I
very much appreciate, and hope you get a chance to read, the thoughtful novels
of the Japanese Christian writer Shusaku Endo, which include Silence (which Scorsese made into a
movie) and The Samurai. Both of these
novels are about Catholic missionaries in Japan right before, or during, the
persecution of Christians in Japan after 1600. These are thoughtful novels,
neither championing nor condemning Christianity. I consider Endo to have been
Japan’s answer to Graham Greene (The
Power and the Glory and Monseigneur
Quixote), or the other way around.
In
both of the Endo novels that I have read, European and Japanese Christians look
to God for guidance, and receive only silence in response. Endo wrote, “In the
thick darkness God is silent.” Many of us have had this experience.
The
historical background of The Samurai
was when the shogunate (military dictatorship) of Japan sent a delegation of
minor samurai, with the Spanish Franciscan priest Luis Sotelo, to open up trade
relations with New Spain, a trip that eventually took them to Spain and to the
Vatican in 1613. Immediately thereafter, persecution nearly eradicated
Christianity from Japan. The samurai from whose viewpoint much of the novel is
written, Hasekura Rokuemon, was a real person. He kept a journal, but it has
been last. Most of what we think we know about this delegation comes from
Sotelo’s obviously self-centered and unreliable account of the journey. He
thought he would be single-handedly responsible for the salvation of Japan. He
was sure he would become the Bishop of Japan. Since Hasekura’s account has been
lost, we have to fill in the details with imagination, which Endo did in this
novel.
The
one thing we know for sure is that neither the Catholic priests nor the
Japanese had simple and clear motivations. The priest, as depicted by Endo in
the character of Father Velasco, is sincere in his desire to serve the
Japanese, even if it means losing his life, but he was also ambitious. The
Japanese—the three samurai, their attendants, and the merchants—converted to
Christianity by just going through the motions so that they could establish
trade contacts with Christian countries, but at the end the Japanese wondered
if maybe this Jesus, this ugly beat-up Jesus hanging from crucifixes, actually
did love them, he who had died even more miserably than they. Jesus, they
speculated, was a miserable dog who shares our miseries.
Here
are some quotes that beautifully illustrate this last point. The samurai Nishi
speaks to Hasekura: “I can believe in Him now because the life He lived in this
world was more wretched than any other man’s. Because He was ugly and
emaciated. He knew all there was to know about the sorrows of the world. He
could not close His eyes to the grief and agony of mankind...Do you think He is
to be found within those garish [European] cathedrals? He does not dwell
there...I think He lives in the wretched homes of those [Native American]
Indians...That is how He lived His life. He never visited the houses of those
who were puffed up or contented. He sought out only the ugly, the wretched, the
miserable, and the sorrowful. But now even the bishops and priests are
complacent and swollen with pride. They are no longer the sort of people He
sought after...Those who weep seek someone to lend an ear to their
lamentations. No matter how much the world changes, those who weep and those
who lament will always seek Him. That is His purpose in living.” [Chapter 9]
Endo
also alerts us to the rivalry between Jesuits and Franciscans for access to
Japan, before the shogunate shut them both out.
This
novel is tragic (not unlike Silence
and Scorsese’s adaptation of it). Toward the end, the Japanese samurai discover
that their whole journey had been a trick on the part of their overlords, that
not only was the failure of the journey but the execution of the samurai were
planned from the very beginning. One of the feudal lords had tolerated
Christianity, but the shogun hated Christianity, and the feudal lord had to do
something to prove to the shogun that he was serious about eradicating
Christianity from Japan—by executing a samurai who had, however insincerely,
converted to Christianity.
The
feeling I take away from the two Endo novels I have read is that no religious
question has an easy and straightforward answer.
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