The Religions of Japan Part 22

"He (Xavier) has been the moon of that 'Society of Jesus' of which Ignatius Loyola was the guiding sun."--S.W. Duffield.

"My G.o.d I love Thee; not because I hope for Heaven thereby, Nor yet because, who love Thee not, must, die eternally.

So would I love Thee, dearest Lord, and in Thy praise will sing; Solely because thou art my G.o.d, and my eternal King."

--Hymn attributed to Francis Xavier.

"Half hidden, stretching in a lengthened line In front of China, which its guide shall be, j.a.pan abounds in mines of Silver fine, And shall enlighten'd be by holy faith divine."

--Camoens

"The people of this Iland of j.a.pon are good of nature, curteous aboue measure, and valiant in warre; their justice is seuerely executed without any partialitie vpon transgressors of the law.

They are gouerned in great ciuilitie. I meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by ciuill policie. The people be verie superst.i.tious in their religion, and are of diuers opinions."--Will Adams, October 22, 1611.

"A critical history of j.a.pan remains to be written ... We should know next to nothing of what may be termed the Catholic episode of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had we access to none but the official j.a.panese sources. How can we trust those sources when they deal with times yet more remote?"--Chamberlain.

"The annals of the primitive Church furnish no instances of sacrifice or heroic constancy, in the Coliseum or the Roman arenas, that were not paralleled on the dry river-beds or execution-grounds of j.a.pan."

"They ... rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. "--Revelation.

CHAPTER XI - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

Darkest j.a.pan.

The story of the first introduction and propagation of Roman Christianity in j.a.pan, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has been told by many writers, both old and new, and in many languages.

Recent research upon the soil,[1] both natives and foreigners making contributions, has ill.u.s.trated the subject afresh. Relics and memorials found in various churches, monasteries and palaces, on both sides of the Pacific and the Atlantic, have cast new light upon the fascinating theme. Both Christian and non-Christian j.a.panese of to-day, in their travels in the Philippines, China, Formosa, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Italy, being keenly alert for memorials of their countrymen, have met with interesting trovers. The descendants of the j.a.panese martyrs and confessors now recognize their own ancestors, in the picture galleries of Italian n.o.bles, and in Christian churches see lettered tombs bearing familiar names, or in western museums discern far-eastern works of art brought over as presents or curiosities, centuries ago.

Roughly speaking, j.a.panese Christianity lasted phenomenally nearly a century, or more exactly from 1542 to 1637, During this time, emba.s.sies or missions crossed the seas not only of Chinese and Peninsular Asia, circ.u.mnavigating Africa and thus reaching Europe, but also sailed across the Pacific, and visited papal Christendom by way of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

This century of Southern Christianity and of commerce with Europe enabled j.a.pan, which had previously been almost unheard of, except through the vague accounts of Marco Polo and the semi-mythical stories by way of China, to leave a conspicuous mark, first upon the countries of southern Europe, and later upon Holland and England. As in European literature Cathay became China, and Zipango or Xipangu was recognized as j.a.pan, so also the curiosities, the artistic fabrics, the strange things from the ends of the earth, soon became familiar in Europe. Besides the traffic in mercantile commodities, there were exchanges of words. The languages of Europe were enriched by j.a.panese terms, such as soy, moxa, goban, j.a.pan (lacquer or varnish), etc., while the tongue of Nippon received an infusion of new terms,[2] and a notable list of inventions was imported from Europe.

We shall merely outline, with critical commentary, the facts of history which have been so often told, but which in our day have received luminous ill.u.s.tration. We shall endeavor to treat the general phenomena, causes and results of Christianity in j.a.pan in the same judicial spirit with which we have considered Buddhism.

Whatever be the theological or political opinions of the observer who looks into the history of j.a.pan at about the year 1540, he will acknowledge that this point of time was a very dark moment in her known history. Columbus, who was familiar with the descriptions of Marco Polo, steered his caravels westward with the idea of finding Xipangu, with its abundance of gold and precious gems; but the Genoese did not and could not know the real state of affairs existing in Dai Nippon at this time.

Let us glance at this.

The duarchy of Throne and Camp, with the Mikado in Ki[=o]to and the Sh[=o]gun at Kamakura, with the elaborate feudalism under it, had fallen into decay. The whole country was split up into a thousand warring fragments. To these convulsions of society, in which only the priest and the soldier were in comfort, while the ma.s.s of the people were little better than serfs, must be added the frequent violent earthquakes, drought and failure of crops, with famine and pestilence. There was little in religion to uplift and cheer. Shint[=o] had sunk into the shadow of a myth. Buddhism had become outwardly a system of political gambling rather than the ordered expression of faith. Large numbers of the priests were like the mercenaries of Italy, who sold their influence and even their swords or those of their followers, to the highest bidder. Besides being themselves luxurious and dissolute, their monasteries were fortresses, in which only the great political gamblers, and not the oppressed people, found comfort and help. Millions of once fertile acres had been abandoned or left waste. The destruction of libraries, books and records is something awful to contemplate; and "the times of Ashikaga" make a wilderness for the scapegoat of chronology.

Ki[=o]to, the sacred capital, had been again and again plundered and burnt. Those who might be tempted to live in the city amid the ruins, ran the risk of fire, murder, or starvation. Kamakura, once the Sh[=o]-gun's seat of authority, was, a level waste of ashes.

Even China, Annam and Korea suffered from the practical dissolution of society in the island empire; for j.a.panese pirates ravaged their coasts to steal, burn and kill. Even as for centuries in Europe, Christian churches echoed with that prayer in the litanies: "From the fury of the Nors.e.m.e.n, good Lord, deliver us," so, along large parts of the deserted coasts of Chinese Asia, the wretched inhabitants besought their G.o.ds to avenge them against the "Wojen." To this day in parts of Honan in China, mothers frighten their children and warn them to sleep by the fearful words "The j.a.panese are coming."

First Coming of Europeans.

This time, then, was that of darkest j.a.pan. Yet the people who lived in darkness saw great light, and to them that dwelt in the shadow of death, light sprang up.

When Pope Alexander VI. bisected the known world, a.s.signing the western half, including America to Spain, and the eastern half, including Asia and its outlying archipelagos to the Portuguese, the latter sailed and fought their way around Africa to India, and past the golden Chersonese.

In 1542, exactly fifty years after the discovery of America, Dai Nippon was reached. Mendez Pinto, on a Chinese pirate junk which had been driven by a storm away from her companions, set foot upon an island called Tanegashima. This name among the country folks is still synonymous with guns and pistols, for Pinto introduced fire-arms, and powder.[3]

During six months spent by the "mendacious" Pinto on the island, the imitative people made no fewer than six hundred match-locks or arquebuses. Clearing twelve hundred per cent. on their cargo, the three Portuguese loaded with presents, returned to China. Their countrymen quickly flocked to this new market, and soon the beginnings of regular trade with Portugal were inaugurated. On the other hand, j.a.panese began to be found as far west as India. To Malacca, while Francis Xavier was laboring there, came a refugee j.a.panese, named Anjiro. The disciple of Loyola, and this child of the Land of the Rising Sun met. Xavier, ever restless and ready for a new field, was fired with the idea of converting j.a.pan. Anjiro, after learning Portuguese and becoming a Christian, was baptized with the name of Paul. The heroic missionary of the cross and keys then sailed with his j.a.panese companion, and in 1549 landed at Kagoshima,[4] the capital of Satsuma. As there was no central government then existing in j.a.pan, the entrance of the foreigners, both lay and clerical, was unnoticed.

Having no skill in the learning of languages, and never able to master one foreign tongue completely, Xavier began work with the aid of an interpreter. The jealousy of the daimi[=o], because his rivals had been supplied with fire-arms by the Portuguese merchants, and the plots and warnings of those Buddhist priests (who were later crushed by the Satsuma clansmen as traitors), compelled Xavier to leave this province.

He went first to Hirado,[5] next to Nagat[=o], and then to Bungo, where he was well received. Preaching and teaching through his j.a.panese interpreter, he formed Christian congregations, especially at Yamaguchi.[6] Thus, within a year, the great apostle to the Indies had seen the quick sprouting of the seed which he had planted. His ambition was now to go to the imperial capital, Ki[=o]to, and there advocate the claims of Christ, of Mary and of the Pope.

Thus far, however, Xavier had seen only a few seaports of comparatively successful daimi[=o]s. Though he had heard of the unsettled state of the country because of the long-continued intestine strife, he evidently expected to find the capital a splendid city. Despite the armed bands of roving robbers and soldiers, he reached Ki[=o]to safely, only to find streets covered with ruins, rubbish and unburied corpses, and a general situation of wretchedness. He was unable to obtain audience of either the Sh[=o]gun or the Mikado. Even in those parts of the city where he tried to preach, he could obtain no hearers in this time of war and confusion. So after two weeks he turned his face again southward to Bungo, where he labored for a few months; but in less than two years from his landing in j.a.pan, this n.o.ble but restless missionary left the country, to attempt the spiritual conquest of China. One year later, December 2, 1551, he died on the island of Shanshan, or Sancian, in the Canton River, a few miles west of Macao.

Christianity Flourishes.

Nevertheless, Xavier's inspiring example was like a shining star that attracted scores of missionaries. There being in this time of political anarchy and religious paralysis none to oppose them, their zeal, within five years, bore surprising fruits. They wrote home that there were seven churches in the region around Ki[=o]to, while a score or more of Christian congregations had been gathered in the southwest. In 1581 there were two hundred churches and one hundred and fifty thousand native Christians. Two daimi[=o]s had confessed their faith, and in the Mikado's minister, n.o.bunaga (1534-1582), the foreign priests found a powerful supporter.[7] This hater and scourge of the Buddhist priesthood openly welcomed and patronized the Christians, and gave them eligible sites on which to build dwellings and churches. In every possible way he employed the new force, which he found pliantly political, as well as intellectually and morally a choice weapon for humbling the bonzes, whom he hated as serpents. The Buddhist church militant had become an army with banners and fortresses. n.o.bunaga made it the aim of his life to destroy the military power of the hierarchy, and to humble the priests for all time. He hoped at least to extract the fangs of what he believed to be a politico-religious monster, which menaced the life of the nation. Unfortunately, he was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1582. To this day the memory of n.o.bunaga is execrated by the Buddhists. They have deified Kato Kiyomasa and Iyeyas[)u], the persecutors of the Christians. To n.o.bunaga they give the t.i.tle of Bakadono, or Lord Fool.

In 1583, an emba.s.sy of four young n.o.blemen was despatched by the Christian daimi[=o]s of Kiushiu, the second largest island in the empire, to the Pope to declare themselves spiritual--though as some of their countrymen suspected, political--va.s.sals of the Holy See. It was in the three provinces of Bungo, Omura and Arima, that Christianity was most firmly rooted. After an absence of eight years, in 1590, the envoys from the oriental to the occidental ends of the earth, returned to Nagasaki, accompanied by seventeen more Jesuit fathers--an important addition to the many Portuguese "religious" of that order already in j.a.pan.

Yet, although there was to be still much missionary activity, though printing presses had been brought from Europe for the proper diffusion of Christian literature in the Romanized colloquial,[8] though there were yet to be built more church edifices and monasteries, and Christian schools to be established, a sad change was nigh. Much seed which was yet to grow in secret had been planted,--like the exotic flowers which even yet blossom and shed their perfume in certain districts of j.a.pan, and which the traveller from Christendom instantly recognizes, though the Portuguese Christian church or monastery centuries ago disappeared in fire, or fell to the earth and disappeared. Though there were to be yet wonderful flashes of Christian success, and the missionaries were to travel over j.a.pan even up to the end of the main island and accompany the j.a.panese army to Korea; yet it may be said that with the death of n.o.bunaga at the hands of the traitor Akechi, we see the high-water mark of the flood-tide of j.a.panese Christianity. "Akechi reigned three days,"

but after him were to arise a ruler and central government jealous and hostile. After this flood was to come slowly but surely the ebb-tide, until it should leave, outwardly at least, all things as before.

The Jesuit fathers, with instant sensitiveness, felt the loss of their champion and protector, n.o.bunaga. The rebel and a.s.sa.s.sin, Akechi, ambitious to imitate and excel his master, promised the Christians to do more for them even than n.o.bunaga had done, provided they would induce the daimi[=o] Takayama to join forces with his. It is the record of their own friendly historian, and not of an enemy, that they, led by the Jesuit father Organtin, attempted this persuasion. To the honor of the Christian j.a.panese Takayama, he refused.[9] On the contrary, he marched his little army of a thousand men to Ki[=o]to, and, though opposed to a force of eight thousand, held the capital city until Hideyoshi, the loyal general of the Mikado, reached the court city and dispersed the a.s.sa.s.sin's band. Hideyoshi soon made himself familiar with the whole story, and his keen eye took in the situation.

This "man on horseback," master of the situation and moulder of the destinies of j.a.pan, Hideyoshi (1536-1598), was afterward known as the Taik[=o], or Retired Regent. The rarity of the t.i.tle makes it applicable in common speech to this one person. Greater than his dead master, n.o.bunaga, and ingenious in the arts of war and peace, Hideyoshi compelled the warring daimi[=o]s, even the proud lord of Satsuma,[10] to yield to his power, until the civil minister of the emperor, reverently bowing, could say: "All under Heaven, Peace." Now, j.a.pan had once more a central government, intensely jealous and despotic, and with it the new religion must sooner or later reckon. Religion apart from politics was unknown in the Land of the G.o.ds.

Yet, in order to employ the vast bodies of armed men hitherto accustomed to the trade of war, and withal jealous of China and hostile to Korea, Hideyoshi planned the invasion of the little peninsular kingdom by these veterans whose swords were restless in their scabbards. After months of preparation, he despatched an army in two great divisions, one under the Christian general Konishi, and one under the Buddhist general Kato.

After a brilliant campaign of eighteen days, the rivals, taking different routes, met in the Korean capital. In the masterly campaign which followed, the j.a.panese armies penetrated almost to the extreme northern boundary of the kingdom. Then China came to the rescue and the j.a.panese were driven southward.

During the six or seven years of war, while the invaders crossed swords with the natives and their Chinese allies, and devastated Korea to an extent from which she has never recovered, there were Jesuit missionaries attending the j.a.panese armies. It is not possible or even probable, however, that any seeds of Christianity were at this time left in the peninsula. Korean Christianity sprang up nearly two centuries later, wind-wafted from China.[11]

During the war there was always more or less of jealousy, mostly military and personal, between Konishi and Kato, which however was aggravated by the priests on either side. Kato, being then and afterward a fierce champion of the Buddhists, glorified in his orthodoxy, which was that of the Nichiren sect. He went into battle with a banneret full of texts, stuck in his back and flying behind him. His example was copied by hundreds of his officers and soldiers. On their flags and guidons was inscribed the famous apostrophe of the Nichiren sect, so often heard in their services and revivals to-day (Namu miy[=o] ho ren ge ki[=o]), and borrowed from the Saddharma Pundarika: "Glory be to the salvation-bringing Lotus of the True Law."

The Hostility of Hideyoshi.

Konishi, on the other hand, was less numerously and perhaps less influentially backed by, and made the champion of, the European brethren; and as all the negotiations between the invaders and the allied Koreans and Chinese had to be conducted in the Chinese script, the alien fathers were, as secretaries and interpreters, less useful than the native j.a.panese bonzes.

Yet this jealousy and hostility in the camps of the invaders proved to be only correlative to the state of things in j.a.pan. Even supposing the statistics in round numbers, reported at that time, to be exaggerated, and that there were not as many as the alleged two hundred thousand Christians, yet there were, besides scores of thousands of confessing believers among the common people, daimi[=o]s, military leaders, court officers and many persons of culture and influence. Nevertheless, the predominating influence at the Ki[=o]to court was that of Buddhism; and as the cult that winks at polygamy was less opposed to Hideyoshi's sensualism and amazing vanity, the ill.u.s.trious upstart was easily made hostile to the alien faith. According to the accounts of the Jesuits, he took umbrage because a Portuguese captain would not please him by risking his ship in coming out of deep water and nearer land, and because there were Christian maidens of Arima who scorned to yield to his degrading proposals. Some time after these episodes, an edict appeared, commanding every Jesuit to quit the country within twenty days. There were at this time sixty-five foreign missionaries in the country.

Then began a series of persecutions, which, however, were carried on spasmodically and locally, but not universally or with system. Bitter in some places, they were neutralized or the law became a dead letter, in other parts of the realm. It is estimated that ten thousand new converts were made in the single year, 1589, that is, the second year after the issue of the edict, and again in the next year, 1590. It might even be reasonable to suppose that, had the work been conducted wisely and without the too open defiance of the letter of the law, the awful sequel which history knows, might not have been.

Let us remember that the Duke of Alva, the tool of Philip II., failing to crush the Dutch Republic had conquered Portugal for his master. The two kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula were now united under one crown.

Spain longed for trade with j.a.pan, and while her merchants hoped to displace their Portuguese rivals, the Spanish Franciscans not scrupling to wear a political cloak and thus override the Pope's bull of world-part.i.tion, determined to get a foothold alongside of the Jesuits.

So, in 1593 a Spanish envoy of the governor of the Philippine Islands came to Ki[=o]to, bringing four Spanish Franciscan priests, who were allowed to build houses in Ki[=o]to, but only on the express understanding that this was because of their coming as envoys of a friendly power, and with the explicitly specified condition that they were not to preach, either publicly or privately. Almost immediately violating their pledge and the hospitality granted them, these Spaniards, wearing the vestments of their order, openly preached in the streets. Besides exciting discord among the Christian congregations founded by the Jesuits, they were violent in their language.

Hideyoshi, to gratify his own mood and test his power as the actual ruler for a shadowy emperor, seized nine preachers while they were building churches at Ki[=o]to and Osaka. They were led to the execution-ground in exactly the same fashion as felons, and executed by crucifixion, at Nagasaki, February 5, 1597. Three Portuguese Jesuits, six Spanish Franciscans and seventeen native Christians were stretched on bamboo crosses, and their bodies from thigh to shoulder were transfixed with spears. They met their doom uncomplainingly.

In the eye of the j.a.panese law, these men were put to death, not as Christians, but as law-breakers and as dangerous political conspirators.

The suspicions of Hideyoshi were further confirmed by a Spanish sea-captain, who showed him a map of the world on which were marked the vast dominions of the King of Spain; the Spaniard informing the j.a.panese, in answer to his shrewd question, that these great conquests had been made by the king's soldiers following up the priests, the work being finished by the native and foreign allies.