The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Christianity in Japan

Christianity in Japan

Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Tuesday, June 3 2008, 19:21:18 (CEST)
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Taken from Volume I, “Our Oriental Heritage”, p. 840, by Dr Will Durant.

“Christianity came to Japan in 1549 in the person of one of the first and noblest of Jesuits, St. Francis Xavier. The little community which he established grew so rapidly that within a generation after his coming there were seventy Jesuits and 150,000 converts in the empire (I find this number not believable, mine). They were so numerous in Nagasaki that they made that trading port a Christian city, and persuaded its local ruler, Omura, to use direct action in spreading the new faith.”

That’s a curious phrase, “direct action”. The Jesuits were tolerated, they were allowed to preach…what more “direct action” could they have desired?

“’Within Nagasaki territory’, says Lafcadio Hearn, ‘Buddhism was totally suppressed, it’s priests being persecuted and driven away.’ Alarmed at this spiritual invasion, and suspecting it of political designs, Hideyoshi sent a messenger to the Vice-Provincial of the Jesuits in Japan, armed with five peremptory questions:

1.Why, and by what authority, he(the Vice-Provincial) and his religieux(members of religious orders) constrained Hideyoshi’s subjects to become Christians?
2.Why they induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples?
3.Why they persecuted the Buddhist priests?
4.Why they and the other Portuguese ate animals useful to man, such as oxen and cows?
5.Why he allowed the merchants of his nation to buy Japanese and make slaves of them in the Indies?

Not satisfied with the replies, Hideyoshi issued, in 1587, the following edict.

‘Having learned from our faithful councilors that foreign religieux have come into our realm, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they have even the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our (native gods) Kami and Hotoke;although this outrage merits the severest punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will come to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our State, they shall be seized and punished as the greatest criminals.’”

Reading between the lines we learn that the Jesuits worked hand in hand with Portuguese slavers, that they destroyed Japan’s temples, persecuted its priests and in one way or another managed to win over a local ruler to help them through “direct action”. Most likely with a bribe or a share in their slave trade. And, of course, that they forcibly converted Japanese against all law and decent custom.

If we recall that the Jesuits were tolerated at first, even allowed freedom to preach, they must have taken such toleration to mean they could do as they pleased from then on to gain “converts”. The fact that even though they preached laws contrary to those of Japan, sold Japanese into slavery and attacked their host’s religion, where theirs had been well received at first, and yet were not immediately punished, as they well deserved, but rather were given a grace period to quit the land, tells us who was civilized and tolerant and who was Christian.

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