Initially, the Japanese did not see Christianity as a threat, but with every ship arriving in Japan came missionaries. Because the shogunate valued trade with the Europeans and their technologies, they permitted the Catholic Church to build churches, missions, and monasteries in the country, again, mainly, but not only in the south.

Unfortunately for the Christians of Japan, not all European missionaries were concerned with just spreading the Gospel. Many were also concerned with increasing the Church’s political power and that of the Portuguese and Spanish. By 1600, Europeans controlled most of Japan’s trade with China – today, it would be a multi-billion dollar industry. The Spanish and Portuguese also worked to convert and bribe – daimyo into favorable trade deals and for political information and influence. In the historical novel and TV series “Shogun,” a British sailor tells the shogun that the Pope had divided the undiscovered world between the Spanish and Portuguese in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The Pope is “the representative of Christ on Earth” – the discovery of this treaty by the Japanese may not have happened like this. However, Shogun is based on a true story, and we can safely say that the Japanese were not pleased with the treaty or the fact that the Europeans had kept it secret.

For hundreds of years after the crucifixion of Christ, Rome persecuted Christians. They nailed them to crosses, set them on fire by the dozen in arenas, whipped them, beat them, humiliated them and fed them to lions, leopards, bears and dogs. Thousands upon thousands were killed. Others went into hiding. But the persistence, faith, conviction and perseverance and reported miracles, Christianity eventually became the state religion of the Western Roman Empire under Emperor Theodosius I in 380.

By the early 17th century, Christianity had spread or had begun to spread to almost all corners of the world – including the then isolated and remote islands of Japan. It’s estimated that there were about 300,000 Christians in Japan, mostly in the south, in 1635. In 1640, the only Christians left in Japan were hiding their faith, hiding themselves, or both.

Music: Epidemic music

Sources:
Alves, Jorge M. Fernão Mendes Pinto and the Peregrinação: Notes. Lisbon: Oriente, 2010
Boxer, Charles R. The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650. 2020.

Cary, Otis. A History of Christianity in Japan. London: Psychology Press, 1995.

Dougill, John. In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians: A Story Of Suppression, Secrecy And Survival. London: SPCK, 2016.

Endo, Shusaku. Silence. Picador Classics, 2015.

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