The Divine Principle - The First English Translation, 1956

- Updated 17 February 2017 -

Front cover of The Divine Principle,
1956 (by permission of
World Council of Churches).

I recently visited Geneva to meet a friend. He generously took time out of his busy schedule to show me the city’s impressive “Reformation Wall” and some historical sites associated with John Calvin. We also went round the excellent International Museum of the Reformation. I learnt a lot.

When I planned the trip, I thought I’d also take advantage of the visit to Switzerland to make an excursion into some more recent religious history, namely to have a look at what is probably the earliest English edition of The Divine Principle (hereafter DP), the doctrinal text of the Unification Church. (The Church’s formal name was the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity [HSAUWC]; in 1996 it was changed to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification).

The title page of this book states that it was “translated and compiled by Young Woon Kim”, and published in 1956 by the HSAUWC, Seoul (just two years after the Church's founding there). Over the years, this edition of the Unification Church’s teachings has occasionally come up in conversations I have had with the scholar George Chryssides, author of The Advent of Sun Myung Moon (London: Macmillan, 1991).

The volume I examined is held by the World Council Of Churches (WCC) library at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland. The librarian, Valerie Kim, kindly took it to the WCC Archives in Geneva for me to view it there, and the archivists, Hans von Rütte and Anne-Emmanuelle Tankam, were most helpful.

The first things that struck me when I saw the book were the colours and the design of the cover (see photograph above). People familiar with later, complete English editions of DP have a mental image of a black cover with gold lettering. This edition, in contrast, has mid-green, golden yellow and white as the main colours, with the title, The Divine Principle, in black upper- and lower-case letters, made by hand with a fine brush. The design is equally striking, showing complete and partial instances (in outline) of what might be called the give-and-take circle, with interlocking arrow-head and -tail, from the HSAUWC symbol (and used in many other logos of Unification Movement organisations). It later occurred to me that the large edition of Outline of The Principle, Level 4 (New York: HSAUWC, 1980) reprised the use of green on the cover.

The name “Young Woon Kim” on the title page of the 1956 DP is an alternative spelling of the name of the female theologian Young Oon Kim, who became a missionary to the USA in 1959, published a number of books of her own, and taught at the Unification Theological Seminary in New York State.

This edition of DP appears to be the first-ever version in English, and there are only a few published references to it. Jennifer P. Tanabe, in her book entitled Let Us Work Together for Good: David S.C. Kim’s Life of Service to God, (Raleigh, NC: Lulu Press, Inc, 2013), writes about the visit to South Korea in 1956 of Pastor Joshua McCabe of the Apostolic Church, who “assisted Miss Young Oon Kim in translating [Reverend Moon’s] teachings into English, suggesting the title ‘Divine Principle’ for the publication which was immediately distributed throughout the world.” David S.C. Kim mentioned this edition in a testimony about his life, in which he remarked: “I returned to Korea in 1956. Pastor McCabe arrived in Korea during that summer and stayed 80 days. He studied the Principle and assisted in Miss Young Oon Kim's English translation of Divine Principle.” (“My Early Days in the Unification Church”, May 1, 1984, http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Dkim/dKim-840501.htm, accessed 28 Jan. 2017). George Chryssides mentions the book in his article about the Unification Church in World Religions in America, Fourth Edition, (Ed. J. Neusner, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), and also in his article “The Welsh Connection: Pentecostalism and the Unification Church” in Religion Today, vol 5 (1990), no 3, pp. 6-8 (ISSN 0267-1700). There are a few other references to the 1956 DP on the internet.

At the bottom of the title page there is a statement in brackets as follows: “(This book not to be sold)” (sic). The reason for this is that it was sent out to Christian denominations (and possibly to other religious or spiritual groups and individuals) around the world to stimulate their interest and to invite them to get in touch with the HSAUWC in South Korea. The reverse of the title page states “Copyright 1956” and “Printed in Korea”.

Between the copyright page and the list of contents there is a “Prefatory Note” by “Young Woon Kim”, which names Sun Myung Moon a couple of times, as follows: a) “The Principles were revealed from God to Mr.S.M.Moon over a period of twenty years.”; and b) “Mr Moon is one of the mighty leaders in the spiritual Christian movements here.” The Prefatory Note, which is dated “September 1956”, goes on to talk about the extent of Mr Moon’s knowledge of spiritual matters, the “singular characteristics of the Principle”, the various benefits people have obtained through accepting “the Principles”, and the difficulty Ms Kim had in translating Korean terminology (see below).

Inside the book there is a loose, single-page, printed generic letter from “Young Woon Kim” to prospective recipients of the book. There is also a fold-out “Chart of the Course of Indemnity and Restoration based on Number Forty”.

Those familiar with the 1973 and 1989 English editions (Divine Principle and Exposition of Divine Principle, respectively, both translated from the 1966 Korean text Wolli Kangron) will be aware that there are 13 chapters in those books. In contrast, this 1956 edition has ten chapter headings, as follows:

1. The Principle of Creation
2. The Purpose of Messiah’s Coming and the Necessity of the Second Advent
3. The Consummation of Human History
4. Resurrection
5. The Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

6. Why was the Fall Permitted? Does God Provided (sic) Salvation?
7. The Fall of Man
8. The Providential Course of Indemnity and Restoration based on Number Forty (The Principle of Restoration)
9. The Second Coming of Jesus
10. The Dispensation of Restoration after Jesus (2000 years)

I did not have a lot of time to examine the text of the book, but I took a few photographs and made copies of the list of contents, the introduction, and some other pages.

I am not familiar enough with Young Oon Kim’s own book about The Principle (Divine Principle and its Application, various editions) to comment on possible differences between this 1956 version and hers. However, it is worth remembering that this version was only “translated and compiled” by Ms Kim and, as she seems to indicate in the Prefatory Note (see below), she undertook the task because she was asked to do it.

Last paragraph of the Prefatory Note
(by permission of World Council of Churches).

It is possible that the Korean text which she translated and compiled was the then-current version of a text in the process of development, which reached its fruition in 1957 as the Korean book Wolli Haeseol (Explanation of Divine Principle), written by Mr Hyo Won Eu.

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Book title and catalogue information:

The Divine Principle(s), translated and compiled by Young Woon Kim, 1956

WCC Library ref.nr. 275.19KIM

Other details:

Dimensions:  8 ins x 5 3/4 ins x 3/8 in., approx.

Number of pages:  in excess of 180.

Typesetting:  reproduction of typewriter typescript.

Paper:  possibly 70 gsm / 45-50lb, austerity-type, light brown.

Binding:  side-stapled with cover glued on over pages and staples.

Note: Please be aware that the images, while made by me, are by permission of World Council of Churches. They must not be copied without permission, which should be sought from the WCC. (See the following document for information on permissions: https://archives.oikoumene.org/en/fees)

I can be contacted at: chasseaudw (at) yahoo (dot) com