천주교에 대한 연행사들의 도교적 이해 양상 연구

Abstract

This paper amis to reveal the phenomena in the meetings of two different civilizations and suggests several hypotheses which could explain that phenomena, and examines the validity of those hypotheses one by one, by analyzing the records of Joseon missions to imperial China, in terms of the mutual contact and changes of East and West. Although Jesuits missionaries underlined the similarity between Catholicism and pre-Qin(秦) Confucianism, Joseon missions often used the images, terms, and doctrines of Daoism when they described their understandings of the church and the doctrines of Catholicism. We can consider three possibilities to explain their attitude. First, East Asians often adopted the images of Daoism when they imagined the products of other civilization which was located in remote places, and Joseon missions also had those attitudes. Second, it is possible for Joseon missions who knew well the situations of China at that times to regard Catholicism as the likes of ‘White Lotus Society(白蓮敎)’. Third, the ontology of Daoism being similar to that of Catholicism, Jesuit often used to adopt the terms of Daoism when they wrote the books or pamphlets which preached the gospel. Although Joseon missions understood Catholicism with some prejudices, it was those prejudices that let Catholicism show its new dimensions to Joseon missions which had not been exposed in West.