Silence - WordPress

SILENCESHUSA K U ENDO

BY THE SAME AUTHORVolcanoWhen I WhistleThe Sea and Poison

SilencebJSHUSAKU ENDOTranslated hyWilliam johnstonTaplinger Publishing CompanyNewYork

Ninth Paperback PrintingFirst published in paperback in 1980Copyright 1969 by Monumenta NipponiC'.aTranslated from the Japanese ChinmokuThis translation first published in 1969by Monumenta Nipponica, TokyoPrinted in the U.S.A.All rights reservedFor information, a d dress inquiries toTaplinger Publishing Company132 West 22nd StreetNew York, New York 100 1 1Ubrary o f Congress Catalog Card Number 78-27168ISBN 0-8008-7186-3

ContentsTranslator's PrefacePrologtteVll7Chapter 121Chapter 237Chapter 348Chapter 472Chapter 5121Chapter 6155Chapter 7185Chapter 8234Chapter 9260Chapter 10268Appendix287

efoceTranslator's PrHUSAKUSENDO has been called the JapaneseGraham Greene. If this means that he is a Catholicnovelist, that his books are problematic and contro versial, that his writing is deeply psychological, that hedepicts the aaguish of faith and the mercy of God-thenit is certainly true. For Mr. Endo has now come to theforefront of the Japanese literary world writing aboutproblems which at one time seemed remote from thiscountry: problems of faith and God, of sin and betrayal,of martyrdom and apostasy.Yet the central problem which has preoccupied Mr.Endo even from his early days is the conflict betweenEast and West, especially in its relationship to Chris tianity. Assuredly this is no new problem but one whichhe has inherited from a long line ofJapanese writers andintellectuals from the time ofMeiji; but Mr. Endo is thefirst Catholic to put it forward with such force and todraw the clear-cut conclusion that Christianity mustadapt itself radically if it is to take root in the 'swamp'of Japan. His most recent novel,Silence,deals WithVll

the troubled period of Japanese history known as 'theChristian century'-about which a word of introductionmay not be out of place.ICHRISTIANITY was brought to Japan by the BasqueFrancis Xavier, who stepped ashore at Kagoshima in theyearI549with two Jesuit companions and a Japaneseinterpreter. Within a few months of his arrival, Xavierhad fallen in love with theJapanese whom he called 'thejoy of his heart'. 'The people whom we have met so far',he wrote enthusiastically to his companions in Goa, 'arethe best who have as yet been discovered, and it seems tome that we shall never find . another race to equal theJapanese.' In spite of linguistic difficulties ('We are likestatues among them,' he lamented) he brought somehundreds to the Christian faith before departing forChina, the conversion of which seemed to him a neces sary prelude to that ofJapan. Yet Xavier never lost hislove of theJapanese; and, in an age that tended to relegateto some kind of inferno everyone outside Christen dom, it is refreshing to find him extolling the Japa nese for virtues which Christian Europeans did notpossess.The real architect of the Japanese mission, however,was not Xavier but the Italian, Alessandro Valignano,who united Xavier's enthusiasm to a remarkable fore sight and tenacity of purpose. By the time of his firstVlll

1579 there was already a flourishingof some 150,000 Christians, whose sterlingvisit to Japan incommunityqualities and deep faith inspired in Valignano the visionof a totally Christian island in the north of Asia. Obvi ously, however, such an island must quickly be purged ofall excessive foreign barbarian influence; and Valignano,anxious to entrust the infant Church to a local clergy withall possible speed, set about the founding of seminaries,colleges and a novitiate-promptly despatching to Ma cao Francisco Cabral, who strongly opposed the plan ofan indigenous Japanese Church. Soon things began tolook up: daimyos in Kyushu embraced the Christianfaith, bringing with them a great part of their subjects;and a thriving Japanese clergy took shape. ClearlyValignano had been building no castles in the air: hisdream was that of a sober realist.It should be noted that the missionary effort was ini tiated in the Sengoku Period whenJapan, torn by strifeamong the warring daimyos, had no strong centralgovernment. The distressful situation of the country,however, was not without advantages for the mis sionaries who, when persecuted in one fief, could quicklyshake the dust off their feet and betake themselves else where. But unification was close at hand; andJapan wassoon to be welded into that solid monolith which waseventually to break out over Asia in1940. The architectsof unity (Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu) were all onintimate terms with the Portuguese Jesuits, motivatedlX

partly by desire for trade with the black ships from Ma cao, partly (in the case of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi)by a deep dislike of Buddhism, and partly by the fasci nation of these cultured foreigners with whom theycould converse without fear of betrayal and loss ofprestige.Bethat as it may, from1570until1614themissionaries held such a privileged position at the courtof the Bakufu that their letters and reports are now thechief source of information for a period of history aboutwhichJapanese sources say little. All in all, the optimismof Valignano seemed to have ample justification.YetJapan can be a land of schizophrenic change; andjust what prompted the xenophobic outburst of Hide yoshi has never been adequately explained. For quitesuddenly, on July 24th1587, while in his cups, he flewinto a violent rage and ordered the missionaries to leavethe country.'I am resolved',ran his message, 'that thepadres should not stay onJapanese soil.I therefore orderthat having settled their affairs within twenty days, theymust return to their own country.'1 His anger, how ever, quickly subsided; most of the missionaries did notleave the country; and the expulsion decree became adead letter. So much so that C. R. Boxer can observethat within four short years there was 'a community ofmore than 200,000 converts increasing daily, and Hide yoshi defying his own prohibition by strolling throughISee C. R. Boxer,The Christian Century in 1apan, Universityof California Press, 1951, p. 148.X

the gilded halls of Juraku palace wearing a rosary andPortuguese dress.'2Nevertheless the writing was on the wall; and tenyears after the first outburst, Hideyoshi's anger over flowed again. This time it was occasioned by the pilotof a stranded Spanish ship who, in an effort to impressthe Japanese, boasted that the greatness of the SpanishEmpire was partly due to the missionaries who alwaysprepared the way for the armed forces of the Spanishking. When this news was brought to Hideyoshi he againboiled over and ordered the immediate execution of agroup of Christian missionaries. And so twenty-six,Japanese and European, were crucified on a cold winter'smorning in February 1597. Today, not far from Nagasakistation, there stands a monument to commemorate thespot where they died.Yet missionary work somehow continued with theJesuits apprehensive but still in favour at the royal court;and it was only under Hideyoshi's successor Ieyasu, thefirst of the Tokugawas, that the death sentence of themission became irrevocable. From the beginning, Ieyasuwas none too friendly toward Christianity, though hetolerated the missionaries for the sake of the silk tradewith Macao. But here things were changing: for theEnglish and the Dutch had arrived. Nor was it long beforethe role of interpreter and confidant was transferred from2Boxer, p. 153.Xl

the PortugueseJesuits to the English Will Adams-wholost no time in assuring the Shogun that many Europeanmonarchs distrusted these meddlesome priests and ex pelled them from their kingdoms. Ieyasu evinced thegreatest interest in the religious conflict that was rend ing Europe, questioning the English and the Dutchabout it again and again. At the same time his apprehen sion grew as he observed the unquestioning obedienceof his Christian subjects to their foreign guides.And so finally in1614the edict of expulsion waspromulgated declaring that 'the Kirishitan band havecome to Japan . . . longing to disseminate an evil law,to overthrow true doctrine, so that they may change thegovernment of the country, and obtain possession of theland. This is the germ of a great disaster, and must becrushed.'3 This was the death blow. It came at a timewhen there were about300,000Christians in Japan(whose total population was about twenty million) inaddition to colleges, seminaries, hospitals and a growinglocal clergy. 'It would be difficult', writes Boxer, 'if notimpossible, to find another highly civilized pagancountry where Christianity had made such a mark, notmerely in numbers but in influence.'4Even now, however, a desperate underground mission ary effort was kept alive until, under Ieyasu's successors,the hunt for Christians and priests became so systemati34xiiIhid. p. 318.Ihid. p. 321.

cally ruthless as to wipe out every visible vestige ofChristianity. Especially sa\'age was the third Tokugawa,the neurotic Iemitsu-'neither the infamous brutalityof the methods which he used to exterminate the Chris tians, nor the heroic constancy of the sufferers has everbeen surpassed in the long and painful history of martyr dom.'5At first the most common form of execution was burn ing; and the Englishman, Richard Cocks, describes howhe saw 'fifty-five persons of all ages and both sexes burntalive on the dry bed of the Kamo River in Kyoto (October1619) and among them little children offive or six yearsold in their mothers' arms, crying out, "Jesus receivetheir souls!"'. 6 Indeed, the executions began to be some thing of a religious spectacle, one of which Boxer des cribes as follows:150,000 people, ac 30,000 according toThis ordeal was witnessed bycording to some writers, orother and in all probability more reliable chroni clers. When the faggots were kindled, the martyrssaidrayonara (farewell) to the onlookers who thenbegan to intone the Magnificat, followed by thepsalms Laudate pueri Dominum and Laudate Domi num omner genter, while theJapanese judges sat onone side 'in affected majesty and gravity, as intheir favorite posture'. Since it had rained heavily56Ibid. p. 337·Ibid. p. 349·Xlll

the night before, the faggots were wet and thewood burnt slowly; but as long as the martyrdomlasted, the spectators continued to sing hymnsand canticles. When death put an end to thevictims' suffering, the crowd intoned theTeDeum Laudamus. 7But the Tokugawa Bakufu was not slow to see thatsuch 'glorious martyrdoms' were not serving the desiredpurpose; and bit by bit death was preceded by torturein a tremendous effort to make the martyrs apostatize.Among these tortures was the 'ana-tsurushi' or hangingin the pit, which quickly became the most effective meansof inducing apostasy:The victim was tightly bound around the bodyas high as the breast (one hand being left free togive the signal of recantation) and then hungdownwards from a gallows into a pit whichusually contained excreta and other filth, the topof the pit being level with his knees. In order togive the blood some vent, the forehead waslightly slashed with a knife. Some of the strongermartyrs lived for more than a week in this posi tion, but the majority did not survive more thana day or two.8A Dutch resident in Japan declared that 'some of thosewho had hung for two or three days assured me that the78XlVIbid. p. 342-3.Ibid. p. 354·