발바라의 열성과 죽음 : 최양업 신부의 1850년 선교보고 읽기

Abstract

In a letter sent from Korea in 1850, Choe Yangop (1821-1861), one of Koreas first native Catholic priests, writes about Barbara, a young Catholic woman whose vocation of celibacy is tested by both Korean society and the Church, and whose wished-for death solves the conundrum of having to choose between her vocation and continued excommunication. This essay highlights the strange narrative as a multilayered text that offers insight into Choes cultural, psychological, and spiritual identity. Current historiography on Choe tends to focus on facts surrounding his life or on aspects of his spirituality that are readily apparent in his writings. This essay supplements such scholarship by deducing the subtexts from a specific instance of Choes discourse in its relation to his role and his ideals, and by highlighting Choes unique subjective and cultural situation as one of Koreas first priests, with further implications for understanding the culturally and psychologically layered context of early Korean Catholicism. Through a close reading that draws also on Choes background, his other letters, and the situation of the Korean Church, this study argues that the Barbara narrative functions as a special appeal for the suffering Korean Church, as an indicator of Choes culturally intermediary position, and as a testimony of spiritual inspiration through contact with a holy woman.