More missionaries soon followed Francis Xavier and converted local lords who wanted to profit from foreign trade. The missionaries built schools and colleges, teaching science, language, mathematics, medicine and music. By 1600, between 300,000 and one million people had converted to Christianity, particularly in and around Nagasaki, the biggest Christian population of any Asian country at the time. The shogun tolerated the religion at first, but eventually he became suspicious that this alien religion would become a threat to his rule. Jesuit missionaries were expelled and a policy of persecution was soon begun. In 1597, 26 European and Japanese Christians were crucified in Nagasaki and in 1614 the religion was banned. Christians led an uprising in 1637 but it was the final chapter in the events of the ‘Christian Century’ although the religion continued to be practiced in secret. All contact with foreigners was banned and no Japanese were allowed to travel overseas. A small Dutch colony on one of the Japanese islands was allowed to remain and Christianity survived there . The former island has long disappeared and only the graceful Oura Catholic Church built in 1864 for Nagasaki’s new foreign community survived repeated attempts to stamp out the Christian faith . The church is dedicated to the 26 Christians crucified on a nearby hill.
The Severity of the Persecution - 40,000 martyrs
Looking into
the history of
Christianity (other than of the Roman Empire), especially in the modern
age,
there is no other country but Japan which has had so many martyrs. The
brutality of the persecution increased over time, suggesting
that its purpose was not only to kill Christians, but also to make the
Japanese
people feel terror and hatred against Christianity, and to be warned
that it could happen to them too !
The persecution of Twenty-Six Martyrs by Hideyoshi in Nagasaki in the year of 1597 was the beginning of the history of martyrdom. In this persecution, the martyrs died instantly . Each was hanged from the top bar of a scaffold, and two executioners began teasing the victim by poking him with spearpoints. The victim would tighten his muscles in fear and the spearheads could hardly pierce into the body and would sometimes break. Eventually the spearheads would pierce into the body from both sides. This cruel execution was originally used for peasant criminals Death--when it came--was a blessing.
This persecution of the Twenty-Six Martyrs merely strengthened Christians in their faith. Therefore the method of execution was changed in the Edo period, in an attempt to make Christians depart from their faith by inflicting much more pain while delaying their death as long as possible. According to Japanese historians there were 60 cases of death with spearheads, 2,153 cases of beheading, 481 cases of death by burning, 685 cases of death in prison, 20 cases of being cut into pieces, 121 cases of anatsuri (hanging in a pit), 24 cases of death of drowning, 22 cases of death by water torture, and other 226 other cases such as death by torture in the burning waters in Unzen, totaling 3,792 cases of martyrdom.
In the case of burning to death in
Kyoto in the year of 1619, martyrs did not die in a strongly burning
fire but
were suffocated to death. Since the death by burning of fifty-five
martyrs in
Nagasaki in 1622, the method of execution was changed to make the
victim suffer
for a much longer time and endure much more physical pain because the
fire was
set at a distance and it took time for the fire to reach and destroy
the
victim. Death by drowning involved putting the victim's head into a
straw bag
with his hands and feet tied, and throwing him into the water. Death by
water
torture involved tying the victim's body with a rope, which later
on was
watered. The shrinking of the wet rope squeezed him
to death. The methods of
execution got crueler, such as anatsuri - in
which a person with his hands and feet bound behind him was hung head
downwards
from the gallows into a pit big enough to admit a human body and
usually filled
with human dung and other filth. In order to prevent death by
suffocation or by
congestion of the blood, the forehead was lightly slashed with a knife
in order
to give the blood some vent. Death by anatsuri could take
up to twelve days.
Christians
understood martyrdom as
a sign of love. Christians would die for the sake of Christ
instead of fighting against unjust
persecution. The word martyr was defined as
'good people who offer their tortured lives for the service of
God'. The
basic attitude of Christianity- unlimited human sincerity and love
for God, the idea of sacrifice of their life, was new and exciting to
the common people during the time of
persecution. Their sacrifice was not simply a passing enthusiasm or
fanatic state because it lasted over fifty
years--and took about 40,000 lives.