 Japanese Christians in Portuguese costume, 16th–17th century. | |
| Founder | |
|---|---|
| Portuguese andSpanishmissionaries | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Japan, Philippines (exiled population) | |
| Religions | |
| Catholic Christianity | |
| Scriptures | |
| The Bible | |
| Languages | |
| Latin,Japanese |
The Japanese termKirishitan (吉利支丹, 切支丹, キリシタン, きりしたん), fromPortuguesecristão (cf.Kristang), meaning "Christian", referred toCatholic Christians inJapanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term forCatholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Modern Japanese has several words for "Christian", of which the most common are the noun formkirisuto-kyōtoキリスト教徒, and alsokurisuchanクリスチャン. The Japanese wordkirishitanキリシタン is used primarily in Japanese texts for the earlyhistory of Roman Catholicism in Japan, or in relation toKakure Kirishitan, hidden Christians. However, English sources on histories of Japan generally use the term "Christian" without distinction.
Christian missionaries were known asbateren (from the Portuguese wordpadre, "father" or "priest")[1] oriruman (from the Portugueseirmão, "brother"). Contemptuous transcriptions such as 切支丹 and 鬼利死丹 (which usekanji with negative connotations) came into use during the Edo Period when Christianity was a forbidden religion.
Portuguese ships began arriving in Japan in 1543,[2] withCatholic missionary activities in Japan beginning in earnest around 1549, mainly byPortuguese-sponsoredJesuits untilSpanish-sponsoredmendicant orders, such as theFranciscans andDominicans, gained access to Japan. No Western women came to Japan. Of the 95 Jesuits who worked in Japan up to 1600, 57 were Portuguese, 20 were Spaniards and 18 Italian.[3]Francis Xavier,[4][5]Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), andJuan Fernández were the first to arrive toKagoshima with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan. At its height, Japan is estimated to have had around 300,000 Christians.[6] Catholicism was subsequently repressed in several parts of the country and ceased to exist publicly in the 17th century.
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Religion was an integral part of the state and evangelization was seen as having both secular and spiritual benefits for bothPortugal andSpain. Indeed,Pope Alexander VI'sBulls of Donation (1493) commanded theCatholic Monarchs to take such steps. Wherever Spain and Portugal attempted to expand their territories or influence, missionaries would soon follow. By theTreaty of Tordesillas (1494), 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.
The countries disputed the allocation 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 underAlessandro Valignano took the lead in proselytizing in Japan over the objection of the Spaniards, starting in 1579. The fait accompli was approved inPope Gregory XIII'spapal bull of 1575, which decided that Japan belonged to the PortugueseDiocese of Macau. In 1588, the diocese of Funai (Nagasaki) was founded under Portuguese protection.
In rivalry with the Jesuits, Spanish-sponsoredmendicant orders entered into Japan viaManila. In addition to criticizing Jesuit activities, they actively lobbied the Pope. Their campaigns resulted inPope Clement VIII's decree of 1600, which allowed Spanishfriars to enter Japan via the Portuguese Indies, andPope 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 religion. The power struggle between Jesuits and mendicant orders caused aschism within the diocese of Funai. Furthermore, mendicant orders tried in vain to establish a diocese on theTōhoku region that was to be independent from the Portuguese one.
The Roman Catholic world order was challenged by the Netherlands and England. Its principle was repudiated byGrotius'sMare Liberum. In the early 17th century, Japan built trade relations with the Netherlands and England. Although England withdrew from the operations within ten years underJames I due to a 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 campaign against Catholicism, and this subsequently adversely affectedshogunate policies toward theIberian kingdoms.
Portugal's and Spain's colonial policies were also challenged by the Roman Catholic Church itself. TheVatican founded theCongregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622 and attempted to separate the churches from the influence of theIberian kingdoms. However, it was too late for Japan. The organization failed to establish staging points in Japan.
The Jesuits believed that it was better to seek to influence people in power and then allow the religion to be passed downwards to the commoners later.[7] They tried to avoid suspicion by not preaching to the commoners without permission from the local rulers to propagate Catholicism within their domains.[7] As a result, severaldaimyō became Christians, soon to be followed by many of their subjects as the Dominicans andAugustinians were able to begin preaching to the commoners.[7]
Having a religious background, Takahisa showed himself to be benevolent and already allowed freedom of worship but not helping the missionaries nor favoring their church. Failing to find a way to the centre of affairs, the court of the Emperor, Xavier soon tired and left toYamaguchi thus beginning the Yamaguchi period.[8]
Christians refer positively toOda Nobunaga, who died in the middle of the unification of Japan. He favored the Jesuit missionaryLuís Fróis 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 about 130,000 converts.[9]
The situation was changed whenToyotomi 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 theSan 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.[12] He attempted to curb Catholicism while maintaining good trading relations with Portugal and Spain, which might have provided military support toDom Justo Takayama, a Christiandaimyō in western Japan. Manydaimyōs converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access tosaltpeter, used to makegunpowder. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-sixdaimyōs were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians.[13]
By 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed by reports that Christian lords 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.[14] After his invasion of Kyushu, Hideyoshi Toyotomi promulgated the Purge Directive Order to the Jesuits (バテレン追放令,bateren tsuihō rei) on July 24, 1587. It consists of 11 articles: "No. 10. Do not sell Japanese people to the Nanban (Portuguese)."[citation needed] Among the contents were a ban on missionaries.[1] The Jesuits in Nagasaki considered armed resistance, but the plans did not come to fruition.[1]
However, the 1587 decree was not particularly enforced.[15] In contrast to the Jesuits, the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians were openly preaching to the common peoples; this caused Hideyoshi to become concerned that commoners with divided loyalties might lead to dangerous rebels like theIkkō-ikki sect of earlier years;[16] this led to Hideyoshi putting the26 Martyrs of Japan followers to death in 1597 on his order.[17] After Hideyoshi died in 1598, amidst the chaos of succession there was less of a focus on persecuting Christians.[18]
Most Japanese Christians lived in Kyushu, but Christianization was not a regional phenomenon and had a national impact. By the end of the 16th century it was possible to find baptized people in virtually every province of Japan, many of them organized in communities. On the eve of the Sekigahara battle, fifteendaimyōs were baptized, and their domains stretched from Hyūga in Southeast Kyushu to Dewa in North Honshū.[19]
In June 1592, Hideyoshi invaded Korea; among his leading generals was ChristiandaimyōKonishi Yukinaga.[20] The actions of his forces in the massacre and enslavement of many of the Korean people were indistinguishable from the non-Christian Japanese forces that participated in the invasion.[21] After Konishi's loss in the battle ofSekigahara, Konishi would base his refusal to commitseppuku on his Christian beliefs; instead of taking his own life, he chose capture and execution.[22]
The 1592 war between Japan and Korea also provided Westerners with a rare opportunity to visit Korea. Under orders of Gomaz, the JesuitGregorious de Cespedes arrived in Korea with a Japanese monk for the purpose of administering to the Japanese troops. He stayed there for approximately 18 months, until April or May 1595, thus being on record as the first European missionary to visit the Korean peninsula, but was unable to make any inroads. TheAnnual Letters of Japan made a substantial contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe, Francis Xavier having crossed paths with Korean envoys dispatched to Japan during 1550 and 1551.
The Japanese missions were economically self-sufficient. Nagasaki's misericórdias became rich and powerful institutions which every year received large donations. The brotherhood grew in numbers to over 100 by 1585 and 150 in 1609. Controlled by the elite of Nagasaki, and not by Portuguese, it had two hospitals (one for lepers) and a large church. By 1606, there already existed a feminine religious order called Miyako no Bikuni ("nuns of Kyoto") which accepted Korean converts such as Marina Pak, baptized in Nagasaki.[19]
TheTokugawa shogunate finally decided to ban Catholicism. The statement on the "Expulsion of all missionaries from Japan", drafted byZen monk Konchiin Suden (1563–1633) and issued in 1614 under the name of second shogunHidetada (ruled 1605–1623), was considered the first official statement of a comprehensive control of Kirishitan.[23] It claimed that the Christians were bringing disorder to Japanese society and that their followers "contravene governmental regulations, traduce Shinto, calumniate the True Law, destroy regulations, and corrupt goodness".[24] It was fully implemented and canonized as one of the fundamental Tokugawan laws. In the same year, thebakufu required all subjects of all domains to register at their local Buddhist temple; this would become an annual requirement in 1666, cementing the Buddhist temples as an instrument of state control.[25]
The immediate cause of the prohibition was theOkamoto Daihachi incident, a case of fraud involving Ieyasu's Catholicvavasor, but there were also other reasons behind it. Theshogunate was concerned about a possible invasion by theIberian colonial powers, which had previously occurred in the New World and the Philippines. Domestically, the ban was closely related to measures against theToyotomi clan. The Buddhistecclesiastical 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.
In the mid-17th century, the shogunate demanded the expulsion of all European missionaries and the execution of all converts.[26] This marked the end of open Christianity in Japan. The bakufu erected bulletin boards nationwide at crossroads and bridges; among the many proscriptions listed on these boards were strict warnings against Christianity.[27]
The number of active Christians is estimated to have been around 200,000 in 1582.[28]
The Japanese government usedfumi-e to reveal practicing Catholics and sympathizers.Fumi-e were pictures of theVirgin Mary orChrist. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Christian and taken to Nagasaki. If they refused to renounce their religion, they were tortured; those who still refused were executed.
TheShimabara Rebellion, led by a young Christian man namedAmakusa Shirō Tokisada, took place against the shogunate 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. The reigning shogun,Tokugawa Iemitsu, who had issued theSakoku Edict, restricting trade and effectively isolating Japan, two years earlier, came down hard on the Christians. Many Japanese were deported toMacau or toSpanish Philippines. ManyMacanese andJapanese-FilipinoMestizos are the mixed-race descendants of the deported Japanese Catholics. About 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.
The Catholic remnant in Japan were driven underground, and its members became known as the "Hidden Christians". Some priests remained in Japan illegally, including 18 Jesuits, seven Franciscans, seven Dominicans, one Augustinian, five seculars and an unknown number of Jesuitirmao anddojuku. Since this time corresponds to theThirty 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 theEdo period, the Kakure Kirishitans 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 operatedfumi-e to expose Christians.
Japan was forced to open to foreign interaction byMatthew Perry in 1853. It became possible for foreigners to live in Japan with theHarris 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 inUrakami village nearNagasaki visited the newŌura Church which had been built by theParis Foreign Missions Society (Missions étrangères de Paris) barely a month before. A female member of the group spoke to a French priest,Bernard 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; PopePius IX called it a miracle.
TheEdo Shogunate's edicts banning Christianity were still on the books, however, and thus the religion continued to be persecuted 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 little action was taken to stop it. The succeedinggovernment underEmperor Meiji, who took over from the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, initially continued in this vein and several thousand people were exiled (Urakami Yoban Kuzure). 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. Numerous exiles returned and began construction of theUrakami 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 have stayed asKakure Kirishitan, retaining their own traditional beliefs and their descendants asserting that they keep their ancestors' religion.[29] However, it became difficult for them to keep their community and rituals, so they have converted toBuddhism orShinto eventually.[30] When John Paul II visited Nagasaki in 1981, he baptized some young people from Kakure Kirishitan families, a rare occurrence.[31]
A gravestone was discovered in Nishiarie-machi,Minamishimabara, Nagasaki in 1929. It is located in a seaside communal cemetery on the southern coast of theShimabara Peninsula, overlookingAmakusa Sea to the south. It is a semi-cylindricalkamaboko shape with a total length of 1.21 meters, width of 0.56 meters, and height of 0.39 meters, made ofsandstone from Amakusa, commonly known as "Amakusa stone". A cross is engraved on the top and front of the monument, and the back is engraved in Roman letters with the words "Hiri (Hori) Sakuemon Diego, 83 years old since birth, October 16, 1610, Keicho 15," making it the oldest inscription in Roman letters in Japan. Of the approximately known 150Kirishitan gravestones in Japan, about 130 are on the Shimabara Peninsula, but after the Shimabara Rebellion,Shugendō became popular among the people who migrated to the peninsula, and many of theKirishitan gravestones were spared destruction as they were believed by the newcomers to be graves of early mountain priests.[32] The tombstone is now protected by a glass-walled structure, and was designated aNational Historic Site for its importance in understanding the state of Christian missionary work in the early Edo period.[33]
