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THE MARTYRS OF JAPAN

Feast: February 6

See the triumph of the martyrs of Japan, by F. Trigault, from the year 1612 to 1620,

the history of Japan, by F. Crasset, to the year 1658; and that by the learned F.Charlevoix in nine volumes; also the life of F. Spinola, &c.

The empire of Japan, so called from one of the islands of which it is composed, wasdiscovered by certain Portuguese merchants about the year 1541. It is generallydivided into several little kingdoms, all which obey one sovereign emperor. Thecapital cities are Meaco and Jedo. The manners of this people are the reverse of oursin many things. Their characteristic is pride, and an extravagant love of honour.They adore idols of grotesque shapes, by which they represent certain famouswicked ancestors: the chiefest are Amida and Xach. Their priests are called Bonzes,and all obey the Jaco, or high-priest.

St. Francis Xavier arrived in Japan in 1549, baptized great numbers, and wholeprovinces received the faith. The great kings of Arima, Bungo, and Omura sent asolemn embassy of obedience to Pope Gregory XIII in 1582; and in 1587 there werein Japan above two hundred thousand Christians, and among these several kings,

princes, and bonzes, but in 1588, Cambacundono, the haughty emperor, havingusurped the honours of a deity, commanded all the Jesuits to leave his dominionswithin six months: however, many remained there disguised.

In 1592 the persecution was renewed, and several Japanese converts received thecrown of martyrdom. The emperor Tagcosama, one of the proudest and most vicious

of men, was worked up into rage and jealousy by a suspicion suggested by certainEuropean merchants desirous of the monopoly of this trade, that the view of themissionaries in preaching the Christian faith was to facilitate the conquest of theircountry by the Portuguese or Spaniards.

Three Jesuits and six Franciscans were crucified on a hill near Nangasaqui in 1597.The latter were partly Spaniards and partly Indians, and had at their head F. PeterBaptist, commissary of his order, a native of Avila, in Spain. As to the Jesuits, onewas Paul Miki, a noble Japanese, and an eminent preacher, at that time thirty-threeyears old. The other two, John Gotto and James Kisai, were admitted into theSociety in prison a little before they suffered. Several Japanese converts sufferedwith them. The martyrs were twenty-six in number, and among them were three

boys who used to serve the friars at mass; two of them were fifteen years of age, andthe third only twelve, yet each showed great joy and constancy in their sufferings.Of these martyrs, twenty-four had been brought to Meaco, where only a part of theirleft ears was cut off, by a mitigation of the sentence, which had commanded theamputation of their noses and both ears. They were conducted through many townsand public places, their cheeks stained with blood, for a terror to others. When thetwenty-six soldiers of Christ were arrived at the place of execution near Nangasaqui,they were allowed to make their confession to two Jesuits of the convent in thattown, and being fastened to crosses by cords and chains about their arm. and legs,

and an iron collar about their necks, were raised into the air, the foot of each crossfalling into a hole prepared for it in the ground. The crosses were planted in a row,

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about four feet asunder, and each martyr had an executioner near him with a spearready to pierce his side; for such is the Japanese manner of crucifixion. As soon asall the crosses were planted, the executioners lifted up their lances, and at a signalgiven, all pierced the martyrs almost in the same instant; upon which they expired,and went to receive the reward of their sufferings. Their blood and garments were

procured by Christians, and miracles were wrought by them. Urban VIII rankedthem among the martyrs, and they are honoured on the 5th of February, the day oftheir triumph.

The rest of the missionaries were put on board a vessel, and carried out of thedominions, except twenty-eight priests, who stayed behind in disguise. Tagcosamadying, ordered his body should not be burned, as was the custom in Japan, but

preserved enshrined in his palace of Fuximi, that he might be worshipped among thegods under the title of the new god of war. The most stately temple in the empirewas built to him, and his body deposited in it.

The Jesuits returned soon after, and though the missionaries were only a hundred innumber, they converted, in 1599, forty thousand, and in 1600, above thirty thousand,and built fifty churches; for the people were highly scandalized to see himworshipped as a god whom they had remembered a most covetous, proud, andvicious tyrant. But in 1602, Cubosama renewed the bloody persecution, and manyJapanese converts were beheaded, crucified, or burned. In 1614, new cruelties wereexercised to overcome their constancy, as by bruising their feet between certain

pieces of wood, cutting off or squeezing their limbs one after another, applying red-hot irons or slow fires, flaying off the skin of the fingers, putting burning coals totheir hands, tearing off the flesh with pincers, or thrusting reeds into all parts of their

bodies, and turning them about to tear their flesh, till they should say they wouldforsake their faith: all which, innumerable persons, even children, bore withinvincible constancy till death.

In 1616, Xogun succeeding his father Cubosama in the empire, surpassed him incruelty. The most illustrious of these religious heroes was F. Charles Spinola. Hewas of a noble Genoese family, and entered the Society at Nola, whilst his unclecardinal Spinola was bishop of that city. Out of zeal and a desire of martyrdom, he

begged to be sent on the Japanese mission. He arrived there in 1602; laboured manyyears in that mission, gained many to Christ by his mildness, and lived in greatausterity, for his usual food was only a little rice and herbs. He suffered four years a

most cruel imprisonment, during which, in burning fevers, he was not able to obtainof his keepers a drop of cold water out of meals: yet he wrote from his dungeon:"Father, how sweet and delightful is it to suffer for Jesus Christ! I have learned this

better by experience than I am able to express, especially since we are in thesedungeons where we fast continually. The strength of my body fails me, but my joyincreases as I see death draw nearer. O what a happiness for me, if next Easter Ishall sing the heavenly Alleluia in the company of the blessed!" In a long letter tohis cousin Maximilian Spinola, he said, "Oh, if you had tasted the delights withwhich God fills the souls of those who serve him and suffer for him, how would youcondemn all that the world can promise! I now begin to be a disciple of Jesus Christ,since for his love I am in prison, where I suffer much. But I assure you, that when I

am fainting with hunger, God hath fortified me by his sweet consolations, so that Ihave looked upon myself as well recompensed for his service. And though I were

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yet to pass many years in prison, the time would appear short, through the extremedesire which I feel of suffering for him, who even here so well repays our labours.Besides other sickness, I have been afflicted with a continual fever a hundred dayswithout any remedies or proper nourishment. All this time my heart was so full of

joy that it seemed to me too narrow to contain it. I have never felt any equal to it,

and I thought myself at the gates of paradise." His joy was excessive at the news thathe was condemned to be burnt alive, and he never ceased to thank God for so great amercy, of which he owned himself unworthy. He was conducted from his last prisonat Omura to Nangasaqui, where fifty martyrs suffered together on a hill within sightof that city, nine Jesuits, four Franciscans, and six Dominicans, the rest seculars:twenty-five were burned, the rest beheaded. The twenty-five stakes were fixed all ina row, and the martyrs tied to them. Fire was set to the end of the pile of woodtwenty-five feet from the martyrs, and gradually approached them, two hours beforeit reached them. F. Spinola stood unmoved, with his eyes lifted up towards heaven,till the cords which tied him being burnt, he fell into the flames, and was consumedon the 2nd of September, in 1622, being fifty-eight years old. Many others,

especially Jesuits, suffered variously, being either burnt at slow fires, crucified,beheaded, or thrown into a burning mountain, or hung with their heads downward inpits, which cruel torment usually put an end to their lives in three or four days.

In 1639, the Portuguese and all other Europeans, except the Dutch, were forbid toenter Japan, even for trade: the very ambassadors which the Portuguese sent thitherwere beheaded. In 1642, five Jesuits landed secretly in Japan, but were soondiscovered, and after cruel tortures were hung in pits till they expired. Thus hathJapan encouraged the church militant, and filled the triumphant with gloriousmartyrs: though only the first mentioned have as yet been publicly declared such by

the holy See, who are mentioned in the new edition of the Roman Martyrologypublished by Benedict XIV in 1749.

(Taken from Vol. I of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints"by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, &Company)

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