TY  - JOUR
T1  - Separating from the Confucian World: The Shift Away from Syncretism in Early Korean Catholic Texts
AU  - Torrey, Deberniere Janet 
JO  - Academia Koreana
PY  - 2012
DA  - 2012/1/1
DO  - 10.18399/acta.2012.15.1.006
KW  - Catholic
KW  - Confucian
KW  - episteme
KW  - subjectivity
KW  - dualism
AB  - The Catholic movement in Korea was birthed among Confucian scholars who sought to supplement Confucian philosophy with Catholic teaching. Hence, the earliest didactic writings of Korean Catholics were more syncretistic in content, integrating Catholic and Confucian themes. But as the movement became increasingly circumscribed by Church teachings and regulations, the focus in its didactic literature shifted to exclusively Catholic and other-worldly themes. Two main points of divergence from Korean tradition may be traced in these early texts: loyalty extended to a transcendent object and belief in the soul’s immortality. These transcendent motifs become more pronounced in the later texts. This divergence, in turn, signifies a shift to a subjectivity of the spiritual and intellectual self as separate from the world.