Xavier next resolved to visit Kiōto. The first town of importance he reached on the way was Yamaguchi, capital of the Chōshū fief, situated on the northern shore of the Shimonoseki Strait. There the feudal chief, First Visit of Europeans to Kiōto. Ouchi, though sufficiently courteous and inquisitive, showed no special cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce, and the work of proselytizing made no progress, so that Xavier and his companion, Fernandez, pushed on to Kiōto. The time was mid-winter; the two fathers suffered terrible privations during their journey of two months on foot, and on reaching Kiōto they found a city which had been almost wholly reduced to ruins by internecine war. Necessarily they failed to obtain audience of either emperor or shōgun, at that time the most inaccessible potentates in the world, the Chinese “son of heaven” excepted, and nothing remained but street preaching, a strange resource, seeing that Xavier, constitutionally a bad linguist, had only a most rudimentary acquaintance with the profoundly difficult tongue in which he attempted to expound the mysteries of a novel creed. A fortnight sufficed to convince him that Kiōto was unfruitful soil. He therefore returned to Yamaguchi. But he had now learned a lesson. He saw that propagandism without scrip or staff and without the countenance of those sitting in the seats of power would be futile in Japan. So he obtained from Hirado his canonicals, together with a clock and other novel products of European skill, which, as well as credentials from the viceroy of India, the governor of Malacca and the bishop of Goa, he presented to the Chōshū chief. His prayer for permission to preach Christianity was now readily granted, and Ouchi issued a proclamation announcing his approval of the introduction of the new religion and according perfect liberty to embrace it. Xavier and Fernandez now made many converts. They also gained the valuable knowledge that the road to success in Japan lay in associating themselves with over-sea commerce and its directors, and in thus winning the co-operation of the feudal chiefs.
Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the first Portuguese landed in Kagoshima, and during that time trade had gone on steadily and prosperously. No attempt was made to find markets in the main island: the Portuguese Christian Propagandists. confined themselves to Kiūshiū for two reasons: one, that having no knowledge of the coasts, they hesitated to risk their ships and their lives in unsurveyed waters; the other, that whereas the main island, almost from end to end, was seething with internecine war, Kiūshiū remained beyond the pale of disturbance and enjoyed comparative tranquillity. At the time of Xavier’s second sojourn in Yamaguchi, a Portuguese ship happened to be visiting Bungo, and at its master’s suggestion the great missionary proceeded thither, with the intention of returning temporarily to the Indies. At Bungo there was then ruling Otomo, second in power to only the Satsuma chief among the feudatories of Kiūshiū. By him the Jesuit father was received with all honour. Xavier did not now neglect the lesson he had learned in Yamaguchi. He repaired to the Bungo chieftain’s court, escorted by nearly the whole of the Portuguese crew, gorgeously bedizened, carrying their arms and with banners flying. Otomo, a young and ambitious ruler, was keenly anxious to attract foreign traders with their rich cargoes and puissant weapons of war. Witnessing the reverence paid to Xavier by the Portuguese traders, he appreciated the importance of gaining the goodwill of the Jesuits, and accordingly not only granted them full freedom to teach and preach, but also enjoined upon his younger brother, who, in the sequel of a sudden rebellion, had succeeded to the lordship of Yamaguchi, the advisability of extending protection to Torres and Fernandez, then sojourning there. After some four months’ stay in Bungo, Xavier set sail for Goa in February 1552. Death overtook him in the last month of the same year.
Xavier’s departure from Japan marked the conclusion of the first epoch of Christian propagandism. His sojourn in Japan extended to 27 months. In that time he and his coadjutors won about 760 converts. In Satsuma more than a year’s labour produced 150 believers. There Xavier had the assistance of Anjiro to expound his doctrines. No language lends itself with greater difficulty than Japanese to the discussion of theological questions. The terms necessary for such a purpose are not current among laymen, and only by special study, which, it need scarcely be said, must be preluded by an accurate acquaintance with the tongue itself, can a man hope to become duly equipped for the task of exposition and dissertation. It is open to grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever attained the requisite proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima to care for the converts made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he baptized a hundred Japanese in a few days. Now we have it on the authority of Xavier himself that in this Hirado campaign “none of us knew Japanese.” How then did they proceed? “By reciting a semi-Japanese volume” (a translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xavier’s pen) “and by delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian cult.” Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xavier’s means of access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to acquire in 14 months, a period of study which, in modern times, with all the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a student beyond the margin of the colloquial. No converts were won. The people of Yamaguchi probably admired the splendid faith and devotion of these over-sea philosophers, but as for their doctrine, it was unintelligible. In Kiōto the same experience was repeated, with an addition of much physical hardship. But when the Jesuits returned to Yamaguchi in the early autumn of 1551, they baptized 500 persons, including several members of the military class. Still Fernandez with his broken Japanese was the only medium for communicating the profound doctrines of Christianity. It must be concluded that the teachings of the missionaries produced much less effect than the attitude of the local chieftain.
Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined by three others. These newcomers landed at Kagoshima and found that, in spite of the official veto Second Period of Christian Propagandism. against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief had lost nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade. Two years later, all the Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there; and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in 1579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports, known as the Annual Letters, comprise some of the most valuable information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these Annual Letters it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xavier’s departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later, this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 1557 two of the fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela, sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking practices. For a sub-feudatory of the Hirado chief, having been converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events, for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese. The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the neighbouring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary honours by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the port, her master declaring that “he could not remain in a country where they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself.” Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to receive the Jesuits, once more. This incident was paralleled a few years later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain, embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example; but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his subjects to revert to Buddhism arid made the missionaries withdraw. In fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbour and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the newly opened free port. Sumitada, however, quickly reasserted his authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki, in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada became one of the richest of the Kiūshiū feudatories. When in 1573 successful conflicts with the neighbouring fiefs brought him an access of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him, and “these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the neighbouring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few who quitted the State.” In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftain’s son, a youth of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes. Christianity was then becoming established in Kiūshiū by methods similar to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada (Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitada’s very dramatic conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitada’s iconoclastic methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory, influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitada’s prosperity and puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the “Prince Andrew” of missionary records. It is written in those records that “the first thing Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one single idolater in his states.” Thus in the two years that separated his baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral faith, and caused “the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be thrown down.” Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They threatened to leave Kuchinotsu en masse, and as that would have involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general, Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbours, and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the secular arm so adroitly that the fief’s chance of survival seemed to be limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the chieftain and his wife were baptized; “all the city was made Christian; they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some materials to build churches.”
Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The Annual Letter of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts, of whom some 125,000 were in Kiūshiū and the remainder in Yamaguchi, Kiōto and the neighbourhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed. They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, “went to the chase of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular pleasure to exterminate them from his states.”
In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16, representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura and Bungo. They visited Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, First Japanese Embassy to Europe. and in all these cities they were received with displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make. That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how great were the riches and might of Western states.
In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made of Christians in Kiōto, though we have already seen that the visit by Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second visit, however, Second Visit of Jesuits to Kiōto. made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. He carried letters of recommendation from the Bungo chieftain, and the proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of idols had commenced in Kiūshiū. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that only a portion of the old man’s authority had descended to his successor. Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good offices of a priest, described as “one of the most respected men in the city,” and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatory’s letter, Vilela enjoyed the rare honour of being received by the shōgun in Kiōto, who treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the mouth of a Japanese convert, Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was protected by the goodwill of the shōgun, who had already issued a decree threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance of 50 miles from Kiōto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests, notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official commissioners to investigate and report upon the doctrine of Christianity. The first conversion en masse was due to pressure from above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the neighbourhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy, the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his family to follow his example. This man’s son—Takayama Yūsho—proved one of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono. Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals, just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kiūshiū. But the Kiōto record differs from that of Kiūshiū in one important respect—the former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.
Kiōto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated in the murder of the shōgun (1565), and led to the issue of a decree by the emperor proscribing Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this Nobunaga and the Jesuits. is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the instance of one of the shōgun’s assassins and certain Buddhist priests. The Jesuits—their number had been increased to three—were obliged to take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xavier’s landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his father’s fief, a comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was seated in Kiōto, a maker of shōguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power, adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps, their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shōgun three years before Nobunaga’s victories carried him to Kiōto, and the armed monasteries constituted imperia in imperio which assorted ill with his ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted Froez from Sakai to Nobunaga’s presence, the reception accorded to the Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of him: “This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the way for our faith.” Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who could treat them as this potentate did in 1579, when he plainly showed that political exigencies might at any moment induce him to sacrifice them.[30] His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.
The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the 15th and 16th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men ever produced in Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, Hideyshi and the Christians. Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi, as Nobunaga’s lieutenant, contributed largely to the building of the latter’s fortunes, and, succeeding him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunaga’s footsteps. He not only accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East. At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that “Hideyoshi was not only not opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.... He is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law.” Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and favour a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience, and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshi’s greatest military enterprise, the invasion of Kiūshiū and its complete reduction. He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587, and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the vice-provincial of the Jesuits: “Why and by what authority he and his fellow-propagandists had constrained Japanese subjects to become Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen and cows? Why the vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make slaves of them in the Indies?” To these queries Coelho, the vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted bonzes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hideyoshi read the vice-provincial’s reply and, without comment, sent him word to retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict was published:—