Letters on Japan: Saint Francis Xavier

On August 15, 1549, Francisco Xavier, a Jesuit missionary, along with a handful of followers, arrived on the Japanese island of Kyushu. He was accompanied by Anjiro, a Japanese native who had previously fled his homeland after killing a man. Anjiro (aka "Anger" or "Han-Siro") had been re-baptized "Paulo de Santa Fe," becoming the first Japanese convert to Christianity ever recorded.

In a series of letters, Xavier recounts his cultural and religious impressions of Japan, providing the West with one of the earliest windows into the area since Marco Polo's fabled "Zipangu."

His stay lasted only a couple of years, but he spurred a wave of missionary activity and became revered in western Christendom as the "Patron Saint of Japan." Melville, who typically reserved his harshest criticism for missionaries, observed that Xavier "despised not the savages," and admonished others to imitate his example.

Nevertheless, by the early seventeenth century, Xavier's followers would meet disaster. The tragic climax occurred in 1597, with the crucifixion of six Spanish Franciscans and twenty Japanese Christians, the expulsion of all foreign missionaries from Japan, and the nation's closure to the West for the next centuries.

Selected readings:

Book IV:

• Letter LXXIV (June 22 1549) - page 174 to 186
• Note #1 - page 208 to 215
• Note #2 - page 216 to 222 [optional]

Book V:

• Letter LXXIX (Nov 5 1549) - page 227 to 232
• Continued - page 237 to 260
• Letter LXXXVI (Jan 29, 1552) - page 331 to 350

Google books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Life_and_Letters_of_St_Francis_Xavie/lmABAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Supplemental:

"History of Catholicism in Japan": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kk7rZUr-6s&t=171s&ab_channel=franciscanfriars

"Silence - The Deconstruction of Faith" (interpretation of 2016 movie): https://youtu.be/Yj7SGe7FcYE

Extracts:

"It is too often the case, that civilized beings sojourning among savages soon come to regard them with disdain and contempt. But though in many cases this feeling is almost natural, it is not defensible; and it is wholly wrong....Xavier and Eliot despised not the savages; and had Newton or Milton dwelt among them, they would not have done so." ("Mr. Parkman's Tour")

"'I shrewdly suspect him,' was the eager response, 'for one of those Jesuit emissaries prowling all over our country. The better to accomplish their secret designs, they assume, at times, I am told, the most singular masques; sometimes, in appearance, the absurdest.'" (The Confidence Man, 18)

This meetup is part of a series on Japan Unbolted.