present and visible. The head of the enemy has been carefully washed,
according to the rule concerning the presentation of heads to a
living superior. It is laid upon the tomb together with the nine-inch
sword, or dagger, originally used by the Lord Asano in performing
harakiri at Government command, and afterwards used by Oishi
Kuranosuke in cutting off the head of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke;--and the
spirit of the Lord Asano is requested to take up the weapon and to
strike the head, so that the pain of ghostly anger may be dissipated
forever. Then, having been themselves all sentenced to perform
harakiri, the forty-seven retainers join their lord in death, and are
buried in front of his tomb. Before their graves the smoke of
incense, offered by admiring visitors, has been ascending daily for
two hundred years.*
[*It has been long the custom also for visitors to leave their cards
upon the tombs of the Forty-seven Ronin. When I last visited
Sengakuji, the ground about the tombs was white with visiting-cards.]
One must have lived in Japan, and have been able to feel the true
spirit of the old Japanese life, in order to comprehend the whole of
this romance of loyalty; but I think that whoever carefully reads Mr.
Mitford's version of it, and his translation of the [298] authentic
documents relating to it, will confess himself moved. That address
especially touches,--because of the affection and the faith to which
it testifies, and the sense of duty beyond this life. However much
revenge must be condemned by our modern ethics, there is a noble side
to many of the old Japanese stories of loyal vengeance; and these
stories affect us by the expression of what has nothing to do with
vulgar revenge,--by their exposition of gratitude, self-denial,
courage in facing death, and faith in the unseen. And this means, of
course, that we are, consciously or unconsciously, impressed by their
religious quality. Mere individual revenge--the postponed retaliation
for some personal injury--repels our moral feeling: we have learned
to regard the emotion inspiring such revenge as simply brutal
--something shared by man with lower forms of animal life. But in the
story of a homicide exacted by the sentiment of duty or gratitude to
a dead master, there may be circumstances which can make appeal to
our higher moral sympathies,--to our sense of the force and beauty of
unselfishness, unswerving fidelity, unchanging affection. And the
story of the Forty-Seven Ronin is one of this class....
Yet it must be borne in mind that the old Japanese religion of
loyalty, which found its supreme manifestation in those three
terrible customs of [299] junshi, harakiri, and kataki-uchi, was
narrow in its range. It was limited by the very constitution of
society. Though the nation was ruled, through all its groups, by
notions of duty everywhere similar in character, the circle of that
duty, for each individual, did not extend beyond the clan-group to
which he belonged. For his own lord the retainer was always ready to
die; but he did not feel equally bound to sacrifice himself for the
military government, unless he happened to belong to the special
military following of the Shogun. His fatherland, his country, his
world, extended only to the boundary of his chief's domain. Outside
of that domain he could be only a wanderer,--a ronin, or "wave-man,"
as the masterless samurai was termed. Under such conditions that
larger loyalty which identifies itself with love of king and
country,--which is patriotism in the modern, not in the narrower
antique sense,--could not fully evolve. Some common peril, some
danger to the whole race--such as the attempted Tartar conquest of
Japan--might temporarily arouse the true sentiment of patriotism; but
otherwise that sentiment had little opportunity for development. The
Ise cult represented, indeed, the religion of the nation, as
distinguished from the clan or tribal worship; but each man had been
taught to believe that his first duty was to his lord. One cannot
efficiently serve two masters; and feudal government practically
[300] suppressed any tendencies in that direction. The lordship so
completely owned the individual, body and soul, that the idea of any
duty to the nation, outside of the duty to the chief, had neither
time nor chance to define itself in the mind of the vassal. To the
ordinary samurai, for example, an imperial order would not have been
law: he recognized no law above the law of his daimyo. As for the
daimyo, he might either disobey or obey an imperial command according
to circumstances: his direct superior was the shogun; and he was
obliged to make for himself a politic distinction between the
Heavenly Sovereign as deity, and the Heavenly Sovereign as a human
personality. Before the ultimate centralization of the military
power, there were many instances of lords sacrificing themselves for
their emperor; but there were even more cases of open rebellion by
lords against the imperial will. Under the Tokugawa rule, the
question of obeying or resisting an imperial command would have
depended upon the attitude of the shogun; and no daimyo would have
risked such obedience to the court at Kyoto as might have signified
disobedience to the court at Yedo. Not at least until the shogunate
had fallen into decay. In Iyemitsu's time the daimyo were strictly
forbidden to approach the imperial palace on their way to Yedo,--even
in response to an imperial command; and they were also forbidden to
make any direct appeal to the [301] Mikado. The policy of the
shogunate was to prevent all direct communication between the Kyoto
court and the daimyo. This policy paralyzed intrigue for two hundred
years; but it prevented the development of patriotism.
And for that very reason, when Japan at last found herself face to
face with the unexpected peril of Western aggression, the abolition
of the dairmates was felt to be a matter of paramount importance. The
supreme danger required that the social units should be fused into
one coherent mass, capable of uniform action,--that the clan and
tribal groupings should be permanently dissolved,--that all authority
should immediately be centred in the representative of the national
religion,--that the duty of obedience to the Heavenly Sovereign
should replace, at once and forever, the feudal duty of obedience to
the territorial lord. The religion of loyalty, evolved by a thousand
years of war, could not be cast away--properly utilized, it would
prove a national heritage of incalculable worth,--a moral power
capable of miracles if directed by one wise will to a single wise
end. Destroyed by reconstruction it could not be; but it could be
diverted and transformed. Diverted, therefore, to nobler ends
--expanded to larger needs,--it became the new national sentiment of
trust and duty: the modern sense of patriotism. What wonders it has
wrought, within the space of thirty years, the world is now obliged
to confess: what [302] more it may be able to accomplish remains to
be seen. One thing at least is certain,---that the future of Japan
must depend upon the maintenance of this new religion of loyalty,
evolved, through the old, from the ancient religion of the dead.
[303]
THE JESUIT PERIL
The second half of the sixteenth century is the most interesting
period in Japanese history--for three reasons. First, because it
witnessed the apparition of those mighty captains, Nobunaga,
Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu,--types of men that a race seems to evolve for
supreme emergencies only,--types requiring for their production not
merely the highest aptitudes of numberless generations, but likewise
an extraordinary combination of circumstances. Secondly, this period
is all-important because it saw the first complete integration of the
ancient social system,--the definitive union of all the
clan-lordships under a central military government. And lastly, the
period is of special interest because the incident of the first
attempt to christianize Japan--the story of the rise and fall of the
Jesuit power--properly belongs to it.
The sociological significance of this episode is instructive.
Excepting, perhaps, the division of the imperial house against itself
in the twelfth century, the greatest danger that ever threatened
Japanese national integrity was the introduction of Christianity
[304] by the Portuguese Jesuits. The nation saved itself only by
ruthless measures, at the cost of incalculable suffering and of
myriads of lives.
It was during the period of great disorder preceding Nobunaga's
effort to centralize authority, that this unfamiliar disturbing
factor was introduced by Xavier and his followers. Xavier landed at
Kagoshima in 1549; and by 1581 the Jesuits had upwards of two hundred
churches in the country. This fact alone sufficiently indicates the
rapidity with which the new religion spread; and it seemed destined
to extend over the entire empire. In 1585 a Japanese religious
embassy was received at Rome; and by that date no less than eleven
daimyo,--or "kings," as the Jesuits not inaptly termed them--had
become converted. Among these were several very powerful lords. The
new creed had made rapid way among the common people also: it was
becoming "popular," in the strict meaning of the word.
When Nobunaga rose to power, he favoured the Jesuits in many
ways--not because of any sympathy with their creed, for he never
dreamed of becoming a Christian, but because he thought that their
influence would be of service to him in his campaign against
Buddhism. Like the Jesuits themselves, Nobunaga had no scruple about
means in his pursuit of ends. More ruthless than William the
Conqueror, he did not hesitate to put to death [305] his own brother
and his own father-in-law, when they dared to oppose his will. The
aid and protection which he extended to the foreign priests, for
merely political reasons, enabled them to develop their power to a
degree which soon gave him cause for repentance. Mr. Gubbins, in his
"Review of the Introduction of Christianity into China and Japan,"
quotes from a Japanese work, called Ibuki Mogusa, an interesting
extract on the subject:--
"Nobunaga now began to regret his previous policy in permitting the
introduction of Christianity. He accordingly assembled his retainers,
and said to them:--'The conduct of these missionaries in persuading
people to join them by giving money, does not please me. How would it
be, think you, if we were to demolish Nambanji [The "Temple of the
Southern Savages"--so the Portuguese church was called]?' To this
Mayeda Tokuzenin replied. 'It is now too late to demolish the Temple
of the Namban. To endeavour to arrest the power of this religion now
is like trying to arrest the current of the ocean. Nobles, both great
and small, have become adherents of it. If you would exterminate this
religion now, there is fear that disturbance should be created among
your own retainers. I am therefore of opinion that you should abandon
your intention of destroying Nambanji.' Nobunaga in consequence
regretted exceedingly his previous action in regard to the Christian
religion, and set about thinking how he could root it out."
The assassination of Nobunaga in 1586 may have prolonged the period
of toleration. His successor [306] Hideyoshi, who judged the
influence of the foreign priests dangerous, was for the moment
occupied with the great problem of centralizing the military power,
so as to give peace to the country. But the furious intolerance of
the Jesuits in the southern provinces had already made them many
enemies, eager to avenge the cruelties of the new creed. We read in
the histories of the missions about converted daimyo burning
thousands of Buddhist temples, destroying countless works of art, and
slaughtering Buddhist priests;--and we find the Jesuit writers
praising these crusades as evidence of holy zeal. At first the
foreign faith had been only persuasive; afterwards, gathering power
under Nobunaga's encouragement, it became coercive and ferocious. A
reaction against it set in about a year after Nobunaga's death. In
1587 Hideyoshi destroyed the mission churches in Kyoto, Osaka, and
Sakai, and drove the Jesuits from the capital; and in the following
year he ordered them to assemble at the port of Hirado, and prepare
to leave the country. They felt themselves strong enough to disobey:
instead of leaving Japan, they scattered through the country, placing
themselves under the protection of various Christian daimyo.
Hideyoshi probably thought it impolitic to push matters further: the
priests kept quiet, and ceased to preach publicly; and their
self-effacement served them well until 1591. In that year the advent
of [307] certain Spanish Franciscans changed the state of affairs.
These Franciscans arrived in the train of an embassy from the
Philippines, and obtained leave to stay in the country on condition
that they were not to preach Christianity. They broke their pledge,
abandoned all prudence, and aroused the wrath of Hideyoshi. He
resolved to make an example; and in 1597 he had six Franciscans,
three Jesuits, and several other Christians taken to Nagasaki and
there crucified. The attitude of the great Taiko toward the foreign
creed had the effect of quickening the reaction against it,--a
reaction which had already begun to show itself in various provinces.
But Hideyoshi's death in 1598 enabled the Jesuits to hope for better
fortune. His successor, the cold and cautious Iyeyasu, allowed them
to hope, and even to reestablish themselves in Kyoto, Osaka, and
elsewhere. He was preparing for the great contest which was to be
decided by the battle of Sekigahara;--he knew that the Christian
element was divided,--some of its leaders being on his own side, and
some on the side of his enemies;--and the time would have been ill
chosen for any repressive policy. But in 1606, after having solidly
established his power, Iyeyasu for the first time showed himself
decidedly opposed to Christianity by issuing an edict forbidding
further mission work, and proclaiming that those who had adopted the
foreign religion must abandon it. Nevertheless the propaganda [308]
went on--conducted no longer by Jesuits only, but also by Dominicans
and Franciscans. The number of Christians then in the empire is said,
with gross exaggeration, to have been nearly two millions. But
Iyeyasu neither took, nor caused to be taken, any severe measures of
repression until 1614,--from which date the great persecution may be
said to have begun. Previously there had been local persecutions
only, conducted by independent daimyo,--not by the central
government. The local persecutions in Kyushu, for example, would seem
to have been natural consequences of the intolerance of the Jesuits
in the days of their power, when converted daimyo burned Buddhist
temples and massacred Buddhist priests; and these persecutions were
most pitiless in those very districts such as Bungo, Omura, and Higo
--where the native religion had been most fiercely persecuted at
Jesuit instigation. But from 1614--at which date there remained only
eight, out of the total sixty-four provinces of Japan, into which
Christianity had not been introduced--the suppression of the foreign
creed became a government matter; and the persecution was conducted
systematically and uninterruptedly until every outward trace of
Christianity had disappeared.
The fate of the missions, therefore, was really settled by Iyeyasu
and his immediate successors; [309] and it is the part taken by
Iyeyasu that especially demands attention. Of the three great
captains, all had, sooner or later, become suspicious of the foreign
propaganda; but only Iyeyasu could find both the time and the ability
to deal with the social problem which it had aroused. Even Hideyoshi
had been afraid to complicate existing political troubles by any
rigorous measures of an extensive character. Iyeyasu long hesitated.
The reasons for his hesitation were doubtless complex, and chiefly
diplomatic. He was the last of men to act hastily, or suffer himself
to be influenced by prejudice of any sort; and to suppose him timid
would be contrary to all that we know of his character. He must have
recognized, of course, that to extirpate a religion which could
claim, even in exaggeration, more than a million of adherents, was no
light undertaking, and would involve an immense amount of suffering.
To cause needless misery was not in his nature: he had always proved
himself humane, and a friend of the common people. But he was first
of all a statesman and patriot; and the main question for him must
have been the probable relation of the foreign creed to political and
social conditions in Japan. This question required long and patient
investigation; and he appears to have given it all possible
attention. At last he decided that Roman Christianity constituted a
grave political danger and that its extirpation would be an
unavoidable necessity. [310] The fact that the severe measures which
he and his successors enforced against Christianity--measures
steadily maintained for upwards of two hundred years--failed to
completely eradicate the creed, proves how deeply the roots had
struck. Superficially, all trace of Christianity vanished to Japanese
eyes; but in 1865 there were discovered near Nagasaki some
communities which had secretly preserved among themselves traditions
of the Roman forms of worship, and still made use of Portuguese and
Latin words relating to religious matters.
To rightly estimate the decision of Iyeyasu--one of the shrewdest,
and also one of the most humane statesmen that ever lived,--it is
necessary to consider, from a Japanese point of view, the nature of
the evidence upon which he was impelled to act. Of Jesuit intrigues
in Japan he must have had ample knowledge--several of them having
been directed against himself;--but he would have been more likely
to consider the ultimate object and probable result of such
intrigues, than the mere fact of their occurrence. Religious
intrigues were common among the Buddhists, and would scarcely attract
the notice of the military government except when they interfered
with state policy or public order. But religious intrigues having for
their object the overthrow of government, and a sectarian domination
of the country, would be gravely considered. [311] Nobunaga had
taught Buddhism a severe lesson about the danger of such intriguing.
Iyeyasu decided that the Jesuit intrigues had a political object of
the most ambitious kind; but he was more patient than Nobunaga. By
1603 he, had every district of Japan under his yoke; but he did not
issue his final edict until eleven years later. It plainly declared
that the foreign priests were plotting to get control of the
government, and to obtain possession of the country:--
"The Kirishitan band have come to Japan, not only sending their
merchant-vessels to exchange commodities, but also longing to
disseminate an evil law, to overthrow right doctrine, so that they
may change the government of the country, and obtain possession of
the land. This is the germ of great disaster, and must be
crushed.....
"Japan is the country of the gods and of the Buddha: it honours the
gods, and reveres the Buddha.... The faction of the Bateren*
disbelieve in the Way of the Gods, and blaspheme the true Law,
--violate right-doing, and injure the good.... They truly are the
enemies of the gods and of the Buddha.... If this be not speedily
prohibited, the safety of the state will, assuredly hereafter be
imperilled; and if those who are charged with ordering its affairs do
not put a stop to the evil, they will expose themselves to Heaven's
rebuke.
[*Bateren, a corruption of the Portuguese padre, is still the term
used for Roman Catholic priests, of any denomination.]
"These [missionaries] must be instantly swept out, so that not an
inch of soil remains to them in Japan on which [312] to plant their
feet; and if they refuse to obey this command, they shall suffer the
penalty.... Let Heaven and the Four Seas hear this. Obey!"*
[*The entire proclamation, which is of considerable length, has been
translated by Satow, and may be found in Vol. VI, part I, of the
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.]