Japan and Christianity: Impacts and Responses

210 Pages·1996·27.483 MB·English

by  John Breen, Mark Williams (eds.)

JAPAN AND CHRISTIANITY
Japan and Christianity
Impacts and Responses
Edited by
John Breen
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
and
Mark Williams
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
University of Leeds
First published in Great Britain 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-24362-4 ISBN 978-1-349-24360-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24360-0
First published in the United States of America 1996 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-12872-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Japan and Christianity : impacts and responses I edited by John Breen,
Mark Williams.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-12872-2 (cloth)
I. Japan-Church history. 2. Japan-Civilization--Christian
influences. I. Breen, John. II. Williams, Mark, 1957-
BRI305.J37 1996
275.2--dc20 95-17862
CIP
Selection and editorial matter© John Breen and Mark Williams 1996
Text© Macmillan Press Ltd 1996
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmilled save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the tem1s of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
List of Plates VII
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Chronology xii
Introduction
John Breen and Mark Williams
Translations of Christian Terminology into Japanese, 16-19th
Centuries: Problems and Solutions
Stefan Kaiser 8
2 Early Western-Style Paintings in Japan
Michael Cooper 30
3 New Perspectives on the Early Tokugawa Persecution
Ohashi Yukihiro 46
4 Acculturation among the Kakure Kirishitan: Some Conclusions
from the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto
Stephen Turnbull 63
5 Beyond the Prohibition: Christianity in Restoration Japan
John Breen 75
6 Christianity Encounters Buddhism in Japan: A Historical
Perspective
Notto R. Thelle 94
7 The Religion of the West versus the Science of the West: The
Evolution Controversy in Late Nineteenth Century Japan
Helen Ballhatchet 107
8 Written and Unwritten Texts of the Kakure Kirishitan
Christal Whelan 122
v
vi Contents
9 The Social Forms of Japanese Christianity
Mark R. Mullins 138
I 0 From Out of the Depths: The Japanese Literary Response to
Christianity
Mark Williams 156
Select Bibliography 175
Index 186
vi
List of Plates
Mater Dolorosa, oil on canvas, 52.5 x 40 em. Nanban Bunkakan,
Osaka.
2 Our Lady of the Rosary, colour on paper, 75 X 63 em. Kyoto
University.
3 St Francis Xavier, colour on paper, 61 x 49 em. Kobe City
Museum.
4 Nobukata, Woman Playing the Lute, colour on paper,
55.5 x 37.3 em. Yamato Bunkakan, Nara.
5 'Two Figures in a Pastoral Scene', colour on paper; detail from
a pair of six-panel screens, 93 x 302 em. Private collection.
6 'The King of Rome', colour on paper; detail from The Battle of
Lepanto, one of a pair of six-panel screens, 153 x 362.5 em.
K6setsu Art Museum, Kobe.
7 Four Mounted Western Warriors, colour on paper, four-panel
screen, 166.2 x 460.4 em. Kobe City Museum.
8 'The City of Rome', colour on paper, detail from
Four Great Cities of the West (Rome, Lisbon, Seville, and
Constantinople), one of a pair of eight-panel screens,
158.7 x 477.7 em. Kobe City Museum.
9 Map of the World, colour on paper, detail from one of a pair of
six-panel screens, 153 x 362.6 em. K6setsu Art Museum, Kobe.
vii
Acknowledgements
This volume emerges from an international conference on Christianity and
Japanese culture held at StMary's College, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham,
in September 1991. The conference, designed to coincide with the Japan
Festival of that year, was the idea of Richard Tames and the Dean of
Humanities, Mr Brian Firth. Had it not been for Mr Firth's enthusiasm and
hard work, the good offices of the Department of Religious Studies at St
Mary's and the generosity of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation,
neither the conference nor the present volume would have got off the
ground. The college authorities gave us the use of the Waldegrave
Drawing Room for the conference; it could hardly have been bettered as a
location for two days of papers and discussion! Thanks are due to all par
ticipants at the conference, some of whose papers could not be included in
the present volume, but especially to Professor William Beasley, who
opened the proceedings with a stimulating survey of the place of religion
in Japanese history.
We are very grateful to the following institutions for permission to use
photographs: Kobe City Museum, K6setsu Art Museum (Kobe), Kyoto
University, Nanban Bunkakan (Osaka), Yamato Bunkakan (Nara), and to
Rekishigaku Kenkyu for permission to carry Ohashi Yukihiro's essay.
Charlotte Breen, Luci Davin and Ruth Jarrett helped with the typing of
the manuscript and Bill Garrard translated Ohashi Yukihiro's paper. Our
thanks are due to our editors at Macmillan, Belinda Holdsworth and
Annabelle Buckley, for their support, encouragement, and above all their
patience. Our wives, Chika Breen and Ikuko Williams, endured much for
the several months of frenetic work it took to get the volume ready for
publication. To our children, Ken, Naomi, Nicholas, Simon and Thomas,
this volume is dedicated.
VIII
Notes on the Contributors
Helen Ballhatchet obtained her doctorate from the London School of
Economics and is Assistant Professor in the Economics Department, Keio
University, Tokyo. Among her recent publications are 'Baba Tatsui and
Victorian Britain' in Cortazzi and Daniels, eds, Britain and Japan
I859-I99I, Routledge, 1991, and 'British Missionaries in Japan' in I.
Nish, ed., Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Japan Library, 1994.
She is currently preparing manuscripts on the treaty ports and on the
history of Christianity in East Asia.
John Breen obtained his doctorate at the University of Cambridge and is
lecturer in Japanese at SOAS, University of London. Among his recent
publications are 'Shintoists in Restoration Japan', Modern Asian Studies
(1990), 'Accommodating the Alien: Okuni Takamasa and the Religion of
the Lord of Heaven', in P. Kornicki et al., eds, Arrows from Heaven:
Essays in Honour of Carmen Blacker, CUP, 1995, and 'Okuni Takamasa,
Shinshin K6h6ron', in Readings in Tokugawa Thought, Select Papers,
University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Michael Cooper has been editor since 1972 of the quarterly Monumenta
Nipponica, a journal published by Sophia University, Tokyo. He obtained
his doctorate at the University of Oxford with a dissertation on Joiio
Rodrigues, a Portuguese missionary in Japan in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries. His publications include Rodrigues, the Interpreter,
Weatherhill, 1974 and 1994; They Came to Japan, University of
California Press, 1965 and 1981, and This Island of Japan, Kodansha,
1973, in addition to numerous articles on European-Japanese cultural rela
tions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Stefan Kaiser is Professor at the Institute of Languages and Literatures,
University of Tsukuba. His research concerns are the Japanese language
and writing system and their research histories. His recent publications
include Circumnominal Relative Clauses in Classical Japanese: an
Historical Study, 1991, Harrassowitz, and 'Japan: History of Linguistic
Thought' in R.E. Asher, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Language and
Linguistics, 1994, Pergamon Press.
ix
X Notes on the Contributors
Mark R. Mullins, a specialist in the sociology of religion, is Associate
Professor at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo and Yokohama, and associ
ate editor for Japanese Religions and the Japan Christian Review. He has
published widely on the indigenisation of religion, and most recently co
edited Religion and Society in Modern Japan, Berkeley: Asian Humanities
Press, 1993.
Ohashi Yukihiro teaches at Musashi Junior High School, and specialises
in pre-modern Japanese history with a particular interest in Japanese
encounters with Christianity. Among his recent publications are 'Shiimon
aratame no seidoka to Kirishitan minshfi', (The Systemisation of the
Shumon Aratame and the Christian Populace), Rekishi Hyoron, 1992;
'Bakuhan Kenryoku ni totte Kirishitan Kinsei wa nan datta ka', ('The
Importance of the Christian Persecution for Bakufu Power') in Shinshiten:
Nihon no Rekishi 5: Kinseihen, Shinjinbutsu 6raisha, 1993, and
'Bakuhansei Kokka ni okeru Minshii no Kirishitankan' (Popular views of
Christianity in the Bakuhan State), Rekishigaku Kenkyu, 1993.
Notto R. Theile is Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of
Oslo, with special interest in interfaith studies. He was in Japan from 1969
to 1985 as missionary, Associate Director of the National Christian
Council Centre for the Study of Japanese religions and editor of Japanese
Religions. Among his recent publications are Buddhism and Christianity
in Japan: from Conflict to Dialogue, 1854-1899, University of Hawaii
Press, 1987, and, in Norwegian, a textbook on world religions for high
school students, and two collections of essays on the contemporary search
for religion.
Stephen Turnbull is the author of numerous books and articles on
Japanese military history, religion and related topics. He is currently
taking a part-time PhD on the subject of the Kakure Kirishitan at Leeds
University, working under the joint auspices of the Departments of East
Asian Studies and Theology and Religious Studies. His thesis examines
the evolution of the faith of the hidden Christians during the time of their
persecution as well as its manifestation in their communities of the present
day.
Christal Whelan is lecturer in English at Sophia University. Her main
research interests are the Portuguese presence in Japan and the hidden
Christians. Her recent publications include 'Religion Concealed: the
Kakure Kirishitan on Narushima', Monumenta Nipponica, 1992;