Origins of the Catholic Church
in Korea: A Letter Brother
Anthony of
Taizé Korea welcomed Pope Francis in
August 2014. During his visit, on August 15,
he beatified 123 Korean Catholics and one
Chinese priest who were killed for
their faith between 1791 and 1888. Beatification
is the step that precedes
canonization; those beatified bear the title
“Blessed” while those who have
been canonized are entitled to the title
“Saint.” In 1984, during a visit to
Korea, Pope John-Paul II had already canonized
103 Korean and French martyrs;
of these, seventy-nine had been beatified in
1925. They had died in the great persecutions of
1839 (Gi-hae
persecution), 1846 (Byeong-o
persecution) and 1866 (Byeong-in
persecution). Another twenty-four were beatified
in 1968, martyrs from the same periods. Sixty-seven
of the
martyrs beatified in 2014 were killed in the
early years, between 1791 and
1802; most of the others were killed outside of
the periods of great
persecution listed above. All had previously
been excluded from the
beatification process for lack of sufficient
documentation or because of
questions as to whether their executions had
been for religious reasons or the
result of factional politics. This was
particularly the case for the martyrs
killed in 1801-2 and it is a cause for much
rejoicing among Korean Catholics that
so many have now been recognized as authentic
martyrs of the faith. The
story of the
early years of the Catholic Church in Korea is
not always easy to reconstruct
because so many records were destroyed. The
Latin letter written by the Bishop
of Beijing to another bishop in 1797, that is
translated into English below, is
particularly significant by reason of its early
date. It was quoted extensively
by Charles Dallet
in his monumental Histoire de l’Eglise de Corée (1874),
having been published in French soon
after its arrival in Europe. For some reason
neither it nor Dallet’s
magisterial work have ever been translated into
English. To help situate its
contents, it may be helpful to begin with a
brief account of the events as they
are usually told. The
Origins of
Korean Catholicism Not included among the
candidates for beatification, but hugely
influential
in his lifetime, Yi Byeok
(李檗,
1754-1785) was a
scholar of Korea’s later Joseon period who
played a leading role in the
foundation of Korea’s first Catholic community.
He died prior to the first
persecutions. Yi Byeok
was born in 1754 in
Gyeonggi-do, Pocheon-gun,
Naechon-myeon,
Hwahyeon-ri. From an
early age he was an avid reader.
His great-grandfather Yi Gyeong-sang
had accompanied
Crown Prince Sohyeon
(1612-1645) during the eight
years he spent in China and it is likely that he
brought back with him books
written by the Jesuit missionaries (the
so-called “Western Learning”). It is sometimes
thought that the Crown Prince himself was deeply
influenced by Catholicism, that
he was perhaps even a convert, and that for that
reason he was demoted and
(maybe) murdered. Yi
Byeok decided at an
early age not to study for the national
examinations, which led to a career in
government administration; instead he
chose pure scholarship. His family belonged to
the “Nam-in” (southern) faction,
which included many families residing in
Gyeonggi-do, and as such they were usually
excluded from holding office by the factional
politics of the Joseon period,
except for a few years around the time when Yi Byeok
was alive. This exclusion from power might
explain why so many of the scholars
from these families pursued studies which
indicated dissent from orthodox
Neo-Confucianism. The writings of the great
thinker Seongho
Yi Ik inspired many
of the scholars who adopted the
Practical Learning (Silhak)
approach. Yi Byeok
and the other scholars with whom he explored the
tenets of Catholicism in the following years
were surely no exception. In
1777 (according
to Dallet) or 1779
(according to the scholar Jeong
Yak-yong) the Namin scholar Gwon Cheol-sin (權哲身,
1736-1801)
started a series of study sessions for his
pupils and other scholars
influenced, like him, by the Silhak-inspired writings
of Seongho Yi Ik, whose
student he had been. These meetings were held in
a remote mountain hermitage, Jeonjin-am, belonging to
Ju-eo-sa temple near Gwangju,
Gyeonggi-do. They were probably
intended as an ongoing seminar attempting to
gain a better understanding of
human life through renewed study of the Chinese
classics as well as certain of
the books introducing European knowledge written
in Chinese by Matteo Ricci and
other Jesuits. If there were books about
Catholicism among them, they seem only
to have given a very shallow presentation of the
faith. Among others present
were Jeong Yak-jeong
(1758-1816), whose wife was Yi Byeok’s sister (she
was dead by 1784), and (perhaps) Mancheon Yi Seung-hun (1756-1801) whose
wife was the sister of Jeong
Yak-jeon. Dallet
reports that it
was Yi Byeok who,
on hearing in 1783 that Yi Seung-hun was to accompany his
father on the annual embassy to
Beijing, urged him to contact the Catholic
priests there and be baptized, then
bring back more ample information. This he duly
did, receiving baptism early in
1784. He returned to Korea bringing books and
objects of devotion. Yi Byeok
seems to have taken some time to study the books
before declaring himself convinced. He then set
about evangelizing those around
him, including the scholars Gwon Cheol-sin and his
younger brother Gwon
Il-sin. In the Jachan myojimyeong
(autobiographical epitaph) written later by the
great scholar Dasan
Jeong Yak-yong there is an account
of a moment in 1783 (?) when Yi Byeok first told him and
his brothers about Catholicism. The
baptism of
these first converts, including Yi Byeok, by Yi
Seung-hun is said to
have happened in September 1784.
Yi Byeok took the
name John Baptist. It is probable
that Jeong Yak-yong was
among those who were baptised
then, although he later
denied it. His older brother Jeong Yak-jeon was destined to
become the main leader of the
community, along with Yi Seung-hun, and die for his
faith in the persecution of 1801. Early in 1785
the growing group of believers
and sympathizers moved their regular gatherings
for study and worship from the Seoul
home of Yi Byeok to
that belonging to another
convert, Kim Beom-u,
on the hill where Myeongdong
Cathedral now stands. Kim was not an aristocrat
as so many of the others were. Almost
immediately the authorities raided the
house, suspecting it of being a gambling den,
and were embarrassed on finding
it full of nobles. A report by a government
agent to the Minister of Justice
lists those acting as leaders : Yi Seung-hun, the
brothers Jeong Yak-jeon, Jeong Yak-jong, Jeong Yak-yong, as well as Gwon Il-sin, with Yi Byeok taking
the leading role as teacher during the ceremony.
All were arrested, the books
found were confiscated, the nobles were then
sent home with a warning not to
continue, but Kim Beom-u
was tortured, exiled, and
finally executed since he was not of noble
birth. [Source: Jean Sangbae
Ri, Confucius
et
Jésus Christ,
page 29-30.] Yi
Byeok was put under
intense pressure by his father, kept
inside his home so that he could no longer meet
the other believers, and is
said by some to have finally more or less given
up the faith, after which he
was tormented by remorse until he died, perhaps
of the plague, in 1786. Some
stories claim that he starved himself to death.
The leadership was taken at
first by Yi Seung-hun.
Dark clouds began to gather in
1791. Two years before, Paul Yun Ji-chung, one of the
first baptized and a cousin to the Jeong brothers on their
mother’s side, had gone to Beijing and received
confirmation. There he learned
that Rome had forbidden Catholics to perform
ancestral rituals and that this
was now being strictly applied by the recently
arrived Portuguese Franciscan
bishop of Beijing, Alexandre de Gouvea (see the
letter below). When his mother died in 1791,
Paul Yun therefore refused to
perform the usual Confucian ceremonies; this
became public knowledge, he was
accused of impiety and was executed in Jeonju, North Jeolla province,
together with his cousin, Jacobo
Gweon Sang-yeon. These were the
first Korean Catholic martyrs and both
were beatified by Pope Francis in 2014. Some
Koreans who had at first been
sympathetic to Catholicism, horrified by the
Church’s rejection of sacred
traditions and rituals, turned away. Jeong Yak-yong may well have been
among them, for his later writings
stress the significance of rituals. The
second problem
was caused by the arrival in Korea in 1795 of
the country’s first Catholic
priest, a Chinese named Zhou Wenmo, known in Korea by
the Korean prounciation
Ju Mun-mo. This confirmed
suspicions that this new teaching was a foreign
heresy, a plot to undermine the
state, and several Catholics were executed for
bringing him in, although he
himself managed to escape capture until 1801,
when he surrendered to the
authorities, hoping to protect others. He was
then martyred and has now been
beatified. Then
in 1799 the
liberal-minded Prime Minister died, and in 1800
King Jeongjo
himself died; some think he was poisoned for
being open to the Namin
scholars with their Catholicism. They had both
been
open-minded men who tolerated the interest in
Catholicism of some of their
close advisers. The new king, Sunjo, was still only a
child and power fell into the hands of the widow
of King Yeongjo
(the king before Jeongjo),
known as Queen Dowager Kim
or Queen Jeong-sun.
Her family belonged to the
factions fierely
opposed to the reformist Catholic Namin group and she had
been completely powerless during Jeongjo’s reign. She at
once launched an attack on the
Catholics, who were denounced as traitors and
enemies of the state. Jeong
Yak-jong was the
head of the Catholic community and he was one
of the first to be arrested and executed,
together with Yi Seung-hun,
the first to be baptized, on April 8, 1801. His
eldest
son, Jeong
Cheol-sang, died then too, executed a
month after his father. His second wife, Yu So-sa,
was later to be martyred in 1839, as were his
other son, Paul Jeong
Ha-sang, who had become the main leader of the
Catholic community in his turn, and his daughter
Jeong
Jeong-hye. They are
already venerated as Catholic
saints, having been canonized in 1984. Yi
Seung-hun, however,
seems to have been terrified of the tortures
inflicted on the earlier martyrs and renounced
the faith several times before
1801, withdrawing from the Catholic community
where he had once played a
leading role. This did not prevent him being
arrested and executed, but it
explains why his name was not included among
those beatified. Since
he was Jeong Yak-jong’s younger brother,
Jeong Yak-yong was sent
into exile for some months in Janggi fortress in
what is now Pohang, having
been found after interrogation with torture not
to be a Catholic believer. That
might have been that, but what brought Jeong Yak-yong to Gangjin, where he was
forced to spend eighteen years in exile, was the
event that served as the final
nail in the coffin of the early Catholic
community. Hwang Sa-yong
was a young Catholic of high birth. Fearing for
his
life, he hid in a cave during the persecutions
and in October 1801 he finished
writing a long “silk letter” to the bishop of
Beijing, giving a detailed
account of the recent events, asking him to
bring pressure on the Korean
authorities to allow freedom of religion and,
disastrously, begging him to ask
the Western nations to send a force to overthrow
the Joseon dynasty so that
Korea would be subject to China, where
Catholicism was permitted. The man
carrying this letter, written on a roll of silk
wrapped round his body, was
intercepted and the Korean authorities made full
use of it to show that
Catholics were by definition enemies of the
state. The persecution was
intensified and if it had not been very clear
that Jeong
Yak-yong and Jeong Yak-hyeon were in no sense
Catholic believers, they would
surely have been executed. Instead they were
sent into prolonged exile
together, parting ways at Naju,
from where Jeong
Yak-hyeon journeyed
on to
the island of Heuksan-do,
Yak-yong
taking the Gangjin
road. The
Origins of the
Catholic Church in Korea as told by Bishop de
Gouvea Relation de l’
établissement du christianisme dans
le royaume de Corée, rédigée, en latin, par
Monseigneur de Gouvéa,
évêque de Pékin, et adressée le 15 août 1797 à
Monseigneur de St Martin évêque
de Caradre, et
vicaire apostolique de la province du Sutchuen en Chine. Traduction
sur une copie reçue à Londres le
12 Juillet 1798. A Londres ; De l’Imprimerie
de Ph. Le Boussonnier
& Co. No. 5. Hollen
Street, Solio.
Et se trouve chez les Libraires François. [An
account of the
introduction of Christianity into the kingdom
of Korea, written in Latin by Mgr.
De Gouvea, Bishop
of Peking and addressed on August
15, 1797, to Mgr. De St Martin, Bishop of Caradre and
Vicar Apostolic of the province of Sichuan in
China. Translation of a copy
received in London on July 12, 1798. 1800.
London. From the printing house of
Ph. Le Bussonnier,
& Co. No. 5, Hollen
Street, Soho. Can be found in French
bookshops] Translated
from
French into English by Brother Anthony of
Taizé. The
editorial notes
in square brackets are mostly simply
translated from the 1800 edition. Those
marked * are additional modern explanations. Introduction Mgr. De Gouvea, [*Alexandre de Gouvea or Gouveia. Born
in Evora,
Portugal, in
1731, ordained priest in the Third Order of
Saint Francis of Penance in 1775;
appointed Bishop of Peking in July 1782,
consecrated bishop February 1783, died
July 1808] named Bishop of Peking by the Queen
of Portugal, arrived in that
capital city at the end of 1784 or early in
1785, with the permission of the
Emperor, who had accepted him as one of his
astronomers. At that time there was
in China a violent persecution against the
Christian religion. Three
bishops and twenty-three missionaries, both
European and Chinese, from the
different provinces of the Empire, had been
imprisoned in Peking. Those of the
capital, who enjoy complete freedom because they
are there as artists,
astronomers, etc. of the Emperor, no sooner
learned of this than they did all that
lay in their power to bring help to them in the
prisons. They had the grief of
seeing two of the bishops and several
missionaries die of want, or as a result
of the fatigue and bad treatment they had
undergone before being brought to
Peking, because they had not been told of their
detention in time; but they had
the consolation of saving by their care Mgr. de
St. Martin, [*Jean Didier de
St. Martin 1743-1801] Bishop of Caradre, Apostolic
Vicar of the province of Sichuan, as well as
several priests. Later, thanks to
the credit they enjoyed at court, they obtained
the liberation of these
witnesses to Jesus Christ. The Emperor, in
granting them their freedom, gave
them the choice of remaining in the churches in
Peking or returning to Macao.
Most of them, including the Bishop of Caradre and M. Dufresse, [*Blessed
Gabriel Taurin
Dufresse, born 1750;
beheaded at
Tschantu, China,
1815] asked to return to Macao, hoping to find
there a means of returning to
their mission. They were allowed to remain for
some time in the churches of
Peking. The Bishop of that capital, being newly
arrived, did not as yet know
the manners and customs of the country. He felt
that Divine Providence was
offering him a favorable occasion to quickly be
able to govern his diocese
fruitfully, by making his
the experience of so many
servants of the Gospel who had been exercising
the sacred ministry in China for
a number of years. He had frequent conversations
with them, but he grew
especially close to the Bishop of Caradre, either
because of his dignity or because of his
personal merit. This prelate was then
sent to Canton from where he was supposed to go
to Europe but he avoided the
vigilance of the mandarins and went to Manila in
order to be closer to go back
to his mission. In fact, he had the consolation
of returning there in 1787.
Since that time, these two bishops have
maintained an uninterrupted
correspondence, edifying each other and telling
one another about the successes
of their apostolic labors and the progress of
the Gospel in their churches. Text
of the letter Most
illustrious and reverend Monseigneur, Animated with
an ardent zeal for the holy missions, you
have asked me for a fuller account of the state
of the Christianity established
in such an admirable manner a few years ago in
the kingdom of Korea, located on
the frontier of my diocese, the first-fruits of
which I had commended to your
prayers and those of your Church. To satisfy
your request, I will briefly trace
the establishment and progress of the Gospel
according to the information I was
given by the Korean neophytes and according to
the information contained in the
most recent letters received this year from the
missionary in Korea.
The new
Church in Korea owes its origin to the
conversion of a young man, son of an
ambassador of the King of Korea, called Ly [*Yi
Seung-hun,
1756-1801],
who came to Peking in 1784. [The Kingdom of
Korea (a large peninsula to the
east of China) is a tribute-nation of this
Empire. The King sends ambassadors
each year to greet the Emperor and offer the
customary tribute.] This young
man, a great lover of mathematics, approached
the Europeans to ask for books
dealing with that science, and to receive
lessons. The missionaries took
advantage of the occasion to give him books
about the Christian religion
together with those about mathematics, and
gradually taught him the principles
of Christianity. With grace acting on the heart
of young Ly, reading the books
about religion, together with the conversations
he had through writing with the
Europeans, [the characters or letters of the
Koreans are the same as those of
the Chinese, but the pronunciation is different
thus the missionaries and all
the Chinese who know the Chinese characters can
communicate by writing with the
Koreans, who use the same characters; the
Koreans are also able to read and
understand the books about religion written in
Chinese letters by the
missionaries.] made a deep impression on him; he
converted to the faith and
then, after being instructed on the articles it
is necessary to know, he was
baptized with the name Peter. [We
hope that pious persons will be edified by a
more detailed description of the
conversion of this young man; therefore we will
add here an extract from a
letter written by M. de Ventavon,
missionary at
Peking, dated November 25, 1784: “You will no
doubt learn with gratitude of the
conversion of a person whom God will perhaps use
to bring the light of the
Gospel to a kingdom where so far as is known no
missionary has ever penetrated;
that is Korea, a peninsula located to the east
of China. The king of this
country sends ambassadors each year to the
Emperor of China, whose vassal he
considers himself. He loses nothing, for if he
sends gifts to the Emperor, the
Emperor gives him gifts of yet greater value.
Those Korean ambassadors came,
almost one year ago, with their suite, to visit
our church; we gave them books
about religion; the son of one of the lords,
aged 27 and a very fine scholar,
read them avidly. He saw the truth in them, and
with grace acting on his heart
he resolved to embrace the faith after being
thoroughly instructed. Before
admitting him to baptism, we asked him several
questions, and he satisfied us
completely. Among other things, we asked him
what he was resolved to do if the
King disapproved his action and tried to force
him to renounce the faith. He
replied without hesitating that he would accept
every torment and death itself
rather than renounce a religion the truth of
which he clearly recognized. We
did not fail to warn him that the purity of the
Gospel law forbids a plurality
of wives. He replied: I have only my legal wife
and will never have any other.
Finally, before his departure for Korea, he
received baptism, with his father’s
consent, administered by M. de Grammont. He received
the name Peter; his family name is Ly, he is
said to be allied to the royal
family. He declared that on his return he
intended to renounce human ambitions,
retire with his family to the countryside, and
devote himself solely to his
salvation. He promised to send us news of
himself each year. The ambassadors
also promised they would suggest to their
sovereign to call Europeans into his
state.”] He
returned to his country that same year, provided
with a good number of books
about the Christian Religion. This
new disciple of Jesus Christ informed his
relatives and friends [notably Yi Byeok and the Jeong brothers]
about the principles of the true faith that he
had learned from the
missionaries of Peking, as well as the monuments
of the faith he had seen in
their churches. He distributed the books he had
brought. The reading of these
books and the lively preaching of the neophyte
soon brought several Koreans to
a knowledge of the true God; in a short time
many came to believe in Jesus
Christ. Some even became more learned, more
zealous preachers and promoters of
the Christian faith than Peter Ly. He baptized
many and many others were
baptized by new Christians whom he had
established as catechists; in the space
of five years the number of Christians rose to
about four thousand.
The
propagation of the new faith could not long
remain hidden from the ministers of
the King of Korea; several people, nobles and
commoners, were preaching it with
the same sincerity as they had embraced it, and
God gave effect to their words.
In 1788, the governor of the royal city had
Thomas King [*Kim Beom-u],
a zealous Christian, arrested on the grounds
that
he was teaching a foreign religion and doctrine
to which he was attracting his
fellow-citizens. Hearing this, several neophytes
presented themselves before
the governor, declaring that they were
Christians and preachers of
Christianity, at the same time announcing Jesus
Christ with zeal and fervor.
Amazed at the great number of Christians, and
knowing nothing of the intentions
of the King toward the partisans of the new
religion, the governor dared do nothing
against the multitude; he ordered the Christians
to return to their homes and
exiled Thomas King alone, as a disturber of the
public peace and a teacher of
foreign doctrines. This preacher of Jesus Christ
died gloriously in his exile
the same year. The other Christians only grew
bolder, they announced
Christianity very successfully in the royal city
and in the provinces. They
brought to Peter Ly and the other catechists
those whom they considered worthy
of baptism. Realizing, however, from reading the
books that there were a number
of things in the Christian religion that they
could not understand and others
that seemed impossible for them to practice,
they together decided to send
someone bearing letters to ask the church in
Peking for instruction and other
means of maintaining and increasing the faith
among them.
In the
year 1790, Paul Yn
[*Blessed
Yun
Yu-il,
1760-1795]
came to Peking accompanying the Korean
ambassadors and brought letters from the
Korean neophytes. They described the state of
the propagation of the Gospel
there, requested to be sent sacred objects,
books about the religion, and asked
for instructions on several points. The arrival
of Paul Yn,
which was not expected, was a most delightful
sight for the Church in Peking.
It was filled with extreme joy on learning of
the wonderful spread of the
Christian religion in a country where no
missionary had ever set foot, where
the name of Jesus had never been preached. For
my part, after reading the
letters from this newly-born Church and hearing
the stories of the neophyte, I
replied by a pastoral letter in which I exhorted
these new Christians to give
eternal thanks to the almighty and infinitely
good God for the ineffable
benefits of their vocation to the faith, to
persevere in that same faith, and
to employ every necessary means in order to
preserve the grace of the Gospel
they had received. Since I could see from the
questions they asked in their
letter that there was ignorance among them even
on essential questions, I
taught them briefly what they ought to believe
and practice to be truly
Christian and deserve to be regarded as such. Paul
Yn, after receiving
the sacraments of Confirmation
and the Eucharist, left full of joy in February
to return home. The letter I
gave him was written on silk so that he could
hide it more easily and safely.
[The Chinese write with a brush on silk almost
as easily as on paper. The silk
letter can then be more easily hidden in one’s
clothing.] Once he was back in
Korea, Paul Yn told
of the churches he had seen in
Peking, the European missionaries come from the
extremities of the earth to
spread the Gospel, the conversations he had had
with them, the sacraments he
had received, etc. etc. Inflamed by these tales
with a new love for the faith,
instructed on various points concerning them,
the neophytes laid aside all
fear, despised all danger. They agreed
unanimously to send a messenger to
Peking with a letter asking me for missionaries
to instruct them, fortifying
them by their preaching and the administration
of the sacraments. That same
year 1790 they sent that same Paul Yn I have just
mentioned as well as a catechumen named U. These
two deputies came in the suite
of the special ambassadors sent to the Emperor
of China by the King of Korea in
September. [It is customary to celebrate a
birthday specially every tenth year.
The Emperor of China celebrated in September
1790 his eightieth birthday.
Ambassadors of almost every neighboring prince,
including those from Korea,
came for this celebration.] The catechumen U was
an officer of the King, who
had charged him to make certain purchases.
Arriving
in Peking, they gave me the letters from their
Church. The Christians begged me
earnestly to send missionaries to care for their
souls; they also asked me
several questions about contracts, the
superstitions of their nation, etc. Once
I had consulted, regarding such important
matters of great consequence, the
opinion of learned, zealous missionaries, I
replied to the questions they had
asked, promising to send a priest after agreeing
on the time, the manner and
means suitable to ensure the success of the
journey.
The
catechumen U was baptized and received the name
John-Baptist; I gave him a
chalice, a missal,
a sacred altar-stone, ornaments
and other things needed to celebrate the holy
sacrifice of the Mass. I also
taught him how to make wine from grapes so that
all would be ready for the
arrival of the missionary. The two envoys left
Peking in October and returned
safely to their country where they delivered the
letters and objects I had
given them. This newly-born Church received much
joy and consolation from them.
John A remediis
[*Wu Jo-han,
1764-1793] a diocesan
priest from Macao I had designated as missionary
to Korea, set out from Peking
in February 1791. After 20 days of walking he
arrived at the frontier of that
kingdom just at the time agreed. The devoted
missionary stayed in the agreed
place for ten days, against his expectations,
without being able to find any
Korean Christian. We had decided to use the time
of the fair that is held on
the frontier of China and Korea, to which many
merchants from both countries
come. Korean Christians that the missionary and
his Chinese guides would have
recognized by certain signs were supposed to be
there to welcome him and lead him
into their country. The time of the embassy and
the fair passed without anyone
appearing. The missionary and his Chinese
companions felt great pain at this
and returned to Peking. The following year,
1792, we received neither letters
nor news from Korea, since no Christian came
with the regular embassy. However,
certain reports spread by pagans from that
Kingdom gave us to understand there
had been a persecution of the Christians and
that some had been executed for
their religion. It was only at the end of 1793
that we were able to confirm
that report. At that time, among the suite of
the ambassadors, came Sabas
Chi, a Christian, and John Po, a catechumen,
with
letters from the Church in Korea. There the
Christians gave an account of the
cruel persecution of 1792 and 1793 which had
made it impossible for them to go
to welcome the missionary.
Here is
the cause of the persecution. Two brothers [*in
fact cousins], Paul Yn
[*Blessed Yun
Ji-chung, 1759-1791]
and James Kuan [*Blessed
Gwon Sang-yeon,
1751-1791] had
refused to conduct their Christian mother’s
funerals according to the rituals
of paganism. They were from a noble family, of
exemplary piety and full of
zeal, following the example of their mother who
had instructed them on her
deathbed that they should not permit
superstitious and pagan ceremonies to be
performed during her funeral rites. According to
the custom established by
Korean laws, on the death of their parents,
children are obliged by the public
authorities to erect tablets on which the names
of the dead are written, which
are placed and kept very religiously in a decent
house called for that reason the
temple of the ancestors. All the
descendants of a single family are
obliged, at certain times of the year, to go
there, burn incense, offer prepared
food, and perform several other superstitious
ceremonies. That constitutes the
main element of what Koreans consider filial
piety toward their deceased
ancestors.
Among
other doubts and questions that the Church of
Korea had submitted to me in
1790, I had been asked if it was permitted
to erect ancestral tablets or to
preserve those that already existed. I
replied, following the very formal
decisions of the Holy See in the Bull of
Benedict XIV ex quo and that of
Clement IX ex illa
die that it was not
permitted. That reply was a stumbling-block for
several noble Koreans. Taught
by my Pastoral Letter that ancestral tablets and
other ceremonies had been
condemned as superstitious by the Holy See, they
preferred to renounce a
religion whose truth they had recognized, rather
than the evil customs of their
country. Paul Yn
and James Kuan
were not of that number; as soon as they learned
that it was not permitted to
erect nor preserve ancestral tablets, they
burned those that they had in their home. When
their mother died, their
relatives and associates, almost all pagans,
came to assist at the funeral
following the custom of the country. Not finding
the tablets of their ancestors
in the place where they were normally kept, they
grew furious and began to insult
the Christian religion and the two neophytes,
demanding with threats that they
bring out and put in their place the tablets,
which they believed they had
simply hidden somewhere. The two brothers did
not allow themselves to be
intimidated: “We are Christians,” they replied
frankly, “our mother was too, we
are not allowed to combine the worship of the
true God with the falsely
religious cult of the dead. Our mother forbade
that we should make during her
funeral any ceremony that was superstitious and
contrary to the law of God; the
tablets are not hidden; following her advice, we
threw them in the fire.
Convinced as we are of the truth of the
Christian religion, of the uselessness
and absurdity of a cult offered to planks and
corpses, we are ready to suffer all
sorts of torment and death itself, rather than
violate the law of God by
erecting and keeping tablets, which he detests.”
These words and more,
pronounced forcibly by Paul Yn, who was regarded in
his family as a celebrated scholar, made his
pagan relatives furious. United in
a common mind, they went and denounced Paul Yn and
James Kuan to the
governor of the town as being
guilty of filial impiety and professing a
foreign religion.
The two
brothers, summoned to judgment and interrogated
by the governor, confessed
Jesus Christ with a noble sincerity. Paul Yn
demonstrated the truth of his religion; he did
not deny having burned the
tablets; he proved how useless and unjust was
the superstitious cult rendered
to the dead etc. The governor, an enemy of the
Christian religion and of the
family of Paul Yn,
took this occasion to suppress
them. He wrote to the ministers of the King to
inform them of the accusations
made against the two brothers; he exaggerated
the danger he claimed this
European religion represented to the King and
the Kingdom; he claimed that it
turned people away from the cult of the spirits
protecting the nation, from
venerating of ancestors, and obeying the laws of
the state.
The
ministers informed the King of the two brothers’
crime, and the dangers
threatening the state if this religion was not
completely rooted out. This
Prince, essentially a friend of peace, was
filled with fear and established one
of the great lords of the kingdom as Inquisitor
against those confessing the
Christian religion. He commanded him to employ
all the diligence and care
possible to prevent the spread of this religion
and to oblige children to
render the regular cult to their ancestors.
In
order to fulfill the functions of his charge,
this grand inquisitor launched a
major persecution of the Christian religion. He
commanded all the subordinate
governors in charge of towns to imprison all the
Christians they might discover
and not set them free until they had denied the
faith aloud and in writing. He
summoned the two brothers in chains to receive
their judgment. To the various
questions posed they replied: “We profess the
Christian religion because we
have recognized its truth; we threw the
ancestral tablets into the fire because
we consider them useless and detestable before
God; we wish to live and die as
Christians, according to God’s good pleasure.
For the rest, we are ready to
obey the King and the laws of the state in all
that is not contrary to the law
of God.” This reply, brief but full of power,
displeased the inquisitor. He
ordered that torture should be applied to them
until they renounced Jesus
Christ. The two athletes of Christianity only
grew firmer in the faith under
the torments. After the torture they tried
caresses with an equal lack of
success. Then the angry inquisitor pronounced
the death sentence, condemning
them as members of a foreign religion, scorners
of that of their land, and
guilty of impiety toward their ancestors.
Following the custom of the country,
the sentence was presented to the King for
confirmation. The Prince was sad, he
had recognized the genius and fine qualities of
Paul Yn
and loved his family. He sent some people to the
prison to exhort the brothers
to renounce Christianity and set up the tablets
in honor of their mother and
their ancestors. They were authorized, if the
brothers agreed to this, to
commute their death sentences. It was pointless.
The two athletes of Jesus
Christ expressed their deepest gratitude for the
King’s goodness and clemency
toward them, but they replied that they could
not renounce a religion they had
recognized as being the only true one, nor agree
to set up tablets that they
knew to be an impious act toward God. Irritated
by this reply, the King ordered
the execution of the sentence. These generous
athletes were at once transported
from the prison to the execution ground,
followed by a great crowd of pagans
and Christians. James Kuan,
half dead from the
torments he had undergone, could scarcely
pronounce occasionally the sacred
names of Jesus and Mary, but Paul Yn advanced
cheerfully toward the execution ground as toward
a heavenly banquet. He
announced Jesus Christ with so much dignity that
both Christians and Pagans
were seized with admiration.
Once at
the place of execution, the presiding officer
asked them if they would obey the
King, celebrate the usual cult offered to the
tablets of ancestors and renounce
the foreign religion. On their negative reply,
the officer ordered Paul Yn
to read the death sentence confirmed by the King
and
written on a piece of wood according to the
custom in the Kingdom. Paul Yn takes it, reads it
aloud in a voice full of joy, and
after having read it lays his head on a great
block of wood then, having
pronounced the holy names of Jesus and Mary
several times, he very calmly gives
a sign to the executioner to do his duty. The
executioner cuts off his head,
then that of James Kuan
who, although half dead, was
still pronouncing the holy names of Jesus and
Mary. This happened on December
7, 1791, at 3 in the afternoon. Paul Yn was aged 33,
James Kuan 41.
The
King repented having confirmed the death
sentence and sent an order condemning
them to exile in the hope that they would change
their minds, but when the
message arrived the sentence has already been
carried out. The bodies of the
two martyrs remained unburied for nine days. To
intimidate the Christians,
guards had been stationed there. On the ninth
day the relatives who had
obtained the King’s permission to bury them and
the friends who came for the
funeral were amazed to see the two bodies
without any sign of corruption, pink
and flexible as if they had been beheaded the
same day. Their surprise grew
greater still when they saw the block on which
they had had their heads cut off
and the piece of wood on which the sentence was
written, sprinkled with blood
still liquid and fresh as if they had been
executed a moment before. These
circumstances seemed the more remarkable because
in December the cold was so
intense that all the liquids had frozen,
according to the Koreans, even enclosed
in containers. The pagans, full of amazement,
denounced the injustice of the
judges, proclaiming the innocence of the two
brothers; a few, touched by the
miracle that they examined carefully, were
converted to the faith. The
Christians, no less amazed, praised and invoked
God, lifting to heaven eyes wet
with tears of joy. They dipped several cloths in
the blood of the martyrs and
sent several pieces to me together with a
detailed account of the martyrdom,
which I am writing an abbreviation of here in
order not to be over-long.
In
their account the neophytes write that a man
given up by doctors and about to
die was cured in a moment after drinking water
in which the plank sprinkled
with the blood of the martyrs had been dipped;
they also report that several
people on the point of death who touched a cloth
dipped in the same blood were
cured at once. These events strengthened the
shaken faith of several neophytes
and led a good number of pagans to embrace
Christianity, so that we can say
that the blood of these two martyrs was a
seedbed of Christians.
As for
the other Christians, the grand inquisitor
recommended the governors of the
towns to use exhortations and threats rather
than torture and the death
sentence. He said: “It is certain that the
Christians like to die for their
faith, after which people offer them glory and
honor as saints. We read in
their books that the more we kill the more
people embrace their religion.” The
inquisitor himself, following this principle,
employed in the capital exhortations,
caresses, promises of wealth and honors, and
succeeded in making several
apostatize, especially among the nobles. But he
also sometimes had recourse to
cruel tortures. In the provinces, the governors
of the towns persecuted
Christians severely or mildly, depending on
their attitude toward the faith.
Still, generally speaking, the neophytes were
treated more severely in the
provinces than in the capital. While we have to
lament the apostasy of several,
especially among the nobles, who renounced Jesus
Christ in speaking and
writing, we have above all to rejoice at the
perseverance of a far larger
number who sacrificed to the faith honors,
wealth and peace in this world. It
is certain that a large number resisted torture
to their last breath, while others
fled into the deserts and mountains in order not
to expose their faith, that
virgins and pious widows gave up advantageous
marriages in order to serve Jesus
Christ more surely and easily; some, exiled for
the Gospel, preached faith in
Jesus in their place of exile with the same
fervor as before. On learning that
the people were complaining since so many
persons were being imprisoned and
tortured on account of the Christian religion,
the King ordered the grand
inquisitor in the second year of the persecution
to set free the imprisoned
Christians, exhorting them to give up the
European religion and observe the
customs and religion of their country. At the
same time he commanded that great
care should be taken to prevent the Christians
going to China, from where the
religion had come. This royal decree put an end
to the first general
persecution of Korean Christians. The faithful
returned to their homes and the
governors of the towns stopped troubling them.
Once
the persecution had ended, the most fervent
Christians sent to Peking Sabbas
Chi [*Blessed Ji
Hwang, 1767-1795] and John Po
[?],
whom I mentioned before, with letters giving an
account of events and asking
for missionaries. I discussed with the two
neophytes how to send a priest to
Korea. The priest John A remediis whom I
had
initially chosen for the task was dead, so I
chose James Vellozo
[*Blessed Zhou Wenmo, Chu Mun-mo in Korean
pronunciation,
1752-1801], a
Chinese priest, the first pupil of the episcopal
seminary of Peking, aged 24,
who as well as piety and a sufficient knowledge
of ecclesiastical matters, has
a deep knowledge of Chinese letters and
sciences, and whose face is quite
similar to those of Koreans. This missionary
left Peking in February 1794,
furnished with all the ordinary and
extraordinary powers needed to exercise the
apostolic ministry. After 20 days’ walking he
arrived at the frontier between
the two countries and found Korean Christians
with whom he deliberated on the
best time, manner and route to enter their
country. Since the governors of
Korea were particularly vigilant at the frontier
on account of some local
persecutions, they agreed that it would be
difficult to enter before December.
While he was waiting, he visited some of the
missions we have in Tartary close
to Korea, as I had charged him to do if the
entry in Korea proved difficult. In
the month of December that same year, the
missionary returned to the Korean
frontier, where he found Sabbas
Chi and other
Christians prepared to bring him into their
country. He took off his Chinese
dress, put on Korean clothes, and entered the
Kingdom around midnight on
December 23; he arrived safely after 12 days
walking at the capital city called
Kim-Ki-tao.
His
arrival brought inexpressible joy and
consolation to the newly-born Church; he
was received and welcomed as an angel from
heaven. Without delay he prepared
all that was needed for the celebration of the
holy sacrifice and devoted
himself entirely to the study of the Korean
language, in order to be able to
begin to exercise the sacred ministry as soon as
possible. On Holy Saturday
1795 he administered baptism to several adults,
completed the ceremonies for
this sacrament for some others, and received
several written confessions. On
the holy day of Easter he celebrated the Holy
Mass and gave communion to those
who were prepared. Until then the sacrifice of
the evangelical law had never
been celebrated in that realm. The missionary
was not troubled until the month
of June; he took advantage of the calm to
administer baptism to a number of
people and complete the ceremonies for a large
number who had been baptized by
other Christians.
A woman
who had just received the sacraments, on
returning home, told her brother who
was a catechumen of the arrival and preaching of
the missionary. This man, who
had renounced Jesus Christ in the previous
persecution, feigned an ardent
desire to make penitence and receive baptism and
ran to the house of the
priest; he asked him and his guide many
questions about the faith and about his
arrival in the country. On leaving the house
after a lengthy conversation, he
goes straight to the royal palace, and informs
the ministers of the arrival of
a foreigner, where he is living, those who
brought him etc. It was June 27,
1795. A military governor was present at this
denunciation who was an apostate
Christian who had sincerely
repented of his crime and longed ardently for a
priest to whom he might confess, but the other
Christians had not informed him
of the arrival of the missionary, fearing he
might betray them. Informed by the
denunciation of the other apostate, who was also
a military officer, of where
the priest was staying, he ran there, warned him
of the accusation laid against
him, of the danger facing him and the faith,
advised him to leave there at once
and offered to take him elsewhere. The
missionary took his advice, and he
brought him that very instant to the home of a
rich Christian widow who took
him in and
protected him until the storm was past. The
missionary was safe there; following the customs
of the kingdom, nobody was
permitted to enter the house since there were no
men living there. That same day,
the ministers of the King after taking counsel
together, sent two bands of
soldiers, one to the house of Matthias Xu [*Blessed
Choi In-gil, 1765-1795],
where the missionary had stayed, and one to
pursue those who had guided him,
with orders to bring them all to the high court.
Obeying these orders, the
soldiers impetuously entered the home of
Matthias Xu, arrested him and brought
him before the tribunal. At about the same time
they arrested the two main
guides of the missionary, Sabbas
Chi and Paul Yn,
and five other Christians they thought had also
acted
as guides. These five insisted that they knew
nothing of the entry of a
foreigner into the country. For about 15 days
beatings and tortures were
employed to make them renounce Jesus Christ, but
they suffered without being
shaken. At the end of that time they were sent
home, and they set off praising
and blessing the God they had generously
confessed.
As for
the three other Christians, Matthias Xu, the
missionary’s host, Sabbas
Chi and Paul Yn,
who had brought
him in, they were brought before the tribunal
the night they were arrested. By
their patience, their silence and their
constancy, they wearied and
disconcerted the wickedness, the cruelty, and
the ruses of the judges.
Questioned whether they professed the Christian
religion, and if they worshiped
a crucified man, they bravely replied that they
professed the Christian
religion and worshiped the Man-God crucified for
the salvation of humanity.
Ordered to curse and blaspheme against Jesus
Christ, they replied that they
could not and affirmed that they were ready to
die a thousand times rather that
proffer insults and blasphemy against Jesus
Christ, true God and true Redeemer.
The president of the tribunal ordered them to be
struck, beaten, and have their
knees crushed. This was to no avail, the three
continued unanimous in
professing the faith, without hesitating or
showing any weakening. Then they
were questioned about the foreigner they had
brought from China, their
accomplices in the so-called crime, the route
they had taken to reach the
capital, the houses where they had received
hospitality along the way, the
name, quality and place of origin of the
foreigner they had brought in; they
asked many other questions about their journey.
Their only reply was to profess
their faith and regarding all the questions just
mentioned they kept totally
silent as though they were deaf and dumb. The
judges and the president employed
caresses and threats to urge them to answer
their questions; it was in vain.
After spending a good part of the night with no
result, the president ordered
the use of even crueler torments to force them
to answer. All the methods used
in Korea were employed, blows, beatings, hand
crushing, foot crushing, knee
crushing. In the midst of such horrible
torments, the courageous athletes of
Jesus Christ spoke nothing but the sacred names
of Jesus and Mary. Finally,
deciding that the three were mocking them,
despairing of obtaining a single
word about the arrival of the foreigner, the
judges grew furious and ordered
that every kind of torture should be applied
until they died. The order was
executed and the three confessors of Jesus
Christ expired at about the same
moment. They invoked Jesus Christ to the last
moment, their faces were serene,
a sign of the spiritual sweetness they were
enjoying in the midst of their
torments that they were enduring for the love of
Jesus Christ and for the
preservation of the Christian religion. This
martyrdom occurred on June 25,
1795. Sabbas Chi
was 29, Paul Yn
was 36 and Matthias Xu was 31.
These
three martyrs had distinguished themselves by
fine acts ever since their
baptism, the Church in Korea is full of praises
of them. It is sure that they
were zealous evangelists, and worked ardently
for the glory of God. One clear
proof of that is seen in the courage with which
they braved the great dangers
involved in bringing the missionary into the
Kingdom, entry into which is
strictly forbidden to any foreigner. With no
other goal than the glory of God
and the salvation of their compatriots, they
brought the first missionary of
the Christian religion to the capital safe and
sound, despite the dangers, the
fears, the difficulties inseparable from such an
action. It seems that we may
rightly consider the martyrdom they suffered so
gloriously as a reward for the
pains they had taken and the dangers they had
faced for the glory of Jesus
Christ. This grace of martyrdom is also an
unequivocal proof that they now
enjoy the celestial bliss to which who die for
Jesus Christ are called.
Moreover,
the Church in Peking and I myself witnessed the
piety and devotion of Paul Yn
during the two visits he made to Peking in 1790.
He
received the sacraments of Confirmation,
Penance, and the Eucharist, with such
striking fervor that several Christians were
unable to keep back tears of joy
and admiration on finding in this neophyte the
external appearance, the
discourse and the exemplary virtues of an
ancient disciple of Jesus Christ, a
master in the practice of evangelical
maxims.
Then in
1793 we were witnesses of the piety of Sabbas Chi
during the 40 days he spent in Peking. The
faithful of our city were edified by
the evident devotion, the great fervor and the
tears he shed on receiving the
sacraments of Confirmation, Penance and the
Eucharist. As for Matthias Xu, we
were not eye-witnesses since he never came to
Peking, but I learned by the
missionary sent to Korea that he was one of the
first Christians chosen by
Peter Ly for the propagation of the faith and
that he distinguished himself by his
fervor and piety, his zeal in extending the
glory of God.
After
the death of the three martyrs, people urged the
King several times to order by
public decree searches against the Christian
religion. This Prince,
peace-loving by nature, and not strongly opposed
to the Christian religion,
fearing too a poplar
uprising, refused to provoke by a public decree
a general persecution of
Christianity; but he removed their positions
from several civilian and military
officials and partially demoted several others
because they were Christians.
Paul Ly was sent into exile after being stripped
of his position. After that,
the King ordered all the governors in the
Kingdom to be extremely careful not
to allow the European religion to spread,
exhorting the people not to give up
the religion of the country to embrace one from
abroad. If people do not obey,
they should inform the supreme criminal tribunal
so that it can take effective
precautions, after asking the King for
particular instructions. The King
particularly instructed the governors in the
frontier area and the ambassadors
to be sent to Peking in future to take special
care that no Christian should
leave the realm and no Chinese enter it.
Although
this royal command prevented a general
persecution of the faith, it allowed the
governors of the towns to vex Christians by
rigorous searches. The only
perceptible difference between this inquisition
and open persecution is that
most governors did not kill Christians, or
subject them to the cruelest
tortures. Yet there were some who, under the
pretext of the vigilance commanded
by the King, did torture people to death. A
large number of neophytes abandoned
their homes and took refuge in the deserts and
mountains in order to escape
their tyranny; many other died of hunger and
deprivation in prison; there were
also many who, weak in the faith, preferred the
perishable goods of this world
to the treasures of heaven and compromised,
instead of confessing their faith
clearly and openly. Yet, thanks to divine
providence, the missionary was kept
safe, in the midst of such great dangers, for
the salvation of many. Once the
vexations had diminished somewhat, and the young
Church began to breathe a
little, a great number of apostates came
thronging to him, to lay at his feet
the crime of apostasy that fear or weakness had
made them commit, and seek
absolution. Those who had not bowed the knee
before Baal found strength and
consolation in receiving the sacraments.
The
death of the three martyrs we have just
mentioned, and the searches that the
governors undertook after that were the reason
why I only received news and
letters from the missionary two years after he
entered Korea. We had agreed
that in the spring after he entered Korea he
would send a Korean courier to the
frontier to give letters to a Chinese messenger
I would send, so that I could
know his situation and the state of the mission
entrusted to him. Contrary to
my expectation, the messenger I sent saw no
Korean Christian throughout the
duration of the fair. His return to Peking
without letters cast us into great
anxiety concerning the state and the fate of the
missionary and the mission in
Korea. This grew even worse when a courier I
sent early the following year told
me on his return that he had seen no Korean
neophyte and that on sounding out a
pagan merchant of the country, he learned from
him that people had been killed
on account of the Christian religion. This
report was confirmed by several
pagans from Korea during the annual embassy.
Combining these different reports,
there were reasons for fearing that the
missionary had been caught and put to
death.
Once
the searches by the governors along the frontier
had slackened a little, the
missionary was at last at the end of two years
able to send to Peking a
Christian bearing his letters to give details of
the new Church. This pious and
fervent Christian was called Thomas Vam. Although he
was of noble family, he pretended to be a man of
the people in order to come to
Peking as a servant of the ambassador. He had
paid money to purchase the
position from a true servant of the ambassadors.
His arrival in Peking on
January 29 of this current year of 1797 filled
us with a joy that was the
greater for no longer being hoped for. The
letters from the missionary that he
brought me were in Latin and dated September 14
of the previous year, those
from the Christians were in Chinese characters
and of more or less the same
date. They were written on silk and the
messenger had hidden them in his
clothing to escape the vigilance and searches of
the officials. By them I
learned everything about the state of the faith
in Korea, I could verify the
details learned in previous years of the origin
and progress of the preaching
of the Gospel, the persecutions and the
obstacles erected by the pagans; I
learned that in 1795 the missionary had been in
the greatest danger, from which
he had barely escaped. He notes, as I had
charged him, the dangers he is
surrounded by in the exercise of his apostolic
ministry on account of the
constant searches by the governors; he informs
me that the superstitious cult
that the Koreans offer the dead and the tablets
is a great obstacle to the
progress of the Gospel, and that forbidding that
cult in my pastoral letter made
a great number of noble Christians and
catechumens turn back. He speaks of the
King as a naturally good, peace-loving prince
who only persecutes those who
follow the Christian religion because he is
forced to by his ministers and he
fears some kind of revolution in his kingdom.
Finally he enters into various
details about the country [The Koreans have the
same morals and customs as the
Chinese, from whom they descend and to whom they
belonged in the past. They
adore the same false divinities, they follow the
same masters, Confucius and
the other Chinese doctors. The form of their
government is substantially the
same; the only difference lies in a small number
of objects introduced by the
modern Chinese under the currently ruling Tartaro-Chinese
dynasty.], its morals, customs, laws, temporal
government, religion, and other
such things the knowledge of which might prove
useful to those charged with the
care of the Church in Korea, to govern it well.
Among the means which the
missionary and the Christians of Korea propose
in order to preserve and promote
the Christian religion, here is what seems best
and preferable to all others:
to beg the Queen of Portugal to send an
ambassador to the King of Korea,
accompanied by missionaries learned in
mathematics and medicine, to greet that
prince and propose a treaty of alliance. The
Koreans say that the King of
Korea, naturally good, passionate about
mathematics and medicine, by no means
hostile to Christianity, flattered and grateful
at the arrival of a great
European ambassador, would honor that
ambassador’s religion, allow it in his
kingdom, treat the missionaries favorably and
allow them near him, to the
greater profit and safety of the Christian
religion.
There,
Monseigneur, you have the abridged history of
the newly-born Church in Korea,
on which the infinitely good God has recently
deigned to look with mercy,
sending light to people sitting in darkness and
leading them in the way of
peace and salvation, by means that are the more
admirable for seeming
ineffective in human eyes.
When I
think of the extraordinary conversion of part of
this nation, the means by
which some 4,000 men have come to a knowledge of
the truth, when I think of the
courageous virtue, the heroic constancy with
which they have embraced and kept
their faith in the midst of so many violent
upsets and contrarieties, I recall
these words from Exodus, “The finger of God is
here,” and those of the Apostle,
“Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom of the
knowledge of God.” What but the
Spirit of God can operate a so sudden change in
hearts, that men so long seated
in darkness and the shadow of death should
suddenly stand up at the sight of
the light and follow it? What but the Spirit of
God can work such great wonders
of omnipotence with such weak instruments, that
a young man barely instructed
of the things needed for Baptism should become
the preacher and the apostle of
his compatriots and have the strength to draw to
the faith such a large number?
And what, finally, but the Spirit of God, can
fortify by his grace the hearts
of the weak that they resist the attractions of
the world and allow themselves
to be put to death amidst horrible torments,
rather than abandon the God they
have begun to worship? The propagation of the
Gospel and its progress in the
kingdom of Korea is therefore a truly divine
work. It can be compared to the
primitive Church, this Church from its beginning
exposed to storms of
persecution, sprinkled with the blood of five
martyrs, strengthened by the
virtues of a great number of confessors! May the
all-good and almighty God
enable the Church in Korea, like the primitive
Church, to see the number of its
children grow day by day, and grow in virtue, so
receiving the fruits of
heavenly blessings! The Sovereign Pontiff, the
Pastor of the universal Church,
has entrusted to me the care of this new Church,
daughter of that of Peking.
[His Eminence Cardinal Antonelli, in a letter he
wrote to me in 1792, informed
me of the joy and pleasure that the Sovereign
Pontiff Paul IV experienced on
learning that Christianity had recently been
established in Korea. He wrote: “Our
excellent Sovereign Pontiff has read with the
greatest eagerness the account
you wrote of this wonderful event. He shed tears
of joy at it, and felt an
ineffable pleasure in being able to offer to God
these first-fruits in lands so
far away.” A little later the same Cardinal
adds: “Therefore His Holiness loves
with a very paternal tenderness these
illustrious athletes of Jesus Christ. He
longs to give them all sorts of spiritual good
things. Though absent in body,
he sees them with the eyes of the spirit,
embraces them cordially and
wholeheartedly bestows his apostolic blessing.”]
I
recommend the Church in Korea to your prayers, to
your holy sacrifices, your fervent prayers and
those of your Church, in which I
have the greatest trust. I hope they will be of
the greatest help to me.
Farewell, illustrious Prelate. Continue to love
me as ever and to pray for me. Monseigneur, Your very
devoted friend and affectionate servant, signed, F.R.
Bishop of Peking. Peking, August 15,
1797. Books referenced Relation de l’
établissement du christianisme dans
le royaume de Corée, rédigée, en latin, par
Monseigneur de Gouvéa,
évêque de Pékin, et adressée le 15 août 1797 à
Monseigneur de St Martin évêque
de Caradre, et
vicaire apostolique de la province du Sutchuen en Chine. Traduction
sur une copie reçue à Londres le 12 Juillet
1798. A Londres;
De l’Imprimerie de Ph. Le Boussonnier
& Co. No.
5. Hollen Street,
Soho. Et se trouve chez les
Libraires François. 1800. (The text translated here) This
book is available for free download from
Google Books, under its French title. Dallet,
Charles. Histoire
de
l’église de Corée,
précédée
d’une introduction sur l’histoire, les
institutions, la langue, les moeurs et coutumes coréennes.
Paris, V. Palmé. 1874 Jean Sangbae Ri. Confucius
et Jésus Christ. La première
théologie chrétienne en Corée d’après l’oeuvre de Yi Piek, lettré Confucéen
1754-1786. Paris:
Beauchesne. 1979.
[Many scholars doubt whether the text
attributed here to Yi Byeok
was in fact written by
him.] Brother Anthony is the current
President of RAS Korea
PDF English translation
without Preface
PDF
Original Latin text