초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The purpose of this article is to explore the image of Jesus represented in the modern Korean history. The paper has tried to examine the christolgocial text in Seonggyoyoji(聖敎要旨), which was written by Lee Byeok (1754-1786) in the literary form of the traditional Chines poem. He has been evaluated as the one of the first Korean Catholic believer. His book shows the strong influence of M. Ricci(1552-1610), the first Catholic missionary in China, who argued that Christianity was accomplished the aim of Confucianism. Ricci’s famous book『天主實義』 had a big impact on Lee’s chrisological idea. In the head of Seonggyoyoji(聖敎要旨), Lee announced the fact that his book was written after reading Lee Ji Cho’s book『天學初函』 which included in Ricci’s book and other Catholic liturgical books as well. As a Confucian scholar, Lee tried to interpret Jesus in terms from Confucian perspectives. For example, he adopted the major concept of Confucianism, Sung(誠), Oh Ryun(五倫) to explain the moral meaning of Jesus. In this sense, his christology was deeply influenced by Confucianism. Meanwhile it seems that he found Jesus’ teaching a modernity to overcome the feudalism of Joseon Dynasty. Lee understood Christianity as an accomplished religion of Confucianism. In the same sense, Choi Byunghun(1858-1927), the first journalist and Protestant theologian in 19th century in Korea, tried to understand Christianity in the sense of the accomplished aspect. He published a new paper called, Korean Christian newsletter with H. G. Appenzeller in 1896. In this paper, Choi often wrote the editorial column to enlighten the korean people. It is very interesting that his column is very similar to Jesus’ parable in literary form. I think that he adopted the literary form of parable to effectively convey the message of the western modern society. Choi thought that Jesus is the one who fulfilled the aim of all religion such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. It can be said that his Christological idea is closely related with the social Darwinism which strongly impacts on the Korean reformers in the late 19th century. In short, in this paper I attempt to show that Lee and Choi’s portraits of Jesus can be understood as a contextual product. I also pointed out the limitation of Lee’s confucian understanding of Jesus and criticized Choi’s social Darwinism implied in his accomplished christology. However, it is true that they all tried to ask seriously how Jesus can be a savior for Korean people.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Lee Byeok, Seonggyoyoji(聖敎要旨), Contextual christology, Choi Byunghun, The Discourse of Enlightenment
