Histoire de l’Église de Corée
A history of the Catholic Church in Korea published in 1874 by a priest of the Paris Foreign Missions. For the founding years it largely translates Korean records and reprints a missionary’s letter of 1784 from Beijing reporting Yi Seung-hun’s baptism.
Dallet, a priest of the Paris Foreign Missions, compiled the book from papers sent home by the missionaries in Korea. He says in a note that for the earliest period the memoirs of Bishop Daveluy, his main source, are for the most part a literal translation of Korean documents (vol. 1, p. 13), and he mentions among those documents the memoirs of Jeong Yak-yong, one of the first converts, on the coming of the gospel to Korea (vol. 1, p. 121). The book is therefore ninety years later than the events of Korean Scholars Found a Church but rests on older records.
It also reprints contemporary letters, among them one of M. de Ventavon, a missionary at Beijing, dated 25 November 1784, which is an account of the baptism of Yi Seung-hun written within the year. Dallet writes as a missionary of his century. He judges severely the first Koreans who gave way under pressure, and his verdicts on them are his own. The Korean names are given in his French spelling (Piek-i for Yi Byeok, Seng-houn-i for Yi Seung-hun).
Cited in
- 1784, firm date