church: Roman Catholicism in Early Nineteenth-century Korea,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51:3 (July 2000), pp. 556–580.  17Jae-Keun Choi, The Origin of the Roman Catholic Church in Korea: An Examination of Popular and Governmental Responses to Catholic Missions in the late Choson Dynasty (Norwalk, CA: The Hermit Kingdom Press, 2006), p. 218.  18Robert Sayers and Ralph Rinzler, The Korean Onggi Potter (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), especially pp. 36–47.  19Both Chinese and Korean versions of that book are listed among the many titles of books burnt by the government in the persecution of 1801. Sahak chingŭi [A warning against Catholicism] (Seoul: Pulham munhwasa, 1977), p. 379.  20Chŏng Yagyong, Yŏyudang chŏnsŏ, I, 20:19a–b.  21Dallet, Charles, Histoire de l’Église de Corée (Paris: Victor Palmé, 1874).  22For a counter argument that these texts are genuine, see Kim Okhŭi, “Han’guk sŏhak sasangsa yŏn’gu [Studies in the history of Catholic thought in Korea] (Seoul: Han’guk charyowŏn, 1998), pp. 523–24. Also see Yi Ihwa, “Yi Sŭnghun kwan’gye munhŏ ŭi kŏmt’o: Manch’ŏn yugo rul chungsim ŭro,” Kyohoesa yŏn’gu 8 (1992), pp. 105–124.  23Hwang Sayŏng Paeksŏ, p. 271.  24Sŏ Chongt’ae, “Chŏng Yakchong ŭi Chugyo yoji e taehan munhŏnhakchŏk kŏmt’o” [A bibliographical examination of Chŏng Yakchong’s Chugyo yoji], Han’guk sasang sahak vol. 18 (2002), pp. 197–231.  25For more on the French missionaries in Korea, see Pae Se-yŏng, “Han’guk esŏ ŭi P’ari Oebang Chŏn’gyohoe ŭi sŏn’gyo pangch’im,” [The proselytizing policies of the Paris Society for Foreign Missions in Korea] Han’guk kyohoesa nonmun chip, I, (Seoul: Han’guk Kyohoesa Yŏn’guso, 1984), pp.743–767; No Kilmyŏng, Kat’ollik kwa Chosŏn hugi sahoe pyŏndong [The Catholic Church and social change in the latter half of the Chosŏn dynasty] (Seoul: Koryŏ taehakkyo minjok munhwa yŏn’guso, 1988), esp. pp. 129–243.  26Don Baker, “From Pottery to Politics: The Transformation of Korean Catholicism,” Religion and Contemporary Society in Korea, edited by Lewis Lancaster and Richard Payne (Berkeley: Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1998), pp.127–168.