Japan

by Walter G. Dickson

That this change should sooner or later have come is not to be wondered at. That it should have shown itself so suddenly is in accordance with Japanese ideas of policy and the character of the Japanese mind. The empire had been for years, almost ages, torn by internal divisions among small chiefs. The object of Nobu nanga had been to bring them all into one under himself. His lieutenant, Taikosama, totally illiterate, though perhaps not more so than those around him, had been imbued with his master’s views. The Buddhist monasteries had been hotbeds of sedition and foci of disturbance, being at the same time large political and military powers of perhaps the second rank, and they had made themselves obnoxious on different occasions by marked insolence to the generals, and even to Nobu nanga himself. They had not even the justification of having preserved (as monasteries did of old in Europe) the literature of the country, not one priest being able to read, or teach the rising generation the rudiments of the written character.

When the Jesuits appeared with meek and lowly appearance, Nobu nanga was charmed with the prospect of establishing them as a counterpoise to the haughty and insolent Buddhists. He nourished them, showering favors upon them, and in every way encouraging them, more especially borne, as they were, on the wings of wealth and trade. They found Japan, so far as religions went, a free country, where all religions were tolerated so long as they did not become aggressive. But they did not come from a free country. Their ideas were not those of religious tolerance. By a decree of Gregory XIII., January 28, 1585, all priests and religious whatever except Jesuits were prohibited from going to preach in Japan. This was confirmed by Clement VIII., March 14, 1597; and Philip II. of Spain wrote soon after to his viceroy in the Indies to see the order punctually obeyed. This monarch was wielding the power as King of Portugal. No priest could come to Japan without his sanction. He had the power of putting his veto on the appointments made by the Pope. The fires of the Inquisition were blazing. The wish of the Jesuits was, that those who differed from them in religious views should be burned as heretics, to be damned; their hope was that they themselves, holding the true faith, might be burned as martyrs, to be beatified. Doubtless the archives of Simancas could unfold many a letter breathing such thoughts written from Japan, possibly noted by Philip’s own hand.

They had hitherto sailed with a fair wind. It may be believed, without going to the full length of taking everything in their letters for truth, or, on the other hand, accepting all that is said against them in the work “La Morale pratique des Jesuites,” or “L’Esprit de Mons. S. Arnauld,” that they had done some good. Many had been won over from a state of brutishness to submission in their daily walk and conversation to the precepts of the Gospel. Some had gone through severe trials and persecutions, and had stood firm to their professions. Each of the lords of Boongo, Arima and Omura had suffered more or less for the faith they professed. Though the fathers themselves give us a weapon to attack their conversions when they at one time assure us that “to win the favor of Taikosama put several of the principal lords in a humor of being instructed, and the number of proselytes was so great that the fathers could not rest day or night preaching, instructing and baptizing such as earnestly desired this sacrament” (among whom was Cambacundono’s own nephew, Hidetsoongo), it might be asked, What sort of converts were these? and how could these fathers abuse this sacrament in baptizing persons to win the favor of such a master?

But these fathers appear to have looked upon the bozangs as their personal enemies. They thought that it was their special mission to root them out. They would not let the tares and the wheat, as they looked upon the respective parties, grow together. They attacked these priests wherever they met them. Francis Xavier, at the commencement of his missionary life in Japan, visited these “bonzes, with the design, if it were possible, to convert them to Christ, being persuaded that Christianity would make little progress among the people if they who were generally looked upon as oracles of truth opposed the preaching of the Gospel.” He declared himself much astonished that in Japan the people “have a profound respect for the bonzes; for though they be conscious of their hypocrisy and debaucheries, yet at the same time they worship them like deities, and pay them all imaginable submission.”

One of the first duties of a missionary should be to learn thoroughly the religion of the people of the country to which he is sent. An acquaintance with Buddhism, and its tenets and principles, would have been a very powerful weapon to convince or to condemn these priests, without trying to hold them constantly up to the scorn of their own people and followers. From the commencement of the Romish missions a continued aggressive action appears to have been kept up against the Buddhist priesthood as individual men. The lives and the morals, or the want of morals, of these men seem to have been the constant theme of the Jesuit addresses to the people.

It cannot be wondered at that a body which was politically strong enough to cause uneasiness to the monarch of a country like Japan should not sit quietly under such attacks. We have no objection to you making converts, they may have said; but when it came to breaking down temples and destroying the images, a spirit of intense opposition was aroused. But when to this a system of persecution was added—such as that pursued by Don Justo in his territories, when every one not of his religion was driven out, when the property of the temples was taken from them, and perhaps given to their opponents—only one end can be looked for; viz., that one party should be victorious over the other, and that by a war to the knife, a struggle of life and death. The Buddhists were roused. They could live alongside of Confucianism, or of Taouism in the Yamabooshi, or of the different sects among themselves; but with the new sect, this Roman Catholicism, which broke its neighbor’s temples down, abused him to his face, and then turned every one out wherever it had the power of doing so—the only method with it was to use its own weapons and turn it out—to root it out of the country.

This Inquisition mode of dealing could have ended in no other way. Japan was not Spain, as the Jesuits found out.

The Buddhists felt that they were worsted on both sides—by the military power on the one side, which had defeated their soldiers, burned their monasteries, confiscated their lands, and appropriated their temples; by the Jesuits, who had seduced their people, abused themselves, robbed them of their tithes and offerings, broken down their gods, and burned the temples, and were now attempting to make converts in the palace itself, being in such favor as to be received by Taikosama as he received no other.

Taikosama was probably a proficient in the Japanese art of dissembling. At first he was doubtful to which party to incline; but when he had once made sure, after his defeat of the Negoros and seizure of their territory in Kii, that the Buddhists were thoroughly subdued, there could be little doubt, knowing the man, but that he would not give it to that which was threatening to be the cause of renewed disturbance in the empire, and whose emissaries thought they had a right to reprove him whenever it pleased them to do so. But it was Japanese policy to flatter them, to amuse them, to dissemble with them till the moment of making the spring. Inflamed by the Buddhist priests around him, he made up his mind that the new sect must be rooted out. In the year 1586 Nagasaki was taken from the Prince of Omura by Taiko, and made a government port and property. At that time, native history tells us, Satsuma and Owotomo were fighting. To this war Taikosama put an end. Some “battereng,” or padres, came to Tsikuzen to see Taiko. He did not like Roman Catholics. He found that two of his own servants were of that faith; they were speared at the temple of Hatchimang at Hakazaki. The padres were sent away. Thirteen churches were destroyed. At that time the province of Tsikuzen belonged partly to Owotomo and partly to Satsuma. Taikosama took it from both, and gave all Hizen and Tsikuzen to Nabeshima, formerly a servant of Riozoji, and whose descendants hold it to this day. He now fixed that Nagasaki was to be the only place where foreign trade was to be permitted.

The proclamation of 1587 caused the greatest dismay in the minds of the Christians. The heads of the church determined that they would, at all hazards, keep their posts. They took refuge in the territories of Boongo, Arima, Omura, Firando and Amacusa, alleging that they were waiting until a ship was ready to take them away. When the time arrived, and the ship ready, the captain excused himself from carrying the fathers this year, as his ship was already over-laden, sending a letter to Taikosama, which did not reach him for several months. He was very angry, and took down the churches in the neighborhood of Miako. At the same time he ordered Don Austin to exchange his lands near Miako for others in Kiusiu.