Status and Stigma

by Francisco Cho

Brother Leeb’s work is a comparative study examining Catholic-related events and figures in China, Korea, and Japan. While there have been various comparative studies on the history of Catholicism in East Asia, this is perhaps the very first work written in both Chinese and English that systematically compares key ideas, figures, and events from a diachronic historical perspective across the three countries. One of the challenges of this study lies in the lack of English and Chinese materials on Korean Church history, which makes it difficult for foreign scholars to access and understand. Nevertheless, Brother Leeb has made sincere efforts to incorporate the latest research findings and attempted comparative studies of both premodern and modern figures in order to provide a comprehensive view across different historical periods. Although some minor shortcomings can be found in certain details, this work is highly valuable as a pioneering attempt and will serve as a cornerstone for further development through continuous refinement. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the need for more translations and studies of important materials and stories from Korean Church history into foreign languages.

One of the strengths of this book lies in its approach to comparing historical figures within every single chapter, not merely by contrasting the individuals themselves, but by presenting both the synchronic background of the era and the diachronic context. For example, Chapter Four compares Father Ruggieri (羅明堅) and Lee Su-gwang (李睟光). The author does not merely juxtapose their biographies or accomplishments; instead, he explains how Ruggieri wrote the first Chinese catechism Tianzhu Shilu (天主實錄), how many other missionary works followed, and how these were received by Chinese literati, culminating in the compilation of the Tianxue Chuhan (天學初函) by Li Zhizao. The book also interprets Lee Su-gwang’s introduction of Christianity in his anthology Jibong Yuseol, mentions Heo Gyun, and presents historical records of Crown Prince Sohyeon’s encounter with Adam Schall in the Qing Dynasty and the subsequent study of Western Learning (西學). The work also introduces Schall’s Zhuzhi Qunzheng (主制群徵), describes Father Caballero’s efforts to enter Joseon, and introduces several notable scholars of the Silhak (實學) tradition in Korea. Through such comparisons of events and individuals related to the reception of Catholicism in the three East Asian countries, this book helps readers understand the cultural differences and characteristics of each and naturally leads to a deeper understanding of their respective Church histories.

No one can be fully satisfied with a first attempt, but this pioneering step is a meaningful one. It is my sincere hope that this endeavor will contribute to the development of Asian Church history research, especially the international introduction of Korea’s unique historical narratives, and that more Korean Church materials will be translated and studied in various foreign languages.

Once again, I commend Brother Leeb for his scholarly efforts and look forward to further development of his research.

Rev. Francisco Cho (Cho Han-geon)

Head of the Institute of Korean Church History

Seoul, April 20, 2025

by He Guanghu

There is a well-known Chinese proverb that says ‘Participants are confused, bystanders see clearly.’ Since the many living beings and so many millions of people are entangled in the numerous works and duties every day and every hour, they seldom realize that they are in fact confused, although they believe that they have a good understanding and that they are smart; therefore, they think they do not need to listen to other people’s advice, and they do not need to think about the views of bystanders.

There is another saying, which goes like this: ‘Someone who remains silent when watching a chess game is a real gentleman.’ Perhaps you have watched groups of elderly Chinese men sitting or standing around a chess game in parks or in silent alleys, watching the game in complete silence, and even those talkative men who are known to be noisy ‘loudspeakers’ in daily life will be like docile children when watching the game, shrouded in silence!

However, as life experience tells us, it is true that ‘participants are often confused, and bystanders see clearly,’ and likewise, it is also a fact that it would often be beneficial for those who play chess to hear the observations and comments of the bystanders. And if one could obtain the evaluation or suggestions of an expert, one would be even luckier!

We learn from the lessons of history, that, if it is not a chess game, but the spiritual outfit of a nation-state, if it is religion, culture, society, politics and their interrelatedness, and again, if it is the prolonged, multi-faceted, uneasy, and complicated cultural exchange between nation-states with a long and rich history, implying political and trade contacts, favors and rejections, and even large-scale conflicts and wars, invasion and resistance, suppression and rebellion… then the many people living in these nation-states will even more easily be ‘confused participants’ when facing these profound questions – they will rather tend to listen to what they hear and circulate the views which they like to hear. They will not want to listen to or meditate on the exotic views, observations, and explanations of other people. But this way of thinking or customary behavior will possibly lead to sad tragedies!

Therefore, the people of these nations do not need flatterers who only pander to them, but they need the frank observations and comments of a bystander. The people of such a nation should be most happy if they are lucky enough to obtain the evaluations and suggestions of someone who is not only an expert but also a friend!

We Chinese are the people of such a state, and we are so lucky that we should congratulate ourselves, because Prof. Leopold Leeb is such an expert friend – he is not only a ‘bystander’ with a wide horizon, he is also a diligent researcher and profound source of knowledge; he does not only love China ardently, he is also ready to make sacrifices, and with frank candor wants to be a true friend who gives honest admonition!

Before this study, Leopold Leeb had already completed two other books in which he bridged the histories of Christianity in Japan and in Vietnam with China by comparing outstanding Christians from these nations. Thus, his horizon is to research the situation of Christianity in East Asia with China as the center or point of departure.

What we call East Asia is mainly China, the cradle of Chinese culture, and those nations that were once influenced by Chinese culture, namely Japan, Vietnam, and Korea. Formerly some Western scholars claimed that ‘Chinese civilization is the civilization of Confucianism,’ and not a few Chinese scholars supported this rather vague statement – ‘Chinese civilization’ should rather be defined as the overall system of the political, economic, social, and cultural structures, which originated in Chinese culture and held sway in the geographic region of China; however, in the flow of time not only changed the region where it held sway – once it was confined to central China, later it spread to the vast deserts in the north – but also the main guiding principles changed in different periods: the pre-Qin period was guided by the ‘System of Yin and Zhou’ (Yin Zhou zhidu, a phrase by Wang Guowei), and the period after the Qin Dynasty was the ‘System of Confucianism and the Legalist School’ (‘Outside Confucianism, at the core Legalism’), but today the guiding principle is Marxist-Leninist thinking and a kind of nation-statism (minzu-guoquan zhuyi). If one considers the longest time period and deepest influence of any guiding principle as decisive for a definition, then one should say that Chinese civilization was or is a civilization where ‘Confucianism is the surface and Legalism is the core’ (Ru biao Fa li).

by the Author

Geographically and culturally, China and Korea are neighbors, but due to the language barrier and because of historical reasons, there is little communication between the Christians of China and Korea, and few are aware of the historical links and affinities. So far, there is not a single study that attempts to see the relations and parallel developments of the process of evangelization in China and Korea in a more systematic way. Having lived in Beijing for three decades, I decided to embark on this research, which outlines the history of Christianity in the two nations in a comparative perspective. As I have shown in similar comparative studies concerning Christianity in China and Japan1 and the Catholic Church in China and Vietnam,2 the biographical approach is helpful and revealing. I have tried to find prominent persons in both traditions that may lend themselves to a comparison. Thus, the focus is on the biographies of certain outstanding Christians. Their fates reflect the situation of the churches in these two nations, which are linked to each other by a common cultural heritage, including many linguistic, social, and political elements.

As to the content and style of this book, I probably should apologize to the Western readers for enlisting so many names of missionaries, priests, Chinese, and Korean Catholics, who are rather unknown. Only a few people in Europe and America will be acquainted with the last three or four centuries of Chinese and Korean history; thus, one may easily be confused when facing so many strange personal names and place names. For better orientation, I added explanations in the index, which also contains short biographies of the more important persons mentioned in the book. At the same time, I should apologize to the Korean readers for not integrating literature and research written in Korean, which I cannot read. My intention has been to reach out to Christian readers in China, to make them aware of the many historical links between the churches of these two nations, links that can form bridges and channels for mutual appreciation and respect today.

Leopold Leeb

Beijing, October 2024

Thinking about a suitable title for this book, I contemplated this version: ‘The Cloud, the Temple, and the Great Wall,’ in allusion to a passage in the First Testament (1 Kings 8:10), where a cloud fills the Lord’s temple. The cloud signified the presence of God when the Israelites passed through the desert, whereas the temple can be counted as a symbol of an institutionalized and lasting presence of the mystery of the Lord in the city of Jerusalem. In a similar way, the early history of Christianity in China and Korea can be seen as a history of a vague and arcane belief, a faith in the presence of divine providence and guidance, but also as the story of institutionalization and the establishment of firm and tangible monuments of religious worship. Churches were built in honor of the Christian God, and these visible architectural works would manifest or mirror the establishment and firm rooting of Christian communities in the respective nations.

The ‘cloud’ may be interpreted as the profound yet vague spiritual longing of generations of Chinese and Koreans who worshipped celestial deities in antiquity. However, the nature of this worship is controversial until today: there were no ‘revealed scriptures’ in which ‘Heaven’ spoke to mankind. When was there a full-fledged ‘religion of heaven’ with popular sanctuaries, specific rites, and a hierarchy of priests independent from state officialdom? Daoism, which became a popular religion in the Han Dynasty, had rites, temples, and priests, but the object of worship was not ‘Heaven.’ In fact, in imperial China, the commoners were not even allowed to worship heaven, which was a prerogative of the ‘Son of Heaven,’ the emperor. As the well-known study by C. K. Yang claims, ‘diffused religion’ and sectarian forms prevailed in China over institutional religion, and this at least partly can be attributed to the ever-present state pressure.1 Instead, Buddhism became widespread since the Tang Dynasty (c. 600–900 AD), and popular cults mushroomed here and there. Perhaps the ‘cloud’ of the Christian faith, the belief in one God, Creator and Judge of all, could answer the longings of those people who had looked up to the sky in hope and expectation since ages, but as soon as this ‘cloud’ of hope and expectation would become more tangible and was expressed in visible and popular ways, if it would be institutionalized and become a kind of ‘temple,’ the Chinese state was prone to suppress it. This does not mean that the Chinese state, which constantly suppressed heterodoxy, was ‘the most intolerant, the most persecuting of all earthly governments,’ as J. J. M. de Groot concluded in 19032, but it implies that there were certain boundaries which foreign religions were not supposed to transgress.

The Great Wall is the largest and perhaps the most famous edifice of China, and it may represent the policy of isolation and defense against foreign intruders. It can also be seen as a symbol of imperial power, the power of Chinese (and Korean) rulers over their subjects, keeping them away from foreign influences, which they considered to be harmful. When Mongol rule collapsed in 1368 to give way to the emperors of the Ming, this Chinese dynasty embarked on a policy of ‘Sinification.’ For example, Chinese Muslims were forced to adapt themselves to the local Chinese language and customs. Foreign artistic, linguistic, religious, or technological elements or innovations had to be kept under control, so as not to pose a threat to the established rule built on the Confucian classics, an elaborate and very effective system of administration and examination of talented men who wanted to serve in the bureaucracy. Already in the sixteenth century, Korean kings, Chinese emperors, and especially Japanese shoguns were dimly aware that the foreign ships that brought in the traders and missionaries were the vessels of extensive maritime trading powers, and these traders, their skills and knowledge, their weapons, and their religion might pose a threat to domestic rule. Christianity is based on a sacred document called the Bible, and this holy scripture was something coming from outside; it was not a part of the Confucian canonical writings. Thus, it was also beyond the traditional framework of thinking and writing. As long as Christianity did not emphasize its ‘otherness’ and pretended to be something like a Buddhist school or a version of Confucianism, it was comparatively ‘safe,’ but if the peculiarity and independence of the Christian tradition would be given more representation and ampler space, its distinctive features would have attracted larger parts of the population, and at the same time this would have greatly alarmed or shocked the rulers and the educated classes. The ‘ideological incompatibility with Confucianism was a long-standing source of upper-class Chinese hostility to the missionary presence in China.’3

In this way we may understand the Great Wall of China not as the material building stretching over a distance of several thousand kilometers between Shanhaiguan (in Hebei Province) and Jiayuguan (in Gansu Province), but rather as a mental and cultural defense fortification against foreigners, a wall against penetration from other nations and cultures, and a protection against the spread of institutional religions, especially Christianity. Not only emperors and rulers but also Chinese and Korean scholars, officials, and intellectuals have been using this ‘wall’ in order to minimize the impact of the western missionaries who tried to establish their ‘temples’ on the soil of China and Korea. Finally, I decided to use ‘status’ and ‘stigma’ to cover this struggle for and against the establishment of Christian communities in the Far East.

The most interesting approach to the history of Christianity in the Far East is to look at the lives of converts and native Christians and to observe how they understood their new faith in the given historical and cultural settings. Why were they attracted to the ‘cloud’ and why did they want to help build ‘temples’? How did they try to ‘climb over’ the ‘Great Wall’ imposed on them by their cultures? Why did they think institutionalized Christianity could help their nations on the way to a better future? Were they driven by material motives? Or was it the desire for spiritual values and personal salvation? Was it the hope for social and political reforms? Or was it the egalitarianism found in certain passages of the Gospel and reflected in the actions of the western missionaries? One obvious question may be asked by anybody with a basic understanding of the situation: why was Christianity much more welcome in Korea than in China in the twentieth century?

The biographies of several outstanding men from China and Korea and of several missionaries serving in these countries show similarities and differences in the ecclesiastical history of the two nations. The greater context of other nations belonging to the tradition of Confucianism and the Chinese script is also revealing, thus sometimes observations concerning Japan and Vietnam are added (see also the chart at the end of the book, which contains outlines of the chronology of the four nations).

The presentation and analysis of a few eminent individuals may not lead to conclusions of more universal or perennial validity. However, the first aim of this study is to lead the reader to a basic understanding of the development of the churches in the East, including the great pioneers of the faith. This book is addressed first to Chinese Christians who generally know very little about the history of their neighbors in Korea, and it is also hoped that readers in Korea may gain a better understanding of the faithful in China.

China and Korea have a long history of cultural interaction. According to an old tradition, Jizi (Korean: Gija), an uncle of the last king of the Shang Dynasty, migrated to Korea around 1066 BC and became a vassal of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty. This Chinese ancestor was said to have brought agricultural knowledge and Chinese rites to Korea. The Chinese characters were imported into Korea during the Chinese Han Dynasty (c. 200 BC to 200 AD), and during the cultural prosperity of China’s Tang Dynasty (c. 600–900 AD), scholars from Korea and Japan came to China and brought back Buddhist scriptures as well as other cultural items from China. When the three kingdoms of Korea were united under the Goryeo4 rulers around the year 918, Buddhism was already well-established, and it was protected as the national religion by the first Goryeo rulers. However, since the year 958, the Goryeo5 kings also used an examination system, the gwageo, for the selection of able officials. Korea’s gwageo was modeled on the traditional Chinese examination system called keju. In this way, Confucian texts and teachings became the cornerstone of the administration system of the developing Korean state. The influence of Chinese culture in Korea was felt since the fourth and fifth centuries, and the expression of the traditional Sino-centric world view of the Korean scholars was found in the term ‘sadae’ (serving the great). The tributary embassies sent to China regularly reached a peak in the Ming Dynasty, and also continued in the Manchu period, after the initial hatred of the Manchu was overcome. As a rule, China did not try to shape Korea’s internal politics, but because Korea was so loyal to China, it limited its relations to other nations and became relatively isolated.6

The transition from Goryeo to the Dynasty of Joseon (formerly written ‘Choson’) in the years after 1392 was marked by a movement against the influence of Buddhism. The Joseon rulers placed emphasis on orthodox Confucian thought. The decline of Buddhism in Korea reflected a similar development in China, but in Korea, the shift was more marked and manifest. Throughout the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Korea emulated China, and in the Manchu period, many Joseon literati believed that Korea was the true heir of Confucian scholarship, being the ‘little China’ (xiao Zhonghua, so junghwa).7 Until this day, Koreans are proud of the Confucian philosophers of that period, the most famous being Yi Hwang (1501–70) and Yi I (1536–84).8 These philosophers wrote in Chinese characters, but they had their own language and pronounced the Chinese characters in their own distinctive way. Around 1445, the famous King Sejong the Great (1397–1450), the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, had a group of scholars invent the Korean script, which was designed to express the Korean tongue. Although for a long time this script was used only for more informal records, it became one of the most important symbols of national independence at the end of the nineteenth century. The main reason why the Korean script was not used for such a long time is that the scholar-officials of Korea insisted on Confucian education and the classical texts written in Chinese characters. The Kingdom of Joseon has been called the ‘most complete of Confucian societies.’9 Interestingly, Korean Christians and foreign missionaries promoted the use of the Korean script already at the end of the eighteenth century, mainly in order to reach out to women and the lower classes of society. The shift to a new script possibly marked also the adoption of a radically new world view, and it is significant that this shift to a radically new script never happened in China.

Two major events caused or aggravated the isolation policy of Korea, namely the devastating Japanese invasion known as the Imjin Wars (1592–98) and the attacks from the Manchus in the north, first in 1627, and then in 1636. As the Manchus established the Qing Dynasty, many Koreans remained loyal to the former Ming rule, but slowly their allegiance shifted, and they began to accept a vassal relationship with the Qing emperors. There was always a fear of being threatened by mighty neighbors, and thus it is understandable that the borders with China were under strict surveillance. Even the secret introduction of literature from China could be seen as a crime, as the case of the Christian books brought to Korea in 1784 showed.

After the Sino-British Trade Wars of 1840 (commonly known as the Opium Wars) and after Japan’s incipient trade with the western powers since 1854, Korea remained in its isolation and was slow to open up to a wider reality. A trade agreement was signed with Japan in 1876, but only in 1882 did the first treaties with American and European powers follow. This led to modernization efforts but also to instability. Japan emerged as the dominant power in the Pacific, gaining control of Korea after 1894 and stabilizing its grip on the peninsula by expelling Russians from southern Manchuria and defeating the Russian fleet in 1905. Thus, Russia, Japan’s main rival in the region, was reduced to a minor player in the control of Korea, and Japan began to see Korea as part of its own growing empire. After the annexation of Korea in 1910, Japan enforced a painful policy of unification, which threatened to wipe out Korean identity and aroused the resistance of many Koreans, including Korean Christians. Following the independence movement of 1919, many Korean intellectuals and activists went abroad (some to Shanghai) to continue their struggle for an independent Korea, and in this period, the inspiration of the Christian faith and the institutions of Christian missionaries in Korea proved to be a source of consolation and encouragement. With the retreat of Japan from Korean soil in 1945, a new challenge emerged, namely the ideological division of Korea into North Korea (influenced by Soviet Russia) and South Korea (supported by the USA and the western powers). The Korean War (1950–53) divided the nation and, at the same time, it exacerbated China’s fight against western imperialism. China openly supported the regime of North Korea and sent military forces there. An estimated 900 thousand Chinese soldiers fell in that devastating war on Korean soil.