Difference between revisions of "Kirishitan" - New World Encyclopedia

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[[Image:JapaneseChristiansInPortugueseCostume16-17thCentury.jpg|thumb|200px|Japanese Christians ("Kirishitan") in Portuguese costume, sixteenth-seventeenth century.]]
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[[Image:ChristNetsukeIvory17thcenturyJapan.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Netsuke]] depicting Christ, seventeenth century, Japan.]]
  
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[[Image:JapaneseChristiansInPortugueseCostume16-17thCentury.jpg|thumb|Japanese Christians ("Kirishitan") in Portuguese costume, 16-17th century.]]
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{{nihongo|'''Kirishitan'''|吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン}}, from [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] ''cristão,'' was the [[Japanese language|Japanese]] term for Roman Catholic [[Christianity|Christian]]s and is used as a [[historiography|historiographic]] term for [[Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholic]]s in [[Japan]] during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Christian missionaries at that time were known as ''bateren'' ("fathers") from the Portuguese word ''padre,'' or ''iruman'' ("brothers") from the Portuguese word ''irmão.'' [[Catholicism|Catholic]] missionary activities in Japan began in 1549 with the arrival of [[Portugal|Portuguese]]-sponsored [[Jesuits]] [[Francis Xavier|Francisco Xavier]]<ref>Antonio Astrain, [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 on St. Francis Xavier] ''newadvent.org''. Retrieved September 9, 2008.</ref><ref>Terry H. Jones, Star Quest Production Network, [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf08.htm Saint Francis Xavier on Catholic Forum] Retrieved September 9, 2008</ref>, Brother Cosme de Torres, and Father John Fernandez in Kagoshima, along with a recent Japanese convert, Anjiro (Christian name, Pablo de Santa Fe). The warlords ''([[daimyo]])'' of Western Japan, who were interested in trade with the Portuguese, received them favorably. By 1582, Portuguese Jesuits and Spanish [[Franciscan Order|Franciscans]] and [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]] reported 200,000 converts to Christianity, including a number of ''daimyo'' and their families.
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[[Image:ChristNetsukeIvory17thcenturyJapan.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Netsuke]] depicting Christ, 17th century, Japan.]]
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{{toc}}
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After [[Japan]] was unified at the end of the sixteenth century, a combination of circumstances caused the government to feel threatened by the Catholic missionaries and their converts, and Christianity was prohibited. Foreign [[clergy]] were expelled from Japan, and Christians who did not renounce their [[faith]] were cruelly tortured and put to death. The remaining Christians went underground and became ''Kakure Kirishitan'' (Hidden Christians) for almost 250 years. They disguised their [[ritual]]s, committed [[prayer]]s and snatches of [[Scripture]] to memory, and developed their own hereditary priesthood and observances of rites and the sacrament of [[Baptism]]. In 1865, after the shogunate opened several Japanese ports to foreign trade, several ''Kakure Kirishitan'' approached a Catholic priest in [[Nagasaki]]. Within a year, 20,000 ''Kakure Kirishitan'' dropped their disguise and openly professed their Christian faith. Others chose not to abandon their traditions and became ''Hanare Kirishitan'' (Separate Christians).
  
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{{POV|date=April 2008}}
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Modern Japanese Christianity is known as ''Kirisuto-kyo.''
  
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{{nihongo|'''Kirishitan'''|吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン}}, from [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] ''cristão'', referred to Roman Catholic [[Christian]]s in [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and is used as a historiographic term for [[Roman Catholic]]s in [[Japan]] in the 16th and 17th centuries. Christian missionaries consisted of "fathers", or bateren from the Portuguese word “padre”, and "brothers", or iruman from the Portuguese word "irmão".
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==Catholic Missions in Japan==
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=== Rivalry between Portugal and Spain===
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Religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for both [[Portugal]] and [[Spain]]. Wherever either of these powers attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. In 1494, the [[Treaty of Tordesillas]] divided the newly-discovered lands outside Europe into two exclusive Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence, trade and colonization. At that time, neither nation had any direct contact with Japan, which fell into the sphere of the Portuguese. Later, Spain challenged Portugal’s claim. Since neither country could colonize Japan, the country with the exclusive right to propagate [[Christianity]] in Japan would gain trading rights there. In 1549, the Portuguese-sponsored [[Jesuits]], under the direction of [[Alessandro Valignano]], entered Japan over the protests of the Spaniards. In 1575, [[Pope Gregory XIII]] issued a [[papal bull]] confirming that Japan belonged to the Portuguese diocese of [[Macau]]. In 1588, the diocese of Funai (Nagasaki) was founded under Portuguese protection.
  
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[[Catholicism|Catholic]] missionary activities in Japan began in 1549, exclusively performed by [[Portugal|Portuguese]]-sponsored [[Jesuits]] until [[Spain|Spanish]]-sponsored [[mendicant]] orders, such as the [[Franciscans]] and [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], gained access to Japan. [[Francis Xavier|Francisco Xavier]] <ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 on St. Francis Xavier]</ref><ref>[http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf08.htm Saint Francis Xavier on Catholic Forum]</ref>, Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and Father John Fernandez were the first, who arrived to [[Kagoshima]] with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan. Catholicism was subsequently repressed in several parts of the country and ceased to exist publicly in the 17th century.
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[[Image:JapaneseVotiveAltar.JPG|thumb|200px|A Japanese votive altar, [[Nanban]] style. End of sixteenth century. [[Guimet Museum]].]]
  
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However, there are some historians who state that there is enough archaeological evidence to suggest that [[Nestorianism|Nestorian]] (Assyrian Church) missionaries first landed in Japan in AD 199, believing that they travelled through India, China and Korea before the [[Tang Dynasty]].  It has also been estimated that the first churches were fully established by the end of the 4th century especially at [[Nara, Nara|Nara]] in central Japan.<ref>The Keikyo Institute: "Nestorian Christianity in the Tang Dynasty". http://www.keikyo.com</ref>
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Spanish-sponsored Dominican and Franciscan mendicant orders entered Japan by way of [[Manila]]. Criticizing Jesuit activities in Japan, they actively lobbied the Pope, resulting in [[Pope Clement VIII]]'s decree of 1600, which allowed Spanish [[friars]] to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, and [[Pope Paul V]]'s decree of 1608, which abolished the restrictions on the route. The Portuguese accused Spanish Jesuits of working for their homeland instead of for God. The power struggle between Jesuits and the mendicant orders caused a [[schism (religion)|schism]] within the diocese of Funai. In addition,
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The Spanish mendicant orders tried in vain to establish an independent diocese in the [[Tohoku region]]. The governments of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ieyasu Tokugawa, observing the discord and rivalry among the Catholics, became increasingly mistrustful of them.  
  
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== The line of demarcations between Portugal and Spain  ==
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[[Image:CelebratingAChristianMassInJapan.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Celebrating a Christian mass in Japan.]]
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Religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for both [[Portugal]] and [[Spain]]. Wherever these powers attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By the [[Treaty of Tordesillas]], the two powers divided the world between them into exclusive spheres of influence, trade and colonization.  Although at the time of the demarcation, neither nation had any direct contact with Japan, that nation fell into the sphere of the Portuguese.
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In the early seventeenth century, Japan built trade relations with the [[Netherlands]] and [[England]]. Although England withdrew after ten years under [[James I of England|James I]] because it found the trade unprofitable, the [[Netherlands]] continued to trade with Japan and became the only European country that maintained trade relations with Japan until the nineteenth century. To strengthen their advantage, the [[Prostestantism|Protestant]] countries engaged in a negative campaign against Catholicism, warning the Tokugawa [[shogunate]] that it was a vehicle for Spanish and Portuguese imperialism.
  
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[[Image:JapaneseVotiveAltar.JPG|thumb|250px|A Japanese votive altar, [[Nanban]] style. End of 16th century. [[Guimet Museum]].]]
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Portugal's and Spain's colonial policies were also challenged by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1622, the [[Holy See|Vatican]] founded the ''[[Congregatio de Propaganda Fide]]'' (“Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples,” ''“Congregatio pro Gentium Evangelisatione”'') to be responsible for [[missionary]] work and related activities, and attempted to separate the churches from the political influence of the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] kingdoms. By this time the Japanese shogunate had already begun expelling foreign clergy from their domain.
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The countries disputed the attribution of Japan. Since neither could colonize it, the exclusive right to propagate Christianity in Japan meant the exclusive right to trade with Japan. Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits under [[Alessandro Valignano]] took the lead in proselytizing in Japan over the objection of the Spaniards. The fait accompli was approved in [[Pope Gregory XIII]]'s [[papal bull]] of 1575, which decided that Japan belonged to the Portuguese diocese of [[Macau]]. In 1588, the diocese of Funai ([[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]) was founded under Portuguese protection.
 
  
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In rivalry with the Jesuits, Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders entered into Japan via [[Manila]]. While criticizing Jesuit activities, they actively lobbied the Pope. Their campaigns resulted in [[Pope Clement VIII]]'s decree of 1600, which allowed Spanish [[friars]] to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, and [[Pope Paul V]]'s decree of 1608, which abolished the restrictions on the route. The Portuguese accused Spanish Jesuits of working for their homeland instead of their patron. The power struggle between Jesuits and mendicant orders caused a [[schism (religion)|schism]] within the diocese of Funai. Furthermore, mendicant orders tried in vain to establish a diocese on the [[Tohoku region]] that was to be independent from the Portuguese one.
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===Establishment of missions===
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[[Roman Catholic]] missionary activities in Japan began in 1549, with the arrival in [[Kagoshima]] of the Jesuits [[Francis Xavier]],<ref>Astran, [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm St. Francis Xavier ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', 1909] ''newadvent.org''. Retrieved September 9, 2008.</ref><ref>Catholic Forum [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf08.htm Saint Francis Xavier] Retrieved September 9, 2008.</ref>, Father Cosme de Torres, and Brother John Fernandez, along with a recent Japanese convert, Anjiro (Christian name, Pablo de Santa Fe). When the Jesuits arrived, Japan was in the throes of civil war, and neither the emperor nor the Ashikaga shogun was in control of the nation. Xavier intended to get permission from the emperor to build a mission, but was unable to enter [[Kyoto]] and became discouraged when he realized the extent of the devastation of the imperial residence.  
  
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[[Image:CelebratingAChristianMassInJapan.jpg|thumb|left|Celebrating a Christian mass in Japan.]]
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The Jesuits then approached ''daimyo'' in southwestern Japan. The warlords of Kyushu were interested in the [[weapon]]s, [[technology]] and supplies that could be obtained from the Portuguese traders, and willing to accept the overtures of the Jesuits. Xavier soon realized that the Jesuits could gain the most ground by adopting the attire and lifestyle of the upper classes. As [[feudalism|feudal]] lords converted to Catholicism, the numbers of believers in their territories increased dramatically.
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The Roman Catholic world order was challenged by the [[Netherlands]] and [[England]]. Theoretically, it was repudiated by [[Grotius]]'s ''Mare Liberum''. In the early 17th century, Japan built trade relations with the [[Netherlands]] and [[England]]. Although England withdrew from the operations in ten years under [[James I of England|James I]] due to lack of profitability, the Netherlands continued to trade with Japan and became the only European country that maintained trade relations with Japan until the 19th century. As trade competitors, the Protestant countries engaged in a negative campaign against Catholicism, and it subsequently affected [[shogunate]] policies toward the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] kingdoms.
 
  
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Portugal's and Spain's colonial policies were also challenged by the Roman Catholic Church itself. The [[Holy See|Vatican]] founded the [[Congregatio de Propaganda Fide]] in 1622 and attempted to separate the churches from the influence of the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] kingdoms. But it was too late for Japan. The organization failed to establish staging points in Japan.
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[[Oda Nobunaga]] (織田 信長), one of the great unifiers of [[Japan]], took an interest in Western culture and favored the Jesuit missionary [[Luis Frois]]. He encouraged the development of the Christian missions as a means of undermining the political strength of the [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] temples. Though he never converted to Christianity, he became a patron of the Jesuits and supported the establishment of the first Christian church in Kyoto in 1576. By 1579, six regional war lords and approximately 100,000 of their subjects had [[Religious conversion|converted]] to Christianity. When Nobunaga died in 1582, the Catholics reported 200,000 faithful and 250 churches in Japan. Another patron was [[Date Masamune]], one of the most powerful ''daimyo'' under the Tokugawa shogunate, who sponsored a mission to the [[Vatican]] (1613 – 1620) but later complied with the Tokugawa edicts against Christianity. Some sources suggest that Masamune's eldest daughter, Iroha, was a Christian.
  
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==Propagation strategy==
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Between 1553 and 1620, 86 Daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.<ref>Toshihiko Abe. ''Japan's Hidden Face.'' (Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks, Trans-Atlantic Publications. 1998. ISBN 189169605X)</ref> While oppressed peasants embraced the gospel of salvation, the motivation of the ''daimyo'' who accepted Christianity was complex and may have been more political and economic than religious. Association with the [[Jesuit]]s and the [[mendicant orders]] implied association with the military and economic might of the Portuguese and Spanish, with their [[ship]]s and powerful guns. [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi|Hideyoshi]] and [[Tokugawa Ieyasu|Tokugawa]] were establishing hegemony over all the regions of Japan; smaller ''daimyo'' may have hoped to build up the power to resist with the help of the new religion. Some ''daimyo'' had trade ties with [[Luzon]] in the Philippines, or with China, and had already been exposed to Western culture. In addition, they could trade with the Portuguese to obtain saltpeter for [[gunpowder]], and [[silk]] and other luxuries from China.  
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[[Image:SanSebastianJapan.JPG|thumb|130px|The martyrdom of [[Saint Sebastian]], 1590-1600 [[tempera]] painting, Japan.]]
 
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The Jesuits believed that it was very effective to seek to influence people in power and to pass the religion downward to the commoners. At least they needed to gain permission from local rulers to propagate Catholicism within their domains. It is confirmed that as [[feudal]] lords converted to Catholicism, the number of believers in their territories was drastically increased. After the [[edict]] banning Christianity, there were communities that kept practicing Catholicism without having any contact with the Church until missionaries were able to return much later.
 
  
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==Economic activities==
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The [[Portugal|Portuguese]]-sponsored [[Jesuits]] were soon joined by [[Spain|Spanish]]-sponsored [[mendicant]] orders, such as the [[Franciscans]] and [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], some of whom criticized the luxurious lifestyle of the Jesuits.
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The Jesuits in Japan had to maintain economic self-sufficiency because they could not expect stable and sufficient payment from their patron, the King of [[Portugal]], the king allowing the Jesuits to engage in trade with Japan. Such economic activity can be found in the work of [[Francis Xavier]], the pioneer of Catholic missions in Japan, who covered the cost of missionary work through merchant trading. From the 1550s to the 1570s, the Jesuits covered all necessary expenses with trade profits and bought land in [[India]].
 
  
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Their officially recognized commercial activity was a fixed-amount entry into the Portuguese silk trade between Macau and Nagasaki. They financed to a certain amount the trade association in Macau, which purchased raw silk in Canton and sold it in [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. They did not confine their commercial activity to the official silk market but expanded into unauthorized markets. For the Macau-Nagasaki trade, they dealt in silk fabrics, gold, musk and other goods including military supplies and slavery. Sometimes, they even got involved in Spanish trade, prohibited by the kings of [[Spain]] and [[Portugal]], and antagonized the Portuguese traders.
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[[Alessandro Valignano]] (1539 - 1606), Visitor of Missions in the Indies, visited Japan from 1579 to 1582 and developed a strategy of avoiding conflict by adapting Christian teachings to Japanese customs and cultural traditions. He initiated Japanese language training for foreign missionaries, and by 1595, the Jesuits had printed a Japanese grammar and dictionary, and several books (mostly the lives of saints and martyrs) entirely in Japanese. Valignano also founded a seminary for the training of Japanese priests.
  
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It was mainly procurators who brokered Portuguese trade. They resided in Macau and Nagasaki, and accepted purchase commitments by Japanese customers such as; the shogunate [[daimyo]] and wealthy merchants. By brokerage, the Jesuits could expect not only rebates but also favorable treatment from the authorities. For this reason, the office of procurator became an important post amongst the Jesuits in Japan. Although trade activities by the Jesuits ate into Portuguese trade interests, procurators continued their brokerage utilizing the authority of the Catholic Church. At the same time, Portuguese merchants required the assistance of procurators who were familiar with Japanese [[customs]], since they established no permanent trading post in Japan.  Probably the most notable procurator was [[João Rodrigues (missionary)|João Rodrigues]], who approached [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] and [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] and even participated in the administration of Nagasaki.
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[[Image:SanSebastianJapan.JPG|thumb|200px|The martyrdom of [[Saint Sebastian]], 1590-1600 [[tempera]] painting, Japan.]]
  
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Such commercial activities were contrary to the idea of honorable poverty that the priests held. But some Jesuits at this time placed the expansion of the society's influence before this ideal. Mendicant orders fiercely accused the Jesuits of being corrupt and even considered their activity as the primary reason for Japan's ban on Catholicism. Mendicant orders themselves were not necessarily uninvolved in commercial activities.
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===Economic activities===
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The Jesuit missions in Japan required a great deal of money, and since the King of [[Portugal]] could not support them, the Jesuits were allowed to engage in trade. [[Francis Xavier]], the pioneer of Catholic missions in Japan, set a precedent by financing the cost of missionary work through merchant trading. From the 1550s to the 1570s, the Jesuits covered all their mission expenses with profits from [[trade]]. Their official commercial activity was a designated portion of the Portuguese [[silk trade]] between [[Macau]] and Nagasaki. They invested in the trade association in Macau, which purchased raw silk in Canton and sold it in [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. Their commercial activities were not confined to the [[silk]] trade; they also dealt in [[gold]], [[musk]], military supplies and other goods including slaves. They antagonized the Portuguese traders by involving themselves in Spanish trade, a practice prohibited by the kings of [[Spain]] and [[Portugal]].  
  
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==Military activities==
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Jesuit procurators in [[Macau]] and Nagasaki acted as brokers, accepting purchase orders from the Japanese shogunate, ''[[daimyo]]'' and wealthy merchants. The office of procurator became an important post amongst the Jesuits in Japan, because they could not only profit from commissions, but establish favorable relationships with the authorities. Although Portuguese traders complained, the Jesuits continued their activities under the auspices of the Catholic Church. Portuguese merchants also required the assistance of Jesuit procurators who were familiar with Japanese [[customs]], since they had no permanent trading post in Japan. A notable Jesuit procurator was [[João Rodrigues (missionary)|João Rodrigues]], who approached [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] and [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] and even participated in the administration of Nagasaki.  
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[[Image:IMG 9969 bell.JPG|left|thumb|Japanese-Portuguese Bell Inscribed 1570, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan]]
 
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Missionaries were not reluctant to take military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan. They often associated military action against Japan with the conquest of China. They thought that well-trained Japanese soldiers who had experienced long civil wars would help their countries conquer China. For example, [[Alessandro Valignano]] said to the Philippine Governor that it was impossible to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received military training but that Japan would benefit them when they would conquer China. [[Francisco Cabral]] also reported to the King of [[Spain]] that priests were able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.
 
  
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The Jesuits provided various kinds of support including military support to Kirishitan [[daimyo]] when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan daimyo. Most notable was their support of [[Omura Sumitada]] and [[Arima Harunobu]], who fought against the anti-Catholic [[Ryuzoji]] clan. In the 1580s, Valignano believed in the effectiveness of military action and fortified Nagasaki and [[Mogi]]. In 1585, [[Gaspar Coelho]] asked the Spanish [[Philippines]] to send a fleet but the plan was rejected due to the shortness of its military capability.  Christian's [[Protasio Arima]] and Paulo Okamoto were named as principles in an assassination plot to murder the magistrate in charge of the Shogunate's most important port city of Nagasaki.
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In 1580, Father Vilela converted the ''daimyo'' Omura Sumitada, who controlled the port of [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. As a gift, the port, which was then only a small fishing village, was ceded to the control of the [[Jesuit|Society]], along with the [[fortress]] in the [[harbor]]. Under Jesuit control, Nagasaki grew from a town with only one street to an international port rivaling the influence of [[Goa]] or Macau. Ownership of the port of Nagasaki gave the Jesuits a [[monopoly]] on the [[taxation]] of all imported goods coming into Japan. The society was most active in the Japanese [[silver]] trade; large quantities of Japanese silver were shipped to [[Guangzhou|Canton]] in exchange for Chinese [[silk]]. The Jesuit Superior General in Rome was shocked by news of such a blatant acquisition of property and gave firm instructions that Jesuit control of Nagasaki should only be temporary, as such commercial activities were contrary to the vows of poverty taken by priests. Mendicant orders, themselves engaged in some commercial activities, fiercely accused the Jesuits of corruption and some blamed their commercial activities for Japan's ban of Catholicism.  
  
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When [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] issued the first ban on Catholicism in 1587, the Jesuits in Japan, led by Coelho, planned armed resistance. At first, they sought help from Kirishitan daimyo but the daimyo refused. Then they called for a deployment of reinforcements from their homeland and its colonies. But this plan was abolished by Valignano. Like the Kirishitan daimyo, he realized that a military campaign against Japan's powerful ruler would bring catastrophe to Catholicism in Japan. Valignano survived the crisis by laying all the blame on Coelho. In 1590, the Jesuits decided to stop intervening in the struggles between the daimyo and to disarm themselves. They only gave secret shipments of food and financial aid to Kirishitan [[daimyo]].  
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In 1585, when the [[Holy See]] ordered an immediate cessation of all [[mercantilism|mercantile]] activities by the Society, Valignano made an impassioned appeal to the Pope, saying that he would forgo all trade as soon as the 12,000 [[ducat]]s required to meet their annual expenses were forthcoming from another source. Abandoning the silk trade, he said, would be the equivalent to abandoning the mission to Japan.
  
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In June 1592, [[Christian daimyo]], under the leadership of [[Konishi Yukinaga]], took full and active part in Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea and the massacre and enslavement of its people. Their behavior was indistinguishable from non-Christian Japanese forces.<ref>{{cite book
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===Military activities===
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  | last = Kiernan
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[[Image:IMG 9969 bell.JPG|left|thumb|200px|Japanese-Portuguese Bell Inscribed 1570, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan]]
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  | first = Ben 
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Missionaries were not reluctant to take military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan. They also believed that Japanese Christian soldiers might support Spanish or Portuguese military campaigns. [[Alessandro Valignano]] told the Philippine Governor that it was impossible to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received military training, but that Japan would benefit them when they conquered China. [[Francisco Cabral]], Superior of the Jesuit mission in Japan, also reported to the King of [[Spain]] that priests were able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.
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  | title = Blood and Soil 
 
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  | publisher = Yale Univ Press
 
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  | quote = About 150,000 Japanese troops landed in Korea in May-June 1592, spearheaded by the Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga and his division of 18,000 coreligionists. The Japanese tried to wipe out the Korean forces, and massacres proliferated. They took 8,000 heads, putting “every one who showed a sign of resistance to the edge of the sword.” Two days later, Konishi attacked Tongnae, defended by 20,000 Korean troops. At a cost of 100 Japanese killed, he “filled the fosse with five thousand dead.” On May 31, Kato took Kong-ju, “putting three thousand Koreans to the sword.” On the same day a third division of 12,000, under the Christian daimyo Kuroda, attacked Kimhae, “inflicting terrific damage on the enmy” and killing thousands more at Seishiu. Pushing north in early June, Konishi's forcees killed another 3,000-8,000 Korean troops in the Choryong pass...Three Japanese divisions had killed 15,000-20,000 Korean soldiers in three weeks. A Japanses general's war memoirs testified to the burial of 185,738 Korean and 29,014 Chinese “heads.” Japanese forces also seized over 100,000 Korean artisans and scholars and perhaps 50,000-60,000 women, and forcibly transported them to Japan or sold them as slaves abroad.  
 
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  | date = 2007
 
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  | isbn = 0-30010-098-1
 
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  | page = 125-6}}</ref>
 
  
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Following his death, it seems that the Jesuits realized that the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] was much stronger and more stable than Toyotomi Hideyoshi's administration, yet the mendicant orders relatively openly discussed military options. In the statement on the "Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan", drafted by [[Zen]] monk Konchiin Suden (1563-1633) and issued in 1614 under the name of second shogun Hidetada (1579-1632), was the considered the first official statement of a comprehensive control of Kirishitan.  <ref>{{cite book
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The Jesuits provided various kinds of support, including military support, to Kirishitan ''daimyo'' when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan ''daimyo.'' In 1584, they supported [[Omura Sumitada]] (大村純忠) and [[Arima Harunobu]] (有馬晴信) in a successful campaign against the anti-Catholic [[Ryuzoji]] (龍造寺) clan. In the 1580s, Valignano, believing in the effectiveness of military action, fortified Nagasaki and Mogi. In 1585, the Jesuit Superior [[Gaspar Coelho]] asked the Spanish [[Philippines]] to send a fleet but the plan was rejected. Christians [[Protasio Arima]] and Paulo Okamoto were named as principals in an assassination plot to murder the magistrate in charge of Nagasaki.
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  | last = Higashibaba
 
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  | first = Ikuo
 
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  | title = Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice
 
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  | publisher = Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated
 
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  | quote = The Kirishitan band happened to reach Japan. Not only have they sent merchant vessels to exchange commodities, but they also spread a pernicious doctrine to confuse the right ones, so thay they would change the government of the country and own the country. This will become a great catastrophe. We cannot but stop it.
 
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  | date = 2001
 
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  | isbn = 9-00412-290-7
 
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  | page = 139}}</ref> It claimed that the Christian's were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that there followers "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness".  <ref>{{cite book
 
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  | last = Shimizu
 
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  | first = Hirokazu
 
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  | title = Kirishitan Kankei Hosei Shiryo Shu
 
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  | date = 1977
 
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  | page 284-286}}</ref>  It was fully implemented and cannonized as one of the fundamental Tokugawan laws. In 1615, a [[Franciscan]] emissary of the Viceroy of [[New Spain]] asked the shogun for land to build a Spanish fortress and this deepened Japan's suspicion against Catholicism and the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] colonial powers behind it. Kirishitan converts took part in destroying traditional temples and shrines.
 
  
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==Early policy toward Catholicism==
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When [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] issued the first ban on Catholicism in 1587, the Jesuits in Japan, led by Coelho, planned armed resistance. When the Kirishitan daimyo refused to help them, they called for a deployment of reinforcements from their homeland and its colonies. This plan was abolished by Valignano, who realized that a military campaign against Japan's powerful ruler would bring an end to Catholicism in Japan. Valignano survived the crisis by laying all the blame on Coelho, who had recently died. In 1590, the Jesuits decided to stop intervening in the struggles among the ''daimyo'' and to disarm themselves, giving only secret shipments of food and financial aid to Kirishitan ''daimyo.''
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When the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier arrived, Japan was experiencing a nationwide civil war. Neither the emperor nor the Ashikaga shogun could exercise power over the nation. At first, Xavier planned to gain permission for building a mission from the emperor but was disappointed with the devastation of the imperial residence. The Jesuits approached daimyo in southwestern Japan and succeeded in converting some of these daimyo. One reason for their conversion may have been the Portuguese trade in which the Jesuits acted as brokers. The Jesuits recognized this and approached local rulers with offers of trade and exotic gifts.
 
  
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[[Image:NagasakiMonumentToMartyrs.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Monument to Kirishitan martyrs in [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]]]
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In June 1592, [[Christian daimyo]], under the leadership of [[Konishi Yukinaga]] (小西 行長), took full part in Hideyoshi's [[Japan's Korea War: Second Invasion (1596-1598)|invasion of Korea]] and the massacre and enslavement of its people. Their behavior was indistinguishable from non-Christian Japanese forces.<ref>Ben Kiernan. ''Blood and Soil.'' (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2007. ISBN 0300100981), 125-126: About 150,000 Japanese troops landed in Korea in May-June 1592, spearheaded by the Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga and his division of 18,000 coreligionists. The Japanese tried to wipe out the Korean forces, and massacres proliferated. They took 8000 heads, putting “every one who showed a sign of resistance to the edge of the sword.” Two days later, Konishi attacked Tongnae, defended by 20,000 Korean troops. At a cost of 100 Japanese killed, he “filled the fosse with five thousand dead.” On May 31, Kato took Kong-ju, “putting three thousand Koreans to the sword.” On the same day a third division of 12,000, under the Christian daimyo Kuroda, attacked Kimhae, “inflicting terrific damage on the enmy” and killing thousands more at Seishiu. Pushing north in early June, Konishi's forcees killed another 3000-8000 Korean troops in the Choryong pass…. Three Japanese divisions had killed 15,000-20,000 Korean soldiers in three weeks. A Japanese general's war memoirs testified to the burial of 185,738 Korean and 29,014 Chinese “heads.” Japanese forces also seized over 100,000 Korean artisans and scholars and perhaps 50,000-60,000 women, and forcibly transported them to Japan or sold them as slaves abroad. </ref>
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The Jesuits attempted to expand their activity to [[Kyoto]] and the surrounding regions. In 1559, Gaspar Vilela obtained permission from [[Ashikaga Yoshiteru]] to teach Christianity. This license was the same as  those given to [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] [[temples]], so special treatment cannot be confirmed regarding the Jesuits. On the other hand, [[Emperor Ogimachi of Japan|Emperor Ogimachi]] issued edicts to ban Catholicism in 1565 and 1568. Anyway, the orders of the emperor and the shogun were not influential.
 
  
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Christians refer positively to [[Oda Nobunaga]], who died in the middle of the reunification of Japan. He favored the Jesuit missionary [[Luis Frois]] and generally tolerated Christianity. But overall, he undertook no remarkable policies toward Catholicism. Actually, Catholic power in his domain was trivial because he did not conquer western Japan, where the Jesuits were based. By 1579, at the height of missionary activity, there were only about 130,000 converts. <ref name="Early Modern Japan">{{cite journal
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===Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Christian ''daimyo''===
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| last = L. Walker
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[[Image:JapaneseDelegatesAndPopeGregory13.JPG|thumb|200px|The Japanese embassy of [[Mancio Ito]], with [[Pope Gregory XIII]] in 1585.]]
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| first = Brett
+
When [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] (豊臣 秀吉) reunified Japan and became its ruler, he began to pay attention to external threats, particularly the expansion of European power in East Asia. By 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed by reports that Christian lords reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, that the Jesuits had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, that they participated in the [[slavery|slave trade]] of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi's Buddhist sentiments, that they allowed the slaughter of [[horse]]s and [[oxen]] for food.<ref>George Elison. ''Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan.'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [1973] 1988. ISBN 0674199626), 54 and 64 </ref> Concerned that divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebellions like that of the Pure Land Buddhist [[Ikkō-ikki]] Sect, he attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain.
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| year = 2002
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<ref>Peter Nosco, "Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition, Issues in the Study of the 'Underground Christians'." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies'' 20 (1) (1993): 3 - 30 </ref>  
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| month = Fall
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From the correspondence between the Portuguese [[João III of Portugal|King João III]] and the Vatican Pope from this period, it is apparent that the Christian ''daimyo'' sold women into [[slavery]] in exchange for the Jesuits' gun powder, at a rate of 50 baptized Japanese girls for a barrel of [[saltpeter]]. The most powerful Christian lord, [[Sorin Otomo]] (大友 宗麟, Daimyo of [[Kyūshū]]) was documented as trading in [[medicine]]s, [[pepper]], [[gunpowder]], and [[slavery|slaves]] with [[Francis Xavier]], [[Luis de Almeida]] (1525-1583) and other Jesuits.<ref>Hideaki Onizuka. ''The Rosary of the Showa Emperor.'' (Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications. 2006. ISBN 4880862002), 225: "Japan would exchange a barrel of gunpowder for fifty slaves. (In this case it would be specified as white-skinned (light skinned) good–looking (pleasing to the eyes) young Japanese women/maidens) In the name of God, if Japan can be occupied/possessed I am sure the price can be increased."</ref>   
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| title = Foreign Affairs and Frontiers in Early Modern Japan: a Historio-graphical Essay
 
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| journal = Early Modern Japan: an Interdisciplinary Journal
 
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| volume = 10
 
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| issue = 2
 
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| pages = 44-62 }}</ref>   
 
  
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[[Image:Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back.jpg|thumb|250px|Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back, used by Christians in Japan to hide their real beliefs]]
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In 1587, Hideyoshi Toyotomi called commanded [[Gaspar Coelho]] to stop slave trade of Japanese women and bring back all the Japanese, and promulgated the ''Bateren-tsuiho-rei'' ("Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits"). It consists of 11 articles, including: "No. 10. Do not sell Japanese people to the Namban (Portuguese)." By 1596, the Jesuit fathers had prohibited slave trade in and outside Japan.
  
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==Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Christian Daimyo==
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In 1596, the Spanish captain of the ''San Felipe,'' a shipwrecked trading vessel, in an attempt to recover his cargo, claimed that the missionaries were there to prepare Japan for conquest. His claims made Hideyoshi suspicious of the foreign religion.<ref>Michael Cooper. ''Rodrigues the Interpreter, An Early Jesuit in Japan and China.'' (New York: John Weatherhill, 1974. ISBN 0834803194), 160:
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The situation was changed when [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]] reunified Japan. Once he became the ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi began to pay attention to external threats, particularly the expansion of European power in East Asia.  The turning point for Catholic missions was the [[San Felipe incident]], where in an attempt to recover his cargo, the Spanish captain of a shipwrecked trading vessel claimed that the missionaries were there to prepare Japan for conquest. These claims made Hideyoshi suspicious of the foreign religion. <ref>{{cite book
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   "I have received information that in your kingdoms the promulgation of the law, i.e. Christianity, is a trick and deceit by which you overcome other kingdoms," he wrote in a letter to the Philippines in reply to the embassy led by [[Navarrete Fajardo]] in 1597. Christian missionaries, in Hideyoshi's mind, represented the first wave of European [[imperialism]].</ref> Hideyoshi put [[Nagasaki]] under his direct rule to control Portuguese trade, and in 1597, 26 Christians were crucified there at his order.
−
  | last = Cooper
 
−
  | first = Michael
 
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  | title = Rodrigues the Interpreter= An Early Jesuit in Japan and China
 
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  | publisher = Weatherhill, New York
 
−
  | date = 1974
 
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   | quote = I have received information that in your kingdoms the promulgation of the law, i.e. Christianity, is a trick and deceit by which you overcome other kingdoms, he wrote in a letter to the Philippines in reply to the embassy led by [[Navarrete Fajardo]] in 1597. Christian missionaries, in Hideyoshi's mind, represented the first wave of European imperialism.
 
−
  | pages = 160
 
−
  | isbn = 0-83480-319-4}}</ref> He attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain, which might have provided military support to [[Dom Justo Takayama|Christian Daimyo]] in western Japan.
 
  
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By 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed. Not because of too many converts but rather because the hegemon learned that Christian lords reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, that they had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, that they participated in the slave trade of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi's Buddhist sentiments, that they allowed the slaughter of horses and oxen for food. <ref>{{cite book
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===Tokugawa shogunate and the Christians===
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  | last = Elison
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[[Image:HasekuraPrayer.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Hasekura Tsunenaga]] converted to [[Catholicism]] in [[Madrid]] in 1615.]]
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  | first = George
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After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] (徳川 家康) assumed hegemony over Japan in 1600. He disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600 and negotiated with [[Manila]] to establish trade with the Philippines. Trade relations with Portugal and Spain were inconsistent with his oppressive policies toward Catholicism. Dutch and British traders, in an attempt to wrest control of the Japan trade from the Catholic countries, advised the shogunate that Spain had territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was a means of gaining influence in Japan. The Dutch promised, in contrast, that they would limit their activities to trading and would not carry out any missionary work in Japan.
−
  | title = Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan
 
−
  | publisher = Harvard University Press
 
−
  | date = 1973
 
−
  | pages = 54 and 64
 
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  | isbn = 0-67419-962-6}}</ref> He was concerned that divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebels like the [[Ikkō-ikki]] Sect of earlier years and produced his edict expelling missionaries. However, this decree was not particularly enforced. <ref name="Nosco">{{cite journal
 
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| last = Nosco
 
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| first = Peter
 
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| year = 1993
 
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| title = Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition, Issues in the Study of the 'Underground Christians
 
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| journal = Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
 
−
| volume = 20
 
−
| issue = 1
 
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| pages = 3-30 }}</ref>
 
  
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Many Daimyos converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access to [[saltpeter]], used to make [[gunpowder]]. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-six Daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians. <ref>{{cite book
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In 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu banned Christianity in Japan. The immediate cause of the prohibition was a case of fraud involving Ieyasu's Catholic [[vavasor]], but there were other reasons behind it. Some Jesuits recognized that it was for "reasons of state." Not only was the shogunate concerned about a possible threat from the Spanish or Portuguese, but wanted to enforce measures against supporters of the [[Toyotomi]] clan that had opposed Tokugawa’s rule, some of whom were Christian daimyo. In 1614, Tokugawa ordered the [[Zen]] monk Konchiin Suden (1563-1633) to draft a statement entitled "Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan." 
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  | last = Toshihiko
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<ref>Ikuo Higashibaba. ''Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice.''
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  | first = Abe
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(Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated, 2001. ISBN 9004122907), 139.
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  | title = Japan's Hidden Face
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<blockquote>"The Kirishitan band happened to reach Japan. Not only have they sent merchant vessels to exchange commodities, but they also spread a pernicious doctrine to confuse the right ones, so that they would change the government of the country and own the country. This will become a great catastrophe. We cannot but stop it."</ref></blockquote> It claimed that the Christians were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that they "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness."<ref>Hirokazu Shimizu. ''Kirishitan Kankei Hosei Shiryo Shu.'' (1977), 284-286</ref> The edict was reissued by the second Tokugawa shogun Hidetada (徳川 秀忠, 1579-1632), who was [[xenophobia|xenophobic]], and was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental laws of the Tokugawa shogunate. The government demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts <ref name="Mullins">Mark R. Mullins, 1990. "Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies'' 17 (4): 353-374.</ref>
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  | publisher = Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications
 
−
  | date = 1998
 
−
  | isbn = 1-8916-960-5X}}</ref> From the correspondence between the Portuguese [[João III of Portugal|King João III]] and the Vatican Pope of the period, it is written that the Christian Daimyos sold women into slavery for the Jesuits' gun powder at a going rate of 50 baptized Japanese girls for a barrel of [[saltpeter]]. As many as 500,000 Japanese girls were sold on the slave markets and shipped to South America and Europe. The most powerful Christian lord, [[Sorin Otomo]] (Daimyo for the [[Kyūshū]]) was recorded to trade in medicines, pepper, gunpowder, slaves with Saint [[Francis Xavier]], Luis de Almeida (1525-1583) and the other Jesuits, which was highly profitable for Portugal and the Roman Catholic Church for years. <ref>{{cite book
 
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  | last = Onizuka
 
−
  | first = Hideaki
 
−
  | title = The Rosary of the Showa Emperor
 
−
  | publisher = Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications
 
−
  | quote = Japan would exchange a barrel of gunpowder for fifty slaves. (In this case it would be specified as white-skinned (light skinned) good –looking (pleasing to the eyes) young Japanese women/maidens) In the name of God, if Japan can be occupied/possessed I am sure the price can be increased.
 
−
  | date = 2006
 
−
  | pages = 225
 
−
  | isbn = 4-88086-200-2}}</ref>
 
  
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In 1587, Hideyoshi Toyotomi called [[marrano]] [[Gaspar Coelho]] to command to stop slave trade of Japanese women and bring back all the Japanese, immediately promulgated the "Bateren-tsuiho-rei" (the Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits) on July 24, 1587.  It consists of 11 articles: "No. 10. Do not sell Japanese people to the Namban (Portuguese)."  Finally by 1596, the Jesuit fathers prohibited slave trade in and outside Japan. Coelho, who brought with him modern European warships, had persistent in his request to Spain to send its [[Armada]] and prepared for war with Japan. Hideyoshi put Nagasaki under his direct rule to control Portuguese trade and in 1597, [[Martyrs of Japan|26 Kirishitan]] followers were executed there on his order.
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The Buddhist [[ecclesiastical]] establishment was made responsible for verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became known as the "temple guarantee system" (terauke seido). By the 1630s, people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a Buddhist temple as proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability and loyalty to the regime.
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[[Image:NagasakiMonumentToMartyrs.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Monument to Kirishitan martyrs in [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]]]
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[[Image:Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back.jpg|thumb|200px|Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back, used by Christians in Japan to hide their real beliefs]]
  
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==Tokugawa response==
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To identify practicing Catholics and sympathizers, government officials ordered everyone to trample on ''fumie'' (踏み絵), pictures of the [[Mary, the mother of Jesus|Virgin Mary]] and [[Christ]]. Those who were reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and sent to Nagasaki to be tortured until they renounced their faith. Many who refused were executed on [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]'s [[Mount Unzen]], often by being boiled alive in thermal springs.  
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[[Image:JapaneseDelegatesAndPopeGregory13.JPG|thumb|The Japanese embassy of [[Mancio Ito]], with [[Pope Gregory XIII]] in 1585.]]
 
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[[Image:HasekuraPrayer.jpg|thumb|[[Hasekura Tsunenaga]] converted to [[Catholicism]] in [[Madrid]] in 1615.]]
 
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After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] assumed hegemony over Japan, in 1600. Like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600. He negotiated with [[Manila]] to establish trade with the Philippines. The trade promotion made his policies toward Catholicism inconsistent. At the same time, in an attempt to wrest control of the Japan trade from the Catholic countries, Dutch and British traders advised the Shogunate that Spain did indeed have territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was Spain's principal means. The Dutch and British promised, in distinction, that they would limit themselves to trading and would not conduct missionary activities in Japan.  
 
  
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The [[Tokugawa shogunate]] finally decided to ban Catholicism, in 1614 and in the mid 1600's demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts <ref name="Mullins">{{cite journal
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[[Image:Jesus on cross to step on.jpg|thumb|200px|Picture of Christ used to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers]]
−
| last = Mullins
 
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| first = Mark R.
 
−
| year = 1990
 
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| title = Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai
 
−
| journal = Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
 
−
| volume = 17
 
−
| issue = 4
 
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| pages = 353-374 }}</ref> This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan. The immediate cause of the prohibition was a  case of fraud involving Ieyasu's Catholic [[vavasor]], but there were also other reasons behind it. The [[Shogunate]] was concerned about a possible invasion by the [[Iberian]] colonial powers, which had previously occurred in the New World and the Philippines. Domestically, the ban was closely related to measures against the [[Toyotomi]] clan. On the other hand, some Jesuits cited "reasons of state" as the key factor; they realized the superiority of state politics over religion in Japan.
 
  
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The Buddhist [[ecclesiastical]] establishment was made responsible for verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became known as the "temple guarantee system" (terauke seido). By the 1630s, people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a Buddhist temple as proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability and loyalty to the regime.
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In 1637 the [[Shimabara Rebellion]] (島原の乱) broke out. Initially sparked by economic desperation, over-taxation and government oppression, it soon assumed a religious character. A charismatic 14-year-old, [[Amakusa Shirō]] (天草 四郎, c. 1621? - April 12, 1638, also known as Masuda Shirō Tokisada, 益田 時貞) was chosen as the rebellion's leader. About 37,000 people, many of whom were Christians, joined the uprising, but it was eventually crushed, with heavy casualties to government troops, and all the rebels were decapitated. Following the rebellion, Christianity was completely suppressed in Japan, and the Tokugawa shogunate enacted a policy of “sakoku,” complete [[isolation]] of Japan from foreign influences.  
  
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==Christian view of Kirishitan history==
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About 400 Japanese Christians were officially deported to [[Macau]] or to the Spanish [[Philippines]], and thousands more were pressured into voluntary exile. Many [[Macanese people|Macanese]] and Japanese [[Mestizo]]s are the mixed-race descendants of these deported Japanese Catholics.  
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Non-religious researchers find it difficult to understand the motivations behind martyrdom. Instead of giving detailed accounts, they merely point out the rate of martyrdoms; the number of Christians is estimated to have been about 200,000 in 1582<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08297a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia on Japan]</ref>; whereas there were likely around 1,000 known martyrs during the missionary period. In contrast, Christians attach a great importance to martyrdom and persecution, noting that countless more people were dispossessed of their land and property leading to their subsequent death in poverty.
 
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[[Image:Jesus on cross to step on.jpg|thumb|250px|Picture of Christ used to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers]]
 
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The Japanese government used [[Fumie]] to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers. Fumie were pictures of the [[Mary, the mother of Jesus|Virgin Mary]] and [[Christ]].  Government officials made everybody trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and then sent to Nagasaki. The policy of the Japanese government (Edo) was to turn them from their faith, Catholicism. If the Catholics refused to change their religion, they were [[torture]]d. Many of them still refusing to abandon their faith were executed on [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]'s [[Mount Unzen]].  
 
  
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The [[Shimabara Rebellion]], led by a young Christian boy named [[Amakusa Shiro|Amakusa Shiro Tokisada]], took place in 1637. The Rebellion broke out over economic desperation and government oppression but later assumed a religious tone. About 27,000 people joined the uprising, but it was crushed by the shogunate after a sustained campaign. They are not considered martyrs by the [[Catholic Church]] since they took up arms for materialistic reasons. Many Japanese were deported to [[Macau]] or to the Spanish [[Philippines]]. Many [[Macanese people|Macanese]] and Japanese [[Mestizo]]s are the mixed-race descendants of the deported Japanese Catholics. 400 were officially deported by the government to Macau and Manila, but thousands of Japanese were pressured into moving voluntarily. About 10,000 Macanese, and 3,000 Japanese were moved to Manila.
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Christians were heavily persecuted, and an estimated 3000 were killed. Many of the 300,000 Christians in Japan renounced their faith. Catholics who did not renounce their faith were crucified, dismembered, lowered headfirst in excrement, or suffered other cruel means of torture and death. The remaining Catholics in Japan were driven underground and became known as the ''Kakure Kirishitan'' ("Hidden Christians"). Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including 18 Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuit [[irmao]] and [[dojuku]]. Between 1640 and 1670, several Jesuit and Dominican groups attempted to enter Japan, but all of them were [[torture]]d and put to death.
  
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The Catholic remnant in Japan were driven underground and its members became known as the [[Kakure Kirishitan|"Hidden Christians"]]. Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including eighteen Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuit [[irmao]] and [[dojuku]]. Since this time corresponds to the [[Thirty Years' War]] between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, it is possible that the checking of Catholic power in Europe reduced the flow of funds to the Catholic missions in Japan, which could be why they failed at this time and not before. During the [[Edo period]], the [[Kakure Kirishitan]] kept their faith. Biblical phrases or prayers were transferred orally from parent to child, and secret posts (Mizukata) were assigned in their underground community to baptize their children, all while regional governments continuously operated [[Fumie]] to expose Christians. Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, [[Shusaku Endo]]'s acclaimed novel "[[Silence (novel)|Silence]]" provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.
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==Kakure Kirishitan==
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[[Image:Maria Kannon.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Maria Kannon, Dehua Kiln Statue of Buddhist Kannon Used For Christian Worship in Japan, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan]]
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During the [[Edo period]], the [[Kakure Kirishitan]] kept their faith hidden. They worshipped in [[secret passage|secret rooms]] in private homes, and designated sacred places to baptize their children ''(mizukata).'' They eliminated most external [[symbol]]s and books, disguised their rituals, and committed [[prayer]]s and snatches of Scripture to memory. Since the Catholic clergy had all been expelled, they developed their own hereditary priesthood, observed holy days and administered the sacrament of [[Baptism]].  
 +
Over time, the figures of the [[saint]]s and the [[Virgin Mary]] were transformed into figurines that looked like the traditional statues of the [[Buddhism|Buddha]] and [[Shinto]] gods and goddesses. Prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist and Shinto prayers, retaining many untranslated words from [[Latin]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]]. The [[Bible]] was passed down orally, and rituals and sacraments were handed down from father to son.
 +
In some cases, the communities drifted away from Christian teachings. They lost the meaning of the prayers and their religion became a version of the [[Ancestor worship|cult of ancestors]], in which the ancestors happened to be their [[Christian martyrs]].
 +
Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, [[Shusaku Endo]]'s (遠藤 周作) acclaimed novel "[[Silence (novel)|Silence]]" (1966) provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.
  
 
==Rediscovery and Return==
 
==Rediscovery and Return==
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[[Image:ChristianMartyrsOfNagasaki.jpg|thumb|The Christian martyrs of [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. 17th century Japanese painting.]]
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[[Image:ChristianMartyrsOfNagasaki.jpg|thumb|200px|The Christian [[martyr]]s of [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. Seventeenth century Japanese painting.]]
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Japan was opened to foreign interaction by [[Matthew C. Perry|Matthew Perry]] in 1853. It became possible to live in Japan for foreigners with [[Harris Treaty]] in 1858 . Many Christian clergymen were sent from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches, though proselytizing was still banned. In 1865, some of the Japanese who lived in [[Urakami]] village near [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]] visited the new [[Ōura Church]] which had been built by the [[Paris Foreign Missions Society]] ([[:fr:Missions étrangères de Paris|Missions étrangères de Paris]]) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest, [[Bernard Thadee Petitjean]], and confessed that their families had kept the Kirishitan faith. Those Kirishitan wanted to see the statue of St. Mary with their own eyes, and to confirm that the priest was single and truly came from the pope in Rome. After this interview, many Kirishitan thronged toward Petitjean. He investigated their underground organizations and discovered that they had kept the rite of baptism and the liturgical years without European priests for nearly 250 years. Petitjean’s report surprised the Christian world; Pope [[Pius IX]] called it a miracle.
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In 1853 Commodore [[Matthew C. Perry|Matthew Perry]] arrived in Edo harbor with U.S. Navy ships and forced Japan to open its ports to foreign trade. Under a treaty signed between France and Japan, in October, 1858, Catholic missionaries were allowed to reside in open ports and conduct church services for foreigners. In 1865, some Japanese who lived in [[Urakami]] village near [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]] visited the new [[Ōura Church]] which had been built there by the [[Paris Foreign Missions Society]] ([[:fr:Missions étrangères de Paris|Missions étrangères de Paris]]) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest, [[Bernard Thadee Petitjean]], and confessed that their families had kept the Kirishitan faith. These Kirishitan wanted to see the statue of Saint Mary with their own eyes, and to confirm that the priest was single and truly came from the pope in Rome. After this interview, many Kirishitan thronged to Petitjean. He investigated their underground organizations and discovered that they had kept the rite of [[baptism]] and the liturgical years without European priests for nearly 250 years. Petitjean’s report surprised the Christian world; Pope [[Pius IX]] called it a [[miracle]].
  
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The [[Edo]] Shogunate's edicts banning Christianity were still on the books, however, and thus persecuted the religion up to 1867, the last year of its rule. [[Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh]], the American minister-resident in Japan, privately complained of this persecution to the Nagasaki magistrates, though very little action was taken to stop it. The succeeding [[Meiji government]] initially continued in this vein and several thousand people were exiled. After Europe and the U.S. began to vocally criticize the persecution, the Japanese government realized that it needed to lift the ban in order to attain its interests. In 1873 the ban was lifted, exiles returned and started to construct the [[Urakami Cathedral]] which was completed in 1895.
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The [[Edo]] shogunate's edicts banning Christianity were still in effect, and persecution continued until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. [[Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh]], the American minister-resident in Japan, privately complained of this persecution to the Nagasaki magistrates, but very little action was taken to stop it. The succeeding [[Meiji government]] initially continued persecuting Christians and several thousand people were exiled. In 1873 the ban was lifted in response to vocal criticism by Europe and the U.S., and the exiles returned and started to construct the [[Urakami Cathedral]] which was completed in 1895.
  
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It was later revealed that tens of thousands of Kirishitan still survived in some regions near Nagasaki. Some officially returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Others remained apart from the Catholic Church and became known as [[Hanare Kirishitan]], retaining their own traditional beliefs and their descendants asserting that they keep their ancestor's religion. When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Hanare Kirishitan families.
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It was later revealed that tens of thousands of Kirishitan still survived in some regions near Nagasaki. Some officially returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Others remained apart from the Catholic Church and became known as [[Hanare Kirishitan]], retaining their own traditional beliefs and keeping their ancestors’ religion. When [[John Paul II]] visited Nagasaki in 1981, he [[baptism|baptized]] some young people from Hanare Kirishitan families.
 +
 
 +
==Kakure Kirishitan today==
 +
 
 +
There is some debate on whether or not Kakure Kirishitans still exist, even now practicing the ancestral rituals in secret. The fear of detection is integrated into the [[culture]] of this sect. Even some of those who have come out of hiding still maintain [[shrine]]s that do not have any markings of [[Christianity]], such as [[cross]]es or images of the [[Virgin Mary]] or [[Jesus]].
 +
Anthropologist Christal Whelan, from the University of Hawaii, spent a year during the 1990s on Narushima Island, studying the lives of two Kakure Kirishitan priests. Both were nearly 100 years old and had no successors. In 1995 she filmed a Christmas Eve (''Otaiya,'' literally "big evening,") ceremony, in which three priests traditionally bless and consume three cups of sake (rice [[wine]]) and three bowls of [[rice]]. The [[sake]] is consumed and the rice is placed in the palm of the cupped left hand very similar to the way the Communion host is received in the hand in Catholic churches today. The [[Crucifixion]] is celebrated but [[Easter]] has lost its significance and is merely a "time when mourning ceases." Whelan was able to trace their [[prayer]]s to printed sixteenth century Portuguese, Latin and Japanese texts, but the priests had no knowledge of texts and did not know the meaning of the words. Whelan also documented a unique Kakure Kirishitan [[funeral]] practice in which a small piece was cut from a centuries-old [[kimono]] which had belonged to a particularly holy Hidden Christian [[martyr]], wrapped in paper and placed in the hands of the dead.<ref>Patrick Downes, ''The Hawaii Catholic Herald'' (February 4, 2000). [http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0452.html Kakure Kirishitan],''catholiceducation.org''. Retrieved September 9, 2008.</ref>
  
 
==Notable Kirishitans==
 
==Notable Kirishitans==
−
*Paulo Miki (1563-1596)
+
*[[Paulo Miki]] (1563-1596)
−
*Sumitada Omura, first Christian feudal lord (1533-1587)
+
*[[Sumitada Omura]], first Christian feudal lord (1533-1587)
 
*Arima Harunobu, Christian name Dom Protasio, Lord of Shimabara (1567-1612)
 
*Arima Harunobu, Christian name Dom Protasio, Lord of Shimabara (1567-1612)
 
*Yoshido Kuroda, Dom Simeao, leader of Mori forces (1546-1604)
 
*Yoshido Kuroda, Dom Simeao, leader of Mori forces (1546-1604)
−
*Yukinaga Konishi, Dom Agostinho, chief member of Hideyoshi's field staff (1556-1600)
+
*[[Yukinaga Konishi]], Dom Agostinho, chief member of Hideyoshi's field staff (1556-1600)
−
*Dom Justo Takayama Ukon daimyo of Akashi
+
*Dom Justo Takayama, Ukon daimyo of Akashi
 
*Dom Leao Gamo Ujisato (1556-1595)
 
*Dom Leao Gamo Ujisato (1556-1595)
 
*Dom Agostinho Konishi
 
*Dom Agostinho Konishi
 
*Bizen no Gomoji, Hideyoshi daughter (1574–1634)
 
*Bizen no Gomoji, Hideyoshi daughter (1574–1634)
−
*Ōtomo Sōrin (大友 宗麟 1530-1587), Dom Francis, "King of Bungo" , Fujiwara no Yoshisige (藤原 義鎮) , Ōtomo Yoshishige (大友 義鎮),
+
*Ōtomo Sōrin (大友 宗麟 1530-1587), Dom Francis, "King of Bungo", Fujiwara no Yoshisige (藤原 義鎮), Ōtomo Yoshishige (大友 義鎮).
−
*Ōtomo Yoshimune(大友　義統）, Constantino,
+
*Ōtomo Yoshimune (大友　義統）, Constantino,
−
*Ōtomo Chikaie(大友　親家）, Dom Sebastin
+
*Ōtomo Chikaie (大友　親家）, Dom Sebastin
−
*Ōtomo Chikamori(大友　親盛）,  
+
*Ōtomo Chikamori (大友　親盛）,  
 
*[[Mancio Ito]] (伊東マンショ Itō Mansho),　伊東祐益 1570 - 1612
 
*[[Mancio Ito]] (伊東マンショ Itō Mansho),　伊東祐益 1570 - 1612
 
*Julião Nakaura (中浦ジュリアン Nakaura Jurian)  
 
*Julião Nakaura (中浦ジュリアン Nakaura Jurian)  
Line 190: Line 132:
  
 
==Notable Opponents==
 
==Notable Opponents==
−
Asayama Nichijô (Nichijô Shonin) Nichiren priest  d.1577
+
Asayama Nichijô (Nichijô Shonin) [[Nichiren]] priest  d. 1577
  
 
Konchiin Sūden (1569–1633), an influential Buddhist adviser who served the first three Tokugawa shoguns.
 
Konchiin Sūden (1569–1633), an influential Buddhist adviser who served the first three Tokugawa shoguns.
  
−
==See also==
+
== Notes ==
−
*[[Kakure Kirishitan]] ("hidden Christian") refers to the Japanese communities that continued to secretly practice a native form of Christianity in spite of persecution. Their isolation led to their drifting away from the foreign version of the religion.
+
<references/>
−
*[[Roman Catholicism in Japan]]
 
−
*[[Martyrs of Japan]]
 
−
*[[Nanban trade period]]
 
−
*[[Nippo jisho]]
 
−
*[[Japanese words of Portuguese origin]]
 
−
*[[Suwa Shrine (Nagasaki)]]
 
−
*[[Shusaku Endo]]'s novel "[[Silence (novel)|Silence]]" about the 17th century suppression of the last known Japanese Christian communities.
 
  
−
==Other publications==
 
−
<div class="references">
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = John
 
−
  | first = Whitney Hall
 
−
  | title = The Cambridge History of Japan
 
−
  | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 
−
  | date = 2007
 
−
  | isbn = 0521657288}}
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = Turnbull
 
−
  | first = Stephe
 
−
  | title = The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day
 
−
  | publisher = RoutledgeCurzon
 
−
  | date = 1998
 
−
  | isbn = 1873410700}}
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = Higashibaba
 
−
  | first = Ikuo
 
−
  | title = Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice
 
−
  | publisher = Brill Academic Publishers
 
−
  | date = 2002
 
−
  | isbn = 9004122907}}
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = Junji
 
−
  | first = Kawashima
 
−
  | title = Kanto heiya no kakure Kirishitan
 
−
  | publisher = Sakitama Shuppankai
 
−
  | date = 1998
 
−
  | isbn = 487891341X}}
 
−
* {{cite journal
 
−
  | last = Elisonas
 
−
  | first = Jurgis S. A.
 
−
  | authorlink =
 
−
  | coauthors =
 
−
  | title = Journey to the West
 
−
  | publisher = Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
 
−
  | journal = Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
 
−
  | volume = 34
 
−
  | issue = 1
 
−
  | pages = 27-66
 
−
  | date = 2007 }}
 
−
* {{cite journal
 
−
  | last = Kitagawa
 
−
  | first = Tomoko
 
−
  | title = The Conversion of Hideyoshi’s Daughter Gō
 
−
  | publisher = Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
 
−
  | journal = Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
 
−
  | volume = 34
 
−
  | issue = 1
 
−
  | pages = 9-25
 
−
  | date = 2007 }}
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = Wakakuwa
 
−
  | first = Midori
 
−
  | title = Quattro Ragazzi: Tenshō Mission of Youths and the Imperial World
 
−
  | publisher = Shūei-sha
 
−
  | date = 2005}}
 
−
* {{cite book
 
−
  | last = Cooper
 
−
  | first = Michael 
 
−
  | title = The Japanese Mission to Europe, 1582–1590; The journey of Four Samurai Boys through Portugal, Spain and Italy
 
−
  | publisher = Global Oriental Ltd
 
−
  | date = 2005
 
−
  | isbn = 1-901903-38-9}}
 
−
* {{cite web
 
−
  | last =  Secretariat
 
−
  | first =General
 
−
  | title = AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN JAPAN, 1543-1944 
 
−
  | publisher = Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan
 
−
  | date = 2007
 
−
  | url = http://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/ehistory/table01.htm
 
−
  | accessdate = 2007-12-22 }}
 
−
* {{cite web
 
−
  | last = Eishiro
 
−
  | first = Ito
 
−
  | title = Unveiling Histories of the Tohoku District; Juan Goto and Crypto-Christians
 
−
  | publisher = IWATE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY
 
−
  | date = 2007
 
−
  | url = http://p-www.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~acro-ito/Japan_pics/Japan_MZS/Juan_Goto.html
 
−
  | accessdate = 2007-12-22 }}
 
  
−
== References ==
+
==References==
−
<references/>
+
* Abe, Toshihiko. ''Japan's Hidden Face.'' Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks, Trans-Atlantic Publications. 1998. ISBN 189169605X.
 +
* Cooper, Michael. ''The Japanese Mission to Europe, 1582–1590; The journey of Four Samurai Boys through Portugal, Spain and Italy.'' Folkstone, Kent, UK: Global Oriental Ltd. 2005. ISBN
 +
1901903389.
 +
* Cooper, Michael. ''Rodrigues the Interpreter, An Early Jesuit in Japan and China.'' New York: John Weatherhill, 1974. ISBN 0834803194.
 +
* Downes, Patrick, [http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0452.html Kakure Kirishitan], ''The Hawaii Catholic Herald'' (February 4, 2000). Retrieved September 9, 2008.
 +
* Elison, George. ''Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [1973] 1988. ISBN 0674199626.
 +
* Elisonas, Jurgis S. A. "Journey to the West." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies''  34 (1) (2007): 27-66. (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture).
 +
* Higashibaba, Ikuo. ''Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice.'' Brill Academic Publishers. 2002. ISBN 9004122907
 +
* Ito, Eishiro. ''Unveiling Histories of the Tohoku District; Juan Goto and Crypto-Christians.'' IWATE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY. 2007
 +
* John, Whitney Hall. ''The Cambridge History of Japan.'' Cambridge University Press. 2007. ISBN 0521657288.
 +
* Kawashima, Junji. ''Kanto heiya no kakure Kirishitan.'' Sakitama Shuppankai. 1998. ISBN 487891341X
 +
* Kiernan, Ben. ''Blood and Soil.'' Yale University Press. 2007. ISBN 0300100981.
 +
* Kitagawa, Tomoko. "The Conversion of Hideyoshi’s Daughter Gō." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies''  34 (1) (2007): 9 – 25. Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.
 +
* Mullins, Mark R. "Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies'' 17 (4): 353-374. 1990.
 +
* Nosco, Peter, "Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition, Issues in the Study of the 'Underground Christians'." ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies'' 20 (1) (1993): 3-30.
 +
* Onizuka, Hideaki. ''The Rosary of the Showa Emperor.'' Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications. 2006. ISBN 4880862002.
 +
* Secretariat General. [http://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/ehistory/table01.htm ''AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN JAPAN, 1543-1944.''] Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan. 2007. Retrieved September 17, 2008.
 +
* Turnbull, Stephen. ''The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day.'' RoutledgeCurzon. 1998. ISBN 1873410700
 +
* Wakakuwa, Midori. ''Quattro Ragazzi: Tenshō Mission of Youths and the Imperial World.'' Shūei-sha. 2005.
 +
* Whelan, Christal. ''The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians,'' Translated and annotated by Christal Whelan. (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion & Culture) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. ISBN 0824818245.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
−
*[http://www.pauline.or.jp/history/e-index.html History of the Japanese Catholic Church] by the Daughters of St. Paul convent; Tokyo, Japan
+
All links retrieved April 19, 2018.
−
*[http://www.tca-japan.com/ Pilgrimage Sites and Churches in Nagasaki] by TCA (Think Catholic Asia) Japan located inside [http://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/ediocese/nagasaki.htm Nagasaki Catholic Center]
+
*[https://www.cbcj.catholic.jp/ Catholic Bishop's Conference of Japan]
−
*[http://www.zenit.org/article-21265?l=english 2008 Beatification of Japanese Martyrs.]
+
*[https://catholicnews.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46:japanesemartyrsbeatifiedinnagasaki&catid=543:december-7-2008-vol-58-no-25&Itemid=473&lang=en 188 Japanese Martyrs Beatified in Nagasaki] ''The Catholic News'', December 2008.
−
 
 
−
{{Asia in topic|Roman Catholicism in}}
 
−
 
 
−
[[Category:Christianity in Japan]]
 
−
[[Category:Feudal Japan]]
 
−
[[Category:Japanese historical terms]]
 
−
 
 
  
 +
[[Category:Religion]]
 +
[[Category:History]]
 +
[[Category:Philosophy and religion]]
  
−
{{credits|Kirishitan|212023735|}}
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{{credits|Kirishitan|212023735|Treaty_of_Tordesillas|236738965|Congregation_for_the_Evangelization_of_Peoples|227623466|Alessandro_Valignano|229779549|Gaspar_Coelho|226951241|Ishin_Sūden|233292413|}}

Latest revision as of 15:30, 19 April 2018

Japanese Christians ("Kirishitan") in Portuguese costume, sixteenth-seventeenth century.
Netsuke depicting Christ, seventeenth century, Japan.

Kirishitan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン), from Portuguese cristão, was the Japanese term for Roman Catholic Christians and is used as a historiographic term for Roman Catholics in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Christian missionaries at that time were known as bateren ("fathers") from the Portuguese word padre, or iruman ("brothers") from the Portuguese word irmão. Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in 1549 with the arrival of Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits Francisco Xavier[1][2], Brother Cosme de Torres, and Father John Fernandez in Kagoshima, along with a recent Japanese convert, Anjiro (Christian name, Pablo de Santa Fe). The warlords (daimyo) of Western Japan, who were interested in trade with the Portuguese, received them favorably. By 1582, Portuguese Jesuits and Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans reported 200,000 converts to Christianity, including a number of daimyo and their families.

After Japan was unified at the end of the sixteenth century, a combination of circumstances caused the government to feel threatened by the Catholic missionaries and their converts, and Christianity was prohibited. Foreign clergy were expelled from Japan, and Christians who did not renounce their faith were cruelly tortured and put to death. The remaining Christians went underground and became Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) for almost 250 years. They disguised their rituals, committed prayers and snatches of Scripture to memory, and developed their own hereditary priesthood and observances of rites and the sacrament of Baptism. In 1865, after the shogunate opened several Japanese ports to foreign trade, several Kakure Kirishitan approached a Catholic priest in Nagasaki. Within a year, 20,000 Kakure Kirishitan dropped their disguise and openly professed their Christian faith. Others chose not to abandon their traditions and became Hanare Kirishitan (Separate Christians).

Modern Japanese Christianity is known as Kirisuto-kyo.

Catholic Missions in Japan

Rivalry between Portugal and Spain

Religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for both Portugal and Spain. Wherever either of these powers attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the newly-discovered lands outside Europe into two exclusive Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence, trade and colonization. At that time, neither nation had any direct contact with Japan, which fell into the sphere of the Portuguese. Later, Spain challenged Portugal’s claim. Since neither country could colonize Japan, the country with the exclusive right to propagate Christianity in Japan would gain trading rights there. In 1549, the Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits, under the direction of Alessandro Valignano, entered Japan over the protests of the Spaniards. In 1575, Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull confirming that Japan belonged to the Portuguese diocese of Macau. In 1588, the diocese of Funai (Nagasaki) was founded under Portuguese protection.

A Japanese votive altar, Nanban style. End of sixteenth century. Guimet Museum.

Spanish-sponsored Dominican and Franciscan mendicant orders entered Japan by way of Manila. Criticizing Jesuit activities in Japan, they actively lobbied the Pope, resulting in Pope Clement VIII's decree of 1600, which allowed Spanish friars to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, and Pope Paul V's decree of 1608, which abolished the restrictions on the route. The Portuguese accused Spanish Jesuits of working for their homeland instead of for God. The power struggle between Jesuits and the mendicant orders caused a schism within the diocese of Funai. In addition, The Spanish mendicant orders tried in vain to establish an independent diocese in the Tohoku region. The governments of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ieyasu Tokugawa, observing the discord and rivalry among the Catholics, became increasingly mistrustful of them.

Celebrating a Christian mass in Japan.

In the early seventeenth century, Japan built trade relations with the Netherlands and England. Although England withdrew after ten years under James I because it found the trade unprofitable, the Netherlands continued to trade with Japan and became the only European country that maintained trade relations with Japan until the nineteenth century. To strengthen their advantage, the Protestant countries engaged in a negative campaign against Catholicism, warning the Tokugawa shogunate that it was a vehicle for Spanish and Portuguese imperialism.

Portugal's and Spain's colonial policies were also challenged by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1622, the Vatican founded the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (“Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples,” “Congregatio pro Gentium Evangelisatione”) to be responsible for missionary work and related activities, and attempted to separate the churches from the political influence of the Iberian kingdoms. By this time the Japanese shogunate had already begun expelling foreign clergy from their domain.

Establishment of missions

Roman Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in 1549, with the arrival in Kagoshima of the Jesuits Francis Xavier,[3][4], Father Cosme de Torres, and Brother John Fernandez, along with a recent Japanese convert, Anjiro (Christian name, Pablo de Santa Fe). When the Jesuits arrived, Japan was in the throes of civil war, and neither the emperor nor the Ashikaga shogun was in control of the nation. Xavier intended to get permission from the emperor to build a mission, but was unable to enter Kyoto and became discouraged when he realized the extent of the devastation of the imperial residence.

The Jesuits then approached daimyo in southwestern Japan. The warlords of Kyushu were interested in the weapons, technology and supplies that could be obtained from the Portuguese traders, and willing to accept the overtures of the Jesuits. Xavier soon realized that the Jesuits could gain the most ground by adopting the attire and lifestyle of the upper classes. As feudal lords converted to Catholicism, the numbers of believers in their territories increased dramatically.

Oda Nobunaga (織田 信長), one of the great unifiers of Japan, took an interest in Western culture and favored the Jesuit missionary Luis Frois. He encouraged the development of the Christian missions as a means of undermining the political strength of the Buddhist temples. Though he never converted to Christianity, he became a patron of the Jesuits and supported the establishment of the first Christian church in Kyoto in 1576. By 1579, six regional war lords and approximately 100,000 of their subjects had converted to Christianity. When Nobunaga died in 1582, the Catholics reported 200,000 faithful and 250 churches in Japan. Another patron was Date Masamune, one of the most powerful daimyo under the Tokugawa shogunate, who sponsored a mission to the Vatican (1613 – 1620) but later complied with the Tokugawa edicts against Christianity. Some sources suggest that Masamune's eldest daughter, Iroha, was a Christian.

Between 1553 and 1620, 86 Daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.[5] While oppressed peasants embraced the gospel of salvation, the motivation of the daimyo who accepted Christianity was complex and may have been more political and economic than religious. Association with the Jesuits and the mendicant orders implied association with the military and economic might of the Portuguese and Spanish, with their ships and powerful guns. Hideyoshi and Tokugawa were establishing hegemony over all the regions of Japan; smaller daimyo may have hoped to build up the power to resist with the help of the new religion. Some daimyo had trade ties with Luzon in the Philippines, or with China, and had already been exposed to Western culture. In addition, they could trade with the Portuguese to obtain saltpeter for gunpowder, and silk and other luxuries from China.

The Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits were soon joined by Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, some of whom criticized the luxurious lifestyle of the Jesuits.

Alessandro Valignano (1539 - 1606), Visitor of Missions in the Indies, visited Japan from 1579 to 1582 and developed a strategy of avoiding conflict by adapting Christian teachings to Japanese customs and cultural traditions. He initiated Japanese language training for foreign missionaries, and by 1595, the Jesuits had printed a Japanese grammar and dictionary, and several books (mostly the lives of saints and martyrs) entirely in Japanese. Valignano also founded a seminary for the training of Japanese priests.

The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, 1590-1600 tempera painting, Japan.

Economic activities

The Jesuit missions in Japan required a great deal of money, and since the King of Portugal could not support them, the Jesuits were allowed to engage in trade. Francis Xavier, the pioneer of Catholic missions in Japan, set a precedent by financing the cost of missionary work through merchant trading. From the 1550s to the 1570s, the Jesuits covered all their mission expenses with profits from trade. Their official commercial activity was a designated portion of the Portuguese silk trade between Macau and Nagasaki. They invested in the trade association in Macau, which purchased raw silk in Canton and sold it in Nagasaki. Their commercial activities were not confined to the silk trade; they also dealt in gold, musk, military supplies and other goods including slaves. They antagonized the Portuguese traders by involving themselves in Spanish trade, a practice prohibited by the kings of Spain and Portugal.

Jesuit procurators in Macau and Nagasaki acted as brokers, accepting purchase orders from the Japanese shogunate, daimyo and wealthy merchants. The office of procurator became an important post amongst the Jesuits in Japan, because they could not only profit from commissions, but establish favorable relationships with the authorities. Although Portuguese traders complained, the Jesuits continued their activities under the auspices of the Catholic Church. Portuguese merchants also required the assistance of Jesuit procurators who were familiar with Japanese customs, since they had no permanent trading post in Japan. A notable Jesuit procurator was João Rodrigues, who approached Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and even participated in the administration of Nagasaki.

In 1580, Father Vilela converted the daimyo Omura Sumitada, who controlled the port of Nagasaki. As a gift, the port, which was then only a small fishing village, was ceded to the control of the Society, along with the fortress in the harbor. Under Jesuit control, Nagasaki grew from a town with only one street to an international port rivaling the influence of Goa or Macau. Ownership of the port of Nagasaki gave the Jesuits a monopoly on the taxation of all imported goods coming into Japan. The society was most active in the Japanese silver trade; large quantities of Japanese silver were shipped to Canton in exchange for Chinese silk. The Jesuit Superior General in Rome was shocked by news of such a blatant acquisition of property and gave firm instructions that Jesuit control of Nagasaki should only be temporary, as such commercial activities were contrary to the vows of poverty taken by priests. Mendicant orders, themselves engaged in some commercial activities, fiercely accused the Jesuits of corruption and some blamed their commercial activities for Japan's ban of Catholicism.

In 1585, when the Holy See ordered an immediate cessation of all mercantile activities by the Society, Valignano made an impassioned appeal to the Pope, saying that he would forgo all trade as soon as the 12,000 ducats required to meet their annual expenses were forthcoming from another source. Abandoning the silk trade, he said, would be the equivalent to abandoning the mission to Japan.

Military activities

Japanese-Portuguese Bell Inscribed 1570, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan

Missionaries were not reluctant to take military action if they considered it an effective way to Christianize Japan. They also believed that Japanese Christian soldiers might support Spanish or Portuguese military campaigns. Alessandro Valignano told the Philippine Governor that it was impossible to conquer Japan because the Japanese were very brave and always received military training, but that Japan would benefit them when they conquered China. Francisco Cabral, Superior of the Jesuit mission in Japan, also reported to the King of Spain that priests were able to send to China two or three thousand Japanese Christian soldiers who were brave and were expected to serve the king with little pay.

The Jesuits provided various kinds of support, including military support, to Kirishitan daimyo when they were threatened by non-Kirishitan daimyo. In 1584, they supported Omura Sumitada (大村純忠) and Arima Harunobu (有馬晴信) in a successful campaign against the anti-Catholic Ryuzoji (龍造寺) clan. In the 1580s, Valignano, believing in the effectiveness of military action, fortified Nagasaki and Mogi. In 1585, the Jesuit Superior Gaspar Coelho asked the Spanish Philippines to send a fleet but the plan was rejected. Christians Protasio Arima and Paulo Okamoto were named as principals in an assassination plot to murder the magistrate in charge of Nagasaki.

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the first ban on Catholicism in 1587, the Jesuits in Japan, led by Coelho, planned armed resistance. When the Kirishitan daimyo refused to help them, they called for a deployment of reinforcements from their homeland and its colonies. This plan was abolished by Valignano, who realized that a military campaign against Japan's powerful ruler would bring an end to Catholicism in Japan. Valignano survived the crisis by laying all the blame on Coelho, who had recently died. In 1590, the Jesuits decided to stop intervening in the struggles among the daimyo and to disarm themselves, giving only secret shipments of food and financial aid to Kirishitan daimyo.

In June 1592, Christian daimyo, under the leadership of Konishi Yukinaga (小西 行長), took full part in Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea and the massacre and enslavement of its people. Their behavior was indistinguishable from non-Christian Japanese forces.[6]

Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Christian daimyo

The Japanese embassy of Mancio Ito, with Pope Gregory XIII in 1585.

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣 秀吉) reunified Japan and became its ruler, he began to pay attention to external threats, particularly the expansion of European power in East Asia. By 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed by reports that Christian lords reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, that the Jesuits had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, that they participated in the slave trade of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi's Buddhist sentiments, that they allowed the slaughter of horses and oxen for food.[7] Concerned that divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebellions like that of the Pure Land Buddhist Ikkō-ikki Sect, he attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain. [8] From the correspondence between the Portuguese King João III and the Vatican Pope from this period, it is apparent that the Christian daimyo sold women into slavery in exchange for the Jesuits' gun powder, at a rate of 50 baptized Japanese girls for a barrel of saltpeter. The most powerful Christian lord, Sorin Otomo (大友 宗麟, Daimyo of Kyūshū) was documented as trading in medicines, pepper, gunpowder, and slaves with Francis Xavier, Luis de Almeida (1525-1583) and other Jesuits.[9]

In 1587, Hideyoshi Toyotomi called commanded Gaspar Coelho to stop slave trade of Japanese women and bring back all the Japanese, and promulgated the Bateren-tsuiho-rei ("Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits"). It consists of 11 articles, including: "No. 10. Do not sell Japanese people to the Namban (Portuguese)." By 1596, the Jesuit fathers had prohibited slave trade in and outside Japan.

In 1596, the Spanish captain of the San Felipe, a shipwrecked trading vessel, in an attempt to recover his cargo, claimed that the missionaries were there to prepare Japan for conquest. His claims made Hideyoshi suspicious of the foreign religion.[10] Hideyoshi put Nagasaki under his direct rule to control Portuguese trade, and in 1597, 26 Christians were crucified there at his order.

Tokugawa shogunate and the Christians

Hasekura Tsunenaga converted to Catholicism in Madrid in 1615.

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康) assumed hegemony over Japan in 1600. He disliked Christian activities in Japan but gave priority to trade with Portugal and Spain. He secured Portuguese trade in 1600 and negotiated with Manila to establish trade with the Philippines. Trade relations with Portugal and Spain were inconsistent with his oppressive policies toward Catholicism. Dutch and British traders, in an attempt to wrest control of the Japan trade from the Catholic countries, advised the shogunate that Spain had territorial ambitions, and that Catholicism was a means of gaining influence in Japan. The Dutch promised, in contrast, that they would limit their activities to trading and would not carry out any missionary work in Japan.

In 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu banned Christianity in Japan. The immediate cause of the prohibition was a case of fraud involving Ieyasu's Catholic vavasor, but there were other reasons behind it. Some Jesuits recognized that it was for "reasons of state." Not only was the shogunate concerned about a possible threat from the Spanish or Portuguese, but wanted to enforce measures against supporters of the Toyotomi clan that had opposed Tokugawa’s rule, some of whom were Christian daimyo. In 1614, Tokugawa ordered the Zen monk Konchiin Suden (1563-1633) to draft a statement entitled "Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan."

[11] It claimed that the Christians were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that they "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness."[12] The edict was reissued by the second Tokugawa shogun Hidetada (徳川 秀忠, 1579-1632), who was xenophobic, and was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental laws of the Tokugawa shogunate. The government demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts [13]

The Buddhist ecclesiastical establishment was made responsible for verifying that a person was not a Christian through what became known as the "temple guarantee system" (terauke seido). By the 1630s, people were being required to produce a certificate of affiliation with a Buddhist temple as proof of religious orthodoxy, social acceptability and loyalty to the regime.

Monument to Kirishitan martyrs in Nagasaki
Buddhist statue with hidden cross on back, used by Christians in Japan to hide their real beliefs

To identify practicing Catholics and sympathizers, government officials ordered everyone to trample on fumie (踏み絵), pictures of the Virgin Mary and Christ. Those who were reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and sent to Nagasaki to be tortured until they renounced their faith. Many who refused were executed on Nagasaki's Mount Unzen, often by being boiled alive in thermal springs.

Picture of Christ used to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers

In 1637 the Shimabara Rebellion (島原の乱) broke out. Initially sparked by economic desperation, over-taxation and government oppression, it soon assumed a religious character. A charismatic 14-year-old, Amakusa Shirō (天草 四郎, c. 1621? - April 12, 1638, also known as Masuda Shirō Tokisada, 益田 時貞) was chosen as the rebellion's leader. About 37,000 people, many of whom were Christians, joined the uprising, but it was eventually crushed, with heavy casualties to government troops, and all the rebels were decapitated. Following the rebellion, Christianity was completely suppressed in Japan, and the Tokugawa shogunate enacted a policy of “sakoku,” complete isolation of Japan from foreign influences.

About 400 Japanese Christians were officially deported to Macau or to the Spanish Philippines, and thousands more were pressured into voluntary exile. Many Macanese and Japanese Mestizos are the mixed-race descendants of these deported Japanese Catholics.

Christians were heavily persecuted, and an estimated 3000 were killed. Many of the 300,000 Christians in Japan renounced their faith. Catholics who did not renounce their faith were crucified, dismembered, lowered headfirst in excrement, or suffered other cruel means of torture and death. The remaining Catholics in Japan were driven underground and became known as the Kakure Kirishitan ("Hidden Christians"). Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including 18 Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuit irmao and dojuku. Between 1640 and 1670, several Jesuit and Dominican groups attempted to enter Japan, but all of them were tortured and put to death.

Kakure Kirishitan

Maria Kannon, Dehua Kiln Statue of Buddhist Kannon Used For Christian Worship in Japan, Nantoyōsō Collection, Japan

During the Edo period, the Kakure Kirishitan kept their faith hidden. They worshipped in secret rooms in private homes, and designated sacred places to baptize their children (mizukata). They eliminated most external symbols and books, disguised their rituals, and committed prayers and snatches of Scripture to memory. Since the Catholic clergy had all been expelled, they developed their own hereditary priesthood, observed holy days and administered the sacrament of Baptism. Over time, the figures of the saints and the Virgin Mary were transformed into figurines that looked like the traditional statues of the Buddha and Shinto gods and goddesses. Prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist and Shinto prayers, retaining many untranslated words from Latin, Portuguese and Spanish. The Bible was passed down orally, and rituals and sacraments were handed down from father to son. In some cases, the communities drifted away from Christian teachings. They lost the meaning of the prayers and their religion became a version of the cult of ancestors, in which the ancestors happened to be their Christian martyrs. Drawn from the oral histories of Japanese Catholic communities, Shusaku Endo's (遠藤 周作) acclaimed novel "Silence" (1966) provides detailed accounts of the persecution of Christian communities and the suppression of the Church.

Rediscovery and Return

The Christian martyrs of Nagasaki. Seventeenth century Japanese painting.

In 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo harbor with U.S. Navy ships and forced Japan to open its ports to foreign trade. Under a treaty signed between France and Japan, in October, 1858, Catholic missionaries were allowed to reside in open ports and conduct church services for foreigners. In 1865, some Japanese who lived in Urakami village near Nagasaki visited the new Ōura Church which had been built there by the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions étrangères de Paris) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest, Bernard Thadee Petitjean, and confessed that their families had kept the Kirishitan faith. These Kirishitan wanted to see the statue of Saint Mary with their own eyes, and to confirm that the priest was single and truly came from the pope in Rome. After this interview, many Kirishitan thronged to Petitjean. He investigated their underground organizations and discovered that they had kept the rite of baptism and the liturgical years without European priests for nearly 250 years. Petitjean’s report surprised the Christian world; Pope Pius IX called it a miracle.

The Edo shogunate's edicts banning Christianity were still in effect, and persecution continued until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh, the American minister-resident in Japan, privately complained of this persecution to the Nagasaki magistrates, but very little action was taken to stop it. The succeeding Meiji government initially continued persecuting Christians and several thousand people were exiled. In 1873 the ban was lifted in response to vocal criticism by Europe and the U.S., and the exiles returned and started to construct the Urakami Cathedral which was completed in 1895.

It was later revealed that tens of thousands of Kirishitan still survived in some regions near Nagasaki. Some officially returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Others remained apart from the Catholic Church and became known as Hanare Kirishitan, retaining their own traditional beliefs and keeping their ancestors’ religion. When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Hanare Kirishitan families.

Kakure Kirishitan today

There is some debate on whether or not Kakure Kirishitans still exist, even now practicing the ancestral rituals in secret. The fear of detection is integrated into the culture of this sect. Even some of those who have come out of hiding still maintain shrines that do not have any markings of Christianity, such as crosses or images of the Virgin Mary or Jesus. Anthropologist Christal Whelan, from the University of Hawaii, spent a year during the 1990s on Narushima Island, studying the lives of two Kakure Kirishitan priests. Both were nearly 100 years old and had no successors. In 1995 she filmed a Christmas Eve (Otaiya, literally "big evening,") ceremony, in which three priests traditionally bless and consume three cups of sake (rice wine) and three bowls of rice. The sake is consumed and the rice is placed in the palm of the cupped left hand very similar to the way the Communion host is received in the hand in Catholic churches today. The Crucifixion is celebrated but Easter has lost its significance and is merely a "time when mourning ceases." Whelan was able to trace their prayers to printed sixteenth century Portuguese, Latin and Japanese texts, but the priests had no knowledge of texts and did not know the meaning of the words. Whelan also documented a unique Kakure Kirishitan funeral practice in which a small piece was cut from a centuries-old kimono which had belonged to a particularly holy Hidden Christian martyr, wrapped in paper and placed in the hands of the dead.[14]

Notable Kirishitans

  • Paulo Miki (1563-1596)
  • Sumitada Omura, first Christian feudal lord (1533-1587)
  • Arima Harunobu, Christian name Dom Protasio, Lord of Shimabara (1567-1612)
  • Yoshido Kuroda, Dom Simeao, leader of Mori forces (1546-1604)
  • Yukinaga Konishi, Dom Agostinho, chief member of Hideyoshi's field staff (1556-1600)
  • Dom Justo Takayama, Ukon daimyo of Akashi
  • Dom Leao Gamo Ujisato (1556-1595)
  • Dom Agostinho Konishi
  • Bizen no Gomoji, Hideyoshi daughter (1574–1634)
  • Ōtomo Sōrin (大友 宗麟 1530-1587), Dom Francis, "King of Bungo", Fujiwara no Yoshisige (藤原 義鎮), Ōtomo Yoshishige (大友 義鎮).
  • Ōtomo Yoshimune (大友　義統）, Constantino,
  • Ōtomo Chikaie (大友　親家）, Dom Sebastin
  • Ōtomo Chikamori (大友　親盛）,
  • Mancio Ito (伊東マンショ Itō Mansho),　伊東祐益 1570 - 1612
  • Julião Nakaura (中浦ジュリアン Nakaura Jurian)
  • Martinão Hara (原マルチノ Hara Maruchino)
  • Miguel Chijiwa (千々石ミゲル Chijiwa Migeru)
  • Hasekura Tsunenaga (支倉常長)

Notable Opponents

Asayama Nichijô (Nichijô Shonin) Nichiren priest d. 1577

Konchiin Sūden (1569–1633), an influential Buddhist adviser who served the first three Tokugawa shoguns.

Notes

  1. ↑ Antonio Astrain, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 on St. Francis Xavier newadvent.org. Retrieved September 9, 2008.
  2. ↑ Terry H. Jones, Star Quest Production Network, Saint Francis Xavier on Catholic Forum Retrieved September 9, 2008
  3. ↑ Astran, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 newadvent.org. Retrieved September 9, 2008.
  4. ↑ Catholic Forum Saint Francis Xavier Retrieved September 9, 2008.
  5. ↑ Toshihiko Abe. Japan's Hidden Face. (Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks, Trans-Atlantic Publications. 1998. ISBN 189169605X)
  6. ↑ Ben Kiernan. Blood and Soil. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2007. ISBN 0300100981), 125-126: About 150,000 Japanese troops landed in Korea in May-June 1592, spearheaded by the Christian daimyo Konishi Yukinaga and his division of 18,000 coreligionists. The Japanese tried to wipe out the Korean forces, and massacres proliferated. They took 8000 heads, putting “every one who showed a sign of resistance to the edge of the sword.” Two days later, Konishi attacked Tongnae, defended by 20,000 Korean troops. At a cost of 100 Japanese killed, he “filled the fosse with five thousand dead.” On May 31, Kato took Kong-ju, “putting three thousand Koreans to the sword.” On the same day a third division of 12,000, under the Christian daimyo Kuroda, attacked Kimhae, “inflicting terrific damage on the enmy” and killing thousands more at Seishiu. Pushing north in early June, Konishi's forcees killed another 3000-8000 Korean troops in the Choryong pass…. Three Japanese divisions had killed 15,000-20,000 Korean soldiers in three weeks. A Japanese general's war memoirs testified to the burial of 185,738 Korean and 29,014 Chinese “heads.” Japanese forces also seized over 100,000 Korean artisans and scholars and perhaps 50,000-60,000 women, and forcibly transported them to Japan or sold them as slaves abroad.
  7. ↑ George Elison. Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [1973] 1988. ISBN 0674199626), 54 and 64
  8. ↑ Peter Nosco, "Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition, Issues in the Study of the 'Underground Christians'." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 20 (1) (1993): 3 - 30
  9. ↑ Hideaki Onizuka. The Rosary of the Showa Emperor. (Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications. 2006. ISBN 4880862002), 225: "Japan would exchange a barrel of gunpowder for fifty slaves. (In this case it would be specified as white-skinned (light skinned) good–looking (pleasing to the eyes) young Japanese women/maidens) In the name of God, if Japan can be occupied/possessed I am sure the price can be increased."
  10. ↑ Michael Cooper. Rodrigues the Interpreter, An Early Jesuit in Japan and China. (New York: John Weatherhill, 1974. ISBN 0834803194), 160: "I have received information that in your kingdoms the promulgation of the law, i.e. Christianity, is a trick and deceit by which you overcome other kingdoms," he wrote in a letter to the Philippines in reply to the embassy led by Navarrete Fajardo in 1597. Christian missionaries, in Hideyoshi's mind, represented the first wave of European imperialism.
  11. ↑ Ikuo Higashibaba. Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice. (Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated, 2001. ISBN 9004122907), 139.

    "The Kirishitan band happened to reach Japan. Not only have they sent merchant vessels to exchange commodities, but they also spread a pernicious doctrine to confuse the right ones, so that they would change the government of the country and own the country. This will become a great catastrophe. We cannot but stop it."

  12. ↑ Hirokazu Shimizu. Kirishitan Kankei Hosei Shiryo Shu. (1977), 284-286
  13. ↑ Mark R. Mullins, 1990. "Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17 (4): 353-374.
  14. ↑ Patrick Downes, The Hawaii Catholic Herald (February 4, 2000). Kakure Kirishitan,catholiceducation.org. Retrieved September 9, 2008.


References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Abe, Toshihiko. Japan's Hidden Face. Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks, Trans-Atlantic Publications. 1998. ISBN 189169605X.
  • Cooper, Michael. The Japanese Mission to Europe, 1582–1590; The journey of Four Samurai Boys through Portugal, Spain and Italy. Folkstone, Kent, UK: Global Oriental Ltd. 2005. ISBN

1901903389.

  • Cooper, Michael. Rodrigues the Interpreter, An Early Jesuit in Japan and China. New York: John Weatherhill, 1974. ISBN 0834803194.
  • Downes, Patrick, Kakure Kirishitan, The Hawaii Catholic Herald (February 4, 2000). Retrieved September 9, 2008.
  • Elison, George. Deus Destroyed; The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [1973] 1988. ISBN 0674199626.
  • Elisonas, Jurgis S. A. "Journey to the West." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34 (1) (2007): 27-66. (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture).
  • Higashibaba, Ikuo. Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice. Brill Academic Publishers. 2002. ISBN 9004122907
  • Ito, Eishiro. Unveiling Histories of the Tohoku District; Juan Goto and Crypto-Christians. IWATE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY. 2007
  • John, Whitney Hall. The Cambridge History of Japan. Cambridge University Press. 2007. ISBN 0521657288.
  • Kawashima, Junji. Kanto heiya no kakure Kirishitan. Sakitama Shuppankai. 1998. ISBN 487891341X
  • Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil. Yale University Press. 2007. ISBN 0300100981.
  • Kitagawa, Tomoko. "The Conversion of Hideyoshi’s Daughter Gō." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34 (1) (2007): 9 – 25. Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.
  • Mullins, Mark R. "Japanese Pentecostalism and the World of the Dead: a Study of Cultural Adaptation in Iesu no Mitama Kyokai." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17 (4): 353-374. 1990.
  • Nosco, Peter, "Secrecy and the Transmission of Tradition, Issues in the Study of the 'Underground Christians'." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 20 (1) (1993): 3-30.
  • Onizuka, Hideaki. The Rosary of the Showa Emperor. Philadelphia, PA: Bainbridgebooks/Trans-Atlantic Publications. 2006. ISBN 4880862002.
  • Secretariat General. AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN JAPAN, 1543-1944. Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan. 2007. Retrieved September 17, 2008.
  • Turnbull, Stephen. The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day. RoutledgeCurzon. 1998. ISBN 1873410700
  • Wakakuwa, Midori. Quattro Ragazzi: Tenshō Mission of Youths and the Imperial World. Shūei-sha. 2005.
  • Whelan, Christal. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians, Translated and annotated by Christal Whelan. (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion & Culture) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. ISBN 0824818245.

External links

All links retrieved April 19, 2018.

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