Yi Byeok
| Yi Byeok | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1754 Gyeonggi-do, Pocheon-gun |
| Died | 1785 Seoul, Korea |
| Nationality | Korean |
| Other names | Deok-jo (德操), Gwang-am (曠庵) |
| Occupation | Scholar |
| Known for | One of the first Korean Catholic converts |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 이벽 |
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Yi Byeok |
| McCune–Reischauer | Yi Pyŏk |
Yi Byeok (李檗, 1754-1785) was a scholar of Korea’s later Joseon period who, in 1784, played a leading role in the foundation of Korea’s first Roman Catholic community. It is reported in one source that his original name was Yi Taek-jo.
Yi Byeok was born in 1754 in Gyeonggi-do, Pocheon-gun, Naechon-myeon, Hwahyeon-ri. His ja was Deok-jo (德操) his ho Gwang-am (曠庵). His father was Yi Bu-man (李溥萬), 1727-1817, of the Gyeongju Yi clan, and his mother was a member of the Han 韓 clan of Cheongju. He was the second son among six children.
His grandfather Yi Geun had held a high rank in the army, and his father, elder brother Yi Gyeok (李格), and younger brother Yi Seok (李晳) were also military officials. Yi Byeok was remarkably tall, and his father tried to make a soldier of him; but from an early age he refused, earning himself the nickname Byeok, (either 蘗, (corktree) or 僻, implying isolation and oddity) for his stubbornness.
His family belonged to the Namin faction, which included many families residing in Gyeonggi-do, and as such, except for a few years when Yi Byeok was alive, were excluded from holding office by the factional politics of the Joseon period. This exclusion from power might explain why many of the scholars from these families pursued studies, which indicated their dissent from orthodox Neo-Confucianism. Yi Byeok decided at an early age not to study for the national examinations, which were necessary for a career in government administration. Instead, he chose pure scholarship, focusing on the Chinese Confucian classics, studying the Four Books and the Five Classics as a matter of course.
Yi Byeok's great-grandfather, Yi Gyeong-sang, had accompanied Crown Prince Sohyeon (1612-1645) during the eight years that he spent in China. It is likely that he brought back books written by the Jesuit missionaries (“Western Learning”), including those about Catholicism which Yi Byeok later studied.
The writings of Seongho Yi Ik inspired many of the scholars who adopted the Practical Learning (Silhak) approach. Yi Byeok and the other scholars with whom he explored the tenets of Catholicism in the following years were surely no exception.
In 1777 (according to Dallet) or 1779 (according to Jeong Yak-yong), the Namin scholar Gwon Cheol-sin (權哲身, 1736-1801) seems to have started a series of study sessions for his pupils and other scholars that, like him, were influenced by the Silhak-inspired writings of his teacher, Seongho Yi Ik.
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