Ideology and Christianity in Japan
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Ideology and Christianity in Japan
Ideology and Christianity in Japan shows the major role played by Christianrelated discourse in the formation of early-modern and modern Japanese political ideology. The book traces the historical development of anti-Christian ideas in Japan from the banning of Christianity by the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 1600s, to the use of Christian and anti-Christian ideology in the construction of modern Japanese state institutions at the end of the 1800s. Kiri Paramore recasts the history of Christian-related discourse in Japan in a new paradigm showing its influence on modern thought and politics and demonstrates the direct links between the development of ideology in the modern Japanese state, and the construction of political thought in the early Tokugawa shogunate. Demonstrating hitherto ignored links in Japanese history between modern and early-modern, and between religious and political elements, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, religion and politics. Kiri Paramore is Assistant Professor in Japanese History at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He received his PhD in 2006 from the University of Tokyo.
Routledge/Leiden Series in Modern East Asian Politics and History Series editor: Rikki Kersten
Through addressing ideas about history and politics in the modern period, and by encouraging comparative and inter-disciplinary work amongst East Asian specialists, the Leiden Series on Modern East Asian History and Politics seeks to combine Area Studies’ focus on primary sources in the vernacular, with a distinct disciplinary edge. The Leiden Series focuses on philosophy, politics, political thought, history, the history of ideas, and foreign policy as they relate to modern East Asia, and will emphasise theoretical approaches in all of these fields. As well as single-authored volumes, edited or multi-authored submissions that bring together a range of country specialisations and disciplines are welcome. 1. Political Philosophy in Japan Nishida, the Kyoto school and co-prosperity Christopher Goto-Jones 2. The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy Essays in Honour of J. A. A. Stockwin Edited by Rikki Kersten and David Williams 3. Re-Politicising the Kyoto School as Philosophy Christopher Goto-Jones 4. Ideology and Christianity in Japan Kiri Paramore
Ideology and Christianity in Japan
Kiri Paramore
First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2009 Kiri Paramore All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Paramore, Kiri. Ideology and Christianity in Japan / Kiri Paramore. p. cm. -- (Routledge/Leiden series in modern East Asian politics and history) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). 1. Christianity and politics – Japan – History. 2. Christianity – Japan – Controversial literature – History and criticism. 3. Japan – History – Tokugawa period, 1600–1868. 4. Japan – History – Meiji period, 1868–1912. I. Title. BR1306.P37 2009 275.2–dc22 2008025215 ISBN 0-203-88562-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–44356–3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–88562–7 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–44356–2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–88562–8 (ebk)
Contents
Key to abbreviations and notes on translation Introduction
vii 1
Uncovering the politics of anti-Christian discourse 3 Outline 5
1 Japanese Christian thought: doctrinal diversity or civilizational clash?
10
Habian: on the front line of ‘the clash of civilizations’ 10 Currents of Japanese Christian thought: contrasting genres 12 Myōtei Mondō: creation, ethics and afterlife 13 Dochirina Kirishitan: hierarchy, faith and sin 18 Internal Japanese Jesuit texts: scholasticism and humanism 23 Ricci’s Chinese Christianity: Confucianism meets Christ 25 Ricci and Habian: two discourses, two worlds 29 Conclusion: Christianity in Japan – a broad church 31
2 Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity: parallels and interactions Myōtei Mondō: harnessing Confucianism to Christianity 35 Japanese Confucianism and Christianity: two discourses, one conflict 37 Early Japanese Confucianism: individual versus institution 39 Confucians and Christians: fighting the same battles 41 Hadaiusu: apostasy or adaptation? 42 Hadaiusu explored: elements of continuity 45 Conclusion: Habian’s tenkō and the role of autonomy in politics and society 50
34
vi Contents
3 Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse: proclamations, populist literature and diplomacy
52
The political roots of the suppression of Christianity 53 The spread of the suppression and its political consequences 54 Proclamations: a call to order 56 Populist texts: a political project 58 Kirishitan Monogatari: dehumanization and derision 59 Suzuki Shōsan: tradition as legitimation 61 The ‘anti-Christian canon’ reconsidered: politics over doctrine 64 Haiyaso: constructing a Confucian–Christian dichotomy 66 Diplomatic correspondence: in search of a Confucian base 70 Hayashi Razan’s diplomatic dichotomies 71 Changes in the east Asian order 75 Conclusion: anti-Christian discourse as ideological construct and political tool 76
4 Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’: ideological uses of early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse
78
Confucianism’s role in the early Tokugawa shogunate 79 Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’ 81 The Ishikawa Jōzan letters: Delineating heterodoxy, expanding sectarianism 82 Sōzoku zenkōki: record of rebellion 87 Sōzoku zenkōki: was Razan its author? 88 Sōzoku zenki: ‘anti-Christian’ attacks on Kumazawa Banzan and Soshin 89 Sōzoku kōki: Marshalling the discourse on ‘heterodox thought’ 95 Comparisons, conclusions and questions 98
5 Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse: continuity and change Putting down the cudgels: The mid-Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse of Arai Hakuseki, Ogyū Sorai and Miura Baien 104 Arai Hakuseki’s Wild West: Taking cues from China 105 Hakuseki’s Christian–Confucian problematic: Governance and loyalty 107 Hakuseki’s Honsarokukō: Ambivalence revealed 109 Ogyū Sorai: Christianity as scholarly object 111
103
Contents vii Miura Baien: The Christian threat returns 113 Late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse: Mito Learning, Christianity and ideology 115 Fujita Yūkoku and Sonnō jōi thought: Ordering the ruling classes 116 Aizawa Seishisai and Kokutairon: Harnessing the masses 118 Seishisai’s Kikōben: A focus on Christianity 120 Tokugawa Nariaki’s Hajashū and Sokkyohen: Creating an antiChristian canon 121 Kiyū Dōjin’s Hekijashū and Hekijakankenroku: Pure-land Buddhism’s role 123 Sokkyohen and Hekijakankenroku: Confucians and Buddhists in anti-Christian concert 125 Yasui Sokken: The post-Restoration continuities of antiChristian discourse 127 Conclusion: Transformation and continuity 129
6 Meiji anti-Christian discourse: modern national ideology and conservatism
131
The two Inoues 133 Inoue Enryō: the Imperial Constitution and religion 134 Enryō’s philosophical ‘truth’: ‘transcending’ Hegel 137 Meiji political debate and the Imperial Rescript on Education 141 The Rescript Explicated: Inoue Tetsujirō’s commentary 142 The Uchimura Kanzō Incident 146 ‘The clash between education and religion’ 148 ‘The Clash’ and egalitarianism 150 History making and making history 153 Eastern ‘philosophy’ versus Christian ‘religion’ 156 Conclusion: discursive fusion and enduring dichotomies 158
Conclusion
161
Reading anti-Christian discourse: whose frameworks? 161 Building ideology with history 162 Modern secularization or something more? 164
Notes Select bibliography Index
167 200 221
Key to abbreviations and notes on translation
Abbreviations – Languages Jp. = Japanese Ch. = Chinese Lat. = Latin Port. = Portuguese
Abbreviations – source collection titles 1. KKRS: Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan kyōrishoキリシタン教 理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993. KKRS DC – Dochirina Kirishitanドチリナ・キリシタン (1600 printing) KKRS EA – Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, “Kaidai” 解題 KKRS KE – Kirishitan kokoroegaki吉利支丹心得書 KKRS MT – Myōtei Mondō 妙貞問答 KKRS NK – Nihon no katekizumo 日本ノカテキズモ 2. NST25: Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道 (et al., eds) Kirishitansho/Haiyasho キリシタン書・排耶書, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想体系, vol. 25, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970. 3. NST28: Ishida Ichirō 石田一郎 (et al., eds), Fujiwara Seika / Hayashi Razan, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 28, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975. 4. NST29: Bitō Masahide 尾藤正英 (et al., eds), Nakae Tōju中江藤樹, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 29, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974. 5. NST30: Gotō Yōichi後藤陽一 (et al., eds), Kumazawa Banzan熊沢蕃山, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 30, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971. 6. NST35: Matsumura Akira 松村明 (et al., eds) Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 35, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975. 7. NST36: Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 (et al., eds.) Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. 8. NST47: Nakamura Yukihiko中村幸彦 (et al., eds) Kinsei kōki juka shū近世 後期儒家集, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 47, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. 9. NST53: Imai Usaburō 今井宇三郎 (et al., eds), Mitogaku 水戸学, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 53, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. 10. ZX: Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集注, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983.
Abbreviations and translation ix
Notes on translation This book includes liberal use of quotations from historical sources, the vast majority of which have been translated by the author. Where other translations are used this is noted. The translations by the author cover Chinese and Japanese language sources from over a 300-year period. A good number of these translations, especially a large percentage of the translations in Chapter 4 and towards the end of Chapter 5, are done directly from manuscript sources which have never been printed or translated and which have only rarely been referred to in academic literature. Other translations, however, reference modern Japanese collections which reprint more well-known original source material in the original form but in typed characters. These comprise the majority of sources used in Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5. At some points in Chapters 3 and 5 I also reference volumes of Nihon shisō taikei (NST) where originally Chinese language (kanbun) Japanese sources have been rendered by the process of kundoku or kakikudashi into a new word order matching rules of classical Japanese grammar. Translations of these sources, primarily a percentage of the writings quoted from Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan contained in NST28, writings by Kumazawa Banzan contained in NST30, and writings by Fujita Yūkoku and Aizawa Seishisai contained in NST53, were checked against printed kanbun versions in the Bunshū collections of each of these authors. Notes are given to the popular NST series for ease of reference.
Introduction
February 27th, 1925, the day after the ratification of the Japanese–Russian Treaty, I find myself writing the introduction to my history of the thought of the early Tokugawa period.1 How strange! The present government of Russia is a Soviet government. It is a Red government. The Japanese Empire, the fundamental national character [kokutai 国体]2 of which is unique in the world, requires great self-confidence in order to sign a treaty with such a country. Concretely, it requires us to assume that regardless of the resumption of relations we need not be afraid of infection by Russian Redness or of infiltration by Russian Communism. Can we be confident that the Japanese masses will under no circumstances be moved by the incursions of other kinds of thought? I have no hesitation in strongly declaring in the affirmative. The development of a unique Japanese thought [capable of resisting external ideas] dates from the foundation of Japan itself. But if we enquire as to the recent diffusion of this unique outlook among the masses, we must say that this dates from the thought of the Tokugawa period.3 For Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰 (1863–1957), one of the most influential political writers of late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century Japan, the anti-communist stance of the modern Japanese nation he was living in was intimately linked to the anti-Christian stance of the Tokugawa shogunate (1600–1868). Both were examples of ‘unique Japanese thought’ and its ability to resist ‘the incursions of other kinds of thought’. The idea that since antiquity ‘unique Japanese thought’ had existed as a defining feature of the nation was a key element of modern Japanese imperial ideology. Indeed, this kind of essentialism played a role in the ideological construction of most modern nations. At the core of the modern Japanese empire’s version of nationalist ideology was the concept of kokutai – the unique, unchanging and defining character of the Japanese nation since time immemorial. For Tokutomi, as for many other mainstream writers and historians before and since, the nature of kokutai and Japanese anti-Christian discourse were linked.4 In Japanese history there have been two major outbreaks of anti-Christian writing, propaganda and discourse. The first occurred in the decades after the banning and suppression of Christianity in Japan by the Tokugawa shogunate
2
Introduction
through the early and mid-1600s, at the same time as the Tokugawa shogunal systems of governance were established. The second began during the decline and fall of the Tokugawa shogunate from the early 1800s and continued through the Meiji Restoration and well into the twentieth century. The peak of this second wave of anti-Christian discourse occurred in the late 1880s and early 1890s, at the same time as important new institutions and instruments of the modern Meiji state were being established. The Imperial Constitution and the Imperial Rescript on Education were promulgated in this period, and it was through them that key elements of modern national ideology, like the meaning of the term kokutai, became embedded in the public consciousness and state structures of modern Japan.5 These two waves of anti-Christian discourse occurred during the formations of what are generally described as the early modern and modern Japanese states respectively, which makes it surprising that no study until now has examined the phenomenon across both periods. In modern Japan, anti-Christian discourse clearly played an ideological role, and that role has been acknowledged.6 Yet the history of anti-Christian discourse in the early Tokugawa period has always been narrated in a religious paradigm emphasizing a clash between Eastern and Western religious cultures, leaving its political implications often ignored. The two periods of anti-Christian discourse have thereby ended up being examined as two discrete and unconnected phenomena – one political, one religious. Looking at them in tandem opens a new array of questions, particularly relating to the political role of early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse and its later effects. Was early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse the forerunner of its modern equivalent? If not, how was it different? If there were similarities, does that mean that early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse also helped shape modern Japanese ideology? Did anti-Christian discourse play an ideological role in the Tokugawa period? If so, how was that ideological role linked to the objectives of the regime or those within it? What were the links, if any, between Tokugawa and Meiji anti-Christian discourse and their ideological roles? These questions are not only of central importance in understanding the role of anti-Christian ideas in Japanese society. They have important implications for the study of larger issues relating to the nature of the continuity between the Tokugawa and Meiji states, the role of political thought in Tokugawa Japan, and the relationship between the political and ideological systems of each state. Those questions of Japanese history furthermore link into larger issues of world history relating to the nature of early modernity and political modernization. In particular, these questions have implications for the way we look at the roles of ideology, religion and secularization in establishing what some would simply call central political control, and others might call political modernity. The formation of a unifying national ideology is considered one of the characteristics of the modern nation-state. The national ideology of what is usually identified as the modern Japanese nation-state, the Japanese empire of 1868–1945, has been a major topic of discussion in post-WWII Japan. The strongly cohesive, integrating nature of modern imperial Japanese national ideology is often linked
Introduction
3
to the negative (authoritarian, ultra-nationalist, fascist) characteristics with which that state eventually came to be associated.7 It is fascinating to note that these same culturally integrating and ordering aspects of a state are the very features that some influential commentators also suggest define a state’s ‘modern’ nature.8 One theme of this book is to link exploration of what role anti-Christian discourse played in this modern and nationalist ideology with its ideological role before the establishment of the Meiji state – during the Tokugawa state. Therefore, in this book I refer to at least two different kinds of ideology. When I refer to the nationalist ideology of the modern Japanese state, or ‘modern ideology’, I refer to a cohesive system of social control which was clearly deliberately manufactured by Meiji oligarchs in the late 1800s to replicate the intellectual/religious systems which they considered provided national cohesion and social control in European states: the ideology of modern nationalism.9 But I also discuss the deployment of ideology in Tokugawa Japan. In this latter case I refer not to a totalistic national ideology, but to broader uses of discourse for power political purposes during the course of the Tokugawa period. In the case of the Tokugawa state these uses were sometimes statist, but seldom nationalist. They also were clearly not in any shape as monolithic as was the construction of ideology in the Meiji period.10 In relation to both these forms and periods, I recall the contemporary political scientist Michael Freeden’s definition of ‘ideologies’ as not simply dogmas, but real forms of political thinking. Concretely Freeden has defined ideologies as: 1) importantly attached to social groups or classes; 2) performing a range of services, such as legitimation, integration, socialization, ordering, simplification, and action-orientation, without which societies could not function adequately, if at all; 3) reflecting variegated perceptions, misperceptions, and conceptualizations of existing social worlds; 4) being inevitably associated with power; and 5) consisting of actual arrangements of political thinking.11 I use the word ideology broadly following this definition.12 I think it is also important to delineate ideology and ideological discourse from broader conceptualizations of ‘discourse’. As Terry Eagleton has noted in his criticism of what he calls Foucault’s ‘abandonment of the concept of ideology altogether’: ‘the force of the term ideology [as opposed to ‘discourse’] lies in its capacity to discriminate between those power struggles which are somehow central to a whole form of social life, and those which are not’.13 Eagleton’s point here parallels Michael Freeden’s insistence on the importance of delineating ideology as a subject of enquiry in its own right.14
Uncovering the politics of anti-Christian discourse Although no comprehensive study has been made of anti-Christian discourse in Japan linking the early modern and modern periods, there has been a range of conjecture over the role of early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse in the overall political history of Japan. Much of that conjecture has related to larger theoretical issues concerning the role of religion and processes of secularization in political modernization. The most powerful comment on the potential centrality of
4
Introduction
Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse in the mainstream history of Japanese political thought was made by the scholar who still defines that field today. Although the comments were published only in 2000, it was back in 1966 that Maruyama Masao 丸山真男 (1914–96) made an argument that runs against the grain of almost all other scholarship on anti-Christian discourse, including most of that written since. Rather than focusing on the ‘foreignness’ of Christianity as the cause of anti-Christian activity – something most mainstream historians continued to do right through the twentieth century – Maruyama posited that the prohibition of Christianity was indicative of a much more significant and universal historical development. We should not focus on each individual ruler’s policy of prohibiting Christianity as a ‘foreign religion’, but rather look at the prohibition of Christianity from within the context of the overall process of domestic political change which occurred in Japan from the end of the Muromachi period through into the Tokugawa period. This process gave birth to early-modern systems of control, bringing religious power in general into confrontation with secular authority, religious influence in the end becoming completely subordinated to the latter in one of history’s great moments of change.15 Maruyama here suggested that the large-scale suppression of the power of organized Buddhist religious and lay people by war lord leaders in the second half of the sixteenth century was closely related to the later suppression of Christianity, and was part of the birth of ‘early-modern systems of control’. For Maruyama, the suppression of Christianity in Japan in the early seventeenth century was not a function of it being ‘Western’ or ‘foreign’. He saw the suppression of Christianity as part of a longer historical process dating back to the 1500s by which the influence of religion in general (notably including Buddhism) had been utterly subjugated to political authority. For a scholar whose career began in resistance to an authoritarian state – the power of which was justified in large part through the use of an ideologically manufactured state religion (the militarist Japanese empire of the 1930s and early 1940s) – this analysis had important and obvious modern political ramifications.16 This was especially the case seeing as Maruyama had famously explained the emergence of the authoritarian pre-WWII order in Japan as in large part determined by the development of political thought during the Tokugawa period – a development which began with the suppression of Christianity.17 Some contemporary Japanese scholars, including some whose theoretical approach is quite different to Maruyama’s, have followed him in this analysis of the significant political role of anti-Christian activity in Japanese history. Kurozumi Makoto, for instance, has written of the image of Christianity in Tokugawa Japan as ‘an imagined rather than real projection of what was alien to the consciousness of order, a necessary “demon”, an oppositional figure against which the early modern Japanese order was established’.18 Through the Tokugawa period itself, however, the suppression of Christianity was represented and justified through a pervasive anti-Christian discourse which
Introduction
5
argued that Christianity was a ‘Western’ or ‘barbarian’ religion, one inherently opposed to ‘Eastern’, ‘Japanese’, ‘civilized’ ethical and religious systems. This discourse in turn heavily influenced modern historical representations of the suppression of Christianity from the late nineteenth into most of the twentieth century.19 Today, most scholarship presents the suppression of Christianity in more complex terms.20 Yet the history of anti-Christian discourse itself is even today still typically characterized, in intellectual history terms, as a ‘clash’ between ‘Western religion’ and ‘Eastern religious systems’.21 In other words, much scholarship on this period, while acknowledging the structural political realities that lay behind the suppression of Christianity, has nevertheless tended to analyse the role of ideas in this process from a culturalist perspective, labelling ideas ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’, and narrating the flow of history as a determined function of an essentialized conception of ‘culture’. This has almost invariably led to the anti-Christian activity and propaganda of the Tokugawa period being explained in terms of the same ‘clash of cultures’ discourse which it itself projects. This is despite the fact that most anti-Christian writing emerged after nearly all Christian elements had been eradicated from Japanese society. This indicates, as will be explored further in the following chapters, that the key political and ideological drivers for anti-Christian writing lay not in some clash between Eastern and Western religions and cultures, but in concrete conflicts occurring in domestic Japanese politics. It is also important to note that the anti-Christian activity of the early Tokugawa period appears to have occurred as part of a broader trend of political suppression of certain religious and minority groups in Japanese society. As pointed out by Maruyama, that trend began with attempts by warlords before Oda Nobunaga to suppress the Ikkō Ikki in the sixteenth century.22 It continued through the course of the Tokugawa period not only as anti-Christian activity, but also through attacks on and demonization of members of Japanese society by a range of other sectarian means, including associating them with non-Christian religions like the Fujufuseha sect of Nichiren Buddhism, or with certain caste and social groups like the Kawata.23 A study of this entire process would require a much larger treatment than is possible in this short volume. This book focuses only on the history of anti-Christian discourse in Japan from 1600 to 1900 – charting its development and political utilization through both its peak periods in the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries.24
Outline At the outset, such a study needs to overcome the culturalist representation of the relationship between Christian and anti-Christian thought in the late sixteenth/ early seventeenth century as some kind of ‘clash’ between ‘Western and Eastern thought traditions’. A solid history of anti-Christian discourse over the entire Tokugawa period first requires us to revisit both the early anti-Christian discourse of the seventeenth century – the source of most anti-Christian writings of the Tokugawa period – and also the Japanese Christian writing with which it is so often compared.25
6
Introduction
Therefore, before embarking on an examination of early Tokugawa antiChristian discourse, the initial chapter of this book first addresses the Japanese Christian thought of the late 1500s and early 1600s. This chapter concentrates on bringing out the intellectual diversity found within these texts. In addition to discussing the different approaches and different genres of Christian texts in Japan during this period, this chapter also makes clear the significant influence of Confucian and other East Asian thought on Japanese Christian texts. This chapter thereby significantly reforms the classic representation of early Japanese Christian thought as some kind of simple representation of doctrinaire Catholicism or some kind of monolithic tradition of ‘Western thought’. Instead it demonstrates the high level of diversity, syncretistic tendencies and significant social and intellectual integration of some elements of the Japanese Christian thought of this time. The second chapter considers the broader intellectual context of early Tokugawa Japan. Building on the revision of the image of Japanese Christian thought presented in Chapter 1, this chapter uncovers similar intellectual diversity, conflict and pluralism in the emergent Japanese Neo-Confucian thought of this period. Comparing a range of conflicts within both traditions, this chapter points to overlaps and parallels between developments within these two traditions at this time. Focusing on the implications for political thought of these overlapping conflicts, this chapter suggests that the intellectual context of early Tokugawa Japan should not be seen as a field of conflict between competing traditions, but perhaps rather as a period of general intellectual change across traditions, linked more to the massive changes in political culture occurring at the time. This chapter thereby suggests that the shift towards a heavy focus on intellectual orthodoxy within Confucianism, and the emergence of anti-Christian sectarian thought and more conservative Christian thought in place of pluralist Christian and Tentō Confucian thought, may have been part of the same trend in Japanese thought at this time towards a reduction of diversity, a concentration on orthodoxy, and integration with political power.26 After considering this broader intellectual context relating to the interaction between different traditions and political authority in the early Tokugawa period, the third chapter begins our examination of the history of anti-Christian discourse in Japan. This chapter first revisits the history of the Tokugawa shogunate’s initial suppression of Christianity between 1612 and 1614, and confirms the non-religious power-political context and motivations for the ban. We then examine the first official government anti-Christian discourse of the suppression, the shogunateissued anti-Christian proclamations. After looking at the very limited number of anti-Christian writings dating from the actual period of suppression, the chapter then moves on to study the genre that represents the majority of anti-Christian writings from the seventeenth century – the populist anti-Christian literature that emerged in the 1640s, 1650s and 1660s. It is this literature that makes up the bulk of the ‘canon’ of anti-Christian texts examined in most histories of this period.27 Here it is noted that one obvious reason why Christianity was not seriously addressed was that nearly all these ‘anti-Christian’ texts were produced after the
Introduction
7
annihilation of Christianity in Japan was complete. This fact alone directs our inquiry towards other motivations for the production of anti-Christian discourse in the Japan of this time. By examining a range of these texts, we confirm that even at this early stage, most arguments presented in anti-Christian literature were not doctrinal or religious but focused on issues of political order and conservatism. The last third of this chapter deals with a different field of anti-Christian discourse from this period, one which has been virtually ignored until now: the employment of anti-Christian discourse in diplomatic correspondence. The more simplistic anti-Christian discourse of the commonly examined populist texts develops in a more significantly ideological fashion in the diplomatic correspondence. Most notably, at this time diplomatic writers like Hayashi Razan develop a Christian– Confucian dichotomy which they deploy in letters to China in a manner that allows them to harness broader East Asian international relations discourses like the ‘civilization–barbarism’ paradigm of imperial China. This development shows anti-Christian discourse already, at this early stage, being deliberately deployed for state-related political uses and developed within more complex ideological frameworks. The fourth chapter examines the evolution of this same kind of more developed anti-Christian discourse in intra-elite political confrontations in mid-seventeenthcentury Japan. The sources of anti-Christian discourse examined in this chapter include letters and pamphlets distributed among leading intellectual figures involved in intra-shogunal political conflicts. Like the diplomatic documents examined in the previous chapter, nearly all the sources used in this chapter have not been properly examined in any previous research on anti-Christian writing. As opposed to the commonly examined populist literature of the same period, these documents show development of anti-Christian discourse, again often in terms of a Confucian–Christian dichotomy, in a manner clearly meant to serve immediate political purposes. The research presented in this chapter leaves it in no doubt that even by the 1650s the use of anti-Christian discourse had little connection with the Christian issue. Anti-Christian discourse had rather become a brand or discursive tool for delineating intellectual and political orthodoxy and heterodoxy and for attacking clearly non-Christian political enemies and ideas. These chapters thereby establish the extent of ideological use of anti-Christian discourse during the consolidation of Tokugawa power and the construction of the Tokugawa state in the mid-1600s. By the late 1600s, as the structure of Tokugawa governance solidified, anti-Christian discourse in Japan declined. There would not be another wave of popular anti-Christian writing until the 1800s. The fifth chapter traces the history of anti-Christian discourse through the rest of the Tokugawa period, noting isolated anti-Christian writing of the eighteenth century, including that of some of the most influential Japanese thinkers of this period such as Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) and Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725). The bulk of this chapter, however, concentrates on the beginnings of the second outbreak of anti-Christian discourse, which occurred in the so-called bakumatsu period as the Tokugawa shogunate began to fall apart. Here we examine a range
8
Introduction
of anti-Christian writings by some of the most important ideological thinkers of this period. In particular, this chapter pays close attention to anti-Christian writings by Mito scholars, such as Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎 (1782–1863), who are considered to have been instrumental in building the base of Japanese imperial ideology. The key focus is on writings that concretely connect the early and later Tokugawa waves of anti-Christian discourse, the most important of which are two edited collections of early Tokugawa anti-Christian writings that appear to have been edited by Aizawa Seishisai. These collections, the Mito Lord Tokugawa Nariaki’s 徳川斉昭 (1800–60) Sokkyohen 息距編 (1860) and the head of the Jōdo (Pure Land) sect of Buddhism Kiyū Dōjin’s 杞憂道 人 (also known as Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定) (1814–91) Hekijakankenroku 闢 邪管見録 (1861), were not only popular and influential publications at the time, they have also gone on to become the major sources of early Tokugawa anti-Christian writing used in academic research during the twentieth century. This chapter thereby shows not only the relationship between early and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse, but also examines the significant influence of late Tokugawa anti-Christian Mito scholarship on modern and contemporary academic writing on early Tokugawa history. This link is crucial to the question of ideology, given that key elements of modern imperial Japanese ideology – such as the concepts of kokutai and sonnō jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) – originated among Mito Confucian thinkers. The sixth chapter squarely examines the direct role of this second wave of antiChristian discourse in the formation of Meiji ideology. While the previous chapter touches on the links between anti-Christian discourse and originally Mito ideas like kokutai and sonnō jōi that went on to be key elements in Meiji ideology, this chapter examines direct engagement of questions of political ideology through anti-Christian arguments in the 1880s and 1890s. In particular, this chapter concentrates on the role of anti-Christian discourse, and ideas on religion in general, in the authorship and promulgation of the Constitution of the Greater Japanese Empire (Imperial Constitution) and the Imperial Rescript on Education. Here it is argued that a range of the political interpretations that came to be associated with imperial Japanese ideology through the promulgation of these documents were established through public discourse and debate centred on the ‘Uchimura Kanzō Incident’ and the ‘Debate on the Clash Between Education and Religion’, both of which rested on anti-Christian discourse. The anti-Christian discourse deployed in this period, however, was remarkably different to that of the early and late Tokugawa period, in that its chief arguments against religion were imported from Europe. This discourse, while also using Tokugawa anti-Christian arguments, was often set in a more internationalized philosophical and political context. In sources from the 1890s, we see the clear influence of Western theories about the nature of modern nation states, ‘national ethics’, ‘social organism theory’ and other ideas guiding modern national ideology formation in many different parts of the world. This gives us the opportunity to potentially isolate different elements of Meiji ideology which were affected either by the international intellectual milieu, or alternatively by the political tradition of anti-Christian discourse dating back
Introduction
9
to the early modern era. It also gives us the opportunity to look at the interplay of different ideas, both modern and pre-modern, in the formation of national ideology; and thereby perhaps to even question some of the assumed parameters often applied to so-called political modernization.
1
Japanese Christian thought Doctrinal diversity or civilizational clash?
What is the object of the ‘anti’ in Japanese anti-Christian discourse? Generally, it is naturally assumed to be ‘Christianity’, in particular the Christian thought that arose and was popularized in Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, directly before the ban on Catholicism and the advent of mass antiChristian activity in the mid-seventeenth century. But is that true? Was there actually any concrete relationship between the Christian and anti-Christian discourses of seventeenth-century Japan, and if so what was the nature of that relationship? Answering this question is crucial to unpacking the political relevance of anti-Christian discourse, including its role in modern ideology formation. The assumption that anti-Christian discourse was a reaction to Christianity in Tokugawa Japan has fed narratives in mainstream historical writing on Japan that emphasize cultural (particularist) rather than structural (universalist) approaches. The history of Japanese anti-Christian thought has thereby been employed consistently to justify particularist political conceptions of nationhood.1 For this reason any honest attempt to examine the political function of anti-Christian thought in Japanese history must begin by identifying the characteristics and functions of Christian thought in early Tokugawa Japan and the nature of its relationship with anti-Christian ideas. This chapter examines Japanese Christian thought of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, concentrating on those writers and ideas that were most influential and most likely to interact with or provoke anti-Christian discourse. One useful place to start that examination is with the work of a Japanese Christian who later went on to play a defining role in the development of anti-Christian discourse.
Habian: on the front line of ‘the clash of civilizations’ Habian ハビアン (1565–1621) – also known as Fabian, Fukansai Habian 不干斎 巴鼻庵, Hapian ハピアン, Habiyan ハビヤン, and Fukan 不干 – was a prominent Jesuit apologist, public speaker, and author of the famous Japanese Jesuit text Myōtei Mondō 妙貞問答. Through these activities he came to be identified as the most influential of all Japanese Christian thinkers of the so-called first period of
Japanese Christian thought
11
Christianity in Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.2 As the most competent Japanese Jesuit rhetorician of his time, Habian was dispatched from Nagasaki in 1603 to the ‘Jesuit Temple’ in the Japanese capital, Kyoto. While there, Habian not only authored Myōtei Mondō, but moreover became widely known in the city as a charismatic orator and representative of the Jesuits in debates against notable Buddhist and Confucian figures. By 1608, however, Habian seems to have left the Jesuits. Notably, this was before the Tokugawa shogunate’s active persecution of Christians that began in 1613–14. By 1620, Habian was back in Nagasaki, but seemingly not on the Christian side. Indeed, he is said to have participated in the suppression of Christianity, most notably through his authorship of Hadaius, a work that went on to become the most famous antiChristian text of this period.3 After Habian’s death, the dramatic story of his life, in particular his so-called ‘apostasy’, appeared as a theme in a range of literary works.4 Thenceforth, Habian’s Jesuit and post-Jesuit ideas, together with his personal history, came to be presented through a virulent anti-Christian discourse as an example of the intellectual and political clash between ‘Japan’ and the ‘the West’. In other words, his ideas and actions came to be understood in terms of an imagined, constructed conflict between images of ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘non-Japaneseness’.5 Interestingly, this same framework, constructed by anti-Christian polemicists in the Tokugawa period, has also been the one through which most historians of the twentieth century have analysed not just Habian’s works, but indeed the Japanese Christian thought of this period in general. In almost all the twentieth-century research on this period, Japanese Christian writing such as Habian’s Jesuit-period work Myōtei Mondō has been highly valued as a source of Japanese intellectual history; but that value has been discussed in terms of its role in ‘challenging traditional Japanese thought’ by ‘introducing Western thought’ to Japan.6 In other words, Japanese Christian writings such as Habian’s have been examined in terms of a historiography which assumes a priori a pair of mutually exclusive categories called ‘Eastern thought’ and ‘Western thought’. Rather than treating Habian’s Christian thought as original work, scholars have often approached it as some kind of ‘translation’ of ‘Western thought’; and Habian’s ‘apostasy’ has thereby inevitably been portrayed as a reaction against this ‘Western thought’. Habian has thus been a tool in Japanese historiography for making value judgements about the highs and lows of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ thought, and by extension politics and culture. In pre-WWII fascist-period research, Habian’s apostasy was seen as a ‘return to the true [non-Christian] path’.7 Conversely, in the postwar period a whole genre of so-called ‘Christian history research’, led by Ebisawa Arimichi, emerged in reaction. In this postwar writing, Habian’s apostasy was historicized as a representation of the shogunate’s ‘irrational’ reaction against the ‘good teachings’ of Western philosophy and Christianity.8 The political inclination changed, but the East–West framework remained the same. Even in much later scholarly criticisms of this kind of ‘Christian history research’, a good example being George Elison’s Deus Destroyed, the same image
12
Japanese Christian thought
of Habian’s Jesuit-period work as a representative of ‘Western thought’ was retained. Elison’s work, while at times more nuanced and offering impressive new research, in the end presents an argument that basically just inverts the ‘Japanese Christian history’ approach championed by Ebisawa, which itself was an inversion of the nationalist historiography of the likes of Shinmura and before him Inoue Tetsujirō.9 This historiography was itself intimately linked to the basis of Japanese modern ideology. Today, the dominant historical views on this period, represented either by Ebisawa and his followers, or by Elison, continue to analyse Habian’s ideas in terms of categories which present ‘Japanese’ and ‘Western’ thought traditions as mutually exclusive opposites engaged in conflict. They thereby continue to work in frameworks clearly derived from Tokugawa-period anti-Christian discourse itself. These are also the same frameworks which supported the formation of modern ideology in Meiji Japan, and indeed which ironically also potentially support the historically inaccurate and politically dangerous ‘clash of civilization’ arguments so in vogue through the late 1990s and early 2000s, and which so closely resemble the nationalist ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is ample evidence, however, to suggest that intellectual and religious discourse in Japan in the late 1500s and early 1600s was far from the polarized image of mutually exclusive ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ thought discussed above. For instance, one of the most important terms used in Myōtei Mondō is Confucian (Jingireichishin 仁義礼智信 benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith); and much of the logic of the argument relies on a Buddhist paradigm adopted by Song Confucians, the tiyong 体用 (Jp. taiyō) dichotomy.10 Furthermore, significant trends of Confucian thought popular in Japan at this time had many elements in common with what was identified as Christian thought. In fact the content of texts which later came to be labelled as part of separate ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ thought traditions often overlapped to such an extent that 1970s research on some Japanese Tentō Confucian texts of the early seventeenth century mistakenly claimed that these texts were written by Christians.11 What this suggests is that the various intellectual currents and traditions should not be taken in isolation, and must be considered in the context of their production and utilization.
Currents of Japanese Christian thought: contrasting genres Examining Japanese Christian thought in the broader context of other Japanese thought of the same period recommends a focus on those Japanese Christian texts which had the most currency in general society. So although this chapter deals with a wide array of Japanese Christian texts designed for use both inside and outside the Jesuit order, and by both Christians and non-Christians, I pay particular attention to texts that had the most impact outside the purely religious communities. Myōtei Mondō 妙貞問答, Dochirina Kirishitan ドチリな・キリ シタン, and Tianzhu Shiyi (Jp. Tenshu Jitsugi) 天主実義 seem to have been the three most popular Christian texts in early seventeenth-century Japan written in Japanese or Chinese. All three texts were written to promote Christianity to non-
Japanese Christian thought
13
believers or recent converts, with an agnostic or non-Christian Japanese (or in the case of Tianzhu Shiyi, Chinese) readership in mind; and all three were deployed not only within Christian communities, but also in the wider Japanese community. These three texts were not only the most referenced and popularly disseminated Christian texts of the early Tokugawa period, they also fortuitously happen to represent three major kinds of author of Jesuit texts read in Japan. Myōtei Mondō is a completely original piece, full of in-depth references to Asian intellectual/ religious traditions. It was written in Japanese by a Jesuit brother who was Japanese. Dochirina Kirishitan espouses a rather conservative, one might even say superstitious, doctrine. It was also written in Japanese, but was derived from a European text. The Japanese edition was edited by a European Jesuit. Tianzhu Shiyi was authored by a China-based Jesuit of European origin, in fact one of the most famous Jesuits in history, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). Tianzhu Shiyi was written in Chinese, and not only refers heavily to Chinese thought traditions but also even makes an overt attempt to integrate Christianity into the Confucian tradition. Of these three, Myōtei Mondō is the best example of how ‘Christian thought’ developed indigenously in Japan during this period: it is the only one authored by a Japanese, and written completely within the context of the Japanese Christian movement at the turn of the sixteenth into the seventeenth century. Partly for that reason, and partly because of its content, which will be examined presently, it should be regarded as the best example of indigenous Japanese Christian thought extant from this period. Interestingly, it is also the work which has been most misinterpreted, abused, and wilfully manipulated over the centuries. It is also the only major Christian text written in Japanese that is linked directly to significant anti-Christian arguments, not only through Habian’s own anti-Christian writings after his apostasy, but also in the arguments of other key anti-Christian figures of the early Tokugawa period such as Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657) and Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三 (1579–1655).
Myōtei Mondō: creation, ethics and afterlife Myōtei Mondō is an excellent text for examining the interaction between different intellectual and religious traditions in early seventeenth-century Japan because its structure revolves around a systematic examination of different traditions. The text consists of three sections or chapters. The first section systematically analyses different teachings of Buddhism sect by sect; the second discusses Confucianism and Shinto; and the third deals with Christianity. Being a Jesuit text, Myōtei Mondō tends to argue the weaknesses of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto and point to the comparative superiority of Christianity. This is done primarily by asserting that Christianity gives the best hope of the afterlife. The narrative of Myōtei Mondō is based around the premise of a discussion between two female seekers, both widowed by war, both former Buddhist nuns. Myōshū, a newcomer, asks questions of Yūtei, a confirmed Christian believer, who explains to her the truth of Christianity in comparison with the other religious
14
Japanese Christian thought
traditions they have experienced. Both Myōshū and Yūtei present as women with a broad knowledge of a range of religious traditions, sympathetic characters who through personal tragedy, brought on by the violence during that period of Japanese history, have become truth-seekers.12 The longest, most positive, and most articulate section of Myōtei Mondō is the third and last section where Habian explains the nature of ‘the teachings of the Christians’. Previous research has referred to this section mainly to point out its use of scholastic philosophy and Christian creation theory.13 But this section is actually anything but a simple recommendation of Catholic doctrine: in addition to creation theory, this section lays out what Habian sees as the ethical system of Christianity – its teachings relating to how the person created by God should act in the created world.14 This key argument, which in fact dominates the whole text, most obviously overlaps with the humanist ethical traditions that were contemporaneously being presented in new Japanese Confucian writings of this period. Previous research has not mentioned the human ethics argument of Myōtei Mondō directly, yet the emphasis on ‘rationality’ and ‘knowledge’ mentioned by Ebisawa,15 and the text’s political nature, mentioned by Elison,16 both revolve around this key feature. Habian’s presentation of these human ethics is built on his scholastic-mediated Aristotelian explication of creation theory. Habian’s explication of creation theory is central to the overall thesis of his work not only because it supports his argument about human ethics, but also because it stands at the centre of his criticism of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto. He argues that because all three of these traditions are incapable of explaining the foundations of existence (creation), they are intellectually deficient and unlikely to lead to salvation. This thesis is spelt out most clearly at the end of the first section where Habian summarizes the underlying problem that all the Buddhist sects share in common: because the original Buddha is held to be nothingness, Buddhism thereby provides no explanation for the cause (creation) of existence.17 Firstly, they hold that in the far distant past, this indiscernible far-off thing called Buddha was the same as emptiness, in other words that it wasn’t anything at all. In Zen they call this honbun 本分 or busshō 仏性, and in Tendai they call it shinnyo 真如. The heart/mind of Buddha, if such a thing is said to exist, is in all cases said to have come from emptiness (kū 空), … in all what is called the Buddha of old, ‘this is emptiness’; in other words, it is nothing at all.18 In the second section of Myōtei Mondō, Habian criticizes Confucianism and Shinto using a similar argument: Confucianism and Shinto possess no sentient force to cause creation. Habian concentrates on the fact that the metaphysical systems of both Confucianism and Shinto explain the basis of existence in terms of Yin and Yang (Jp. inyō 陰陽).19
Japanese Christian thought
15
The Yin and Yang has no sentience and no wisdom, its [prime creative] function of fusion and division is not something that can be initiated by the Yin and Yang itself.20 In this manner, Habian alleges that the explanation of creation offered by the Neo-Confucian theory of the Supreme Ultimate is based in a substance (Yin and Yang) that lacks the capacities required to originate a causation: mind/heart (intent) and knowledge.21 In the third section of Myōtei Mondō, Habian directly integrates these representations of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto into his own version of a scholastic metaphysical framework derived from Aristotelian categories. Habian’s criticisms of the creation theories of Buddhism, Shinto and Confucianism were not simple negations of those theories; rather, he integrated elements of the nonChristian traditions into a system of scholastic metaphysics at the head of which lay the sentient Christian God. Buddhism, Shinto and so on, as should be abundantly clear by now from the discussion above, are all false and cannot be relied upon to deliver our wishes in this world or the next. That is because the base of Buddhism is a return to emptiness, and Buddha itself is thereby emptiness. Also, lying behind the basis of Shinto is Yin and Yang. That is why the Shinto Gods, like Yin and Yang, are nothing more than what I said [empty]. In other words, as emptiness is nothingness, and thereby nothing, the Buddha is nothing to be revered. It does not amount to a Lord or anything like that. Moreover, what is called Yin and Yang is what we in our religion call materia prima, which is the base substance or matter from which the true Lord of our religion, God, created the multifarious things of this world. This materia prima is a substance, the nature of which has no sentience and no will.22 Habian employed Aristotelian anima categories in a scholastic representation of creation which allowed the existence of Yin and Yang as substance, but emphasized the need for something with will and thought as the initial creator of substance. The root of Habian’s arguments against non-Christian religions was thereby tied to the root element of the scholastic theory of creation advanced by him: that sentience and knowledge are prerequisites for the act of creation. Once you have comprehended the existence of God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the multifarious things, then you should be able to see the division of the various categories in his creation. The wide array of all the multifarious things of the past and present we can see stem, in the Christian books, from four general categories. Firstly there is the category of substantia; secondly there is the category of anima vegetabilis; thirdly there is the category of anima sensibilis; fourthly there is what has anima rationalis.23
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Japanese Christian thought
Habian’s explication of anima categories, however, was not related only to his explanation of creation. Much more importantly it was related to his explanation of the nature of the afterlife. In Myōtei Mondō, as in many other texts of popular religious argumentation in this period, the accessibility of an afterlife was of central concern. Myōtei Mondō explains the attainment of afterlife in terms of developing the nature inherent in the Aristotelian category of anima rationalis. This begins with Habian’s description of the nature of each anima category, in which anima rationalis is characterized as follows: The ones possessing anima rationalis have hunger and thirst and feel warm and cold [as do those possessing anima sensibilis – animals], but above that they also understand the nature of things, and possess the knowledge to debate over matters of right and wrong. In other words, they are human beings.24 The centrality of the possession of this anima rationalis as a mark of humanity which thereby endows the possibility of an afterlife in heaven is repeatedly made clear by Habian throughout the third section of Myōtei Mondō. The life immanent in people as anima rationalis is what distinguishes each of us from others. It is what lives on individually into the afterlife.25 The reason why anima rationalis lives on into the afterlife and other (nonhuman) souls (anima) do not, is explained in terms of the logic of the anima classification. The anima category is seen as residing in the nature (Habian uses the word seitai 性体) of a thing. In Myōtei Mondō, Habian directly relates the existence of this nature to the thing’s function (sayō 作用). In terms of all things, we see and know the change in their nature (seitai) through its representation in their function (sayō).26 The nature of an object, which determines its anima, is known to us only through its function. In other words, whether something has the capacity for an afterlife is known by its function. The reason why the category closest to the human category of rationalis, the anima category of sensibilis, does not attain afterlife is explained in terms of the bestial function of the members of this category. The category of anima sensibilis, birds and animals, have senses and thereby know and feel things. But if one then asks, does this mean that they have an afterlife, the answer is that they do not. The reason being that the category of the nature of a thing, as stated earlier, is known by ascertaining its function. Looking at the function of the object of the senses that the beasts and grubs of this category are directed towards, we see that all these objects of sense are of the flesh. By which I say, that they are simply directed towards food in wanting to eat, towards water in wanting to drink, towards sleep in wanting sleep, towards copulation in wanting to copulate. Their making of nests, digging of
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17
holes, running, flying, crying, howling, these actions are all functions of the flesh [physical needs] and nothing more.27 Because the ‘function’ of animals does not go beyond physical concerns, concerns of the flesh, the lives of their souls are bound to the lives of that physicality, that flesh. Human beings, however, have the potential for an afterlife due to their functionality beyond the physical. People also eat and drink, wake and sleep, breed, and these are all functions. If we look at where these functions reside, we see they are all of the body. But this is not the function [which is peculiar to people]. This other function is that which knows the principle of things, which directs the mind/heart towards commitment to the principles of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith, and to know the enduring Name. To pray for the afterlife in Heaven, and to consider the right and wrong and good and bad of things, this is also a function. And this function must reside in the nature.28 In other words, because the function of a person extends beyond mere physical concerns and reaches to the abstract issues of principle, right and wrong, good and bad, Heaven, and the Confucian virtues of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith, a person’s nature transcends the simple existence as flesh and attains the potential for an afterlife. It is important to note that this conception of anima rationalis is concerned not only with overcoming the physical existence of the body as flesh; it also stresses anima rationalis as defined by a function of thought that gives human beings the ability to know abstract truth through consideration. According to Habian, humans ‘discuss’ and thereby ‘know’ principle, right and wrong, good and bad. This is the function of human beings, the purpose of human beings, the human way of living. This is the root of Habian’s conception of the centrality of human ethics. This conception of human ethics is intimately related to Habian’s conception of ‘knowledge’. The reference to the Confucian virtues of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith seen in the above quote is repeated a number of times in Myōtei Mondō, but the prevalence of the phrases ‘know the principle’ and ‘discuss right and wrong, good and bad’ in the text is striking. From the very first explanation of the division between different anima categories in Myōtei Mondō it is emphasized that anima sensibilis ‘thinks and feels but does not know the principle’, whereas rationalis ‘knows the principle of things, and possesses the wisdom to discuss right and wrong’.29 Confucian and Buddhist influence in this aspect of Habian’s ethical thought is strongly alluded to not only by his use of overtly Confucian terms like ‘benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith’, and ‘know the principle’ (the Neo-Confucian li 理), but also by the language he uses to make his arguments about nature and function, or what in Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism is called the theory of form and function 体用説 (Jp. taiyōsetsu; Ch. tiyongshou).
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That importance of human beings individually discerning the knowledge of principle, right and wrong, good and bad, is a dominant theme running through Myōtei Mondō from beginning to end. This view of ethical thought is integrated into his argument over creation through his use of anima categories and his emphasis on the differentiation between God and substantia. It is thereby intimately linked to his criticism of other traditions. This argument is also central to the text’s main purpose, the propagation of Christianity. That is because the human capacity for the discernment of knowledge is directly linked to the attainment of the afterlife, which is the main carrot offered through Christianity. At first glance, Myōtei Mondō seems to be dominated by discussion of creation, but the core argument of the text, certainly in terms of its primary function as a text aimed at conversion, is its discussion of individual ethical capacity, which yields the capacity for afterlife. In this sense, Habian’s ‘Christian thought’ focuses more on what we might call the humanist ethical side of Christianity, emphasizing subjective thought, and less on the more superstitious side of that thought, which emphasizes action by externalized forces such as God, angels and the Church hierarchy.
Dochirina Kirishitan: hierarchy, faith and sin Is Habian’s work representative of the general nature of ‘Japanese Christian thought’ in the Japan of this time? The answer of most modern specialists, particularly those who represent the dominant ‘Christian history’ school and have done most of the groundbreaking work in this area, is a very firm no. In fact, these scholars have been rather merciless in arguing that elements of Habian’s thought diverging from what they regard as ‘Christian doctrine’ simply expose the foundations of his later apostasy by showing Habian’s ‘limits of understanding’, caused by the ‘shallowness of his faith’.30 Together with Myōtei Mondō, printed in 1605, probably the most referenced and contemporaneously most widely distributed Japanese printed Christian text was Dochirina Kirishitan. This text was printed in two different versions, one in 1591 and one in 1600. Dochirina Kirishitan, particularly the later version, shared much in common with Myōtei Mondō, not only in terms of its period of production, but also in terms of its purpose and style: propagation of Christianity through comparison with other religions. Like Myōtei Mondō, Dochirina Kirishitan is a dialogue. An interesting difference, however, is that while the dialogue in Myōtei Mondō is between two equals, in Dochirina Kirishitan it is between a ‘master’ and a ‘disciple’. Also, because Dochirina Kirishitan was produced under the supervision of the Jesuit Inspector General of the East Indies, Alexandro Valignano (1539–1606), it is often held up in contrast to Myōtei Mondō (particularly by ‘Christian historians’), as an example of a more ‘orthodox’ – and thereby representative – Japanese Christian text. When we start speaking of what is ‘truly representative’ in terms of what is ‘orthodox’, however, we move onto dangerous ground. Simply accepting the fact that both these texts and others operated in the same context, and were identified
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with and produced by the same organization, probably offers a more grounded basis upon which to begin our examination of the relationship between them. Indeed looking at the differences and similarities between Christian texts of this period in an open manner is the best way to grasp any totality which may have existed in what has come to be referred to as ‘Japanese Christian thought’. Certainly there is no doubt that Dochirina Kirishitan’s approach to knowledge and human discernment is markedly different to that in Myōtei Mondō. This object for which we have faith and reverence is a righteousness that rises above the reach of human knowledge and reason, it is the goodness which we call fides.31 As Myōtei Mondō uses Japanized renderings of Latin terms rather than translation to render words like substantia, so too Dochirina Kirishitan uses a Japanese phonetic representation of the Latin fides to represent faith. The importance of fides as the core of Christian teachings is emphasized repeatedly throughout Dochirina Kirishitan. Disciple: What is a Christian? Master: Someone who not only accepts fides by committing their heart to the holy teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, but who also manifests fides in their words and deeds.32 In Dochirina Kirishitan, the core of ‘being Christian’ is faith and action in accordance with fides. In Myōtei Mondō, action in accordance with anima rationalis was instead emphasized. There is also, however, a discussion of an exclusively human anima in Dochirina Kirishitan; but the characteristics of this anima seem quite different to those outlined in Myōtei Mondō. In Dochirina Kirishitan, as in Myōtei Mondō, anima rationalis is presented as a part of the process by which human beings gain the possibility of salvation. But the nature of that ‘Christian anima’ is quite different to the nature of the anima rationalis described by Habian. In Myōtei Mondō, anima rationalis is identified in terms of ‘discerning wisdom’ (funbetsu chie 分別知恵) and ‘knowing the principle’ (ri wo shiru 理を 知る), whereas in Dochirina Kirishitan the same anima is identified in terms of a ‘faith and reverence’ which ‘transcends human knowledge’ (the exact definition of fides in the same text). Whereas Myōtei Mondō’s definition of anima rationalis emphasizes abstract knowledge, in Dochirina Kirishitan anima is seen as what transcends human knowledge by displacing it with faith. Moreover, the nature of the role of faith is described squarely in terms of the function of the ‘Holy Church’, the Church hierarchy, in mediating the will of God. Disciple: What is fides? Master: As God’s will is indicated to us through the Holy Church, our firm faith and reverence, the Good illuminated by the shining light of Grace which
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Japanese Christian thought transcends human knowledge has been given us by God through the Christian anima [rationalis].33
The concept of faith is also linked closely in Dochirina Kirishitan to an emphasis on the role of grace, which although in the above quote is translated into Japanese as go’on ご恩, is represented through most of the text by the word garasa ガラサ, a Japanese phonetic rendering of the Portuguese rendering (graça) of the Latin gratia. Although ‘grace’, like ‘faith’, is a word that appears repeatedly as a point of emphasis throughout Dochirina Kirishitan, it appears only once in Myōtei Mondō. The concept of grace is introduced in Dochirina Kirishitan as, like faith, an indispensable prerequisite to becoming a Christian. Master: Now let me ask you a question. Do you know what kind of person’s actions allow them to become a Christian? Disciple: One becomes a Christian with the Grace of God. Master: What does ‘with the Grace of God’ mean? Disciple: I have not yet learnt this, would you please teach me? Master: One does not attain the Grace of God by the power of your own or your parents’ works. One becomes a Christian by the mercy of God shown through the triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ.34 In other words, one does not become a Christian through one’s own or other peoples’ actions, but only through the historical action of God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Salvation is made possible through the agency of God in the created world (the forgiveness of sin through crucifixion), not simply through creation. In Myōtei Mondō salvation is mentioned, but generally in terms of salvation from death by Christian faith. Dochirina Kirishitan emphasizes the idea of original sin. ‘Salvation’ is not simply salvation from death, it is primarily salvation from sin (toga 科) and the devil (tengu 天狗). The overall presentation of the role of human beings in Dochirina Kirishitan does not see them as subjectively ‘debating over good and evil’ (as in Myōtei Mondō), but rather sees them as objects being acted upon by the major sources of interventionary agency in the world: God and Satan. Human beings can do little more than hold on tight to their charms and crucifixes as they are buffeted by these superhuman forces. Master: There is nothing more important than to respect the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ by revering the cross and bringing our mind entirely to the heart of faith. Because we humbly wish sin to be forgiven, there is nothing for it but to humbly try to hold up the cross. Disciple: What is meant by ‘making ourselves free’? Master: We who have become the prisoners of the devil [can become free by] being pardoned from the place of slaves [Hell]. Disciple: Why do you say [we are] prisoners? Master: We and the devil are the slaves of sin. The Lord declared us to be the slaves of the devil after we sinned against his Word. Thereby, when we
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commit a mortal sin, because we have submitted to the devil [by sinning] we become his slave. But, by following the path of raising up the cross, by taking baptism and reverently taking the sacrament of confession, people may by the grace of God be forgiven all sins, and thereby through the power of the cross our Lord Jesus Christ takes back [takes on for us] the thing that made us slaves of the devil. By taking back what made us slaves, [He] made us free. This is the true greatness [of Jesus].35 In this manner, rather than emphasizing human beings’ own thoughts and actions in the created world, Dochirina Kirishitan presents not only a more superstitious view, but also one placing less emphasis on ethics and knowledge and more on individual faith. Interestingly, considering the time of writing, Dochirina Kirishitan, despite being regarded as the more ‘orthodox Catholic’ text in comparison with Myōtei Mondō, seems rather Protestant in its promotion of purely religious practice at the expense of ethical thought and action. Dochirina’s general tendency towards emphasis on original sin and a negative view of the world and the body also follow this trend. Disciple: What kinds of things are our enemy? Master: The world, the devil, the body, these things.36 Here Dochirina makes it abundantly clear that the world and the body are enemies. Conversely, although Myōtei Mondō argues that if a thing possesses a worldly function and no other, then that thing cannot attain the afterlife, it does not thereby argue that worldly things are inherently evil. In Dochirina Kirishitan, however, there is no doubt. Due to the first sin inherited from Adam, the flesh [physical body] is born with sin.37 Myōtei Mondō’s reference to the question of original sin, however, is much more ambivalent. While stating that because of Adam’s sin human beings do not automatically ‘receive the help’ of God in attaining the afterlife, it does not say that human beings are born with sin, nor does it categorically state that human beings cannot attain the afterlife without the help of God.38 Dochirina Kirishitan’s explanation of the nature of salvation, however, relies completely on the concept of original sin. Human beings attain the afterlife only by forgiveness as the action of God. The only steps they can take to secure forgiveness relate to the sacraments of the Church, in particular baptism and confession. Influenced by their varying approaches to the role of original sin and salvation, the approaches of Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan to the centrality of the sacraments are also different. Myōtei Mondō’s approach to the sacraments verges on relativism.
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Japanese Christian thought To enter the road to assistance [in salvation], in Christian teachings you take what is called baptism. If you take just this sacrament, follow the ten commandments of this religion, and respect and revere God, then you can relax now and be sure of an afterlife in Heaven.39
If you follow ‘just this sacrament’ you can ‘be sure’ of the afterlife. There is no mention, and indeed the tone of the text suggests in no way whatsoever, that you will surely burn in Hell if you do not do these things. To sum up, there are three key points on which Dochirina Kirishitan and Myōtei Mondō disagree. First, there is the issue of original sin and the resultant negative view of the world and the body. This is emphasized in Dochirina Kirishitan and central to its main argument about the nature of salvation. In Myōtei Mondō, on the other hand, this argument is hardly present. Second, the basic road to the afterlife relies in Dochirina Kirishitan on Christ’s crucifixion as the act of salvation, and the sacraments of the church as the representation of that salvation in the contemporary world; in Myōtei Mondō, by contrast, the nature of anima rationalis is attributed to human beings by God in creation. This almost represents an argument of original good versus one of original evil. Third, Dochirina Kirishitan emphasizes above all else ‘faith’ – faith in God, through Jesus Christ, through the Church hierarchy and its sacraments. In Myōtei Mondō, by contrast, the emphasis is on ‘knowledge’ – knowledge of abstracted ethical rightness as truth, the attainment of which is the function of human beings attributed by God through anima rationalis. Other Japanese Kirishitan texts authored by the European hierarchy in Japan and used there for propagation of the religion show similarities to the emphasis on the role of faith, the Church hierarchy and the sacraments seen in Dochirina Kirishitan. For instance, Kirishitan kokoroegaki 吉利支丹心得書 takes a negative view of the world and the human body that is particularly similar to Dochirina. There are three enemies which pull us towards evil: the world, the body, the devil.40 A negative view of knowledge in comparison with faith is also a theme of this text and others printed in 1605 (the same year as Myōtei Mondō), for instance Sakaramenta teiyōfuroku サカラメンタ提要付録.41 Other texts of this kind published around this time, for instance Gopashon no kannen 御パションの観 念 of 1607, are not necessarily as negative about either the world or knowledge as Dochirina Kirishitan, but nevertheless tend to emphasize the role of grace rather than anima in salvation, and thereby the agency of God over human beings.42 In the range of Japanese printed Christian texts produced for the purpose of propagation of the faith in the first years of the 1600s, therefore, there lay a diversity of opinion on the central issue of salvation. The major difference was between opinions that emphasized human agency and action by relying on anima, of which Myōtei Mondō is the clearest example, and others, making up the majority, that emphasized interventionist action by God.
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The arguments presented within this latter group of texts, however, also demonstrated some diversity. In the highly influential yet extreme example of Dochirina Kirishitan, human knowledge, indeed almost human existence, is treated so negatively that human ethics or the possibility of good action arising from human thought are all but negated. Other texts such as Gopashon no kannen emphasized grace and God’s agency, but did not necessarily negate human thought or mysticism.
Internal Japanese Jesuit texts: scholasticism and humanism If there is such diversity in the texts written by Jesuits in Japan for propagation of the faith, and therefore for outsiders, what about texts written for use inside the Order, for education of the brothers? These texts were written or translated by European Jesuits in Japan. It could be argued, therefore, that these texts should not really be considered ‘Japanese Christian texts’, not only because they were written by Europeans, but also because they only functioned (were read and used) in social structures completely controlled by them (the Jesuit academies). Nevertheless, reference to these texts can be of great assistance in understanding the nature and meaning of the diversity in the public Japanese Christian texts examined above: through these texts, we can see how elements of Christian theology and indeed scholastic philosophy were linked, developed and explained in the education undergone by the likes of Habian. The best example of this kind of text is by the head of the Japanese subprovince of the Jesuits, Pedro Gomez (1535–1600), entitled Compendium of Catholic Doctrine.43 Ide Katsumi has identified this, together with Valignano’s edition of Japan’s Catechism, as texts probably read by Habian during his time as a seminarian.44 Furthermore, Gomez’s Compendium of Catholic Doctrine stands as the most extensive Jesuit text in Japanese we have extant, and was seemingly the basis for theological education in the Japanese Jesuit colleges. An examination of this text reveals how theological issues of revealed religion were related to scholastic concepts like anima rationalis and the importance of human knowledge in the orthodox discourse carried on inside the Japanese Jesuit schools. This relationship between Christian doctrine and anima theory was established in these texts in a particular way that attributed to them a particular political meaning. In the Compendium there is a passage where Gomez makes perfectly clear the relationship between anima rationalis and fides that was taught at this time. What makes a human being is the possession of three illuminations [anima]. The first is the illumination of sensibilis, which can also be said to be weak, it is what is communicated by our senses, it is the illumination of sight, hearing, smell and taste. … This is possessed by beasts, animals, insects, fish and humans. The second is the illumination of rationalis. Because this allows us to discern spiritual things which sensibilis cannot, it is better than sensibilis in many respects. Things which this illumination can well discern include: God,
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Japanese Christian thought angels, right and wrong, and so on. The third is the illumination of fides. With fides we believe in things outside the realm of nature, things which cannot be discerned by human beings. The trinity, and so on. Therefore, someone who possesses only the illumination of sensibilis is the same as a beast. Someone who possesses illumination beyond sensibilis, the illumination of discernment [anima rationalis], and by this does good deeds in the world of men, should be called a good person. Seneca or Plato were examples of this kind of person. A person who beyond this reveres the illumination of fides is a Christian. Only Christians receive the grace of God. For this reason, there is a hierarchical relationship between these three illuminations. Fides is the top illumination. The illumination of discernment (rationalis) is in the middle. The illumination of sensibilis is at the bottom.45
This division and explanation of the anima relations resembles Habian’s, with one big exception, the role of fides. Gomez introduces fides as a category above anima rationalis, thereby subjugating human thought to faith in a hierarchical relationship. But he does more than that: he also clearly identifies the content of this highest category as relating to the ‘mysteries of faith’, such as the trinity, for which (it was contemporaneously argued, as we saw in Dochirina Kirishitan) there was no basis of explanation other than the Church hierarchy. Furthermore, he grades human existence in terms of the possession of these three categories. So he not only emphasizes faith over human knowledge, he also defines faith in a manner that subjugates the humanist elements to hierarchy-determined doctrine. This means that the ideas of the trinity, and forgiveness – two issues emphasized by Ide as ‘cores of Christian faith and Christian theology overlooked by Habian’ – are presented in Compendium in such a way as to seriously slant their meanings.46 Gomez does not primarily use the concept of the trinity to emphasize the inherent potential sanctity of the human being, nor does he use the concept of forgiveness to emphasize the virtue of human sympathy. Instead the mysteries of faith are used for exactly the opposite purpose, to argue against the potentiality of human sanctity and rather for subjugation of the humanist ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’ type teachings inherent in the mysteries of faith. The aspects of these ‘mysteries of faith’ which emphasize the sacred or Godly within the human being are skipped over, the mysteries instead being used to subjugate the human soul to a hierarchy-determined rule-based doctrine. Looking from the position of humanist ethics, this means that Gomez’s use of anima categories works in almost exactly the opposite way to Habian’s. Habian delineates human beings (as a category) from other animals to emphasize their shared ability to think about ethical issues; Gomez divides human beings themselves into higher, middle and lower groups. The basic conflict between Habian and Gomez could be characterized as a conflict between two different conceptions of ethics: Habian’s ethical position emphasizes the potential of human good (one that today might be called a ‘Christian humanist ethics’);
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Gomez instead takes a negative approach to humanity, emphasizing original sin to uphold Church hierarchy. Of course, from a modern theological perspective it is easy to see that the mysteries of faith, with their inherent emphasis on human sanctity and sympathy, could have been employed by Habian to argue his own side in this conflict. But given the way Habian himself had been taught about the mysteries of faith by the likes of Gomez, it is no wonder that Habian did not see the mysteries of faith as something he could use to support his argument. The Compendium thereby goes some way to explaining the issues of theological interpretation lying behind the diversity in the Japanese Christian thought of this time.47 The question of how the Aristotelian anima categories and the logic behind them should be fused with aspects of biblical revelation, and the political and ethical consequences of that question, lay at the heart of that diversity. The political and ethical consequences of this conflict related back to whether ethical action was determined by thought based on individual knowledge and discernment, or rather on obedience to sociopolitically (hierarchically) determined rules.
Ricci’s Chinese Christianity: Confucianism meets Christ This conflict is also seen in another text which, although written and published in China, also came to influence Christian thought in Korea and Japan.48 It was written by a figure famous for his attempt at a synthetic resolution of the Christian and Confucian traditions, an attempt which also ultimately engaged, or at least came to be argued in terms of, issues related to the role of Church hierarchy in determining Christian truth.49 The Italian-born Chinese Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci is remembered today for his major role in the introduction of Christianity and elements of European/Middle Eastern science and philosophy to China, for his introduction of Confucian thought to Europe, and for his attempt to integrate Christianity and Confucianism.50 The effect of Ricci’s work, however, was not restricted to China and Europe. In 1603 he authored what would become his most famous religious text Tianzhu Shiyi 天主實義 (Jp. Tenshu Jitsugi). This text was imported to Japan around 1605, and though seemingly not immediately propagated widely, had at least by the 1640s become the most referenced Jesuit work in Japan. In the mid-seventeenth century, at least in terms of the discourse of the reception of Christian thought, Tianzhu Shiyi was a central text, considered part of the same Christian discourse as Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan.51 It is important to note, however, that while in mid-seventeenth century and later Japanese anti-Christian discourse Tianzhu Shiyi, Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan were represented as part of the same ‘Christian thought’ category, in reality they were not. Tianzhu Shiyi was not only produced in a separate country to Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan, it was also not actively propagated by the European Jesuits in Japan because they generally disapproved of Ricci’s approach.52 Tianzhu Shiyi became popular in Japan only after the suppression of Japanese Christianity. As texts such as Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan became less
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available due to the eradication of the Jesuit presence in Japan and the suppression of Japanese Christian objects (including texts), conversely Tianzhu Shiyi, still being printed in China, became the more readily available representative text of Christianity in Japan. As the seventeenth century progressed, Tianzhu Shiyi’s role in anti-Christian discourse became increasingly central. Because most early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse was written after the 1630s, when Tianzhu Shiyi had become the most readily available Christian text, anti-Christian writers like Hayashi Razan or Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725) consistently identified ‘Christian’ thought through reference (sometimes exclusively) to Ricci texts. Indeed, by the mid-Tokugawa period, with the ban on Christian books in place, and after a long period of suppression of Christian activity in Japan, clandestine copies of Ricci imported from China and Korea were the closest thing present to any real source of what ‘Christians’ thought. It seems fairly clear that Habian never saw Tianzhu Shiyi before he produced Myōtei Mondō, nor does it seem he had even seen it by 1620 when he produced his anti-Christian text Hadaiusu.53 But there are nonetheless similarities between Myōtei Mondō and Tianzhu Shiyi, many shared by other Christian texts discussed above: for instance, the use of a question-and-answer format and the employment of scholastic philosophy. The centrality of anima categories to the argument of Tianzhu Shiyi is obvious from the very beginning of the text. In explicating the universal teachings of the Catholic religion, Ricci primarily emphasizes the reason that humans and beasts are different. There is no greater cause of the difference between human beings and beasts than the soul. The soul is what discerns right and wrong and differentiates between true and false. It is difficult to deceive it with anything that lacks rationality. The stupidity of animals is such that although they are capable of sense and movement in much the same way as humans, they are incapable of understanding the principles of causality.54 What I have translated here from Ricci’s Chinese term 霊才 (Ch. lingcai, Jp. reisai) to the English ‘soul’ of course stands for the anima of Myōtei Mondō. As in Myōtei Mondō, Tianzhu Shiyi also describes the anima of animals as having the capacity for ‘sense and movement’.55 As in Myōtei Mondō, the capacity of human beings is held to exceed that of animals. The reason given for the superiority of human beings relates to their capacity for judgement given through their anima. But although Tianzhu Shiyi agrees with Myōtei Mondō here in terms of the importance of anima, the two texts disagree sharply over how anima is imparted to human beings. Myōtei Mondō portrays anima as imparted to human beings in a single act of God during the reproductive process. In the womb of the mother, the father’s seed is received. It is within this physicality that God creates people’s anima rationalis. The anima rationalis then becomes the master of this physicality (body) and directs the body in line with reason, hoping to then live on into the afterlife.56
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In Tianzhu Shiyi, however, the process through which God, human beings and their souls are related is much more complex. As in Myōtei Mondō, the anima of Tianzhu Shiyi is given by an externalized God to an internalized human self. In Tianzhu Shiyi, however, the external and internal are related through the use of Aristotle’s doctrine of four causes: If we are to speak of the causes of things, we must see that there are four. What are these four? There is maker, form, matter and end. The maker is what creates the object, turning it into the thing it should be. The form shapes a thing, giving it its fitting category, differentiating it from other kinds of things. Matter is the substance that the object is made from. That which takes on the form. The end is the determined function the object is made for. … Within the four, form and matter, these two are internal to things. They are the basis of things, what is called Yin and Yang. Maker and end, these two are external to the thing. They exist prior to the thing.57 If we look at the problem of anima in terms of this interpretation of the doctrine of four causes we see that the creator is an externalized God, and that the form is an internalized soul (anima). As Ricci continues his explication of the doctrine of four causes we can see that unlike in Myōtei Mondō, where after the act of birth anima rationalis acts independently of creation, in Tianzhu Shiyi it remains tied to God. In terms of the causes of things, there are those included which are internal to things, like Yin and Yang. There are also those which are external, like the maker category. God’s creation of things therefore, as it is the Lordly Creation, is external. So God can be ‘in’ a thing, but He is not part of the thing. Being ‘in’ a thing is like something being ‘in’ a place. Like someone’s garden being ‘in’ their house. Or like how some objects have components to them. Like how arms and legs are parts of the body is like how people are made up of Yin and Yang. Dependent things rely on something else which is autonomous to exist. Like how a white horse comprises a horse which is white, and cold ice comprises ice which is cold. For a thing to exist something must precede its existence to cause it to exist. The sunlight must shine to create refractions in a crystal, there must be fire to make metal glow red.58 In other words, while God and soul are not the same, they are related in a relationship like the ‘dependent’ and ‘autonomous’, or the sun and reflected light. This is the theoretical basis of the link in Tianzhu Shiyi between God’s ‘creation of heaven, earth and all things’ and his ‘periodic intervention in and control of this’ created world.59 In this way Tianzhu Shiyi portrays God’s presence and action in the created world in a way not seen in Myōtei Mondō. In Tianzhu Shiyi, God is present and acting. So although Tianzhu Shiyi and Myōtei Mondō are similar in their emphasis on the role of knowledge and their refusal to base their explication of Christianity
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on a concept of faith reliant on Church authority, the two texts differ on the key issue of where they see God acting in the universe. This is related to differences in the way they explicate the systems of scholastic-mediated Aristotelian philosophy through which they describe creation and its outcomes. But there are further important differences and similarities to be found in the way both texts employ Confucian philosophy. As mentioned earlier, in Myōtei Mondō Habian uses Confucian terms, comments favourably on Confucianism’s ethical outlook, and uses logical structures and terms which were current in contemporaneous Confucian writing. These notable aspects of Habian’s work clearly show similarities with Ricci’s use of Confucianism. But Ricci’s use of Confucianism was more overt and central. For instance, both Habian and Ricci employ quotations from the Confucian classics to criticize elements of Song metaphysics. But Ricci goes further than that by employing quotes from the Confucian canon to prove his own arguments relating to the existence of the Christian God.60 Not only does he argue that the original works of the Confucian canon do not support the metaphysics taught by Confucians in the contemporary China of the Ming dynasty, he further argues that the Confucian texts actually refer to the Christian creator God. For instance, Ricci attacks the basis of the Song metaphysical thesis of creation, the concept of the ‘Supreme Ultimate’,61 by mentioning the importance of a more ancient term in the Confucian canon, Shangdi 上帝. Although I arrived in China late in life, I have assiduously studied the [Chinese] classics. I have heard that the superior men of ancient times worshipped and revered The Lord of Heaven [Shangdi], but I have never heard of them worshipping and revering the Supreme Ultimate. If the Supreme Ultimate was the Lord of Heaven and origin of all things, why did the ancient sages not say so?62 Ricci paid attention to the role of the term Shangdi in the more ancient Chinese texts and argued that Shangdi was the name used by the Chinese ancient sages for what the Jesuits called Tianzhu 天主 (Jp. Tenshu), ‘God’. What in my country is called the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu), is in Chinese called Shangdi. … Our Tianzhu [God] is what the ancient [Chinese Confucian] canonical texts call Shangdi. In the Doctrine of the Mean, Confucius says, ‘The rites of sacrifice are meant to serve Shangdi.’ … [Ricci then goes on to quote many other examples from a range of Confucian classic texts before concluding that:] Reading the ancient texts, it is clear that the only difference between Shangdi and Tianzhu is the name.63 Ricci’s use of Shangdi, however, represented more than a simple equivalent to God in Chinese Confucian literature. Ricci also used this concept to emphasize the agency of Tianzhu touched on earlier. On a number of occasions in Tianzhu Shiyi, Ricci uses references in the classics to Shangdi to argue that Tianzhu/God is
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an active agent in the lives of people. For instance, in the following passage Ricci uses the Confucius Analects passage, ‘If you sin against Shangdi, there is nowhere to [turn to] pray’, to posit the agency of Tianzhu through its ability to offer rewards and punishments in this world and the next.64 To commit a crime against Shangdi is the most serious crime. … Tianzhu grasps the actions of every person in the world, and there has never been an occasion when virtues or crimes have not received their just rewards.65 Through his exposition of the connection of the anima categories, and in his direct discussion of the agency of God (as presented through the Confucian classics) as Shangdi, Ricci links the action of God to the world of human affairs. Whereas in Myōtei Mondō this connection is demonstrated primarily through the act of creation and the attribution of anima at birth (the creation of each human being), in the case of Tianzhu Shiyi God’s continued agency in the created world is explained in terms of Aristotle’s doctrine of four causes. God’s power both in this world and the next is further emphasized through the explication of God as Shangdi.
Ricci and Habian: two discourses, two worlds Ricci’s and Habian’s explanations of Christianity share many aspects. They both use a question-and-answer format to promote Christianity; they both systematically address the teachings of other religious traditions; and they both integrate elements of Confucian thought into their own explanation of scholastic philosophy. But they differ primarily in how they address the key question of how to deal with God’s agency in the scholastic system. But of course, this was not an interpretive problem unique to Christianity in Japan. In contemporaneous Catholic theology in the Western hemisphere, indeed since at least Ibn Rushd’s treatment of similar problems in Islamic theology and Thomas Aquinas’s utilization of Rushd in the foundation of scholasticism in the thirteenth-century, theological conflicts had been centred on questions related to the integration of philosophy and revealed religion. In late sixteenth-century, Aristotelian early seventeenth-century Europe conflicts over how to integrate philosophy and science with Christian theological teachings continued. Jesuits were also centrally involved in these controversies.66 This was thereby a problem inherent in the scholastic fusion of Christian doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy. One might liken this problem to an intellectual landmine lying at the heart of the religious tradition Habian inherited. For Habian, this problematic lay embedded but concealed within the scholastic system as presented to him by the European Jesuits in Japan. As we saw from some of the Japanese Christian texts examined above, Jesuits in Japan such as Valignano and Gomez tended to answer the questions arising from this problem by emphasizing authority and doctrinal orthodoxy justified through faith, rather than by providing comprehensive rational explanations. Habian had been told simply to ‘believe’ by
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a small group of European Jesuits on the periphery of the Catholic world, whose main aim was to preserve their authority over the perhaps threateningly intelligent and erudite Japanese brothers such as Habian. Understandably, given Habian’s clear thirst for knowledge and ability in argument, this answer did not do. Ricci, on the other hand, had been offered the tools for addressing this problem during his education in Italy. As a young man Ricci had been educated at the Collegium Romanum, not only in philosophy and theology to the highest level, but also in subjects like astronomy by teachers such as the defender of Galileo, Christoph Clavius S. J. In such environments, issues relating to how to integrate Church teachings and academic advances were constantly debated.67 Ricci thereby had access to a range of arguments that had already been extrapolated in Catholic theological paradigms, and he was also used to working within this kind of discourse. His use of the doctrine of four causes to synthesize anima theory with the idea of an interventionist God justified in terms of Shangdi is an example of his employment of this early European education in his later writings in Chinese. The fact that Habian did not deal with these problems in the same way is very understandable given not only the particular slant of the scholastic education he underwent, but moreover his generally more diverse and assumedly more self-taught intellectual development. Although we cannot be sure of his early intellectual development, we can see from Myōtei Mondō that by the age of 25 or so Habian had acquired broad knowledge of a range of traditions including Buddhism, Confucianism and of course Jesuit-mediated Christianity and scholastic philosophy. But the knowledge of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto seems to have been primarily acquired autodidactically.68 Habian was also working in a late sixteenth-/early seventeenth-century Japanese society that not only had great religious diversity, but where there was no accepted politico-religious orthodoxy. In this respect, Japan, where Habian spent his entire life, was quite different to both of Ricci’s homes in southern Europe and Ming China, both of which possessed intellectual orthodoxies that were intimately related to the political orders. Ricci had for the first 34 years of his life learnt in one integrated system of thought in Europe. Then even after his arrival in China, he could afford to concentrate on the teachings of just one other tradition, Confucianism, which in Ming China possessed an accepted systematized orthodoxy shaped by the state examination system. Habian did not have this luxury. I would argue that Ricci’s background of dealing in a concentrated form with just two doctrinal orthodoxies, compared with Habian’s experience of having to imbibe a range of traditions simultaneously, was critical – as was the fact that Ricci’s educational background in scholastic philosophy was more diversified, giving him the capacity to take more nuanced critical approaches to issues like the mysteries of faith. The fact that Ricci was used to operating in intellectual environments in both Europe and China where one tradition of knowledge was held up as doctrine, meant that he was also perhaps better equipped for the task of integrating ideas into a doctrinal framework. Perhaps the reason that up until now Ricci’s work has attracted such praise while Habian’s work has usually been described as ‘flawed’
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is that the more established doctrinal categories that Ricci used – ‘Confucianism’, ‘scholasticism’ and ‘Christianity’ – are closer to the ones within which academics still operate today. Ricci used categories the traditions of which have survived. His work thereby demonstrates continuity with past and present discourses that were often institutionalized doctrinally in both Church and academy. Modern readers can thereby comparatively easily understand the categories of ‘scholastic philosophy’ and ‘Confucianism’ that Ricci uses.
Conclusion: Christianity in Japan – a broad church The examination above has demonstrated that the range of texts generally identified as early ‘Japanese Christian thought’ possessed a high degree of diversity. Quite different approaches were taken to a wide array of key questions of philosophy and faith. The comparative and contextualized examination of these different approaches presented above demonstrates the nature of the conflict between these different positions, both among different texts authored in Japan, and between these texts and those imported from China. That examination has also shown that some Japanese Christian thought, and indeed some Chinese Christian thought popularized in Japan, overlapped and interacted with Confucian intellectual arguments current in these areas. As pointed out in previous research, the Habian of Myōtei Mondō did indeed place less emphasis on the idea of faith, aspects of revealed religion, and the construct of the mysteries of faith than did some other writers of Japanese Christian texts. But the representation of these ideas in those other competing Japanese Christian texts, such as Valignano’s Dochirina Kirishitan, was also slanted: these texts equated faith in God to faith in the Church hierarchy alone. The general arguments of these texts negated the sanctity of both created nature and human beings, thereby removing the doctrinal elements which supported a positive view of human thought, knowledge and discernment. Gomez’s Compendium of Catholic Doctrine demonstrates that the doctrinal education carried out within the Jesuit academies in Japan presented a particular approach to the idea of faith, the mysteries of faith, and the consequent philosophical issues of human ethics, freedom and autonomy which backed up the kind of authoritarian approach seen in Dochirina Kirishitan. In Compendium, anima categories as the basis for a scholastic creation theory are presented in a manner that emphasizes the division between different categories of people and the subordination of human thought and knowledge to church hierarchy. Reference to Tianzhu Shiyi, by showing the more nuanced, integrated and open approach of Ricci, highlights the conservatism and particularism of the approach of the European Jesuits in Japan. The approach of the European leadership of the Jesuits in Japan, in particular through their definition of ‘faith’, in effect limited the capacity of figures such as Habian to conceive of solutions in the manner Ricci did. The Japan-based Europeans’ definition of ‘faith’ eliminated the mysteries of faith as a possible means of bridging the gap between Confucian and Aristotelian philosophies on the one hand, and Christian revealed religion on the other.
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What both Ricci and Habian did possess, and the European leadership of the Jesuits in Japan lacked, was a real understanding of non-Christian thought, of other conceptual frameworks functioning in their environment (in particular Confucian thought). This understanding gave Ricci and Habian the potential to relativize their positions; not to become relativists, but to place their ideas within a contextual relationship to the intellectual currents of the places they were in. Because Ricci had control both of the texts and of the political direction of the Jesuit order in the part of China he lived in, he was able to realize this potential: he was able to present Christianity, not in any relativist manner, but as absolute truth, albeit related to the intellectual context of his time and place. Habian did not have any control over the policy direction of the Jesuits in Japan and had to function without even the most basic authority of ordination. His writings, even when he was a Jesuit, stood not so much alongside the conservative Japanese Jesuit works like Dochirina Kirishitan, as in some respects in competition with them; in competition with thought that was much less integrated with contemporary arguments. The conflict then inherent within ‘early period Japanese Christian thought’ was certainly not a cultural or philosophical conflict between West and East. If it could be described at all in terms of a duality, it might best be described as a political conflict between doctrinaire authoritarians and socially integrated realists. The fact that Habian did not deal with knowledge by adapting it to doctrinal norms has often been blamed on his ‘lack of ability to grasp’ Christian truths.69 But it is difficult to understand the logic of such attacks on Habian. When examining the reaction of a young intelligent seeker in the Japan of the late 1500s and early 1600s to a huge diversity of religious and philosophical thought, which he was digesting during the climax of a period of long-running total civil war, our priority is surely not to judge the level to which his ideas conformed to an artificially created doctrinal orthodoxy authenticated in Rome. Unlike Ricci, Habian had no choice but to attempt to understand the intellectual traditions he was dealing with in a culture of religious, intellectual and political diversity and multiplicity. For much of Habian’s life, continuing civil war meant there was no centre of political authority, never mind a centre of religious, intellectual or other doctrinal authority. It should therefore be no surprise that the intellectual direction of Myōtei Mondō, and indeed of much other Japanese Christian thought, does not conform perfectly to accepted doctrinal orthodox descriptions of ‘Christianity’, nor indeed of ‘scholastic philosophy’, ‘NeoConfucianism’ or any other such doctrinal category. But that certainly does not mean that Habian’s ideas as expressed in Myōtei Mondō were, as Hayashi Razan asserted, ‘verbose rantings’;70 or by any means, as Ebisawa argued, ‘shallow’.71 Rather, it makes Habian’s ideas an important key to understanding the way people thought in the socially and intellectually dynamic place and period into which Habian was born and lived. His ideas represent a moment, a spark during which in the Japanese archipelago of Habian’s time there existed very briefly together, in competition and syncretism, a wide range of intellectual religious traditions – many of them operating outside hierarchical
Japanese Christian thought
33
authority and doctrinal orthodoxy, and in a society where order was momentary. Perhaps this might lead us to conclude whether rather than Japanese Christian thought being considered an offshoot of something called ‘Western thought’, it should perhaps instead be viewed as one facet of the intellectual and religious diversity of Japan at that time. To complete the task of putting Japanese anti-Christian discourse into context, we must now further flesh out the nature of the intellectual and religious diversity from which it emerged, and further inquire into the trajectory of change within that diversity at the time of the onset of anti-Christian discourse in the seventeenth century.
2
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity Parallels and interactions
Early Tokugawa thought is often characterized as moving away from the spiritualism of the Warring States period to a more ‘rational’ inclination. Changes that occurred in Japanese Buddhist thought at this time, and the advent and popularity of anti-Christian discourse itself have both been described in terms of this paradigm.1 But the perceived flagship of a move towards ‘rationality’ in the early Tokugawa period has always been the rise in the popularity and influence of Confucian thought.2 Interestingly, the increase in popularity and influence of Confucian thought in Japan began not after the banning of Christianity, but simultaneously with the development of indigenous Japanese Christian thought at the turn of the sixteenth into the seventeenth century. Both thought traditions existed briefly together in the same highly diversified and dynamic intellectual climate at the turn of that century. A solid contextualized understanding of both Japanese Christian thought and anti-Christian discourse is therefore aided by an understanding of the interactions and parallels between developments in these two traditions at that time. An examination of the rise of Confucianism in Japan is also vital simply to understand the context within which both Japanese Christian thought peaked, and anti-Christian thought emerged. Just as it was necessary to ascertain the real nature of Japanese Christian thought in the early seventeenth century before assessing the alleged reactions to it, so too it is necessary to examine the reality of what has been held up against it as the ‘rational’ Confucian alternative. Did the Confucian thought of the early Tokugawa period represent an intellectual rupture with ‘mystical’ thought traditions of the past? Was Tokugawa Confucian thought uniformly antithetical to all facets of Japanese Christian thought? Was there any relationship between the changes that occurred within the Japanese Confucian and Christian traditions at this time? This chapter touches on some of these issues through reference to both core Japanese Confucian sources from the period, and texts where Confucian and Christian traditions interacted. Through source research and reference to recent scholarship on the position of Confucian thought in early Tokugawa Japan, this chapter questions some of the assumptions about the nature of early Tokugawa Confucianism that have underlain many previous studies of anti-Christian discourse. In particular, it questions the assumption that Confucianism and
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 35 Christianity were completely separate discourses, and the assumption that early Tokugawa Zhu Xi-ist Confucians agreed on some kind of monolithic, unified world view that was unquestioned as orthodoxy.3
Myōtei Mondō: harnessing Confucianism to Christianity One way to demonstrate the elevation of Confucianism in Japanese society at the beginning of the 1600s, and to see its reception in another thought tradition, is to examine changes in the way Confucianism was referred to in Christian texts of this period. The Japanese Christian text that deals most thoroughly with Confucianism is Myōtei Mondō. In context, the most notable aspect of Myōtei Mondō’s discussion of Confucianism is the very existence of that discussion. Although Confucian thought had been present in Japan for many centuries, throughout most of the sixteenth-century Confucianism was taught in Buddhist monasteries and studied by Buddhist monks. The emergence of thinkers who contrasted themselves against Buddhism by identifying themselves as ‘Confucians’ (jusha 儒者), only began at just the time Habian was active in the Jesuits, from the 1590s onwards. When Habian arrived in Kyoto in 1603, he needed to contend not only with multiple Buddhist and Shinto traditions, but also with intellectual competitors who identified themselves as ‘Confucians’.4 Habian’s choice to identify Confucianism overtly, along with Shinto and Buddhism, as one of the three traditions to critique in Myōtei Mondō was clearly driven by the contemporaneous rise of Confucianism in Japan, especially in the intellectual centre of Kyoto. It is interesting to note that in the 1581 Jesuit text Nihon no katekizumo 日本のカテキズモ, only Buddhism and Shinto are critiqued, the word ‘Confucian’ appearing just once. The fact that Confucianism was not identified by the Jesuits in 1581 as a significant intellectual tradition in Japan, yet by 1605 was worth occupying one of three chapters outlining Japanese thought, is itself an interesting comment on the changing face of Japanese thought at this time. The ‘Confucianism’ that Habian identifies in Myōtei Mondō is also clearly the systematic form of Confucianism associated with the metaphysics of thinkers of the Song dynasty – what is often referred to in English as ‘Neo-Confucianism’. In Myōtei Mondō, Habian demonstrates a knowledge of Confucianism well beyond a simple familiarity with the Confucian classics that one might expect of the average educated Buddhist monk. He exhibits a good understanding of the workings of Zhu Xi-ist Confucian metaphysics, quoting not only from the ancient Confucian classics, but also from twelfth century CE works by Zhu Xi including Sishu jizhu 四書集註 (Jp. Shisho shūchū), Jinsilu 近思録 (Jp. Kinshiroku) and Zhuzi wenji 朱子文集 (Jp. Shushi bunshū).5 Habian harshly criticizes the metaphysical systems of Song Confucianism, which sought to explain the foundations of the universe through reference to the workings of Yin and Yang and the Supreme Ultimate.6 On the other hand, Habian also expresses approval for the core ethical teachings of Confucianism. He points out that the Confucians did not argue as the Buddhists did that ‘there was no difference between good and evil’.7 Habian
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thereby differentiates Confucianism favourably from both Buddhism and Shinto because he sees it as a base for moral teaching. There is an aspect of teachings like Confucianism, which we call the teachings of natura, that seeks to protect the five virtues of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith, with which the nature of the human heart/mind is innately endowed at birth. From a Christian perspective, this aspect of Confucianism should be praised.8 Here Habian equates the scholastic principle of natura with the Confucian (Mencian) concept of xing (Jp. sei) 性, the innate nature of something, which in the human case is presented as an idea of innate moral goodness. In this manner, even during his critique of Confucianism in the second chapter of Myōtei Mondō, Habian also manages to point out good aspects of Confucianism. According to Habian, these aspects of Confucianism set it apart from other non-Christian traditions and show similarities to what Habian identifies as ‘Christian teachings’ (although the discussion of natura is obviously actually derived from scholasticism rather than Christianity). In addition to these comments, made in the chapter critiquing Confucianism, Confucian terms also appear in the last chapter of Myōtei Mondō where Habian outlines his vision of ‘Christian teachings’. As touched on earlier, Habian describes in clearly Confucian terms the function of human beings that delineates their anima rationalis and thereby gives them the potential for an afterlife. The function I speak of here is that which knows the principle of things, and which devotes the heart/mind to the principles of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith.9 Phrases like ‘knowing the principle’ and ‘having the wisdom to debate good and evil’ could perhaps be explained as referring obliquely to the Jesuit practice of discernment (Lat. discerno, Jp. funbetsu 分別) rather than to Confucian ideas of grasping principle. The problem with this thesis, however, is that the discernment is presented very particularly in other Japanese Christian texts in a manner which is quite at odds with Habian’s approach. In Dochirina Kirishitan for instance, discernment is equated directly with fides.10 Habian’s idea of discerning principle, however, seems to include more cognitive activity than the kind of blind faith advocated in the other texts. Of course, Ignatius’s practice of discernment outlined in his Spiritual Exercises involves harnessing the holy spirit (through faith) to discern between good and evil spirits.11 The interpretation of the relative roles of faith and thought in that process is open and debatable. But it is clear from a comparison of Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan that in the former we see a shift away from a blind-faith idea to a more cognitive process of discerning truth, expressed using Confucian terminology.
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 37
Japanese Confucianism and Christianity: two discourses, one conflict Interestingly, a similar emphasis on discerning the principle of things and valuing innate moral goodness can be found in the writings of Japanese Confucian contemporaries of Habian, many of whom congregated in Kyoto, the city in which Habian produced Myōtei Mondō. These trends can also be seen in Tentō (Ch. Tiandao) 天道 thought, a syncretist tradition that slightly preceded the burgeoning of independent (from the Buddhist monasteries) Confucian thought in Kyoto. So-called Tentō thought emerged in Japan towards the end of the Warring States period at the close of the sixteenth century as the label for a range of populist, spiritually inclined movements and texts. Tentō thought became popular during a time not only of large population displacement and disorder caused by the state of total war across central Japan, but also as organized Buddhist religions came under attack and began to divide and splinter. Shingaku gorinsho 心学五倫書 is one name given to a number of seemingly related syncretic, spiritualist Tentō texts that became popular during this period. Interestingly, late twentieth-century scholarship on these texts has at different times ascribed them to Habian, or to the Confucian scholars Fujiwara Seika 藤 原惺窩 (1561–1619) or Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619–91).12 Today it is generally acknowledged that this text pre-dates Banzan and therefore could not possibly have been written by him.13 The theories attributing it to Seika or Habian have also lost popularity. Nonetheless, this mistake itself demonstrates the extent to which there was overlap in intellectual trends of this time, in particular between Habian, a Christian, and Seika and Banzan, who were Confucians. As the early years of the seventeenth century progressed, the production, influence and reach of Japanese Confucian thinking expanded rapidly. The two names most commonly associated with these trends are Fujiwara Seika and his pupil Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (1583–1657): they have traditionally been described as the founders of a tradition or ‘school’ of Confucianism, a trend which later came to be known (somewhat incorrectly in the case of Seika) as ‘Japanese Zhu Xi-ism’ (often translated in English, again somewhat violently, as ‘Japanese NeoConfucianism’).14 Fujiwara Seika, who was very close in age to Habian, and like him had been orphaned at a young age by war, is often historicized as ‘the first Japanese NeoConfucian’. Compared with Hayashi Razan, however, Seika was much less fundamentally Zhu Xi-oriented: he had a much more open, tolerant intellectual inclination, with surprising points of similarity to the Jesuit-period Habian. Indeed, one of the most overlooked aspects of the history of Confucianism in early Tokugawa Japan is that these two so-called ‘founding fathers of Japanese Neo-Confucianism’ disagreed on many central issues. Fascinatingly, these disagreements seem to parallel the differences between Habian’s Myōtei Mondō and conservative European Jesuit texts such as Dochirina Kirishitan. Both conflicts seem to have been motivated by the fact that Seika’s and Habian’s ideas were less appropriate for integration into systems of social
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control or constructions of institution-based intellectual orthodoxy. Both Seika and Habian located their ideas of universal truth immanently – Seika through emphasis on the heart/mind, Habian through emphasis on anima rationalis, both of which were located not in an externalized order, but instead within the spirit/ heart of the individual. Both writers were criticized for these points by figures claiming to represent the ‘orthodox’ position in their traditions – Razan in the case of Confucianism, the European clergy in the case of Christianity. Early Tokugawa thought is often seen as a move away from the spiritualism of the Warring States period to a more ‘rational’ inclination of thought. The focus on the individual human interior in both Seika and Habian, however, like the inclination of Shingaku gorinsho, seems representative not so much of a rupture with the past (moving towards a process of ‘rationalization’), but rather of a continuity with the preceding spiritual thought traditions.15 This can be seen by examining certain core aspects of Seika’s ideas. His thought is classically described as being ‘not pure Zhu Xi Confucianism’. Concretely, it is alleged that Seika’s Confucianism is too practically oriented to be ‘pure Zhu Xi Confucianism’.16 In other words, it is commonly held that Seika seemed more interested in ideas relating to actual human conduct rather than to the metaphysical systems of Zhu Xi Confucianism. A good example of this is his explication of ‘the investigation of things’ 格物 (Jp. kakubutsu, Ch. gewu), the practice of internalizing universal truth that centrally related the metaphysics of Zhu Xi philosophy to human practice. Seika followed the Ming Confucian Lin Zhaoen 林兆恩 in steering away from the orthodox Zhu Xi definition of practice as a meditative internalization of an external truth. Instead he emphasized a practice in which individuals used their innate intellect to process objects.17 In one of Fujiwawa Seika’s major works, Daigaku yōryaku 大学要略, his notes on the primary text of post-Song period Confucianism, The Great Learning 大学 (Ch. Daxue, Jp. Daigaku), Seika quotes Lin at length, particularly following him in relating the process of ‘the investigation of things’ to the immanence in human beings of the five Confucian virtues. The virtues of the five relations are not something absorbed from outside, they are innate in our nature, endowed by Heaven.18 Seika emphasized his view of the importance of individual human agency in Confucian practice even further when he discussed the meaning of one of the key terms in The Great Learning, zhengyi 真意 (Jp. i wo makoto ni su), often translated as ‘making thoughts sincere’ or ‘making one’s intentions sincere’. This term appears as an important element in the most famous phrase of all Confucian texts, the passage in the The Great Learning attributed to Confucius that states: The ancients, who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 39 first rectified their hearts/minds. Wishing to rectify their hearts/minds, they first made their thoughts/intentions sincere. Wishing to make their thoughts/ intentions sincere, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.19 Seika began his discussion about ‘sincerity of thoughts’/‘sincerity of intentions’ by following the orthodox Zhu Xi commentary on The Great Learning in stating that: ‘Making one’s thoughts/intentions sincere means never deceiving oneself.’20 But he then diverged from the standard Zhu Xi interpretation, arguing: In order to make one’s thoughts/intentions sincere, one must never deceive oneself. Deceiving means to delude oneself. We should concentrate here on this word ‘oneself’. It goes without saying that people get deceived, but when we ourselves know the right path and do not enact it, does this not mean that we ourselves are deceiving our own heart? Therefore, to make one’s intention sincere means that we ourselves should not cheat our own intentions/thoughts.21 As Seika himself points out, the most important part of his commentary is the emphasis on self. Seika’s emphasis is not on the role of externalized gods, spirits, or kings, but on oneself knowing and following the right path. In this manner, Seika emphasized aspects of Confucian practice which offer an emphasis on human agency through spiritual practice. Concretely, Seika’s interpretation of ‘investigating things’, under the influence of Ming School of Mind tendencies, follows Lin in rejecting elements of Zhu Xi-ism to instead emphasize the role of the human mind/heart in a spiritual process of ‘investigating things’.22 It is notable that Seika, the most well-known Confucian active in Kyoto when Habian lived there, took an approach to Confucianism that underplayed Zhu Xi-ist metaphysics (the main object of Habian’s criticism of Confucianism) and emphasized practical aspects of Confucian teachings related to human agency in virtuous conduct. This shows perhaps a certain overlap of priorities and interests between contemporaneous intellectuals from different (Christian and Confucian) traditions.
Early Japanese Confucianism: individual versus institution It is also notable that the major point of intellectual difference between Seika and Hayashi Razan, his sometime student who later became recognized as the centre of a new Confucian orthodoxy in Japan, lay exactly in this interpretation of Confucian practice.23 Razan deliberately and overtly delineated his ideas from Seika’s by rejecting sections of Seika’s writings that appeared to show Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1528) influence.24 Razan made this perfectly clear in his own criticisms of Seika.25 These criticisms, ostensibly communicated in letters, were published by Razan’s sons in Hayashi Razan Bunshū as ‘Questions and Answers with Seika’ (Seika tōmon 惺窩答問)26 – presenting a delineation between Seika
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and Razan that formed part of the attempt to portray Razan’s thought as the ‘Zhu Xi-ist orthodoxy’ of Confucianism in Japan.27 Razan’s criticisms of Seika were based on his belief that Seika had, by accepting Yang-ming teaching that ‘there is no Principle other than the heart/mind’ 心外 無理, thereby accepted the arguments of a contemporary competitor of Zhu Xi, Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 (Jp. Riku Shōsan) (1139–93), who argued that ‘Principle equals the mind/heart’ 理即心, a view that Zhu Xi and Razan identified as ‘Zen Buddhist’ (and hence bad). This criticism is thought to have been communicated by Razan to Seika through letters addressed to the intermediary Yoshida Soan 吉 田素庵 (1571–1632).28 Seika responded to criticism of his use of Xiangshan and Yang-ming as follows: With their thousands of words and myriads of utterances, the sages and worthies wanted people to recognize Principle. How they express it is not the same, but what they enter into is [the same]. Moreover, all the men of former times had their own method of entry [to the problem]. Zhou Dunyi 周子 had his ‘giving primacy to quiescence’ 主静; the Chengs 程子 had their ‘holding to reverent seriousness’ 持敬; Zhu Xi 朱子 his ‘fathoming of Principle’ 窮理; Lu Xiangshan 象山 his ‘easy simplicity’ 易簡; Chen Bosha’s 白沙 ‘tranquility and completeness’ 静円, and Wang Yang-ming his ‘innate knowledge’ 良知. The words they use are different, but they are all talking about the same thing.29 Here Seika illustrates how Chinese commentators on the Confucian tradition from different historical periods have put various interpretations on the meaning of one of the key terms in Song and Ming Confucianism – ‘investigate things’. Seika’s argument is that they all refer to the same principle. Seika thereby rejected the idea common in Ming-period Confucian writing, and wholeheartedly adopted by Razan, that there was a dichotomy in Song and Ming Confucianism between ‘School of Principle’ (Zhu Xi-ist) and ‘School of Mind’ (Yang-ming-ist) tendencies, which needed to be resolved by taking one side or the other. That said, it is clear that Seika’s interpretation, especially under the influence of Lin, did emphasize the role of the mind/heart. Razan was already critical of this position fairly early in his career, while Seika was still alive;30 but his approach to the issue of ‘the investigation of things’ developed further after Seika’s death in 1619. In Razan’s later writings the concept of heart/mind had become very different to Seika’s active image. Razan developed ‘the investigation of things’ into a concept where human agency was obliterated. For example, in Razan’s introduction to Zhu Xi’s commentary on the Four Books, human beings are presented as like other animals, vegetables and inanimate objects – subject to a deterministic paradigm. Then Heaven created the multifarious things and to each of them gave a Principle. People, things, they all attained a Principle. The virtue of Yin and Yang and the five relations was innate in their heart/minds and this was called
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 41 Nature. … When people or things each automatically follow their Nature, then it is inevitable that the Way of Principle will function in the relations between all things.31 Razan sees people, like ‘things’, as displaying the virtues of the five relations by ‘automatically following their [predetermined] natures’. In this system there is no place for the autonomous function of the heart/mind. It is seen to function only in line with a predetermined ‘Nature’. As Ishida Ichirō has pointed out, this theoretical construct became the basis for the later ‘Japanese Zhu Xi-ist’ intellectual tendency to describe ‘Heaven (The Supreme Ultimate) as controlling, and people as responding’.32 This was the pattern by which conflicts inherent in Song-Ming Confucianism engaged each other in the early construction of socalled ‘Tokugawa Confucianism’.
Confucians and Christians: fighting the same battles There is a clear parallel between this conflict, occurring between Confucians in early seventeenth-century Japan, and the conflict within the scholastic tradition that was unfolding within Jesuit groups in China and Japan at the same time. Both conflicts centred on whether the idea of truth should be located internally or externally. This was related to conflicts over the role of human agency in the tradition, and the role of knowledge in verifying truth. Habian in the scholastic tradition, and Seika in the Confucian tradition, saw the principle supporting correct ethical action (benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge, faith) as residing innately in human beings as heart/mind (Seika) or anima rationalis (Habian). Both of them saw ‘knowledge’ (which Seika identified with the ‘investigation of things’, and Habian identified with ‘discernment’) as playing a central role in realizing innate principle or truth. On the other hand, both the mainstream European Jesuits in Japan, and the Confucian orthodoxy Razan was attempting to build, emphasized the role of an externalized predetermined construct of truth immanent in externalized social hierarchies – the hierarchy of the new feudal order in the case of Razan, the feudal hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the case of the conservative European Jesuits. This latter position would go on to be associated both with mainstream ‘Japanese Christian thought’ and with ‘Japanese Zhu Xi-ist orthodoxy’. In contrast to these ‘Japanese Christian’ and ‘Japanese Zhu Xi-ist’ orthodoxies, Habian’s and Seika’s ideas located spirituality in the person and thereby potentially supported human autonomous action. In fact, if we look not only at Seika’s writings, but indeed at much intellectual writing in Japan at the very end of the 1500s and in the first decade of the 1600s, we notice that the social conditions of Japan at this time (in the period immediately preceding, and at the very beginning of, the Tokugawa shogunate) appeared to support intellectual approaches that placed emphasis on autonomous human (often spiritual) practice. From this same social background, a range of intellectual trends emerged that seemed to possess similarities with Habian’s approach. These
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included not only Seika, but School of Mind-influenced Confucian trends and other syncretic trends mentioned above which displayed spiritualist tendencies, and which enjoyed a brief period of popularity at this time.33 The destabilized Japanese political environment of the sixteenth century created conditions of religious, political and social splintering and displacement. As the early seventeenth century progressed, however, a new more stabilized political situation emerged. In this context, the syncretic traditions of the sixteenth century began to fade, and structures of orthodoxy and heterodoxy capable of ordering intellectual traditions in an authoritarian framework began to emerge. In other words, instead of an intellectual milieu where isolated practitioners developed their own ideas as they liked, more systematized intellectual trends – capable of integration with systems of social control – began to be more highly valued. To put it another way, the social conditions that had allowed the kind of syncretic multiplicity seen at the end of the Warring States period (the political and thereby also inevitably ideological vacuum) was gradually replaced by more stable, hierarchically ordered conditions that supported the utilization and standardization of intellectual and religious traditions. The vast bulk of antiChristian discourse emerged after the establishment of these conditions (from the 1630s onwards).34 In the emerging tradition of Neo-Confucianism in Japan, the products of the former and latter of these two sets of conditions are represented by Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan, respectively. Although Seika – associated with texts such as Shingaku gorinsho, and a clearly pluralist approach to the Confucian tradition – represented the more open intellectual context of the earlier period, Razan beyond doubt became a representative of the creation of intellectual orthodoxy associated with the establishment of a central order, and eventually a stable state (the Tokugawa shogunate) in the later period. In the case of the Christian tradition, we have the fascinating possibility of identifying these two competing trends or periods in the writings of one person. In the 1621 work Hadaiusu 破提宇子, the post-apostate Habian, in the midst of the violent suppression of Christians in Nagasaki and the absolute consolidation of Tokugawa power, wrote what has come to be seen as his own attack on the thought of Myōtei Mondō and the trends it represented. Habian’s case is interesting, in that he lived through and seems to have functioned in both milieus. Consequently he is seen in the almost dual-personality framework described as his ‘tenkō’ – what is usually referred to in English as his ‘apostasy’ from Christianity, but which we could perhaps instead describe as his adaptation to the new intellectual–political nexus.35
Hadaiusu: apostasy or adaptation? Most anti-Christian discourse in Tokugawa Japan, as will be discussed in the next chapter, did not address arguments of Christian theology or otherwise significantly connect with Japanese Christian thought. Hadaiusu, however, authored as it was by Habian, was obviously and intimately connected to the Japanese Christian
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 43 tradition. There is no doubt that some parts of Hadaiusu, though not all, were aimed directly at Myōtei Mondō. If, however, as argued above, Myōtei Mondō was not representative of orthodox Christian thought, then what did a rejection of that text actually mean? Was Hadaiusu simply a rejection of Christianity written after the banning of the religion, or is there more significance in this text, perhaps related to the more general concurrent trends of change in Japanese thought? Habian is thought to have left the Jesuits around 1608. Hadaiusu, authored in 1620, is seen as representing his total apostasy or tenkō, his ‘turning’ or change of allegiance. But from what, and to what, did Habian’s allegiance change? As we have seen, the position from which Habian made his change was not a simple ‘Christian’ (in the Catholic doctrinal sense) one: it included syncretic trends influenced by Confucianism, and a particular approach to conflicts within the scholastic tradition. His position, clearly explained and enunciated, exhibited a strong overall humanist tendency. In this sense, although Myōtei Mondō presented much criticism of non-Christian intellectual traditions, it also offered up a clearly enunciated positive alternative, represented by Habian’s humanist scholastic paradigm. It is this paradigm with which we must compare Hadaiusu if we are to examine the text to understand Habian’s tenkō in the context of the larger intellectual changes occurring in Japan at this time. As for the position to which Habian changed, or turned, in his tenkō, until now there has been little discussion of what Hadaiusu offers up as an alternative to Christianity. This question is vital to understanding not only early anti-Christian thought, but also what we might describe as the development (or some might call the regression) of Christian thought itself (or some Christian thinkers themselves) in the early seventeenth century. Recent research often seems to avoid issues that suggest elements of continuity between Christian and anti-Christian thought. It is only if we look back to preWWII fascist-period Japanese research, some written with a barely disguised antiChristian slant, that we can see discussion of the continuity between the Christian and post-Christian Habian. An interesting example is Shinmura Izuru’s 新村出 1922 work Nanban Kōki 南蛮広記 which even questioned whether the Habian of Hadaiusu had actually given up Christianity. Even after his return to the true path [after his renunciation of Christianity], Habian still used his Christian name [Habian being derived from Fabian]. Considering this, we cannot but doubt whether his intentions in rejecting Christianity were sincere.36 A few years later, referring to this passage from Shinmura, the great religious studies scholar Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治 (1873–1949), in his first book of a series dealing with Japanese Christian thought, took a more detailed look at the question of Habian’s ‘apostasy’. Anesaki, using source research that alluded to tensions within the Japanese Jesuit order between Habian and European priests,
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became the first to suggest that Habian’s ‘change’ may have been a bit more complex than a simple path from ‘Christianity’ to ‘apostasy’.37 Referring to tensions within the Jesuits in Japan, and suggesting Hadaiusu as a reaction against those tensions, Anesaki argued that ‘it is not really possible to explain Habian’s actions in terms of a true problem of faith, where he “suddenly awakened” and gave up Christianity; rather, I would like to explain his actions as having been motivated by actual concrete events’.38 References to internal Jesuit political conflicts instead of matters of faith as the possible motivation for Habian’s resignation from the Jesuits can be found not only in Anesaki, but also in George Elison’s work.39 Both scholars, however, concluded there was not enough documentary evidence to arrive at a solid determination of Habian’s motivations. From this conclusion, however, rather than keeping the issue of Habian’s departure from the Jesuits open, both scholars went on to discuss Habian’s change in allegiance as if it were an ‘apostasy’, despite having cast doubt on whether this was actually the case. Both Anesaki and Elison allude to the fact that Habian’s ‘change’ may have been affected not by a change in his own beliefs or faith, but rather by changes in the political situation around him. Nevertheless, both still ultimately analysed Hadaiusu and Habian’s ‘apostasy’ in terms of a ‘Christian’ versus ‘anti-Christian’ paradigm. Although at times acknowledging that Habian’s ‘change’ was probably not a simple ‘apostasy’ from Christianity, they both use the word ‘apostasy’ (in Japanese, Anesaki uses the word kikyō 棄教) as the main way to describe Habian’s change. Moreover, Elison, by powerfully (although, as I will argue below, incorrectly) presenting Hadaiusu as a complete rejection of Myōtei Mondō in all respects, reinforced a simplified ‘Christian’ versus ‘anti-Christian’ paradigm for his analysis of the change in Habian’s approach.40 Although suggesting a range of different paradigms within which the shift in Habian occurred, this research in the end presented the shift as one ‘from Christianity to anti-Christianity’. Interestingly, neither scholar attempted to analyse Hadaiusu itself, the only reliable extant source we have of the post-Jesuit Habian, in terms of these issues. I would suggest that the very nature of words like ‘apostasy’, or the Japanese tenkō, posit an ‘either/or’ paradigm that potentially limits the scope of analysis. This paradigm assumes that there are only two competing views between which the subject is choosing, the parameters of which are predetermined and not related to the specific context of the subject. Of course, in certain periods of history, especially during processes of increasing authoritarianism, it is a fact that people are pushed into binary choices. In Japanese history the word tenkō is often used to refer to the processes by which leftists were made to renounce socialism or communism in favour of fascist ultra-nationalism during the twentieth century. In this modern case, as in the case of the suppression of Christians in the seventeenth century, many of the people who ‘tenkōed’ and paid lip-service to the new orthodoxy must have done so only to avoid death, torture and other unpleasantries. So although ideas of ‘apostasy’ and tenkō have a certain social validity, there is no doubt that the use of such categories can lead us to push individual thinkers into overly limited categories that may not represent their true (pre-coercion)
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 45 intentions. This approach can thereby limit our ability to discern much of what was occurring in their thought. Hadaiusu has until now been examined in terms of a framework that assumes the ‘Christian’/‘anti-Christian’ conflict as the dominant paradigm and sees the text as representative of the hinge upon which sits Habian’s ‘turn’ (tenkō). But perhaps it might be valuable to consider the text without the presupposition of a tenkō defined in binary terms. After all, there are a range of other contexts to this text, ranging from the political conflicts within the Japanese Jesuit order (alluded to by Anesaki and Elison) to the broader and more heterogeneous contexts of Japanese thought at this time, which lie completely outside the realm of ‘Christian thought’. One aspect of that broader context is the conflict (referred to above) concerning the question of externally or internally located conceptions of truth in Confucianism. Another related aspect is Japan’s contemporaneous move towards the construction of orthodoxy in Confucian thought. Looking at Hadaiusu in these broader contexts offers the capacity to move beyond binary categories and see how discourses surrounding what has become known as ‘Christian thought’ functioned in the broader environment of Japanese political, ethical and religious thought.
Hadaiusu explored: elements of continuity Hadaiusu is made up of seven sections or ‘steps’, each of which focuses critically on one aspect of Christian doctrine. These seven steps take up the first 85 per cent or so of the text. The remainder consists of a section entitled tōwa 答話, a question-and-answer session where Habian uses reminiscences of his own life inside the Jesuit order to criticize the morality of the Christians.41 The topics of Christian doctrine discussed, and therefore the objects of criticism of each of the seven steps, can be summarized as follows. The first step deals with the theory of the creation of all things by a sentient and virtuous creator-god Deus. The second step deals with anima theory and the idea that the human capacity for an afterlife is given to human beings by God through anima rationalis. The third step deals with the appearance of Satan. The fourth step deals with the story of Adam and Eve and the roots of original sin. The fifth step deals with God’s reaction to the original sin. The sixth step deals with the appearance on earth of Jesus Christ as the second person of the trinity and his absolution of original sin through the crucifixion. The seventh step deals with the ten commandments. The most striking thing about the criticisms of Christianity in Hadaiusu is that only two of these points, the first and second, are emphasized in the Jesuit Habian’s promotion of Christianity in Myōtei Mondō. The bulk of the criticism – steps three to six dealing with the devil, original sin, and Christ’s role in forgiving sin through crucifixion – was, as discussed in the previous chapter, touched upon only briefly in Myōtei Mondō. Like discussion of the ten commandments, these arguments were glossed over in Myōtei Mondō and did not play a central role in Habian’s promotion of Christianity. Although these arguments were central to texts like Dochirina Kirishitan, they were peripheral at best and often completely
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marginalized or excluded from the argument of Myōtei Mondō. In Hadaiusu, Habian himself points out the difference between the arguments dealt with in the first two points and those of points three to seven. The first two steps do contain some mature, intellectual content; but when we listen to the arguments of step three onwards, we see that there is no depth and that the arguments just get more and more ridiculous.42 There is a continuity here in the logic underlying both Myōtei Mondō and Hadaiusu. In both texts Habian takes seriously theories relating to creation, and to the anima theories of scholastic philosophy. In both texts Habian does not seem to take seriously teachings related to original sin and the devil. In other words, although in Myōtei Mondō Habian did not openly criticize doctrinal teachings relating to original sin, he nevertheless basically ignored them. This demonstrates a certain consistency in the approach of Habian in both texts: he seems to regard these elements of Christian doctrine as particularly weak. It also shows that Hadaiusu was not a simple negation of Myōtei Mondō – most of Hadaiusu’s content was in fact unrelated to Myōtei Mondō. This also potentially undermines a representation of Habian as having completely ‘turned over’ or ‘changed’ in the period between the two texts. To either salvage or sink such a representation, we must examine how Hadaiusu addressed points one and two relating to the existence of a creator God and the anima theory, which were emphasized in Myōtei Mondō. The interesting thing about Hadaiusu’s treatment of the existence of a creator God is that, rather than rejecting this idea outright, Hadaiusu attacks Christianity on this point for its ‘unoriginality’. Habian opens his criticism of the Christian idea of a creator God as follows: I rebut by saying: Is there anything remarkable about this? Are there any schools [of thought/religion] which do not discuss this?43 Habian then goes on to quote from Laozi, Confucius and Buddhist texts to demonstrate that the idea of creation is completely unoriginal. Although Hadaiusu thus does not criticize the theory of creation itself, what it does criticize is the idea of God as a sentient being. This is a major point of difference with Myōtei Mondō. [in rebuttal]: [The Christians say that] because God possesses knowledge and discernment he is something more than Natural Law. I have to laugh at this suggestion. You are unable to understand the principle of the ‘illumination of the still mind’ (kyorei fumai 虚霊不昧). The Christians again say: If at the origin there is no wisdom and virtue, then whence came the intellect and wisdom of human beings and the order present in the movements of the myriad things? When we look at these principles we see that the originator must have possessed wisdom and virtue.
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 47 I rebut by saying: A willow is green, a flower is red, this is just the natural order. Break open the roots of a willow and look at them, they are not green. Smash the stem of a flower and look at it. It is not red. This is the manifest base of the flow of Nature.44 Exactly the same argument is used in Myōtei Mondō, where the key Zhu Xiist Confucian idea of the ‘illumination of the still mind’ is equated with anima rationalis.45 The classic Buddhist analogy relating to the greenness of the willow and redness of the flower is also used in Myōtei Mondō in the same section. In Myōtei Mondō, Myōshū uses this same analogy to explain Zhu Xi-ist Confucian ‘state-principle theory’ 事理説 (Jp. jirisetu, Ch. shilishuo). Of course, while in Myōtei Mondō this explanation of the Confucian theory is refuted by Yūtei (the representative of ‘Christian learning’), in Hadaiusu it stands as a positive statement. This is related to Habian’s refutation of his own anima theory in the second section of Hadaiusu. Here he criticizes anima theory again from a Song Confucian perspective. I am going to tell you the truth, so listen. All of the multifarious things possess the two elements of ‘state’ 事 [Jp. ji, Ch. Shi] and ‘Principle’ [Jp. ri, Ch. Li]. In other words, nothing can exist without Principle, and it is this Principle which is [universally] endowed from Heaven. … It is because the substance 気質 of individual things is not all the same that the function of different things is also not the same. So why should we divide up different Principle into categories like vegetabilis, sensibilis and rationalis? They think that the various schools of thought do not know of the idea that the mind of human beings, they call it anima rationalis, is different to other things and therefore is the fundamental principle that controls bodily desires.46 Here Habian uses the key Neo-Confucian paradigm of state and Principle, which is related to function and form. According to this paradigm the form of all things is the Principle (li), their manifested state is their state (shi). The latter determines their function. This is related to the underlying Neo-Confucian dichotomy between substance/essence 気 (Ch. qi, Jp. ki) and Principle: there is just one universal form called Principle, and the differences between things, for instance differences in the natures or characteristics of people, are determined by differences in their substance/essence. Habian follows the classic Neo-Confucian criticism of scholastic philosophy that by equating anima with form, the scholastics/Christians bifurcate the idea of a universal Principle. Interestingly, in this passage, while Habian mentions this point saying, ‘why should we divide up Principle’, he also in the end states that, basically, the location in the mind of the capacity to control bodily desires is not so different to other (non-Christian) teachings. The point is made quite clearly, however, that the Principle is universal and that differing essence determines differing function. This matches the analysis of contemporary orthodox Japanese Zhu Xi-ist Confucians (such as Hayashi Razan or Yamazaki Ansai 山崎闇斎
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(1618–82)) in locating divergence from Principle in the essence of people. Habian further develops this argument along orthodox Zhu Xi-ist Confucian lines. The Confucians call the physical desires of essence/matter ‘the mind of human beings’, and call what they think of as righteous Principle ‘the mind of the Way’. In relation to this point [the second step of Hadaiusu arguing against anima theory] the Confucian schools’ penetration of Good is not matched by Christianity, the twisted teachings of the barbarians. ‘The mind of human beings is nothing but danger, the mind of the Way is nothing but [beautiful] subtlety.’ This is the truth of the matter.47 This analysis in turn potentially supports arguments critical of a location of truth in the individual human subject. It does this by seemingly locating truth as Principle outside of the human subject. The political significance of this tendency in Hadaiusu is spelt out towards the end of the text’s second step. After ascending to the throne, Yu of Xia saw a criminal. Stepping down from his chariot he cried, ‘The people of King Yao and King Shun based their intentions [mind/heart] on the mind/heart of Yao and Shun. As Emperor I now rule as King, [yet] the people make their intentions [mind/heart] based on mind/heart of themselves. This pains the Emperor [me] as I myself take responsibility for this’.48 Yao, Shun and Yu are the mythical sage kings of ancient China. In the Confucian tradition they are the ultimate representatives of human sages. Their ‘Way’ is held up as all but perfect governance, and the conduct of their states similarly held to be the Confucian ideal. In this quote from the shibashilue 十八史略, a king laments that he has failed as a ruler. His failure is represented by a criminal (the existence of crime) in his kingdom. He laments that this criminal act is due to his failing to get the people to follow him, and he compares himself unfavourably with the ancient sage kings’ ability to get the people to ‘model their intentions’ on the king’s. In other words, the ‘norms’ that the people should follow are not abstracted or personally immanent truths, but are rather personified in the external social order of the rulers. In Myōtei Mondō, by contrast, anima rationalis is presented as an inherently human characteristic located in the individual human soul, giving the capacity for correct action through individual spiritual discernment, a process with links to what in modern society we might describe as the exercise of individual moral judgement. In this passage from Hadaiusu, however, the idea of the ‘people’ taking their intentions from the ‘mind/heart of themselves’ is seen as the root of disorder. Conversely, the correct way is for the ‘people of Yao and Shun to base their intentions (mind/heart) on the mind/heart of Yao and Shun’. In other words a process by which the people identify not with an individually immanent rationale, but instead with the rationale of an externalized political order or hegemony, is presented as ideal. This paradigm of locating thought and action in an externalized
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 49 order is argued in Hadaiusu not only in relation to the feudal monarch-based political system, but also in relation to a broader set of human relations. The best example of this is presented in step seven, where Hadaiusu criticizes the first of the ten commandments. The first commandment states that if something goes against the will of God, then you should even disobey your king or father or value lightly your own life [instead of complying]. In this precept lurks a mind to betray and usurp the nation, and to wipe out the laws of Buddha and king. What argument can there be against quickly putting these followers [of Christianity] in irons? ‘In all cases, the precepts for attaining good can be found in the morals preserved in the people’s daily lives’. There are many elements in human ethics, but none exceed the five relations: king and vassal; parent and child; husband and wife; elder brother and younger brother; friend and friend. If the duties inherent in these relations are carried out completely, what more can be added? Someone who would disturb/confuse these relations would inevitably commit the gravest atrocities and immoralities. The duties of king and vassal are loyalty and reward; the duties of parent and child are filial piety and care; the duties of husband and wife are the ritual proprieties of distinctiveness and separation; the duty of brothers towards each other is brotherly love; the duty of friends towards each other is trust. And bestowing the nature of the five relations on humanity is the duty of the will of Heaven.49 Here Hadaiusu makes it clear that it defines ‘the will of Heaven’ and ‘nature’ not as principles to be discerned within the rationale of the human mind/heart, nor even through an abstracted conception of God or Nature, but rather as something immanent in the sociopolitical order.50 This is a clear case where an argument of Myōtei Mondō is rebutted by Hadaiusu, and rebutted clearly within an ideological paradigm which emphasizes the location of authority in the extant sociopolitical order. Taking this into account, it seems that the difference in the Jesuit and postJesuit thought of Habian, the nature of his ‘tenkō’, can be identified as occurring along similar lines to the ideological differences identified in contemporaneous Confucian thought between Seika and Razan. The shift seen between Myōtei Mondō and Hadaiusu, rather than being a simple shift from a ‘Christian’ to an ‘anti-Christian’ (or, more primitively still, a ‘Western’ to an ‘Eastern’) outlook, is perhaps indicative of a more general trend in Japanese society at this time where intellectual writing of different traditions was becoming increasingly integrated into a systematized framework supportive of political control. The Habian of Myōtei Mondō argued that the capacity for the Good, represented by the virtues of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith, existed immanently in each and every human being as anima rationalis. Therefore, Good action in human society (potentially including political action) was to be realized through autonomously enacting something (anima rationalis) immanent in the individual human. Conversely, the Habian of Hadaiusu, in a manner very
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similar to that of the famous Buddhist ideologue Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三 (1579– 1655) 40 years later, argued that Good action consisted of action in line with externally determined ‘duties’ identified in terms of set hierarchical social and political relations: ‘the orders of the state’, the ‘duty’ inherent in the relations of king and vassal, and father and son.51 This clearly subjugated issues relating to the judgement of correct or incorrect action to standards determined by the hierarchical social relations of the prevailing sociopolitical order.
Conclusion: Habian’s tenkō and the role of autonomy in politics and society The difference between Myōtei Mondō and Hadaiusu, put simply, is that Myōtei Mondō was difficult to employ in a discourse of control. It located the centre for ethical judgement in the autonomous thought of the individual human being. This was the inherent problem with Myōtei Mondō, not only from authoritarian political perspectives such as that of the shogunate, but also from authoritarian religious perspectives, such as those of the orthodox Jesuit European hierarchy in Japan. On the other hand, the approach of Hadaiusu was amenable to a discourse of authoritarian control because it located ethical judgement in solidly determined, externalized hierarchical sociopolitical relations. By privileging thought based on existent social relations, instead of on individual autonomy, the latter position was inherently conservative. Thus even in the case of Hadaiusu – of all Japanese anti-Christian texts the one most integrated with actual Christian thought – the major point of criticism seems to relate less to differences between ‘Christian’ and ‘non-Christian’ traditions, than to paradigms describing the role of autonomous thought in political society. This is of course not to say that the text Hadaiusu has no role to play in also elucidating aspects of the history of Christianity in Japan. Of course, Hadaiusu does provide a systematic critique of contemporaneous Catholic doctrine (even if not the doctrine favoured by the Jesuit Habian, or indeed for that matter by figures like Ricci). It was also obviously designed and planned as an anti-Christian text at a time when Christianity had not yet been totally suppressed. Nevertheless, Hadaiusu also demonstrates that even in the earliest cases of anti-Christian texts with provisionally ‘doctrinal’ arguments, these texts are operating in interaction with discourses that transcend the simple ‘Christian versus anti-Christian’ paradigm. Rather, the contrast or development in Habian between Myōtei Mondō and Hadaiusu in many ways resembles the contrast or development in the two different forms of Neo-Confucianism advanced by Seika and Razan. Regardless of the tradition, the move is towards intellectual paradigms that locate truth in externalized social hierarchies rather than in the processes of individual internalized thought or discernment. In short, they are processes that validate power. This chapter has demonstrated – through confirming in-depth references in Christian texts to Confucian thought, and overlaps in the content of both traditions in Tentō texts – that there was some intellectual overlap, confluence and interplay
Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 51 between the Christian and Confucian traditions. Looking at the extant texts from the period, the extent of this overlap is clear from the fact that in some cases it is not even possible to differentiate between the traditions. This fact makes the considerable similarities discernible in the underlying conflicts within each tradition even more fascinating. It does appear that differences in Neo-Confucian thought between Seika and Razan – seemingly under the influence of changes to the sociopolitical context which that thought engaged with – mirror differences between the pre- and post-apostate Habian. The intellectual context of the early seventeenth century, when the first massive wave of anti-Christian discourse broke over Japan, therefore, was not simply a clash between ‘rational Eastern thought’ and ‘superstitious Western Christianity’, but a much more nuanced and complex context, in which an array of different approaches to issues of political and ethical thought were colliding and interacting within and between a diverse range of traditions and players.
3
Early Tokugawa antiChristian discourse Proclamations, populist literature and diplomacy
If a clash between autonomy and institutional authority was the immediate intellectual context of the outbreak of anti-Christian discourse in the seventeenth century, what was its immediate political context? And what was the general nature of Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse itself? This chapter gives an overview of the development of the literature from the beginning through to the middle of the seventeenth century, which has traditionally been identified as the main body of anti-Christian discourse – the ‘Japanese anti-Christian canon’, as it were. That overview begins with, and is set in the context of, an examination of the political reality of the actual banning and suppression of Christianity in Japan from around 1612. The popular image of seventeenth-century anti-Christian discourse is that it emerged from the banning of Christianity and functioned primarily in opposition to Christianity. A cursory examination of the relationship between the actual ban on Christianity and the nature of early anti-Christian discourse, however, presents a more complex picture. This chapter begins by revisiting the motivation for and process of the suppression of Christianity in early seventeenth-century Japan, before moving on to examine the range of texts generally regarded as the main sources of antiChristian discourse in this period. This examination will begin with the small number of government-authored institutional texts (primarily anti-Christian proclamations), which were intimately connected with the actual prohibition of the religion, before focusing on the more numerous popular texts of the midseventeenth century. These have less connection with the suppression itself, yet make up the bulk of the ‘anti-Christian canon’ of Japanese writings.1 In the last section of the chapter we will again examine government-authored texts with antiChristian content, but in this case diplomatic correspondence. These diplomatic documents, while being important sources of anti-Christian writing from the same period, have until now generally not been discussed in mainstream writing on Japanese anti-Christian discourse.2 This new look at another, less populist form of anti-Christian writing of this period takes the discussion on the political usages of anti-Christian discourse into fresh territory. Taken altogether, this analysis will show that early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse was not chiefly a philosophical–intellectual attack on the West and Christianity in support of the religion’s domestic suppression; rather, it was in fact
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 53 a discourse aimed at legitimizing and buttressing the existing social order and the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate. This in turn paved the way for anti-Christian discourse’s ultimate use, to be explored in later chapters, as an ideological strut of the modern Japanese nation state.
The political roots of the suppression of Christianity The early seventeenth-century suppression of Christianity and the end of Japan’s so-called ‘Christian century’ has been one of the most popular and dramatically narrated aspects of Japanese history. It has been transformed into an array of almost pop stories of persecution, violence, torture and extermination. It is also an event that has been approached from a range of different historical angles focusing on its religious, cultural or political significance.3 The main period of active and sustained government suppression of Christianity dates from around 1612 until the effective annihilation of Christianity by the end of the 1630s. Some systematic measures ostensibly introduced for the control of Christianity, such as the temple registration system (danka seido 檀家制度) and edicts against the religion, continued to operate through the entire Tokugawa period, well into the nineteenth century. There are also a number of incidents of repression of so-called kakure kirishitan (hidden Christians) through the late seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The main period of actual anti-Christian action, however, had pretty much ended by the 1640s. By this time Christianity had been effectively wiped out.4 The main period of suppression began in March 1612 with measures taken by Tokugawa Ieyasu in cities under direct shogunate control in Kantō and Shizuoka. In August these measures were extended to the Kansai region. The suppression’s geographical extension was matched by a social one: its initial target was only samurai directly employed by the shogunate, which broadened first to other samurai in areas administered directly by the shogunate, then to non-samurai classes. The suppression thus spread gradually outwards and downwards from the governing strata (samurai members of the Tokugawa household) to the governed (townspeople, peasants, etc). Gonoi Takashi has shown from Jesuit sources that Ieyasu had taken action to prevent the spread of Christianity in his own retinue as early as 1605.5 Although allowing Christianity among the general population in areas he governed, Ieyasu explicitly forbade Christianity among any samurai receiving income in his fiefs. This example is generally used to demonstrate that Ieyasu saw a potential political threat from Christianity as early as 1605. It is therefore noteworthy that the suppression which began in 1612, and ultimately caused the complete annihilation of Christianity in Japan, originated from an instance of Christian believers being discovered among his own retinue. The shogunate proclaimed the order banning Christianity in April 1612.6 It can be seen in the sources that an immediate background factor influencing the issuance of the order was a bribery scandal involving a figure called Okamoto Ōhachi 岡本大八, who turned out to be a Christian. Rather than the incident
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of bribery itself, however, it was a general investigation of samurai in Ieyasu’s retinue, conducted in reaction to the scandal, that seems to have prompted the ban. This investigation, the results of which were presented to Ieyasu two days before the issuance of the ban, showed that 15 members of Ieyasu’s household (or feudal retinue, kajindan 家臣団) had been identified as Christian. The suppression of Christianity thus began in his own household, then spread to the households of other lords in Sunpu (Shizuoka) before extending further from there.7 Rather than having a religious focus, the suppression’s initial impetus came from the Tokugawa rulers’ desire to stabilize their power bases in their heartland of eastern Japan (the Kanto plain and Shizuoka). The suppression followed a similar pattern, on a larger scale, in western Japan, where the vast majority of Christians lived. For instance, one focus of the suppression in western Japan was the so-called ‘Great Exile’ (daitsuihō 大 追放) of December 1614. This incident is well known in Western histories as the occasion on which all foreign priests were banished from Japan. But this was by no means the most important political aspect of this incident, at least in terms of Japanese political history. More significantly, all the Christian domain lords and much of their senior samurai retinues were also banished. These lords were almost exclusively those who had been loyal to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The Toyotomi family’s claim to the shogunate was to be thoroughly wiped out within a year of the Great Exile, in the summer campaign of 1615 against Osaka castle (the so-called ‘Osaka natsu no jin’ 大坂夏の陣), suggesting that the Great Exile and the suppression of Christianity paved the way for Tokugawa consolidation of power.8 The Tokugawa shogunate’s motivation was immediate and political, and was clearly directed at other warlords. But as the suppression went on, the focus moved from the deportation of notable samurai associated with the Toyotomi to the violent suppression of the lower orders. The popular imagery of the suppression of Christianity in both Japan and abroad today tends to be based on actions taken in this next phase against allegedly Christian ‘ordinary Japanese’. But how and why was the suppression of Christianity extended to townspeople and peasants who, after all, seemed to pose no immediate political or military threat to Tokugawa power?
The spread of the suppression and its political consequences The broad extension of the suppression policy to the general population can be identified with a number of events that occurred in January 1614 – the month that the Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada dispatched the senior shogunate officials Itakura Shigemune 板倉重昌 and Ōkubo Tadachika 大久保忠隣 to Kyoto with a sweeping mandate to ‘banish the priests’.9 In late January 1614 (the beginning of month one of Keichō 19 in the Japanese calendar of the time, and therefore of the celebration of the new year), Ōkubo entered Kyoto, immediately dispatched the Catholic priests to Nagasaki for exile and destroyed the churches. Much more importantly, however, he also launched, on a grand scale, a movement described as ‘Christian revision’ (kirishitan aratame キリシタン改め) – a campaign in which
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 55 the masses were assisted by various ingenious means to ‘revise’ their Christian faith and arrive at the conclusion that they should renounce their Christianity. The gruesome popular imagery of violence and torture associated with the suppression of Christianity in Tokugawa Japan is usually associated with this movement. Implemented firstly in Kyoto and then throughout western Japan, the ‘revision’ movement was notable because it was not directed primarily against the foreign priests but against Japanese, particularly ordinary peasants or townspeople. It deployed images of ‘foreignness’, ‘barbarism’ and ‘otherness’, in other words the imagery of xenophobia, not against ‘outsiders’, but in order to repress those ‘inside’ Japan. It was a movement that primarily targeted neither foreign priests nor powerful samurai clans, but overwhelmingly ordinary Japanese who appeared to present no immediate threat. Although Christianity had been basically wiped out by the 1640s, the ‘Christian aratame’ practices requiring Japanese to ‘prove’ that they were not Christian became increasingly institutionalized during the mid- and later seventeenth century: in 1635 the so-called temple registration system, requiring Japanese of all classes to register with a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine, was introduced; and other practices like so-called fumie 踏絵 (a variety of practices such as treading on crosses, through which villagers ‘demonstrated’ their non-Christian credentials) were increasingly institutionalized, so that by the 1660s a system of formal, official procedures of registration and practice extended to the entire population of Japan. These measures became collectively known as the aratame system (shūmon aratame no seido 宗門改めの制度). The establishment of this system represented much more than just an instance of anti-Christian activity: it established an institutionalized system of social control extending to the entire population, a system of control that continued to function until the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in the late nineteenth century. The establishment of this system is considered by many scholars to be one of the most enduring and significant events of seventeenth-century Japanese history.10 Indeed, one might even say that, looking today at the historical significance of the suppression of Christianity in Japan, by far the most socially and politically important event for the history of Japan thereafter was the establishment of this control system. So although the ‘Christian thought’ of Japan’s ‘Christian century’ seems to have had little effect on the later development of Japanese political thought, the products of antiChristian thought – in particular the institutionalized aratame system and later traditions of anti-Christian literature – continued to affect Japanese political and intellectual development right through the Tokugawa period and indeed well into the modern era. Interestingly, in much the same way that the aratame system became increasingly institutionalized after the suppression of Christianity had been achieved, so too most anti-Christian literature and discourse emerged after the complete annihilation of Christianity. Most anti-Christian writings were published in the three decades after the last outbreak of anything like open Christian sentiment, the Shimabara Rebellion of 1639.11 The relatively few anti-Christian writings that do date from
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before 1639 also have a very different character to most anti-Christian writing that emerged later. Earlier anti-Christian texts tend to be less literary – they are often official government documents, and in general they have much less of the missionary zeal or propaganda-like qualities of the later, more populist writings. Documents from before the 1630s were almost all either government-produced or written by ‘turned [former] Christians’ (korobi kirsihitan 転びキリシタン).
Proclamations: a call to order One of the most famous early anti-Christian documents is the proclamation that marked the extension of the suppression of Christianity to the general population, Bateren tsuihō no fumi 伴天連追放之文 (Proclamation on the Deportation of Priests). It was issued by Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada in January 1614. Its title and some of its contents resemble the proclamation of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s short-lived proscription of Christianity in 1587, Bateren tsuihōrei 伴天連追放 令 (Order on the Deportation of Priests). Both documents ostensibly criticize Christianity as inferior to the religious traditions of Shinto and Buddhism. The 1587 document, however, was never fully implemented and therefore has less historical significance than the 1614 document, which is generally identified with the full implementation of the suppression of Christianity. As mentioned above, although an official ban on Christianity was first proclaimed in April 1612, an active policy of suppression was extended to the general population only with the issuance of Bateren tsuihō no fumi almost two years later. Despite encompassing the population at large, the proclamation was not intended for general circulation: it was issued as an authority to the newly proclaimed Grand Anti-Christian Inquisitor (Tsuihō sōbugyō 追放総奉行) Ōkubo before his dispatch to Kyoto, and we can therefore assume it was used primarily to communicate the shogun’s intentions and the logic behind the introduction of the suppression to other holders of authority around Kyoto and across western Japan. Probably the most important section of Bateren tsuihō no fumi is the central third or so, where the logic of the suppression policy is explained. Japan, land of the [Shinto] Gods and the Buddhas, reveres the Gods, respects the Buddhas, fulfils the Way of Benevolence and Justice, and implements the laws of good and evil. If there are criminals, then in accordance with the severity of their crime one of the five punishments of tattooing, cutting off their nose, cutting off their foot, castration, or execution is enacted upon them. The Book of Rites says, ‘When we have much mourning, we have the five robes; when we have much crime, we have the five punishments’. If there is doubt of the crime, then using the Gods we enact oaths of proof. We stipulate the criminal codes and discern whether a crime has been committed or not, leaving out not even the smallest thing. Criminals of the Five Crimes and the Ten Sins throw away the Buddhas and Gods, Buddha, Dharma and Clergy, and the life of heaven and earth.12 It is a difficult thing to escape from the misfortune befitting accrued bad deeds. Whether executed by decapitation
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 57 or boiling oil, the crimes committed [will be rewarded] like this.13 This is the Way of encouraging good and discouraging evil.14 They wanted to control evil, but bad deeds were all too easily accrued. They wanted to commend good, but good is all too difficult to preserve. [So] they needed to make clear rules.15 Nowadays is the same as this. … If you do not observe the example of the ancestors, then you should be afraid, very afraid.16 Those Christian Priests and their party all oppose the articles of the law. They hate and doubt the Way of the Gods [Shinto], they ridicule the True Law [Buddhist Dharma], they discard Justice and ruin Goodness. They look at the example of a criminal [Jesus], and become excited, blindly running after him. They themselves pray to him and offer him sacrifice. This is what they take as the object of reverence and salvation in their religion! How is this not heresy? In fact, it is the enemy of the Gods and the enemy of the Buddhas. If we do not swiftly prohibit it now, then in the future the nation will suffer. We must enact the law. If we do not control it, then we invite the punishment of Heaven. Without rest, we must swiftly sweep it from all the territories and lands of the Japanese state. And if there is anyone who stands against this proclamation, then they should be punished.17 Here we can see that, as in the proscription issued in Hideyoshi’s time, national and religious identity is conflated through the use of a Shinto–Buddhist or (if we take the reference to benevolence and justice as Confucian) Shinto– Buddhist–Confucian religious identity to represent Japan. Another important point, however, but one often overlooked, is the document’s emphasis on law, order and punishment. Buddhist and Confucian quotes are frequent, but nearly all relate to crime and punishment. The document, therefore, while beginning with the construction of a dichotomy between ‘Japanese religions’ and Christianity, identifies Confucianism and Buddhism primarily (in more than one-third of the document) in terms of their teachings on social order. The main thrust of the document is not so much the religious dichotomy, but a justification of the use of force in maintaining order. Confucian and Buddhist quotes are used primarily to argue the need for law and order and to legitimate the use of severe force to uphold order. The closest thing to any kind of doctrinal or intellectual argument against Christianity is the charge that Jesus was a criminal, so even the only argument related directly to the nature of the Christian religion is thereby presented in terms of crime and punishment. In short, Bateren tsuihō no fumi primarily justifies the ban on Christianity not through its simple dichotomous depiction of Christianity as ‘foreign’, but rather through its claim that Christianity opposed the systems of law and punishment that upheld order – that it is uniquely and inherently anti-authoritarian through its worship of a criminal. The main emphasis is on religion’s role in the sociopolitical system; the threat from Christianity is not its potential as a strut for foreign invasion or interference, but its challenge to authority and order in a domestic context. Bateren tsuihō no fumi is one of the small minority of anti-Christian writings from before the 1630s. Most others from this period appear to have been written
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by so-called korobi kirishitan, or ‘turned Christians’. These include the 1621 work Hadaiusu by Habian, examined in the previous chapter, and the 1636 work Kengiroku 顕偽録 by Sawano Chūan 沢野忠庵, the apostate Jesuit priest Christovão Ferreira (1580–1650). It seems that another anti-Christian work, Baterenki 伴天連記, was also the work of an apostate priest of this period.18 These texts – not surprisingly considering their authors appear to have been former Jesuits – show a much higher level of knowledge of Christian practice and doctrine than can be found in most anti-Christian writings of subsequent decades. Furthermore, as shown in the discussion of Hadaiusu in the previous chapter, they tend to present arguments supportive of the structure of political control established or maintained by the early Tokugawa regime. The distribution and impact of these texts at the time, however, was very limited. Kengiroku was immediately sealed by the shogunate because it contained reference to Christian doctrine, and never saw the light of day in the Tokugawa period. In fact, the first public reference to the text occurred in 1930.19 Hadaiusu and Baterenki also appear not to have been widely distributed in the early or mid-Tokugawa period.20 Therefore, the only one of these three texts with any significant influence on the development of anti-Christian discourse through the Tokugawa and Meiji periods was Hadaiusu, primarily through its reprinting in 1864.21 Most anti-Christian writings from the early Tokugawa period that affected the development of the discourse and political thought of the later Tokugawa and Meiji periods appeared as part of the large output of populist anti-Christian writings that exploded after the Shimabara Rebellion, through the 1640s, 1650s and 1660s.
Populist texts: a political project After Christianity had been wiped out, in the period from the 1640s onwards, especially through the 1660s, anti-Christian writings not only ballooned in number but also became so widely distributed that some variants could be said to have constituted genres of popular literature.22 Indeed, many of the anti-Christian texts of this period have been described as ‘populist’ works.23 In the same way that the system of kirishitan aratame became more institutionalized after the annihilation of Christianity, so too anti-Christian discourse began to take on a bigger and clearer role as institutionalized propaganda, catering to a comparatively greater and more general readership after Christianity had been extinguished. Unfortunately, however, most previous research on this literature has paid scant attention to the basic sociopolitical context of its production. Instead, it has tended to be presented as an antithesis to Japanese ‘Christian thought’, as part of some clash between imagined categories of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ thought. But this analysis is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this anti-Christian discourse was not contemporaneous with Japanese Christian thought but rather emerged several decades after the suppression of Christianity. Secondly and most importantly, as demonstrated in the first chapter of this book, Japanese Christian thought itself was not a simple representation of something we
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 59 might identify as ‘Western thought’ but rather included significant influence from the social context in which it was created in Japan. Furthermore, as will be argued in detail in the following chapters, most of the anti-Christian thought of this period itself does not appear to have been written primarily for the purpose of countering Christianity or Christian ideas but rather with different, clearly domestic priorities in mind. In general, the arguments tend to be political rather than doctrinal.
Kirishitan Monogatari: dehumanization and derision One of the most widely distributed anti-Christian texts in the seventeenth century was Kirishitan Monogatari 吉利支丹物語 (The Tale of the Christians). The original production of this anonymous text is usually attributed to 1639, but its popularization and consequent wide impact appear to date from its reprintings in the 1660s. It is very difficult to isolate any one particular text as an ‘indicative’ or ‘representative’ text of the anti-Christian discourse of the post Shimabara Rebellion (post-1639) period, but Kirishitan Monogatari is probably the nearest approximation. This is not only because Kirishitan Monogatari appears to have been well distributed at the time, but also because of the text’s presentation of political, historical and doctrinal arguments in plain populist language in a narrative (monogatari) style. In terms of understanding the nature of the variety of populist anti-Christian texts that emerged in the decades after Shimabara, therefore, it is a very useful source. Kirishitan Monogatari deals at length with stories relating to the actual suppression of Christianity in the decades preceding its production. The text portrays the suppression positively, even glowingly, in a propagandist style. Given this fact, it is interesting that Kirishitan Monogatari makes no attempt to hide or mitigate the acts of violence accompanying the suppression; indeed, it highlights acts of violence as subjects of humour and entertainment.24 Significantly, there is no argument in the text justifying the violence; its victims are simply identified as ‘Christians’ and there is no further explanation as to why they should be violently persecuted. In official texts issued by the shogunate such as Bateren tsuihō no fumi, there are arguments clearly explaining why the Christians should be cast out, and justifying the repression to follow. There, it is argued that repression is necessary to prevent Christianity from disturbing the domestic political order in Japan. But in Kirishitan Monogatari we see no such argument: the closest thing to a justification of anti-Christian violence is an insidious presentation of the Christians as ‘weird’ (kaze kawari 風代り), ‘foreign-like’ (ikokufū 異国風, interestingly not ‘foreign’), ‘base’ (gehin 下品) and ‘odd’ (kimyō 奇妙).25 It is this creation of an ‘image’ of (predominantly Japanese) Christians as a strange ‘Other’ that appears to justify the entertainment value of anti-Christian violence presented through the text. One good example is a section of Kirishitan Monogatari concerning a group of Franciscans. After acknowledging the work of the Franciscans in healing the sick, the text goes on to gleefully narrate the Franciscans being transported to Nagasaki on a cart, having their ears and noses cut off and then being crucified.26
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But why should this kind of treatment of people healing the sick be such a cause of celebration? The answer to this question lies in the earlier narration of the actual medical practice and other activities of the Franciscans: Kirishitan Monogatari makes it clear that many of the patients suffer from leprosy and other socially problematic sicknesses; moreover, many of the patients are ‘kabukimono’ かぶ きもの or ‘hinin kojiki mono’ 非人乞食ども27 – that is, ‘travellers’/‘hoboes’, or members of lower or excluded castes or social groups.28 It is also argued that on being cured, it is these kinds of Japanese who then go on to convert to Christianity. The Japanese Christians themselves are thereby described in the text as being ‘a rabble of idiots and weirdos’.29 In place of a justification of the violent suppression of Christianity, then, comes this image of Christian people that dehumanizes them, just as Kirishitan Monogatari also dehumanizes Western Catholics. In the end they thereby come to be considered, just like the Europeans, as ‘devils in human form’.30 This image of Christians as anti-social and dehumanized is central to the way Kirishitan Monogatari functions. Images from the opening section of the text, where the foreign Catholic priests are described as ‘long-nosed … with long fingernails and toenails, tall and dark-skinned with red noses and teeth longer than those of horses’,31 are extended to also create a dehumanizing image of Japanese Christians as ‘beasts with no culture’.32 In both cases, the violence against them seems justified through this process of dehumanization. It is often argued that the major beef with Christianity in Kirishitan Monogatari and many other anti-Christian texts of this period is the so-called ‘invasion theory’ – that the propagation of the Christian religion was part of a European plot to conquer Japan. But often when Christianity is presented as part of a plot of conquest, that conquest is specifically referred to as one not requiring invasion. In a chapter of Kirishitan Monogatari entitled ‘Actions of the plotters wanting to subjugate Japan to the Southern Barbarians’, it is made clear that the Christian plan is to increase the number of Christians in Japan to such an extent that, ‘without firing one arrow, they can take the country’.33 In other words, the so-called ‘invasion theory’, at least in Kirishitan Monogatari, was not actually a theory of military invasion of Japan, but rather a discourse identifying Christianity as a threat to the intellectual, religious and political integrity of Japan. If we look at Kirishitan Monogatari in its entirety we see that even this argument is present in only one chapter of the text. It is not used throughout the work as a major justification of the repression. Compared with the 1614 Bateren tsuihō no fumi’s clear enunciation of the justification for the introduction of the suppression of Christianity, Kirishitan Monogatari instead relies primarily on a dehumanized image of Christians. This could well be related to the relative periods of the production of each text. When Bateren tsuihō no fumi was produced, there were still many openly Christian Japanese, including in positions of relative authority. Many ‘ordinary Japanese’ at this time would have had neighbours, friends or colleagues who were Christian. By the time Kirishitan Monogatari came to be widely distributed in the 1660s, however, no Christians were living openly in general society. The violence
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 61 against Christians committed by the state in the full view of the public between 1614 and 1640 probably itself assisted in dehumanizing Christian people in the consciousness of many other Japanese.
Suzuki Shōsan: tradition as legitimation Kirishitan Monogatari first appeared immediately after the Shimabara Rebellion in 1639 and was a clearly populist text designed for a wide readership and written primarily in kana (Japanese phonetic characters and with minimal Chinese ideographic character kanji use). It is therefore often identified as the first of a genre of populist anti-Christian texts that emerged in the decades after the rebellion.34 Most other texts in this genre emerged from the 1660s. With the exception of the Japanese Chinese-language kanbun text Jakyō taii 邪教大意 (also known as Taijijashūron 対治邪執論) of 1648, all the commonly referenced anti-Christian documents from the post-Shimabara period to the end of the seventeenth century were written in kana. Much of the production and printing of this kind of populist text during the 1660s appears to have been by driven by Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正 三 (1579–1655) and his associates. Examples include Shōsan’s own Hakirishitan 破吉利支丹; his disciple Echū’s 恵中 Kaijō Monogatari 海上物語; Asai Ryōi’s 浅井了意 Kirishitan Hakyaku ronden 鬼理至端破却論伝; and the 1662 reprint of Kirishitan Monogatari, Kirishitantaiji Monogatari 吉利支丹退治物語. The late 1600s also saw the publication of a range of populist monogatari style anti-Christian historical fiction, with some stories taking the suppression of the Shimabara Rebellion as a theme and portraying it as a kind of anti-Christian crusade. Such texts included Kirishitan shūmon raichō jikki 切支丹宗門来朝実 記 (Record of the Coming of the Christians to Japan); Amakusa sōdō 天草騒 動 (The Disorder at Amakusa); Amakusa gassenki 天草合戦記 (Records of the Battle of Amakusa); Nanbanji Monogatari 南蛮寺物語 (Stories of the Temple of the Southern Barbarians); and Nanbanji kōhaiki 南蛮寺興廃記 (The Rise and Fall of the Temple of the Southern Barbarians).35 Suzuki Shōsan’s Hakirishitan (Smash the Christians) is considered one of the most important texts of this boom in anti-Christian discourse beginning in the 1660s. This is because as well as having a particularly wide distribution, the text’s argument is also quite representative of the kind of doctrinal position taken not only by Shōsan but also by other writers around him who generated some of the other texts of this boom. Hakirishitan, like Bateren tsuihō no fumi, emphasizes a construction of Shinto–Buddhist synthesis as a Japanese national religious culture opposed to Christianity.36 In Hakirishitan, however, this construction is described in a clearly more complex manner. Bateren tsuihō no fumi commends the Shinto–Buddhist combination in opposition to Christianity by stating that in a corrupted world, Shinto and Buddhism resurrect the correct and proper customs and ways of the past.37 In Hakirishitan, Shōsan develops this further by articulating exactly how Buddhism and Shinto support order, and what kind of order they support. Beginning by agreeing that Shinto and Buddhism represent the traditional customs of Japan,
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Shōsan moves on to argue that traditions of political society, and the order that emerges from them, are elements of nature. The one Buddha of thusness (shinnyo 真如, the nature of reality) transforms and is then accepted into the minds of men. So the mind [of men] which respects and reveres the gods is [also] transmitting this one Buddha. For instance, respecting and revering the sovereign, beginning with the vassals and ministers, step by step down to the local officials and then to the peasants, this respect of each relevant official at each level is the ordained Law [Dharma of the Buddha]. This is the righteousness of each person respecting one person above them. How can teachings like Christianity, which posit just one person above [all] to respect, using no subordinates [as representatives], be considered correct?38 Here Shōsan argues that the current political order is ‘originated by the gods and transmitted down through the traditions of this country’,39 and that thereby through tradition and custom, the ‘one Buddha of thusness’, the mind of current existence, is (should be) linked to the political order. Between above and below, between the gods and the people, social custom and the political order stand as mediators. The major point of Shōsan’s criticism is that in Christian teachings this level of demarcated step-by-step mediation does not exist. The Christians, in Shōsan’s view, by ignoring the ordained nature of political custom transmitted through tradition, thereby ignore the nature of reality (shinnyo 真如). This identification by Shōsan of the gods, Buddha and the human mind as immanently present in the political order has been referred to by Ōkuwa Hitoshi as representative of a philosophical ‘idealism’ discernible in Shōsan’s thought.40 At a more grounded political level, however, it is more important to point out the inherent essentialism and conservatism of this position. Hakirishitan adds a level of doctrinal argument to Bateren tsuihō no fumi’s criticism of Christianity as politically subversive and its championing of Shinto–Buddhism as ensuring the stability of order through religiously supporting the systems of social control (custom). Shōsan also employs Buddhist metaphysics to criticize elements of Christian doctrine such as the theory of creation and the differentiation between animals and human beings.41 These arguments typically construct an image of Christianity as a mystical and superstitious religion, a kind of heretical, esoteric faith.42 Like Kirishitan Monogatari, Hakirishitan also narrates episodes of violence against Christians, but this violence is clearly justified through arguments that mix Shinto–Buddhist doctrine with a kind of nationalist Japan-centrism. The Buddha of their country [Christ of the European countries] is not a Buddha. It has no history and no divine virtues. Its crimes are terrible. The punishments of Heaven, the Buddha, the gods and of man must all be visited upon them. Every one of them [the Christians] needs to be strung up and killed.43
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 63 Although overall Shōsan does employ Buddhist doctrine more positively and comprehensively than other earlier populist anti-Christian discourses, in the end his main argument is based around the same central pillar and same general political–intellectual stance as other contemporary documents such as Bateren tsuihō no fumi and Kirishitan Monogatari. Like Kirishitan Monogatari, Hakirishitan emphasizes a portrayal of Christians as foreign(-like) Others. But the central argument of Hakirishitan is that Christianity as a teaching threatens the traditional social-customary relations that underlie the stability of the current regime’s political control systems. As in Bateren tsuihō no fumi, this is the core reason given for the need to suppress Christianity. Shōsan, however, goes further by using Buddhist doctrine to overtly link the political control systems of the Tokugawa state (in particular, the idea of loyalty to each stage of the political control process) to an idea of tradition and custom. Shōsan presents the existent political order as a reflection of the ‘traditions and customs’ of the ‘country’, traditions and customs that furthermore are sold as being inherently good owing to the very fact that they are ‘traditional’. It was through the Buddhist doctrinal ornamentation of this inherently state-centric, typically Confucian, standpoint that Shōsan’s writings made their mark. His use here of almost a proto-nationalism by emphasizing not just traditions and customs, but ‘Japanese’ traditions and customs, coupled with his emphasis on what he saw as the superstitious nature of Christianity against the more reasonable tone of Buddhism is what has led some historians such as Nakamura Hajime to identify Suzuki Shōsan as a herald of ‘Japanese modernity’.44 Leaving such assertions aside, we can certainly agree with Nakamura that the core of Shōsan’s argument revolved around politics and statecraft, doctrine being deployed in support. This is not to say that there were no purely doctrinal arguments in the antiChristian discourse of this period. One prominent example of a doctrinal/religious argument that does come up in certain texts of this period relates to the issue of redemption. The Christian doctrine of Christ’s forgiveness of sin is a particular object of criticism found in a range of different Japanese anti-Christian texts. In Hadaiusu, for instance, as touched on in the previous chapter, the premise of God setting up a situation where Adam and Eve would commit sin was in itself judged by Habian as an immoral and unethical act (on God’s part). Likewise, many other anti-Christian criticisms of the doctrine of redemption focus on the premise of original sin. They point out that redemption from sin based on Christ’s crucifixion is only necessary because of the ridiculous teachings that in the first place attributed the existence of original sin to the Adam and Eve fable. Habian’s view was simply that for the almighty Christian God not to intervene when he saw that a sin was about to occur was manifestly unjust and unrighteous. Did [the Christian] God not know that Adam was about to break the commandment? If he did not know, then he is not all-knowing of the three worlds. If he did know, then it was his duty in terms of benevolence to tell
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Kumazawa hakukei no hajasetsu 熊沢伯継の破邪説, a text attributed to Kumazawa Banzan contains the same argument,46 and it can also be found in Arai Hakuseki’s early eighteenth-century work Seiyō kibun 西洋紀聞.47 Another doctrinally based argument seen repeatedly in both Confucian and Buddhist texts is the assertion that Christianity evolved from Buddhism as a heretical sect of that religion. In Confucian texts, this argument is sometimes used to criticize Buddhism. Examples of this can be seen in the works of Kumazawa Banzan and Hayashi Razan.48 But the argument is also used by Buddhists themselves as part of a criticism of Christianity. This can be seen for instance in the famous early Tokugawa Buddhist anti-Christian text Jakyō Taii by Sessō Sōsai 雪窓宗崔.49 Looking at the distribution of the anti-Christian texts in early Tokugawa society as a whole, however, it seems clear that these kinds of doctrinal arguments were far from representative of the general nature of the main anti-Christian discourses of the period. Sessō Sōsai’s Jakyō Taii is a relatively famous text that appears to have enjoyed a level of distribution superior to that of any other Buddhist antiChristian text of the period written in Classical Chinese (kanbun).50 Nevertheless, compared with the anti-Christian texts of the same period written in Japanese (kana) its distribution was highly limited. It was this latter genre of anti-Christian literature that dominated the field. Even in relatively doctrinally complex texts such as Sessō Sōsai’s, however, the core of the anti-Christian argument is never based in doctrinal issues. As Ōkuwa Hitoshi’s comprehensive research on Chinese-language texts by Sessō Sōsai and other related Buddhists of the period has shown, ‘there is no doubt that the foundation [of the anti-Christian argument] is the threat of a Christian invasion’.51 Therefore the doctrinal elements of these texts, in the context of early Tokugawa society, did not appear to possess the rhetorical utility of the more political arguments. This is particularly clear in the case of texts from the period that went on to have the greatest impact and appear to have been the most widely distributed at the time (such as Kirishitan Monogatari and Hakirishitan). Importantly, it was also this latter kind of text which dominated the modern ‘canon’ of anti-Christian works studied in the twentieth century.
The ‘anti-Christian canon’ reconsidered: politics over doctrine Above we have cursorily examined a range of the most typically researched Japanese anti-Christian literature of the seventeenth century. These texts, some produced in the early 1600s, most in the latter half of the century, were popularized from the 1660s onwards; and until now they have been commonly viewed as representative of the early Tokugawa period’s ‘anti-Christian canon’. From our
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 65 examination of these texts and their interaction, it is possible to make a number of observations about the general nature of this anti-Christian discourse. One clear conclusion is that in the official documents issued by the shogunate at the beginning of the suppression, as confirmed in Bateren tsuihō no fumi, the banning of Christianity was not justified predominantly by presenting Christians as ‘foreign’ or ‘Other’. Instead, Christianity was criticized, particularly in comparison with Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism, for the fact that its teachings appeared not to acknowledge the structures of political control that supported the stability of the current political order. In contrast to this, from the mid-1600s onwards, widely distributed populist anti-Christian propaganda like Kirishitan Monogatari created an image of Christians that used xenophobic discourses to present them as exotic, foreign-like Others. In this context, however, the xenophobic or exclusivist discourse was clearly not aimed at non-Japanese, but at ‘lepers’, ‘travellers’ or ‘hoboes’, and members of other excluded social castes (hinin, for instance). In other words, the foreign image was used to amplify a discourse aimed at dehumanizing certain Japanese people. We should bear in mind that by the time Kirishitan Monogatari was published (and particularly by the time of its popularization and mass printing in the 1660s) there were no nonJapanese Christians and virtually no Japanese Christians in Japan. This discourse, therefore, was clearly not aimed at foreigners, and needs to be considered as a rhetorical device used to justify discrimination amongst Japanese people. In this sense it is reminiscent of Carol Gluck’s discussion of the construction of the ‘metaphysical foreigner’ in modern Japanese history.52 Another issue common to anti-Christian texts of this period is the problem of the so-called ‘invasion theory’. In reality – as seen in Kirishitan Monogatari – most anti-Christian references to a foreign takeover of Japan through Christianity do not speak of invasion but rather of ‘taking the country without an arrow being fired’. In other words, the threat of Christianity is seen in terms of its effect on the Japanese people – that it may avert their loyalty from the current order to another political object. This argument is intimately related to a dominant theme of Bateren tsuihō no fumi, Kirishitan Monogatari and Hakirishitan: the idea that ‘traditions’ inherent to ‘our country’ underlie preservation of the current order. As has been touched upon in reference to the theories of Nakamura Hajime, and as will be extrapolated later in this book, this aspect of the ‘anti-Christian canon’ has important implications for our consideration of the issue of modern ideology formation in Japan. While Hakirishitan also contains xenophobic imagery and argumentation, its main point is to positively emphasize the role of (Shinto– Buddhist) religion in generating and preserving a world of religiously integrated custom and tradition that inherently acts to preserve the current political order. Ultimately, Shōsan’s main criticism of Christianity is that it does not have this same relationship to custom and order. Although arguments based around social exclusivity or xenophobia, emphasized in so much of the secondary literature, can be seen in supporting roles in some of these texts, the creation of this discourse is clearly not the main point, motivation, or object of the anti-Christian discourse of this period. Rather, anti-Christian
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discourse appears as a predominantly political rhetoric that constructs a relationship between certain religious traditions, concepts of past, custom and tradition on the one hand, and the maintenance of the current political order on the other. The defining characteristic is not cultural xenophobia but political conservatism. The government-issued proclamations and the popular literature of the seventeenth century have, until now, been the sources on which most research has concentrated as constituting the early Tokugawa period’s anti-Christian discourse or ‘canon’. But there was also an entirely separate contemporaneous field in Japan where anti-Christian discourse was deployed – a field that until now has gone virtually unexamined. That was the field of foreign relations. A number of the important diplomatic documents between the early Tokugawa government of Japan and other states reveal significant employment of anti-Christian discourse. As will be discussed below, the way that discourse was employed varied and developed in relation to the changing international environment of the seventeenth century. But one interesting, easily discernible aspect of that discourse – and one quite different to the discourse in the documents examined above – is the creation of and reliance upon the idea of a ‘Confucian– Christian’ dichotomy in terms of which discussion of diplomacy occurs. Before advancing to look at those diplomatic documents, we should therefore pause to first consider one important and renowned anti-Christian text from Japan’s seventeenth century that we have not yet examined: Haiyaso 排耶蘇, the text most associated with a clash between Confucianism and Christianity in early Tokugawa Japan, and one that again involves Habian. In Haiyaso, however, rather than Habian displaying Confucian influence as we have seen above, he is caricatured as the ultimate anti-Confucian Christian, engaged in a stereotyped, simplistic and polarized debate with the Confucian Hayashi Razan.
Haiyaso: constructing a Confucian–Christian dichotomy Haiyaso is a short document that claims to be the record of a debate held in 1606 between the (then) Jesuit Habian and a young Hayashi Razan in Kyoto. It appears in Hayashi Razan Bunshū, a posthumous collection of Hayashi Razan’s writings first published in 1661 by Razan’s son Hayashi Gahō 林鵞峰. In Haiyaso, Razan employs the kind of Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism discussed in the previous chapter to argue against various scholastic, religious and scientific arguments of ‘the Christians’ (yaso 耶蘇), who are represented by Habian (referred to in this text as Fukan 不干). Haiyaso is probably the most famous and certainly most oft-quoted of Razan’s large corpus of anti-Christian writings. Because of its structure as a purported record of debate between Habian and Razan, this text has repeatedly been offered up by specialist academic and popular historians alike as the classic example of a clash between Western Christian thought and the ascendant Neo-Confucianism of the early Tokugawa period. Haiyaso has thereby become a highly significant text in the quest to understand the nature of Japanese Christian thought, early Tokugawa Confucian thought, and their interaction in the context of anti-Christian
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 67 discourse. In particular, it is the text which is seen to have established the idea of a conflict between Confucianism and Christianity in early Tokugawa society.53 Haiyaso opens with Razan identifying Habian as his debating opponent and referring to a text identified as Myōtei Mondō. I also saw the text Myōtei Mondō. This is a work of Fukan’s. I got him to read from it. The text is presented as a dialogue between two nuns, Myōshū and Yūtei. It discusses Buddhism (the ten sects as well as Ikkō and Nichiren sects, so twelve sects), Confucianism and Shinto. It is not worth looking at. It is all verbose ranting strung together in vulgar Japanese.54 Despite this description, however, there is little discussion of major issues from Myōtei Mondō to be found in Haiyaso. Instead, the treatment is limited to two subjects that both seem to derive from Chinese rather than Japanese Christian texts: a discussion on whether the earth is round or not, and a discussion on part of Matteo Ricci’s creation theory. Both refer directly to texts produced by Ricci in China, and the examination of Ricci’s explanation of creation and metaphysics quite clearly begins with a quote from Tianzhu Shiyi. [Razan says:] ‘Matteo Ricci the Jesuit writes, “Heaven and Earth, spirits, and the souls of men have a beginning but no end”. I do not believe this. If there is a beginning, there must be an end.’55 This discussion not only begins with a quote from Ricci, but in the contents of the discussion itself, the comments of Fukan (as Habian is called in Haiyaso) are not consistent with Habian’s creation theory. Fukan, not gathering what had been said, states: ‘The occurrence of an idea which creates an implement is what enables Principle. Before the occurrence of the idea there exists a non-sentient, unthinking substance. So substance precedes Principle.’56 As noted in our discussion of Myōtei Mondō, Habian’s creation theory develops through anima categories and is closely related to a particular view of humanity. Neither of these elements are present in Haiyaso. In this argument, Fukan posits God as the creator of all things as ‘substance’ and therefore argues that ‘substance precedes’ all else. Although some aspects of the use of the term ‘substance’ here agree with Myōtei Mondō, the characteristics of God outlined here do not. In Myōtei Mondō, Habian criticizes the Buddhist concept of musō munen 無想無念 (non-sentient unthinking) and contrasts it with Deus ittai デウス一体 (God the One Form), who, he emphasizes, is yūchi yūtoku 有智有徳 (wise and virtuous). In Myōtei Mondō, Habian’s criticism of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto interprets Buddhist emptiness (kū 空) and Confucian and Shinto Yin and Yang as scholastic materia prima, making a theme of contrasting the non-sentient unthinking materia prima against the wise and virtuous God.57 The characteristic
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of God as being sentient and virtuous, not simply a value-free, unthinking substance like materia prima, provides the basis for Habian’s attack on Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto.58 It is also the launching pad for Habian’s explication of creation and anima categories.59 The fact that such a key idea in Myōtei Mondō, indeed the underpinning of the bulk of its argument, is contradicted by Fukan in Haiyaso, suggests that the text does not accurately record what Habian said – if indeed this debate actually ever did occur and he was present. Interestingly, Razan instead presents ‘Christian thought’ through the paradigm of Ricci to recreate the narrative of a sectarian clash between Confucianism and Christianity. The other argument present in the text about the world being round also fits this paradigm. Myōtei Mondō mentions geography only fleetingly in its introduction, but Haiyaso does not touch on that discussion. Rather Haiyaso refers to a map which appears to be Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu 坤輿萬國全圖.60 In discussion on both of the above topics, indeed throughout Haiyaso, Fukan uses completely different language to that used by Habian in Myōtei Mondō. Not only is Habian’s preferred word for God, Deus, replaced by Tenshu 天主 (Ch. Tianzhu, used by Ricci and the Chinese Jesuits for God), but also a whole range of other words represented by katakana versions of Latin words in Myōtei Mondō fail to appear in Haiyaso, which uses Ricci-esque Chinese character translation throughout.61 The Fukan of Haiyaso seems markedly different to the Habian who advances a humanistic position based on a creation theory outlined in scholastic Latin vocabulary in Myōtei Mondō. Not only Habian’s language, but also his core ideas are all absent from Haiyaso. Conversely, a number of the ideas expressed by Fukan in Haiyaso clearly and directly contradict ideas expressed by Habian only one year before this debate is supposed to have taken place. Until now, it has been accepted at face value that Haiyaso is an exactly contemporaneous record of a real 1606 debate between Habian and Razan, as claimed in Hayashi Razan Bunshū in 1662.62 But there are reasons to doubt this. First, as mentioned above, the representation of Habian’s ideas in Haiyaso is seriously at odds with what we know of his ideas published only one year before the debate is supposed to have taken place. Second, while no arguments from Myōtei Mondō appear in Habian’s statements as recorded in Haiyaso, there are repeated references to works by Matteo Ricci which had only recently been written in 1606, and which were only widely referenced in Japan many years after this.63 Third, Haiyaso does not seem compatible with the style or content of what is supposed to be a contemporaneous writing by Razan, the 1610 Nagasaki Itsuji; nor does Haiyaso seem consistent with the general development of Razan’s writings in Hayashi Razan Bunshū and elsewhere. In Haiyaso, Razan quotes texts by Matteo Ricci, demonstrating a fair knowledge of the basic tenets of scholastic creation theory as expressed in Chinese Jesuit writings. Nagasaki Itsuji is a 1610 record of a trip made to Nagasaki where Razan remarks upon the profiteering motivation of Japanese who convert to Christianity. Nagasaki Itsuji describes Christianity almost anthropologically, in a much more detached, descriptive and disengaged style than in Haiyaso.
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 69 They [the barbarians] make a religion of worshipping Heaven. They call it Yaso, it has also been called Tenshu. Their book is written horizontally and bound Japanese-style. Their teachings are to do with karma, life and death. I wonder if perhaps they might not be a kind of Mohammedan folk.64 This descriptive and rather detached report in the 1610 Nagasaki Itsuji seems rather strange if indeed Razan had, as is indicated in Haiyaso, read Habian’s Myōtei Mondō and Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi fully and debated a Jesuit scholastic by 1606. Haiyaso suggests Razan as a 24-year-old Confucian in Kyoto who had read both these very recent and rather strange books and been given the opportunity to debate a much older and at the time extremely senior and busy Habian. Given the dates from which Tianzhu Shiyi was imported into Japan, however, it seems unlikely, if nevertheless possible, that it would have been generally available in Kyoto by this time, and that Razan could have yet read it.65 Nagasaki itsuji presents a 28-year-old Razan who does not seem to have become an expert on Christianity. On a trip to Nagasaki he makes a few simple and casual observations about this strange Christian religion, and that is all. Razan’s voice in Nagasaki itsuji is not that of a man who had read Ricci and Habian and debated issues of astronomy and religion with the latter at the age of 24. The two representations do not match. So which is true? The case against Haiyaso and in favour of Nagasaki Itsuji’s authenticity is a strong one, strengthened when we look at their relative positions in Hayashi Razan Bunshū. Nagasaki Itsuji appears within Hayashi Razan Bunshū in a fairly natural location in a kiji 記事 section in Book 22 after a document written in 1607 (Tōgyō Nichiroku 東行日録), and before a note on the availability of Sunpu Nikki 駿府日 記 (a document which was supposed to have been composed in 1614 and would have included entries for 1610). In other words, it appears among other similar genres of document written around the same time. The placement of Haiyaso, however, is more suspicious. Haiyaso appears towards the end of Hayashi Razan Bunshū in a zatsu 雑 (Ch. za) section, Book 56. Zatsu (miscellaneous) sections of bunshū (collected documents), as the name suggests, usually comprise a range of writings on a variety of topics. But if we look to the kind of Chinese prototype upon which Hayashi Razan Bunshū may have been based, we can see a big difference between the zatsu genre as it stands in Zhu Xi Wenji 朱熹文集 for instance, and as it is conceived in Hayashi Razan Bunshū. In Zhu Xi Wenji the zatsu sections contain a variety of essays, but nearly all on key philosophical issues.66 Hayashi Razan Bunshū’s zatsu sections, however, are composed predominantly of polemical factional assaults on non-Confucian philosophical and religious traditions competing with Razan. Haiyaso appears in Hayashi Razan Bunshū in a context where the three documents appearing directly before it are also similar diatribes against non-Confucian traditions. The text directly before Haiyaso, entitled Sannin wo satosu 諭三人, attacks Buddhist metaphysics. The text before that one, Zento wo tsugu 告禅徒, derides the (lack of) ethics of Buddhist monks. The text before it, Shakurō 釈老, attacks Buddhist and Taoist asceticism.67 In other words, much of the zatsu section is clearly conceived as a platform on which
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to attack religious practice and ideas that Razan regarded as heterodox. These are articles written in a style which bears more in common with Razan’s later period of writing from the 1650s, as will be discussed further in the next chapter. In other words, the placement of Haiyaso in Hayashi Razan Bunshū amongst seemingly much later writings casts further doubt over the likelihood of this text having been authored in the first decade of the 1600s as claimed. Through Haiyaso, Razan (some time in the first half of the1600s) sought to portray both the Japanese and Chinese Jesuit traditions, including Habian, as representing a single homogeneous ideological/religious world view. Razan held up this created image of Christianity in a similarly simplified dichotomy with orthodox Confucianism. This constructed duality allowed him to create a binary rhetorical framework in which all political ideas could be labelled either Christian or Confucian, orthodox or heterodox. The Fukan we see in Haiyaso appears to be a reconstruction of Habian, a fabrication to fit that rhetorical imperative. The use of this document, therefore, to reconstruct a historical image of Habian, as it has been used extensively in previous research, is highly problematic.68 Whatever Razan’s inaccuracies concerning Habian, it is clear that Razan sought to use his own interpretation of Confucianism polemically against a constructed image of Christianity. As will become clear in later chapters of this book, this kind of early anti-Christian discourse set the standard for later broadscale use of an ‘image’ of Christianity to reinforce intellectual orthodoxies and launch sectarian attacks on any thinkers (Buddhist, Confucian or otherwise) who did not conform to these standards. At this time, however, the clearest, most politically important – and until now most overlooked – arena in which this kind of rhetoric was employed was in diplomacy. Japanese anti-Christian discourse was not only used within the borders of the Japanese state, but furthermore was used beyond those borders as part of the international relations discourse through which the early Tokugawa government established the very integrity and validity of that state abroad.
Diplomatic correspondence: in search of a Confucian base The anti-Christian discourse examined above was produced for a domestic audience, and with domestic imperatives in mind. Also, although a couple of documents like Bateren tsuihō no fumi were originated by the state, the vast majority of famous anti-Christian documents from this period, like those examined above, were not. In addition to these kinds of texts, however, there was also another anti-Christian discourse being developed for use in a broader political context – the context of diplomacy and interstate relations in east Asia. These were documents authored on behalf of the Japanese state for use with other states or extra-state entities in the international environment. In this context, the exoticized images of difference and the Other, the constructed dichotomies of normality and abnormality, inner and outer, which we saw deployed in populist domestic anti-Christian discourses above, were systematized and developed within a much more complex and developed framework of political thought. This process of the development of
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 71 anti-Christian discourse occurred in parallel with a process of systematization of Japan’s international relations in east Asia. In the domestic populist anti-Christian discourse, exoticized images of the Christian ‘Other’ were deployed to justify authority in general, and antiChristian action in particular. In this discourse, Christians were portrayed fairly simplistically as an ‘Other’ which should be the object of criticism because it was different. Almost all the major anti-Christian writings of this period, however, with the single exception of Haiyaso by Hayashi Razan, failed to articulate exactly what the ‘non-heretic’ (or in other words, the intellectual orthodoxy) actually was. Some texts referred to a Shinto–Buddhist–Confucian synthesis (sankyō icchiron), but again, its nature was never clearly articulated. In this context, the exact definition of what was ‘heretical’ and what was ‘orthodox’ was determined pretty much on a case-by-case basis, relying on the rhetorical imperatives of the particular moment and the context in which the argument was framed. In other words, most anti-Christian discourse, especially the populist writings that dominated the field, sprung not from some grounded intellectual orthodoxy, but relied on norms that were fluid and subject to change depending on time and place. Although such a rhetorical structure possessed obvious advantages in terms of flexibility, it also meant that Japanese anti-Christian discourse was potentially isolated within the particularistic and momentary space and time of early seventeenth-century Japanese history, politics and culture, and did not possess elements enabling it to be easily supported outside of that space and time. From the perspective of Japan’s external relations, or indeed from the perspective of the historical sustainability of this discourse, this was a potential problem. There was, however, another anti-Christian discourse being developed by a new kind of author.
Hayashi Razan’s diplomatic dichotomies The authorship of Bateren Tsuihō no fumi is often attributed to the monk-scribe and Tokugawa adviser Ishin Sūden 以心崇伝 (1569–1633). The same figure also drafted a significant amount of diplomatic correspondence sent out by the early Tokugawa shogunate.69 Through the 1620s and 1630s, however, the responsibility for the drafting of diplomatic correspondence on behalf of shogunate officials gradually drifted from Sūden to Hayashi Razan. At this time, diplomatic correspondence between Japan, China (the Ming empire) and Korea (the Choson kingdom) increased. This meant that the amount of diplomatic correspondence carried out within the parameters of Confucian discourse also increased, and it was within this discourse space that anti-Christian writings increasingly appeared in Razan’s diplomatic correspondence. In 1625, Razan drafted the diplomatic document Daiming Fukken totoku ni kotafu 答大明福建都督 (Answer to the Governor of Fujian Province of the Great Ming Empire).70 At this time, Sūden was still in charge of producing most of the shogunate’s diplomatic correspondence.71 It was only after the death of the second
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shogun Hidetada in 1632, and Sūden himself in 1633, that Razan, under the third shogun Iemitsu, became the principal author of diplomatic correspondence. Answer to the Governor of Fujian Province of the Great Ming Empire (hereafter referred to as Answer to Fujian) was composed by Razan on behalf of the Prefect of Nagasaki Suetsugu Heizō 末次平蔵 (1546–1630).72 This was the first diplomatic document composed by Razan to include anti-Christian discourse. In it, Razan portrays Christians as exotic and foreign – similar to, but earlier than, the portrayal in many of the documents examined earlier in this chapter. The anti-Christian discourse in this document, however, in terms of context, method and imagery, is much more interesting and contains a much deeper range of meanings than that in Kirishitan Monogatari and the like. Razan does not simply describe the Christians by using exotic and foreign images; he chooses phrases like gekizetsu shuri 鴂舌侏離 that emphasize an image of Christians as ‘barbarian’, in contrast to a civilized image of Sinocentric Confucian culture.73 Through this kind of rhetoric, Razan places Japan metaphorically within the borders of ‘Chinese civilization’ and attempts thereby to utilize what we might today call ‘Sinocentrism’, or even perhaps the discourse of Chinese imperialism, for his own political ends. This can be seen in other passages from Answer to Fujian. The Great Ming selflessly enlightens the islands to her east from where rises the sun [Japan]. This country does good, and has long followed in the footsteps of Chinese culture. We have already cultivated a mind to serve what is great, and fearfully revere Heaven.74 As mentioned above, Answer to Fujian was a reply to the Governor of Fujian, written by Razan on behalf of the Prefect of Nagasaki. In the letter from Fujian to Nagasaki, the Chinese governor had requested that the Japanese authorities control Japanese piracy against Chinese shipping. Lower class Japanese from the coastal areas and others set forth upon the seas, stop licensed Chinese trading vessels and plunder their valuable cargo. You should expeditiously [bring them under] control, clean up the seas, and open the trade routes.75 In relation to this core demand, Razan’s answer (on behalf of Prefect Suetsugu Heizō) was as follows: Our land enforces the law well, and has ordered far and wide that our subjects do not carry out piracy.76 Between this opening and closing of the correspondence, however, Razan develops a range of more interesting arguments within the parameters of the letter. After intimating that Japanese piracy was an issue associated with the Japanese invasion of Choson Korea and consequent war with Ming China77 – a detail Razan
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 73 is diplomatic enough not to overtly articulate – he then moves to his main point, which is that the real cause of piracy is not Japan but, ‘the southern barbarian bestial yabbering magicians, the ones they call the Christians’. The ones they call Christians, disguising themselves as merchants, come and bewitch the stupid masses with their heretic arts. Thereby, worldly people, pursuing the profits of the trading ships, mix with the yabbering barbarians, talking and interacting with them freely. It is due to this that your respectable land has suffered. How terrible. But now, our land is unified, the world is made safe, all has been rectified, and the rule of law is strictly observed. We have cast out the barbarian creed and banned it. The defenses against Christianity are unassailable. And therefore there are no offenders [any more].78 Here, as in Bateren tsuihō no fumi, the danger of Christianity is presented in terms of its threat to the ability of government to control its subjects. Razan argues that by ‘the rule of law’, Japan has eliminated the cause of the problem, the ‘barbarian creed’, and thereby there are no ‘offenders’ any more. What is singular about Answer to Fujian is the particular emphasis of the character of the Christians as ‘barbarians’ in Sinocentric culturalist terms. A dichotomy is clearly established between ‘Chinese civilization’ (within which Japan is placed) and ‘the southern barbarians’. By repeated reference to the southern barbarians’ ‘bestial yabbering’, the existence of the shared linguistic tradition of Classical Chinese is confirmed, and the dichotomy between Japan/China (civilization) and Christianity (barbarism) is strengthened through use of a Confucian–Christian dichotomy. In Bateren tsuihō no fumi, phrases such as ‘Japan is the land of the Buddhas, Japan is the land of the Gods’ presented a simple dichotomy between ‘Japan’ and ‘Other’. This dichotomy is developed into a markedly different regional paradigm in Answer to Fujian, where Razan presents a paradigm of Chinese (including Japanese) civilization versus the rest in terms of a Confucian versus Christian framework. This paradigm places the simple expression of Otherness found in most antiChristian writings within the historically established and set ideological paradigm of ‘civilized versus barbarian’. Japan’s identity as a non-barbarian country, ‘in awe of the mind of Heaven’ is emphasized, and its common cultural heritage with the Ming court appealed to. The explanation of the ban on Christianity and the request for Ming acceptance of the ban is premised by the argument that Japan is a country which places import on ‘the rule of law’ by ‘following in the footsteps of Chinese custom’. This is more than just an attempt to appeal to China: the use of the traditional Chinese ‘civilization versus barbarism’ paradigm, and the construction of a Confucian–Christian dichotomy, allowed for identification with structures of ideology and intellectual orthodoxy reaching beyond the Japanese archipelago. The ‘Christian’ label, which had been marked as heterodoxy in Japan, was associated with, and supported by, an ideological framework capable of identifying it as heterodoxy within the contemporaneous international (east
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Asian) order. This fed back into the domestic arena, allowing the status of this ‘heterodoxy’ to become more solidly defined. It is important to remember here, however, that Answer to Fujian was composed not on behalf of the shogunate (the central government), but only on behalf of the Prefect of Nagasaki.79 At this time, most diplomatic correspondence of the shogunate was still being drafted by Ishin Sūden. Let us next then examine the diplomatic correspondence Razan authored on behalf of the shogunate itself, after Sūden had left the scene. Yaso wo kinzuru jō, Dai Ming no shōsen ni satosu 禁耶蘇状、諭大明之商舶 (The Proscription of Christianity, a Notification to Great Ming Trading Vessels, hereafter referred to as Ming Trading Vessels) was drafted by Razan in 1640 on behalf of a man with whom he had a personal connection, Inoue Masashige 井 上政重 (1585–1661), a very senior shogunate official who in 1639 had been appointed officer in charge of Christianity, or what we might refer to as Grand Inquisitor. In this document, Razan criticizes foreign priests as ‘deceiving the masses and beguiling the people’, following the traditional path of emphasizing the importance of sustaining an order capable of ruling over the masses, and identifying Christianity as a threat to that order.80 As in Answer to Fujian, Ming Trading Vessels emphasizes the ‘barbarian’ characteristics of foreign priests. The kind of barbarian characteristics he emphasizes, and the way he communicates their Otherness, however, differs markedly from Answer to Fujian. In Ming Trading Vessels (a source interestingly contemporaneous with Kirishitan Monogatari), rather than emphasizing the European priests’ cultural differences with Sino-Japanese ‘civilization’, Razan instead emphasizes their physical characteristics. For instance, to ensure that the foreign priests do not get away with, ‘coming to our country by dressing in Chinese or Japanese clothes and stowing away in the holds of your ships’, Razan explains what a European looks like. The foreign priests have ‘cat’s eyes, long noses, red hair, and yabber like beasts’.81 Here again, an exoticized image of the foreign priest is used for rhetorical effect, but not in the same way as in Answer to Fujian. In both letters, Christianity is portrayed as being strange, different and exotic in a manner in some ways reminiscent of Kirishitan Monogatari. But in Answer to Fujian that image is explicitly contrasted with an articulated expression of shared Sino-Japanese cultural identity defined in terms of Chinese ‘civilization’. In Ming Trading Vessels, the primary argument suggesting compliance with Japan’s anti-Christian policy is not an appeal to shared cultural values, but rather the threat of punishment for those not cooperating. The stress in this document is on law and regulation and the coercive power behind them, rather than on a culturally determined shared ethical system. In the lexicon of east Asian political thought, one could perhaps say the emphasis is legalist rather than ethical. More obviously, in power politics terms, the document emphasizes the sovereignty and underlying force of Japanese law rather than the east Asian universalism of a Sinocentric ethical order. The argument of the 1625 Answer to Fujian letter employs a fascinating discourse emphasizing the cultural unities between China and Japan, presenting
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 75 its argument primarily in terms of the Sinocentric ‘civilization versus barbarism’ paradigm. From 1634 onwards, however, and particularly in the diplomatic correspondence from the 1640s on, this discourse is weakened.82
Changes in the east Asian order In order to understand this change in the discourse used in diplomatic correspondence drafted by Razan, it is helpful to consider the changes in the international environment within which Japanese diplomacy was being carried out during this period. Until the 1980s, the policy of the shogunate towards Portugal and Spain, the expulsion of the Catholic clergy, and indeed the implementation of measures against Christians, were often presented together as indicative of a systematic process of implementing a shogunate policy of ‘national isolation’, referred to in Japanese as ‘sakoku’ 鎖国. Since at least the 1980s, however, research specializing in the history of Japanese international relations and trade has questioned the very existence of such a policy or practice.83 Scholars such as Arano Yasunori, Asao Naohiro and Ronald Toby demonstrated that seventeenthcentury policies, which only in the nineteenth century came to be labelled ‘sakoku’, were not part of a plan of isolation, but part of a process whereby the state sought monopolistic control over international relations, under an emerging universalistic paradigm of nation-state regulatory control over borders and trade. According to this perspective, within the ambit of the policies previously labelled ‘isolationist’, the shogunate, far from stopping international contact, actually more positively engaged in the business of conducting and controlling international relations.84 According to this research, the Tokugawa shogunate, after ensuring its own exclusive authority over the relations between overseas countries and Japan, then constructed a system of relations with the countries surrounding Japan that is often referred to as revolving around a ‘Japanese-type civilization versus barbarism order’ (Nihon kei ka’i chitsujo 日本型華夷秩序). The use of the modified Chinese ‘civilization versus barbarism’ paradigm in this ‘order’, however, involved the simultaneous employment of a number of different and often contradictory world views. Arano has described this ‘order’ as a ‘pragmatic’ reaction to the international situation in east Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While Arano sees this system of international relations as having reached maturity in the early eighteenth century, he traces its foundations to the 1630s.85 In the 1625 Answer to Fujian, Razan does not use this kind of ‘Japanese-type civilization versus barbarism’ discourse, but rather relies on a classic rendition of the historical Sinocentric ‘civilization versus barbarism’ paradigm. In the 1630s, however, as first Choson Korea and then Ming China itself were subjugated by the power of the Manchu barbarians to the north (later the Qing empire), the effectiveness of a discourse that emphasized a Sino/Han-centric order became less tenable as a basis of east Asian international relations. This was particularly the case for the shogunate, for which the Manchu expansion and subsequent appropriation of the Chinese dynastic mantle constituted a possible future threat to their own control of Japan. Thus the issue of how, and through what kind of
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discourse, Japan–China relations should be conducted became a complex one for Japanese rulers and thinkers. The kind of discourse seen in Answer to Fujian looks to a framework of international relations based around a shared ethical understanding and discourse based in the history of Chinese thought and literature. This kind of Sino-Japanese relationship continued to be lauded as an ideal by certain thinkers within Japan, at least up to and into the early eighteenth century, as can be seen by the popularity of writings like Nishikawa Joken’s 1708 Ka’itsū shōkō 華夷通商考. But this kind of discourse was never implemented in the reality of shogunal foreign relations. An approach to international relations based on Sinocentric cultural practice was completely unsuitable for Japan at this time, not only because of the structure of governance under the shogunate (which ruled through the domains, and with the emperor removed from central authority), but more importantly because of the contemporary regional situation, with regime change in China precipitating political instability across east Asia. This might be one reason why the kind of discourse seen in Answer to Fujian is not repeated in Razan’s later diplomatic correspondence, of which Ming Trading Vessels is a typical example. The anti-Christian discourse presented in these documents, just like that in contemporaneous populist anti-Christian texts such as Kirishitan Monogatari examined in the previous chapter, presents an image of Christians as exotic foreign Others, and adds to this an emphasis on Christians as presenting an insidious threat to order and stability.86 In this sense, the antiChristian discourse presented in most of Razan’s diplomatic correspondence does have some similarities with the kind of contemporaneous discourse (examined in the sections above) in populist anti-Christian literature. The important difference, however, is that in Razan’s diplomatic writing this discourse was developed within more advanced and culturally institutionalized intellectual frameworks, and, most importantly, deployed by the central state to achieve its political objectives. In other words, two unique and important features are displayed in the anti-Christian writing seen in the diplomatic correspondence authored by Razan: the first is the creation and emphasis of a Confucian–Christian dichotomy that presents both a ‘Sinocentric civilization versus barbarism’ paradigm, and later a ‘Japanese-type civilization versus barbarism order’; the second is the deployment of this discourse by the state, in the name of the state, to achieve state objectives.
Conclusion: anti-Christian discourse as ideological construct and political tool This chapter has re-examined a range of documents constituting the core of what seems to have until recently been considered a kind of representative ‘Japanese anti-Christian canon’ of works. After returning the original anti-Christian shogunal proclamations to the sociopolitical context of their creation, and in particular reminding ourselves of the immediate factional political motivations of the ban on Christianity as part of a move against the Toyotomi in the mid-1610s, the
Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 77 chapter then proceeded to re-evaluate the populist anti-Christian writings of the mid-seventeenth century which make up the bulk of the canon. In both Kirishitan Monogatari and Hakirishitan we confirmed that the idea of Christianity as a ‘threat’, whether presented either in terms of its ‘Otherness’ or in terms of an ‘invasion theory’, always centred on the allegation that Christianity would upset the domestic political order of Japan through disturbing hierarchical relations between Japanese. Even in these most xenophobic of anti-Christian texts, the dominant threat was never actually foreign intervention, but rather the Japanese people themselves who were also the clear and obvious targets of the imagery of Otherness deployed in texts such as Kirishitan Monogatari. In Hayashi Razan’s Haiyaso, and in the diplomatic correspondence examined later in the chapter, we observed the development of a more systematized anti-Christian discourse resting on the construction of a Christian–Confucian dichotomy. Analysis of Haiyaso showed how that dichotomy was not based on actual Japanese Christian thought and its relationship with Confucianism, but rather the creation of a simplified polarity similar to that articulated in the conclusion to the previous chapter. The Christian–Confucian dichotomy observed in the diplomatic correspondence was clearly constructed to achieve a direct foreignpolicy purpose. The fact that the nature of the constructs around the dichotomy, namely the construction of the ‘Confucian civilization versus Christian barbarism’ paradigm changed through the early seventeenth century in line with changes in the political climate of east Asia is further evidence of the political, ideological nature of even this very early anti-Christian discourse. In this chapter, even in examining some of the earliest and most standard examples of anti-Christian discourse of the Tokugawa period, we have already been able to observe the absorption of simple xenophobic rhetoric into more pronounced ideological constructs exhibiting almost proto-nationalist aspects. As the next chapter will further demonstrate, both the Confucian–Christian dichotomy framework, and the employment of anti-Christian discourse by the state went on to become major aspects of Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse soon after. This was the foundation of the ideological deployment of anti-Christian discourse, which increased along with the influence of Confucian thought in political discourse and argument during the early Tokugawa period, and continued into the Meiji Restoration as Japan established a ‘modern’ nation state.
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Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ Ideological uses of early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse
The previous chapter examined three different kinds of anti-Christian discourse of the early Tokugawa period: government-authored proclamations associated with the actual repression of Christianity inside Japan; popular literature for domestic consumption inside Japan, written after the repression was complete; and a hitherto overlooked array of diplomatic documentation intended for an overseas rather than a domestic readership. The diplomatic documentation and one other early anti-Christian work authored by Hayashi Razan, Haiyaso, revealed a different kind of anti-Christian writing to the simple xenophobic representations of the Other that are commonly held up as examples of anti-Christian discourse. The diplomatic documentation revealed more nuanced creations of dichotomies between Confucianism and Christianity, which Razan and others tied to a number of different international relations frameworks of the early seventeenth century. These ideological developments in externally focused anti-Christian discourse had parallels in anti-Christian discourse emerging in domestic politics at around the same time. In particular, anti-Christian discourse employed by Hayashi Razan in domestically focused political texts, especially those written in the 1650s when he was at the height of his influence within the shogunate, show interesting similarities to the diplomatic correspondence he had earlier authored on behalf of others. Just as he had employed a Confucian–Christian dichotomy in international relations documents to develop anti-Christian discourse into a politically useful means of answering Chinese queries relating to piracy, so too he adopted a similar dichotomy for rhetorical use in the domestic political conflicts in which he was increasingly involved. The examination of diplomatic documents in the previous chapter offered a glimpse of some of the potential ideological uses of early Japanese anti-Christian discourse. This chapter, by examining Hayashi Razan’s anti-Christian discourse in domestic political confrontations, shows how the use of this discourse began to exhibit clear ideological qualities inside Japan. In this chapter, our inquiry therefore moves away from the anti-Christian discourse of the populist texts making up the ‘Japanese anti-Christian canon’ examined by scholars like Ebisawa and Elison, and focuses rather on an examination of the anti-Christian discourse present in less exoticized, more mainstream political argumentation of early Tokugawa Japan. This chapter will focus particularly on the role of anti-Christian
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 79 discourse in the writing of, and debates between, mainstream political thinkers of early Tokugawa Japan, particularly Hayashi Razan and Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢 蕃山 (1619–91). Strangely, although the kind of populist Japanese language antiChristian writing dealt with in the first half of the previous chapter had a large amount of scholarly attention lavished upon it through the later twentieth century, the Chinese language anti-Christian writing dealt with in this chapter, although directly involving much more important political figures, has been virtually ignored in most scholarship to date. Closer scrutiny of mid-seventeenth-century works by Razan reveals an antiChristian discourse that has less and less to do with Christianity as it becomes a more broadly deployed rhetorical weapon against any individual or trend that challenged Razan’s intellectual orthodoxy or the Tokugawa shogunate’s political authority.
Confucianism’s role in the early Tokugawa shogunate For most of the Tokugawa period (and indeed much of the following Meiji period) most serious discussion of domestic political issues was carried out through the medium of a complex and developed Confucian discourse. As touched upon in Chapter 2, this discourse, from the beginning of its development early in the Tokugawa period, contained a range of competing philosophical outlooks that at times reflected, or were employed to represent, differences between political groupings and policy agendas. Through the course of the seventeenth century, as Confucianism became increasingly deployed in political discussion, and the number and complexity of Confucian schools and approaches continued to grow in Japan, political confrontations were increasingly represented in terms of conflicts between different Confucian thinkers, often identified as members of different schools. An early example was the conflict that emerged between Hayashi Razan and Kumazawa Banzan in the mid-seventeenth century. Chapter 2 examined some aspects of early seventeenth-century disagreements between Hayashi Razan and Fujiwara Seika over a number of issues of Confucian metaphysics, and their ramifications for political thought. Nevertheless, the conflict between Seika and Razan was primarily doctrinal. Although quoted in the political debates of later periods, at the time it was not a directly political confrontation. The confrontation between Razan and Banzan was political, however, in the sense that there were direct links between their intellectual conflict and real political conflicts, both in regard to structural and policy issues in the development of the new systems of governance being introduced by the shogunate. Before considering the actual source documentation of these confrontations, however, most of which originate from Razan’s hand, we should first revisit the political backdrop to these conflicts. As touched upon in the previous chapter, although Razan had met Tokugawa Ieyasu in the first decade of the 1600s and had been employed by the shogunate both as a lecturer and to write a variety of government documents through the 1620s, it was in 1632–3, with the death of Sūden and the accession of Tokugawa Iemitsu to the shogunate, that Razan
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gained increasing influence. From this time on, Razan authored a range of more important diplomatic documents and had an increasingly pivotal role as a lecturer of Confucian thought in shogunate circles. Nevertheless, Razan’s actual political power within the shogunate – that is, power to actually affect policy and its implementation – was always limited. Although scholars in the early twentieth century often represented Razan as the ‘brain’ of the shogunate, and his interpretation of Confucianism as the ‘official philosophy’ of Tokugawa Japan,1 most research of the later twentieth century has cast doubt on that image and ascribed him a more peripheral role.2 Some have even suggested that his political position within the shogunate was not much more than that of a scribe.3 In terms of the intellectual and literary world of his time, however, there is no doubt that Razan was important enough to have become a symbol of intellectual orthodoxy. This is visible in the way Razan was described by another kind of Japanese Confucian, who hated him. The following description of Razan by the contemporary Confucian thinker Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹 (1608–48) was well known while Razan was still alive: Hayashi Razan has an excellent memory and wide erudition. He proclaims the Way of the Confucians, but this is just pretty words. He learns the law of the Buddhists and has outrageously shaved his head [like a Buddhist monk] … yet he calls himself a true Confucian. In Japan there are no sages, heterodoxies are renewed by the day and multiply each month. The theories of heretics and witches compete with each other for dominance, filling the ears and eyes of the common people, and plunging the realm into filth and squalor. Because of all this there are few today who know virtue. That is why he is pushed forward as the father of the Confucianism of Japan, and many believe his words and imitate his actions.4 This quote shows that during Razan’s lifetime he already had considerable influence and was even considered a source of Confucian orthodoxy by some of the scholar elite. Nevertheless, in government Razan’s political influence was limited, especially when it came to advice on formulation and implementation of mainstream government policy. This role fell to senior vassals and domain lords under the Tokugawas who held the cabinet positions of tairō and rōjū, men such as Sakai Tadakatsu 酒井忠勝 (1587–1662), Inoue Masashige and others. But although Razan was not one of the key political advisers to the shogun, he had very close, regular relations with a number of cabinet ministers who were. Furthermore, other Confucians outside the shogunate were also beginning to exercise direct influence. These senior samurai played major roles in governance and policy formulation, and although this took place at the regional (domain, han), rather than national (shogunate, bakufu) level, their activities were noticed by important political figures in the central government. In particular, the activities of the Lord Ikeda Mitsumasa 池田光正 (1609–82), and his Confucian adviser and administrator Kumazawa Banzan attracted attention. Their substantial administrative reform programme in Bizen Okayama-han 備前岡山藩 became
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 81 a focus of interest in Edo (Tokyo), to the extent that the reforms in this region came to be seen as a major threat by powerful figures in the central government. In this sense, Banzan’s Confucian-inspired reform agenda in one region affected politics in the central government circle.5 Furthermore, other Confucian figures such as Yamaga Sokō 山鹿素行 (1622–85), while not exercising direct control over policy, were highly regarded by important members of the shogunate, and held positions in direct competition with Razan.6 Because Confucians were, through their impact on governance and policy in the regions, affecting political debate and discussion within the shogunate, Razan’s status as a Confucian had a certain political utility. The Confucian political thinkers used Confucian discourse to explain, justify and defend their reformist policy agendas; therefore, for the anti-reform figures in the shogunate who wanted to discredit these policies, people such as Razan, his brothers, sons and grandsons, who were aligned with the shogunate and could deploy that discourse and argue against reformists on their own Confucian terms, became more valuable assets.
Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’ This chapter focuses on instances where anti-Christian discourse was deployed in these kinds of confrontation, at the heart of intellectual factional conflicts in the early shogunate. These conflicts were often portrayed in ‘school’ terms as a clash between ‘Zhu Xi-ist aligned Confucians’ (notably Razan and his son Gahō) on one side and ‘Yang-ming-ist Confucians’ (particulary Banzan and Tōju but also sometimes Yamaga Sokō) on the other. But often underlying these constructed intellectual factional confrontations were real political, structural and policy confrontations. A number of the ostensibly anti-Christian arguments examined in this chapter have been referred to in previous Japanese-language research as key elements in both major intellectual confrontations within Japanese Confucianism, and also within structural political confrontations between regional and central levels of government in the early Tokugawa shogunal system. The main documents of anti-Christian discourse examined in this chapter are a range of writings by Razan from the 1650s. In academic writing focused on the history of anti-Christian discourse in Japan, in particular the writings of Ebisawa and Elison referred to earlier, these later writings of Razan have gone virtually unexamined. Yet while ignored in the field of Christian history, these writings have always been quoted centrally in historical research that concentrates on early Tokugawa political thought.7 In such mainstream research on Tokugawa political thought, these writings are often described as Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’, in contrast with Haiyaso and the diplomatic documents examined in the previous chapter which are referred to as his ‘early-period anti-Christian discourse’. Hori Isao and others have pointed out that while the ‘early period’ documents were primarily documents for public consumption that Razan wrote on behalf of other people, the documents of the 1650s were ostensibly private communications that he wrote openly on behalf of no one other than himself.8 However it is also important to note that while these later documents were
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ostensibly ‘private’ correspondence at the time of writing, a number of them were published by Razan’s son Gahō to a large readership in Hayashi Razan Bunshū in 1661. Therefore from at least this time, less than 10 years after their authorship, if not before, they had actually become public documents deployed in the political discourse space. The source documents considered to comprise Razan’s ‘late-period antiChristian discourse’ and examined in this chapter are Sōzoku zenki 草賊前 記 (1651), Sōzoku kōki 草賊後記 (1652), and certain letters from Razan’s correspondence with Ishikawa Jōzan 石川丈山 (1583–1672) written in 1651 and 1654, and contained in Hayashi Razan Bunshū. Sōzoku zenki and Sōzoku kōki are often considered as one document and called either Sōzoku zenkōki 草賊前 後記, or just Sōzoku ki, both in compilations and catalogues.9 Sōzoku zenkōki is clearly an account of, and Razan’s commentary on, two related rebellion plots exposed in 1651 and 1652. The texts focus particularly on political intrigues and rumours associated with the Keian Affair 慶安事変 of 1651. Razan’s comments in this text focus on the intellectual affiliations of the leaders of the rebellion. The letters to Ishikawa Jōzan similarly begin with discussion on matters relating to the Keian Affair, before moving on to questions of intellectual heterodoxy. The letters to Jōzan, having been compiled in Hayashi Razan Bunshū, a widely available text, have been well quoted and are commonly used in research on Tokugawa intellectual history (although seldom featured in writing on anti-Christian discourse). But there has been virtually no research at all in Japanese or any other language on Sōzoku zenkōki. Therefore, in this chapter we will firstly examine the letters, before moving on to deal with Sōzoku zenki, and then Sōzoku kōki.
The Ishikawa Jōzan letters: delineating heterodoxy, expanding sectarianism Some of the most important sources for Hayashi Razan’s views on both Christianity and Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism are articles of correspondence from the 1650s exchanged between Razan and his friend Ishikawa Jōzan. Hayashi Razan and Ishikawa Jōzan continued a more or less regular exchange of letters over a period of 37 years, from 1617 until 1654. Razan’s letters to Jōzan are collected in books six and seven of Hayashi Razan Bunshū. Considered one of the best sources of Razan’s criticism of not only Buddhism, but also Christianity and a range of Chinese intellectual traditions Razan did not hold with, the letters to Ishikawa Jōzan have been a favourite of Tokugawa intellectual history researchers for at least the past century and a half.10 Although the letters were originally private correspondence, they soon became part of the public domain when Razan’s son, Gahō, published them as part of Hayashi Razan Bunshū in 1661. Intellectual historians have in particular focused on two lengthy letters to Ishikawa Jōzan containing anti-Christian discourse, one written in 1651, and one written in 1654, which have been used repeatedly in histories and edited collections of source documents since the mid-nineteenth century.11
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 83 The anti-Christian content of the 1651 and 1654 letters has been commonly linked to the anti-Buddhist outlook of the correspondence as a whole. Hori Isao has gone so far as to suggest that the anti-Christian arguments emerged in the correspondence, ‘because they [Razan and Jōzan] had been able to freely express their private opinions against Buddhism’.12 There was, however, a much more immediate and obvious reason lying behind the introduction of anti-Christian discourse into this correspondence in 1651: the so-called Keian Affair, also known as the ‘Yui Shōsetsu Rebellion’. In 1651 (Keian year four), a plot formulated by a number of master-less samurai (rōnin) 牢人,13 the noted ‘military thought’14 teacher Yui Shōsetsu 由比正雪 (1605?–51) chief among them, was uncovered by officers of the Tokugawa shogunate. The planned rebellion was suppressed before it got under way. All parties to the plot were either killed or committed suicide. The so-called ‘Jōō Incident’ 承応事件 of the following year, another plot involving master-less samurai, was also viewed at the time as a rebel plot influenced by military thought. Although the Keian Affair is consistently referred to as a ‘rebellion plot’, it is fairly clear that what Shōsetsu was planning was something more than just a rebellion or isolated uprising: his objectives appear to have been much more clearly defined and ambitious than those of other insurrections of this period. For instance, the Shimabara Rebellion of thirteen years earlier and the occasional peasant uprisings were regionally based affairs, usually brought on by regional pressures and problems and typically carried out primarily by poorly armed and poorly trained peasants. Shōsetsu’s plan, however, was to seize key political and economic resources throughout the country in coordinated simultaneous attacks that would catch the government unawares and in a very short time force a handover of central government power. The attacks were planned to simultaneously hit targets in the shogunate’s military heartlands in Shizuoka and on the Kantō plain, and in other main centres in the Kansai.15 In terms of both its objectives and planning, the Keian plot was potentially a much more direct threat to the shogunate than the Shimabara Rebellion ever had been. Unlike Shimabara, which was a regional conflict in a particularly remote region, where the enemy were predominantly peasants, the Keian plot threatened to strike in the centre, and at the very heart of the Tokugawa power base, using well-trained samurai troops.16 Over the 34 years of correspondence between Jōzan and Razan, until 1651 there is no mention of Christianity. But the revelation of Yūi Shōsetsu’s plot was so shocking that it could not but dominate the correspondence of 1651. Razan’s first use of the word yaso (Christian) in correspondence with Jōzan is in the following context: Recently this gang of villains, all followers of that scum [Yūi Shōsetsu], secretly swore an oath to light the flame of rebellion and plunder. When they tried it on, every one of them ended up slaughtered and strung up, or else committed suicide. … Most of these scum were enamored with his heterodox learning, and listened to his evil teachings, or else they were students of
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A close examination of the whole of the argument in this 1651 letter, however, reveals quite clearly that the primary object of criticism is not Christianity, but rather Japanese military thought. The damage of heterodoxy, the degradation of military thought, is steadily becoming worse and worse. We really must lament this sad state of affairs.18 The argument of the letter centres on criticism of military thought. Razan begins by outlining the history of ‘military thought in Japan’, before criticizing the condition of the tradition in the current day. Razan laments that the thought of Sunzi, after being imported to Japan from China, endured a long process of degradation, which led ultimately to the current situation where the transmission of that tradition in Japan could no longer be trusted. Their Way has been torn asunder, their rites are already disordered. Now in recent times they have caused confusion among the mindless masses by freely making up texts and strategies to please themselves.19 Razan was particularly suspicious of contemporary military thought texts, and ones that had been ‘translated’ from the original Chinese into Japanese. But a much more specific problem he had with the military-thought tradition of his day as he saw it was the presence of ‘superstition’ and ‘magic’. Moreover, they outrageously claim that their learning possesses magical powers, and that they can defeat an army of men without fighting. Again, it’s laughable.20 In this letter of 1651, the sole reference to Christianity is that quoted above. But many images commonly associated with Christianity in Japan at that time are deployed in the text, not to criticize Christianity, but to criticize the military thought heterodoxy – the main object of Razan’s attack. He alleges that the tradition he is criticizing is superstitious, spiritual, given to rebellion against authority, and uses texts from a tradition that cannot be trusted in an incredible rendition of Japanese. All these are criticisms associated with the Christian tradition. After 34 years of the word ‘Christian’ not being used in the correspondence, it is also interesting to note exactly how that word is used. Clearly speaking about the ‘heterodoxy’ of ‘military thought’, Razan labels it as ‘mutated into something in place of the Christians’. As we will see later in this chapter, nearly all the references to Christianity in Razan’s so-called ‘later-period anti-Christian discourse’ label another intellectual tradition as ‘a mutation of Christianity’ or ‘a mutant doctrine of the Christians’.21 In this 1651 letter, therefore, Razan’s use of
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 85 anti-Christian discourse is clearly a rhetorical element in an attack on the militarythought tradition. Let us next turn to the 1654 letter. Although in most research to date there is no mention at all of the 1651 letter examined above, the 1654 letter is quoted prolifically in all manner of research monographs dealing with a range of aspects of Tokugawa-period Japanese history, usually to demonstrate Hayashi Razan’s ‘antiChristian’ outlook. This is probably because in this later letter Razan expresses himself much more emphatically and in more colourful language. As Hori Isao has pointed out, in the 1654 letter Razan, ‘judges any heterodoxy outside of Zhu Xiism as a heresy, a mutated doctrine of Christianity’.22 In this letter Razan criticizes Buddhism, Daoism and military thought, but he particularly focuses his attack on Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism. Because of this particular focus of attack, the following section of the letter, which alludes to a linkage between Christianity and Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism, is often quoted in research on the Japanese Confucians Nakae Tōju and Kumazawa Banzan, who were associated with that school. Also, it has stolen [the teachings of] Wang Yang-ming. It is not Confucian, it is not Daoist, it is not Buddhist, call it the three-legged cat-demon. … It is what harms people, it is heterodoxy. … Ah, a mutation of Christianity, this is what it has come to!23 Quoting an extracted passage of the text like this, it might appear that Razan’s position on Christianity in this letter is simply to attack it, with a linkage to Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism. But looking at the whole of the letter, it is apparent that Razan develops his argument more systematically than that. He opens this part of the argument by referring to Christianity. Christianity mutates, and becomes heterodoxy, like a monster who eats a girl and then transforms into the form of a girl. It should be feared.24 But he then goes on to blame the advent of Christianity and heterodoxies in Japan on the introduction of Buddhism. Our realm of the gods [Shinto nation] has already been turned into a land of the Buddhas [Buddhist nation]. Ah, do gods look like things which are not gods? All people fear death. So they [the Buddhists] use [the idea of] the afterlife to entice the people into their deception.25 In this way, he blames the spread of Christianity on the introduction of ideas of afterlife and salvation through the introduction to Japan of Buddhism. He then goes on to point out the corruption of the Buddhist clergy, and to allege that this gave the Christians a point at which to strike in Japanese society. Razan’s discussion, leading ultimately to the famous phrase ‘mutation of Christianity’, thereby begins with a discussion of Buddhism, emphasizing Buddhism’s important
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role in Japanese society. But he is critical of that role, and of forcing Japanese to register as Buddhists, claiming that, ‘returning to Buddhism and then becoming Christian is all too easy’.26 Razan then moves on to other ‘heterodoxies’ through a discussion of the motivations of the Keian Affair rebels (or ‘bandits’ as he calls them). It is here that Razan lists, in order, not only Buddhism, but also the Tentō trend of Confucian thought, Daoist thought (or as he puts it ‘the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi’), and Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism, alleging that all these traditions have been ‘stolen’. Because they have been ‘stolen’, Razan calls them ‘three-legged catdemons’ and then clearly defines what he means, saying ‘these are heterodoxies’. It is only then that the famous line, ‘ah, a mutation of Christianity, this is what it has come to’, appears.27 So Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’, as expressed in this 1654 letter to Jōzan, is not saying that Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism is a form of Christianity. Rather it is saying that ‘heterodoxy’ can easily be used (‘stolen’, or appropriated) by the likes of Christians, and that is why heterodoxy is bad and should be eradicated.28 To recap: the section of the letter touching on the Christian issue begins with a reference to the Keian Affair, then moves on to systematically link not only military thought but also Buddhism, Wang Yang-mingist Confucianism, and Daoism as ‘stolen’ traditions, which Razan compresses into the single category of ‘heterodoxy’. He then associates this with a monolithically constructed, easily recognizable, and universally repulsive image: ‘Christianity’. This is basically the crux of Razan’s so-called ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’ in the Ishikawa Jōzan letters. As examined in the previous chapter, Christianity was portrayed by Razan in diplomatic documents of the 1620s and 1630s as a mysterious foreign creed that threatened to destabilize order. In the Ishikawa Jōzan letters of the 1650s, however, Razan portrays Christianity as something manifested in other intellectual traditions of the time. This latter discourse transfers the focal image of the ‘enemy’ from the ‘cat-eyed, long-nosed, red-haired, babbling barbarians’ (non-Japanese Christians) seen in those diplomatic texts29 to indigenous Japanese thinkers: militarists, Confucians, and others (all Japanese non-Christians), who were portrayed as hotbeds of rebellion and disorder. Besides the letters examined above, this discourse is also present in several other manuscript texts which until recently have not been well researched. One example is the alleged record of a Confucian–Buddhist debate where Razan represented the Confucians: Jubutsu mondō (A Confucian–Buddhist Dialogue). This text, as the title suggests, is not primarily to do with Christianity. It was, however, produced around the same period as Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse’, and displays a similar use of Christianity to attack Buddhism. It seems that it [Buddhism] is so similar to Christianity because it comes from a neighboring country. As Hanfeizi said, Buddhism is nothing but just another barbarian creed. He was right.30
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 87 Here Razan emphasizes Buddhism’s foreign origins, referring to India and Europe as ‘neighbors’ as part of a tactic similar to that in the Jōzan letters – that of using the Christian image against another tradition. The best example of this kind of use of anti-Christian discourse, however, and also without doubt the most important of Razan’s unpublished manuscripts, is Sōzoku zenkōki.
Sōzoku zenkōki: record of rebellion The text most commonly referred to as Sōzoku zenkōki is made up of two texts which give Razan’s version of what happened in two incidents of insurrection in the mid-1650s. Sōzoku zenki, dated 1651, deals with the Keian Affair of the same year; Sōzoku kōki, dated 1652, deals with the Jōō Incident of that year. In Sōzoku zenkōki, the two incidents are ostensibly treated separately in separate documents or sections but are presented in very similar terms: both were caused by people labelled ‘bandits’; each arose from the study of ‘military thought’; both were related to ‘heterodoxy’ and ‘mutated Christianity’. In this manner, they are both located within the same political and intellectual milieu. The Jōō Incident, both in contemporary sources and in histories written today, is sometimes considered a completely separate incident from the Keian Affair, and is sometimes considered a partial continuation of it.31 Most discussion of these incidents, however, focuses on the political background to the Keian Affair, and narrates both incidents in terms of the political and intellectual trends associated with the former incident. As mentioned earlier, the Keian Affair was perceived at the time as a much more serious threat to Tokugawa power than other rebellions such as Shimabara, in many ways due to its geographical centrality and samurai class base. Perhaps the level at which the shogunate perceived this threat is one of the reasons why there are very few contemporary sources narrating the incident.32 The vast difference in the number of contemporary accounts available on the history of the Shimabara Rebellion and the Keian Affair is striking. Within the first twenty or thirty years after the Shimabara Rebellion a huge number of accounts were written. These amount to their own sub-genre of literature from this period, the so-called ran ki, or records of rebellion, almost all of which were written by samurai who fought on the shogunate side and regale the reader with tales of their conquest of the heretic peasant fanatics of Shimabara.33 As for contemporary accounts of the Keian Affair, however, there are virtually none. Most of the Tokugawa period sources that narrate the Keian Affair are political or literary texts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.34 From the very limited number of contemporary sources on the Keian Affair, Sōzoku zenkōki is the only one that systematically attempts to explain the cause of the affair and motivations of the plotters.35 Despite this, there appears to have been virtually no serious research done on Sōzoku zenkōki, either in Japanese or any other language. One possible reason is that it has been printed in only one widely available text, Jijitsu bunpen.36 It is actually also available in a less well-known regionally printed text, volume five of the Tōkai bunko series published in Shizuoka.37 In both these printings, however,
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a large and important section of the original text has been omitted. In the Jijitsu bunpen printing there is a mark to indicate where the text has been abridged, but in the Shizuoka text the abridgement is not marked. All research, including specialist research on the Keian Affair, uses the Jijitsu bunpen abridged text for references from Sōzoku zenkōki, not the complete manuscript.38 The references in secondary literature tend to amount to not much more than the quotation of one line or a footnote alluding to a criticism of Kumazawa Banzan, or reference to Christianity. I have found no research which returns to the manuscripts and looks at their overall, contextualized, argument. Before examining the argument, we must establish the text’s authenticity: was it actually written by Hayashi Razan in 1651 and 1652, as claimed? To establish authenticity it is first necessary to compare a range of the extant manuscripts. The Kokusho sōmokuroku 国書総目録 lists seven extant manuscripts of this text.39 I have viewed four of these manuscripts: the two held by the Gakushuin University library, and each of the manuscripts held at the Diet Library (Kokkai toshokan) 国 会図書館 and the Cabinet Library (Naikaku bunko) 内閣文庫. All four originate from a hand copy of 1803. There are some differences between them; but these are not significant, seeming mostly to be the result of miscopying where a single character has been missed or dropped. The two manuscripts which appear to be oldest and which resemble each other most are those from the Diet and Cabinet libraries. Both state that they were copied by a scribe named Kyō Kaen 杏花園 in 1803. The handwriting of the copy, however, is different in the two manuscripts. Because there are significantly fewer mistakes (dropped characters) in the Diet Library manuscript, this should be assessed as the oldest of the two. I have not been able to find any other references to Kyō Kaen, so it remains a mystery as to who this scribe was and where the text was copied in 1803. The two manuscripts at Gakushuin are later copies (1836 and 1886) of the same 1803 copy by Kyō Kaen.
Sōzoku zenkōki: was Razan its author? So was the text written by Hayashi Razan in 1651 and 1652? There are three reasons for doubt: there is no previous research on this text either examining it in detail or establishing its authenticity; there is no mid- or late seventeenth-century manuscript, the earliest manuscript being an 1803 copy; the text is written under a nom de plume, not signed Hayashi Dōshun or by any other of Razan’s common pen names; and the Classical Chinese (kanbun) used in the text is a little odd, unlike Razan’s normal language usage.40 The issue of the author’s name as presented in the text can be quickly resolved. The text is signed Ro Yōshi, and the manuscripts contain a clear explanation of the use of this nom de plume omitted from the Jijitsu Bunpen printing. In the notes to the preface of this manuscript the Master [Razan] concealed his name, calling himself Ro Yō 路陽. He has done that here also. Ro 路 just means dō 道. Yō 陽 means shun 春 [making Dōshun, Razan’s standard pen
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 89 name]. This follows the example of yōjū 陽秋 where the word yō is replaced for shun in the phrase shunjū 春秋 [spring and autumn].41 The meaning of the Chinese characters for dō and ro (road), and yō (light, sun) and shun (spring) are so closely related that this explanation seems almost certainly correct. The next question is the alleged problems with the style of Classical Chinese used in Sōzoku zenkōki. In most of the manuscripts, some sentences are not quite grammatically correct, or there is irregular use of certain verbs. A close comparison of several different manuscripts, however, reveals that most of the apparent grammatical problems arise from copying mistakes such as the dropping of characters. Other seemingly non-standard language use, in particular the use of certain irregular verb characters, can be found in other texts in Hayashi Razan Bunshū, for instance the Ishikawa Jōzan letters. The strongest evidence to suggest that the text is authentic, however, comes not from the Sōzoku zenkōki manuscripts themselves, but from references to ‘Sōzoku ki’, and close content-related similarities to it in the Ishikawa Jōzan letters. Razan explicitly refers Jōzan to a text called Sōzoku ki in his 1654 letter to Jōzan. In the Sōzoku ki text presented to you I refer to people, and expand on these issues further.42 From this we can say with certainty that there was a text authored by Razan called Sōzoku ki that dealt with issues related to the Keian Affair and intellectual heterodoxy. The only remaining problem then is whether the hand-copied manuscripts we have dating from 1803 are actually based on the originals written by Razan in 1651 and 1652. As will be seen in our analysis of Sōzoku zenkōki in this chapter, the detailed similarities in the way the arguments are constructed, particularly between Sōzoku kōki and the 1654 letter to Jōzan, strongly suggest an affirmative answer to this question. In conclusion, if we accept that the letters from Razan to Jōzan published in Hayashi Razan Bunshū are genuine (as they are universally accepted to be), then we should assess Sōzoku zenkōki – as transmitted through the 1803 manuscript – to also be an accurate record of what Razan wrote in the 1650s.
Sōzoku zenki: ‘anti-Christian’ attacks on Kumazawa Banzan and Soshin Let us now turn to Razan’s explanation of the Keian Affair in his 1651 text Sōzoku zenki. Razan opens Sōzoku zenki in dramatic fashion by immediately narrating the exposure of the plot, and the arrest and/or deaths of those involved. He then considers the intellectual affiliations of the ringleaders, positing those intellectual affiliations as the major cause of the incident. He next moves on to isolate the particular intellectual trends that he considers to blame, and condemns them. This discussion on the intellectual trends fills the second half of Sōzoku zenki, but even
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in the first half Razan cannot help but focus on the intellectual affiliations of the ringleaders as he introduces them. These introductions foreshadow his later discussions of these trends. There was one called Yui Shōsetsu, who arrogantly claimed knowledge of the military thinking of Kusunoki Masashige 楠正成 [usually written 楠木正成, the famous military supporter and general of Emperor Godaigo 後醍醐 in his wars against the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates of the early 1330s]. His followers were many. There was another called Maruhashi Chūya 丸橋忠弥 who was learned in weapons training, he also had many students.43 In this manner, even from the very outset Razan’s text begins his association of military thought with the background to the rebellion. The first reference in the text to Christianity also occurs early on, strangely enough as part of Razan’s narrative of the capture of some of the leaders. Just before dawn on the twenty-fourth, Chūya, Kawahara and some others were captured. Because they [the shogunate troops carrying out the arrest] wanted to make sure the rebels would not escape, they shouted out that the rebels were suspected Christians.44 In other words, as part of the arrest operation the shogunate troops, to make it more difficult for their quarry to escape, publicly identified them as Christians. Importantly, in these sentences Razan is not actually identifying Chūya, Kawahara and the others as Christian; rather he is suggesting that the shogunate troops put it about that they were Christians to hinder their escape by dissipating (presumably) any public sympathy for them. The continuation of Razan’s narrative of the fate of Chūya and Kawahara confirms this. [Matsudaira] Nobutsuna called the official [ri 吏, here meaning the town governor, machi bugyō 町奉行] and they interrogated Chūya and Kawahara together. Firstly, they asked them, are you in fact Christians or not? They both spoke, answering that they were in fact not Christians, but rather followers of the teachings of Kumazawa [Banzan].45 Here, in explaining the intellectual affiliations of the rebels, Razan explicitly identifies the teachings of Kumazawa Banzan. In this first half of Sōzoku zenki focusing on the exposure and suppression of the plot, these are the only significant intellectual references. The second half, dealing with the intellectual pedigrees and affiliations of the conspirators, begins with Yui Shōsetsu. Shōsetsu hails from the village of Yui 由比 in Sunshū 駿州 [present-day Shizuoka Prefecture]. At first he was a very low-class monk, coming and going between Seikenji Temple 清見寺 and Kunōzan Mountain 久能山. At one point he came to fall in with a man from Echizen 越前 [now eastern Fukui
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 91 Prefecture]. This man was about 70 years old, and had in his possession three books of military thought written in Japanese. He said it was claimed that these were books of Kusunoki Masashige, but he did not know if that was true or not. So he called Shōsetsu and got him to read them for him. Shōsetsu decided that he wanted to steal these books, but he was not able to. So he covertly got the old man to eat some Crotonis beans [a traditional purgative medicine]. The old man vomited to death. Shōsetsu then stole the books, and pretending to himself be the transmitter of the Kusunoki tradition, used them to attract and bewitch the foolish. Later he often enjoyed felicitous meetings with that witch-nun Soshin 妖尼祖心. The nun arrogantly claimed to know of Zen, and Shōsetsu went along with her, like so many others. This was what caused Shōsetsu to dare to keep his hair unkempt and untied [going against samurai rules].46 Here we see a very similar criticism of the Japanese tradition of military thought to that in the 1651 letter to Ishikawa Jōzan, which alleges that the transmission of military thought in the Japanese tradition is untrustworthy.48 In Sōzoku zenki, Razan mounts exactly the same argument, but with a concrete example. Razan criticizes the military-thought tradition – which was enjoying considerable popularity at the time – by casting doubt on the authenticity of the textual transmission of that tradition. As Hori Isao has pointed out in relation to Razan’s criticism of the military-thought tradition in the Jōzan letters, this criticism could well have been interpreted contemporaneously as a thinly veiled attack on Yamaga Sokō (1622– 85). Sokō was one of Razan’s most notable intellectual competitors for shogunate attention in the late 1640s and early 1650s,49 and was also explicitly attempting to integrate Confucianism and Japanese military thought. Hori only suggests this possibility in relation to the simple criticism of military thought in the letters to Jōzan, but when the source material found in Sōzoku zenkōki is considered, this suggestion becomes even more plausible. That is not only because Sōzoku zenki confirms the style of attack on military thought in the letters to Jōzan, but more particularly because of the reference to Soshin 祖心, or as Razan calls her, ‘the witch-nun Soshin’. In previous research on Razan’s writings, including those touching on Sōzoku zenkōki, there has been no reference to Soshin. In fact, there has not been much historical research done on Soshin at all, in any context, until very recently – a surprising fact, given that she was clearly one of the most powerful women in the shogunate during the reign of Tokugawa Iemitsu. 50 On the other hand, the role of women in Tokugawa society in general, and in politics in particular, has been significantly underestimated until very recently.51 In 1651, Soshin was head of the shogun’s women’s quarters, the legal mother and genetic grandmother of several of Shogun Iemitsu’s children, including his first-born. She was also a powerful lay religious practitioner and mentor to many in the inner circle of the shogunate. In short, she was highly influential. Importantly in terms of Razan’s reference to her in relation to Yui Shōsetsu, she was widely known to have been a sponsor of Yamaga Sokō. It is widely believed that Soshin had been attempting to have
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Yamaga Sokō hired as an adviser to Shogun Iemitsu, and was close to achieving this when Iemitsu died in 1651. Soshin was born under the name Nā in 1588 into a good samurai family. After her father died while returning from the wars in Korea, she came under the care of her uncle, who was a (retired samurai) monk in residence at the Myōshinji Temple. There she developed a deep interest in Zen. From this point on, she was known as a knowledgeable lay practitioner of Zen, and something of a general adviser or counsellor. Soshin was often referred to as a nun through the addition of the suffix ni (meaning nun) to her name, making Soshinni.52 There is no evidence, however, to suggest that she actually was a nun. In 1619 she married a senior retainer of the keeper of Aizu Castle. In 1627 she moved with him to Edo, where he was appointed at the fairly senior yoriki level in shogunate service.53 Soshin’s personal proximity to the shogunate’s inner circle is explained through two connections. First, there is the tradition that Soshin was recommended to Iemitsu by Kasuga no Tsubone, probably the most famous head of the Shogunate women’s quarters, and a figure whose power is widely recognized; second, there is the fact that Soshin’s genetic granddaughter, who Soshin had herself adopted as her own daughter, gave birth in 1637 to Iemitsu’s first child, Princess Chiyo. In 1643, on Kasuga no Tsubone’s death, Soshin succeeded her as head of the women’s quarters. The extent of Soshin’s position is attested to by entries in Tokugawa Jikki like that of 1650, one year before the Keian Affair, which records her leading the religious ceremonies to eradicate sickness from the house, and being paid a reward of 20 gold pieces, four times more than anyone else involved, for the success of the ceremony.54 The traditional way to read Razan’s criticism of Soshin in Sōzoku zenki would be to simply link this to Razan’s rivalry with his male Confucian competitor Sokō. Certainly, this is likely to be one possible aspect of and motivation for Razan’s attack on Soshin. Considering the short summary of Soshin’s career outlined above, however, surely it is just as likely that the main target of Razan’s envy was Soshin herself, and that Razan’s dislike of Sokō was in fact related to this, rather than the other way around. After all, in terms of internal shogunate machinations, Soshin was far more influential and powerful than either Sokō or Razan. Intellectual historians have traditionally referred to the differences between Sokō’s and Razan’s ideas – but what about Soshin’s ideas? As touched upon above, Soshin was valued for her lay religious thought inside the shogunate, even being summoned to perform important rituals.55 Moreover, Soshin wrote; at least two of her writings survive and are available in printed form, appearing in the 1916 compilation Kinsei bukkyō shūsetsu 近世仏教集説.56 Until now Soshin’s intellectual affiliations have been, if not ignored completely, simply associated with the male scholar she is known to have supported, Sokō. But surely to understand how the likes of Razan saw Soshin, the best thing to do is to examine her own writings, something which only one other scholar since WWII has done.57 A cursory examination of Soshin’s writings shows that the reason they have been overlooked is certainly not due to their quality: as Sueki Fumihiko has argued, they are undoubtedly some of the most important religious writings by the
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 93 hand of a Tokugawa woman that we have extant.58 The ideas expressed in Soshin’s writings, for instance in Soshinni kōhōgo, are of a very particular nature. They emphasize relating religious orientation to the life experiences of individuals. Concretely, Soshin argues that religious ‘practice’ should not be considered a monopoly of the Buddhist clergy, but rather something emanating equally from the mind/heart of every person. It is no different whether one is a secular or a religious, it should not matter what one’s affiliations are, what is most important is that based on the orientation of our heart/mind, and in relation to all daily matters and practices, we improve the spirit of our faith, and become free.59 In this manner, Soshin offers a counter to the contemporary idea that it was necessary to withdraw from worldly matters and join the clergy to reach high levels of religious practice. There are other passages in this same text that can even be interpreted as criticism of the practice of withdrawal – and by association as criticism of the clergy. Those who give up the world [becoming a member of the clergy] thinking to ignore the society of others, and hating the world, are disturbed. The social world exists inside our hearts/minds. If we come to know the many people and social worlds within our hearts/minds, then with the orientation of our hearts/ minds to faith, we will come to reside deep within the mountain of our own heart/mind, and we will never need to visit the mountain of [confusion].60 Soshin’s basic argument here is clear. People do not have to ‘give up the world’ (become monks/nuns) to practise correctly. The further implication is that turning away from the world is also to turn away from ‘the orientation of the heart to faith’. This could be interpreted as a veiled criticism of the clergy. At the very least it undermines any claim they could have to a privileged position in regards to religious practice. Soshin’s arguments in this text also need to be considered in terms of the social context. We know from historical sources like Tokugawa Jikki that she led important religious practices in the inner circle of the shogun, despite the fact that the shogunate had well-paid senior monks on staff. It should also be recalled that the Confucian Razan’s official position in the shogunate at this time was technically as a Buddhist monk. Another ethically and politically important element in Soshin-authored texts is her approach to the Confucian ‘five relations’, and the concept of ‘loyalty’. Sueki Fumihiko has commented that ‘[Soshin argues that] if temporal ethics are practised by a heart/mind [with an inner intention] which is not free and unbalanced, then they must be rejected. On this point Soshin’s standpoint is the exact opposite of the likes of Suzuki Shōsan, who equate temporal law with Buddhist law’.61 Suzuki Shōsan, as discussed in the previous chapter, is one of the best examples of completely politicized, or perhaps it is more accurate to say politically subservient, Buddhism in the early Tokugawa period. One might even
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say that Shōsan employed Buddhism in support of intellectual homogenization in much the same way as Razan employed Confucianism.62 Both explicitly criticized theories that placed the orientation of the individual’s heart/mind above socially defined moral codes – an approach which is clearly not at all reconcilable with Soshin as revealed in these texts. Soshin’s overall emphasis, what she seems to have valued (both as revealed in the moments of her life inside the shogunate recorded in sources such as Tokugawa Jikki, and in her own writings such as Soshinni kōhōgo) was not temples and monks – organizations and institutions which supported hierarchical constructions of Buddhist intellectual orthodoxies – but rather practice based on the ‘orientation of people’s mind/heart’ and a ‘mind/heart of faith’. There is a similarity between these latter ideas, and those of Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucian elements in the works of Fujiwara Seika and Kumazawa Banzan, criticized by Razan. Again, that is the emphasis on the mind/heart over a conception of truth or law based on an inherently conservative definition of social reality. Perhaps it was this similarity, which one would imagine to be particularly striking from a standpoint such as Razan’s, that led to Razan associating Soshin with the heterodox and rebellious enemies of order like Shōsetsu. It might also have been one of the intellectual bonds between Soshin and Sokō. Interestingly, although Razan made no direct link between Soshin and Christianity in Sōzoku zenkōki, there is a separate Buddhist tradition that did. According to the contemporaneous source Seishōji chūkō kiroku yōryaku 済松寺 中興記録要略, Soshin’s ideas were described by other women in the shogunate women’s quarters as ‘Christian’. Later Soshin was entrusted by Iemitsu to conduct ceremonies for the salvation of all in the house and was allocated a room in the castle for this purpose. Usually she would give Buddhist sermons, but she would also assemble the women and speak to them about Zen. Some women [or one woman] among this group came to suspect that what she was teaching was Christian [not Zen]. It is suspected that this happened because at that time no one in the castle knew anything about Zen and so were not used to it.63 Soshin’s ideas, her career, and the way she was perceived in the contemporary historical context are all issues that in their own right would make fascinating topics of research. For the moment, however, let us return to the point in the Sōzoku zenki text where Razan deals with Soshin.64 After first linking Soshin to Shōsetsu, Razan moves on fairly efficiently to use the same tactic against Kumazawa Banzan. Razan’s slur on Banzan, however, is much greater, in that he actually alludes to Banzan’s ideas being the main intellectual motivation behind the actions of the Keian conspirators. Kumazawa [Banzan] is a minor vassal of the Lord of Bizen [Ikeda Mitsumasa]. Employing sorcery he deceives the deaf and blind. Those who listen to him
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 95 are sent astray, never to see the light. Many [of them] band together, forming factions. They refuse to talk openly with those who are not like-minded. This is basically just a mutation of Christianity. They are depraved and motivated purely by profit. They toady to the Lord of Bizen [Mitsumasa], doing things in secret not openly, furtively and silently. We have arrived in an age of depravity where custom has degraded to this extent. These bandits [sōzoku], they have all listened to Kumazawa’s words of sorcery.65 Here appears the famous phrase from Sōzoku zenkōki, and probably the only part of the text that it is possible to see quoted widely in secondary literature, ‘basically a mutation of Christianity’. Looking at Sōzoku zenki in its entirety, however, the only real argument against Christianity and the teachings of Banzan appears to be that they are both essentially lies used to fool people. There is not a serious examination of even Banzan’s ideas, never mind Christianity. Quotes from classic texts such as the Wang zhi section of the Liji (‘those who disturb governance … who want only to employ the gods and seasons, kill them all, spare none’)66 are deployed to criticize the use of ‘superstition’ to make trouble; but overall even the issue of superstition is only touched on, not discussed in a systematic manner. Sōzoku zenki overall simply refers to the issue of superstition, directing most of its criticism against military thought, Banzan, and Soshin, through the simple vitriolic assertion that they are liars. The important and unique feature of Sōzoku zenki is that in this text Razan names names, something he does not do in the letters to Ishikawa Jōzan. Moreover, the people he does name are not lightweights by any means. They are in many ways better connected, and certainly in the case of both Banzan and Soshin, much better paid than Razan. The development of these personal attacks into something more systematic occurs in the sequel to Sōzoku zenki, Sōzoku kōki.
Sōzoku kōki: marshalling the discourse on ‘heterodox thought’ Sōzoku kōki’s basic structure in many ways mirrors that of Sōzoku zenki. First the discovery of ‘the plot’ (in this case the plot behind the Jōō Incident) is explained, then the punishment of the ringleaders is dramatically narrated, and finally the intellectual background to, and causes of, the plot are analysed in depth. Much of this last and most important part of Sōzoku kōki, however, is precisely the section omitted from the printed versions of Sōzoku zenkōki (notably in Jijitsu bunpen). Therefore, in the following examination of Sōzoku kōki based on manuscript texts, we have the chance to inquire into aspects of Razan’s criticism of Christianity, and ‘heterodoxy’ in general, that have never been considered before. This previously unresearched section of Sōzoku kōki, which deals with the intellectual connections of the conspirators, opens in a very similar way to the letter to Jōzan, with an attack on the Japanese military-thought tradition. This attack, just like in the letter to Jōzan, centres on the trustworthiness of the textual tradition of militarist texts.
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Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ What they call ‘military thought’ is nothing more than worthless drivel. … They just take one word [out of context] from Sunzi or Wuzi, and lecture based on this. Those who listen are unmoved. So they study the heresy of Kumazawa [Banzan]. … They make people dull by getting them to drink the dregs they have scraped from the bottom of the barrel of military thought texts. The blind one leads the many blind, the deaf one leads the many deaf. How could anyone not hate this? How could anyone not prohibit this? What they call military thought, the scourge of Shōsetsu [the leader of the Keian plot] and Doki [the leader of the Jōō plot], this is what it is. The depravity of people mimicking heretical teachings, this is what it is. … Those who would steal our nation, again I ask, is this not what they are? How are they any different to the Christians?67
Here Razan’s mention of Banzan by name is integrated into the kind of systematic criticism of ‘heresy’ and ‘heterodoxy’ seen in the 1654 letter to Jōzan. The domestic textual tradition of military thought is criticized, and is linked to ‘heterodox’ (as far as Razan is concerned) Confucian thought (this time explicitly identified as Banzan’s), which is in turn compared with Christianity. As in the 1654 letter to Jōzan, Razan does not say these ideas equate to Christianity; rather, he implies they have the same [political] effect. Here we can see the same systematic approach to delineating heterodoxy in both Sōzoku kōki and the letter to Jōzan contained in Hayashi Razan Bunshū. The role of Buddhism in this system, as seen in the Jōzan letter, is also evident in Sōzoku kōki. This is the Christian way of deceiving the masses and confounding the simple people. The first thing they do is talk about improving things. As to the Buddhists, they set up the ‘five prohibitions’ and cultivate the ‘ten virtues’, so how are they any better?68 But Sōzoku zenkōki also contains a reference to Christianity not seen in the other Razan texts, which is an actual focused criticism on aspects of Christianity itself. Interestingly, while Razan, through the Jōzan letters and most of Sōzoku zenkōki, generally refers to Christianity by the term yaso 耶蘇 (usually used in Japanese to indicate Christianity, and the Jesuits in particular), when engaging in this particular criticism he uses the term tenshu 天主 (a name for God and Christianity originating from China-based Jesuits).69 Razan’s main problem with tenshukyō is that, for him, it has no ethical system. They just say to serve God well and not go against duty. This is why it is not difficult for them to turn on their sovereigns and fathers by using God. Their [regard for] God is deep, and [for their] sovereigns and fathers shallow. So then what is this God? It is sorcery! It is disorder! … This is how regicide and patricide come to pass.70
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 97 Here we see a criticism of Christianity identical to that encountered earlier in Razan’s diplomatic correspondence. The Christian teaching of worshipping God directly rather than through the intermediary of the feudal political system is seen as inviting disorder. In this part of Sōzoku zenkōki Razan does, for a moment, actually criticize Christianity itself. Yet as this argument develops, the focus of criticism soon moves on again, away from Christianity, to other intellectual traditions. Once again, Razan uses the image of Christianity against others, projecting it onto a range of other traditions. Their heresy [the Christian heresy], like a mimicking bird whose voice sounds like that of another, transforms [to hide] the appearance of their barbarian yabberings. This is in order to evade the prohibition [of Christianity]. Those ones [those involved in the rebellions] have built this up, employing military thought as a disguise, they mix their heresy in together with it. The Great King of our country has a rule: it says, the establishment of new interpretations, and the forming of factions, these crimes will not be forgiven. Why should those who commit crimes against this law not come to be punished? Their [the rebels’] various schemes of ‘betterment’, and the teachings of the Christians, how are they different?71 Here Razan alleges that lying behind the façade of so-called military thought are the incoherent babblings of the barbarian heretic hordes. This is indicated by the use of words such gekizetsu (the animal-like talk of non-Chinese languages, as we have already seen used in Razan’s diplomatic writings examined in the previous chapter) instead of yaso to indicate the Christians. Razan also makes it clear here that he identifies those behind Christianity as those advocating ‘improvement’, ‘new interpretations and forming groups’. In other words, the ideas that could potentially threaten the existing order are labelled by Razan as ‘Christian’.72 This is confirmed by other sections of Sōzoku kōki such as the following: In the olden days Zhang and Lu gave out medicines to cure illness. Then, using sorcery, they manipulated the people. The people listened to their words, and great numbers of them followed them into the Wudoumi Wars.73 Here, by offering up the example of the Wudoumi rebellions at the end of the late Han – peasant rebellions associated with the popularity of Daoist popular religions – Razan pushes home his point that non-standard ideas and rebellion go hand in hand. His use of the example of ‘giving out medicines to cure illness’ in condemnation of the ‘sorcerers’ shows an interesting similarity to many antiChristian texts, such as Kirishitan Monogatari examined in Chapter 3. It is interesting to note, however, that this rhetorical device dates back, as is evident in Razan’s quote, to historical images of religious-related rebels in late Han China. Looking at Sōzoku kōki in its entirety, it is clear that the main argument of the text is expounded, as illustrated above, in the section of the text omitted from Jijitsu Bunpen and other printed editions. That argument, like the main
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argument of the 1654 letter to Jōzan, concentrates criticism on military thought and Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism (articulated in Sōzoku specifically as Kumazawa Banzan’s ideas), constructing on this base an image of ‘heterodox thought’ specifically related to Buddhism and labelled ‘Christian’. Pointing out similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, Razan groups together a number of different ‘heterodox’ and ‘heretic’ (as identified by him) intellectual traditions, labelling them ‘mutations of Christianity’ in a systematic articulation of an integrated seventeenth-century Japanese ‘heterodox thought’. The character of this ‘heterodox thought’ as defined by Razan is indicated by phrases that condemn it as ‘betterment’ and ‘new interpretation’ – condemning it, in short, as thought that is evil because it offers the possibility of change to or reform of the existing political structures. Moreover, it is identified by words like ‘witchcraft’, ‘medicine (drugs!)’, and ‘spirits’ as being superstitious. Ideas based on superstitions, or ideas of faith, are condemned as affronts to an ethical order based on rigid social norms which solidify the existing social order. In terms of actual people criticized by name, Kumazawa Banzan stands out. Banzan is named on numerous occasions throughout Sōzoku zenkōki as the direct intellectual inspiration of the rebels. The only other contemporary figure (other than the actual rebel leaders) named in Sōzoku zenkōki is Soshin. In addition to these explicitly named people, however, given the massive concentration on condemnation of military thought throughout the text, and the well-known connection between Soshin and Yamaga Sokō, contemporary readers might also have read the text as a veiled condemnation of Sokō – also the interpretation of many modern researchers.
Comparisons, conclusions and questions The overall political thought of Sōzoku zenkōki is virtually the same as that contained in Razan’s letter to Ishikawa Jōzan of 1654. The main difference is that in the letter to Jōzan, names are not named. But in that same letter of 1654, Razan refers to Sōzoku ki, letting us know that Jōzan should have had that text to hand. So Jōzan knew to whom Razan was referring when he spoke of ‘the stealing of Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism’, and ‘the subversion of Zen’. Razan did not sign Sōzoku with his own name directly, but he had no problem attaching his name to the letter to Jōzan. Because Banzan’s and Soshin’s names did not appear in the letter to Jōzan, Razan could attach his name to it, and his son Gahō could introduce it openly to the world in 1661 by compiling it in the influential Hayashi Razan Bunshū published that year. The way these two texts interacted in the discourse space then becomes clear. The ‘letter’ was – at the very least from 1661 with the publication of Bunshū, if not before – a public document. But complementing this document was Sōzoku zenkōki, a pamphlet that existed in the private space to explicate the arguments in the letter in a more openly factional manner. Looking at these two documents as political rhetoric, it is difficult not to suspect that they were, if not designed, then certainly at the very least deployed by Gahō, to be complementary and mutually supporting texts.
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 99 An interesting question then arises: why did Razan directly target Banzan and Soshin in these texts? On the one hand there is the simple political answer that they were, in one way or another, competition for Razan. Moreover, they were competitors with an advantage over him in terms of social class and economic status.74 But there is also another, perhaps more probable and certainly more easily demonstrated, reason why Razan targeted them – one related to the nature of their ideas. Despite Banzan being a (loosely) Wang Yang-ming-aligned Confucian, and Soshin being a lay Zen practitioner, there are some interesting similarities in their ideas, similarities that run directly against Razan’s intellectual inclinations. These include their attitude towards concepts like heart/mind, knowledge, and intellectual orthodoxy itself. For instance, in relation to the ‘mistake’ of ‘heretical outlooks and disorder’, Soshin wrote the following: Someone who is lost does not know the Buddha of their own heart/mind. They are lost both in the law of Buddha and the law of men. Opening that lost heart/ mind and realizing their true nature: this is enlightenment, the enlightenment of faith. … Cultivating one’s own heart/mind and compassionately assisting the masses, this is true knowledge.75 And Banzan wrote the following: When we keep sober the knowledge of our own heart/mind, then exterior uneasiness cannot affect us. ‘Think away what is unbalanced’, ‘Rid yourself of deceit’, ‘Correct your intention’ – all these mean to sober oneself. In your heart/mind, if there is clear thought, then you will certainly know in your own right the good, and you will also know in your own right what is bad. This is knowledge.76 Of course, Banzan was a Confucian who was highly critical of Buddhism, and Soshin was a lay Buddhist teacher, counsellor and religious consultant of sorts. Soshin and Banzan had very different ideas, coming from completely different traditions; but they show a certain similarity when compared with the kind of thought that supported Razan’s main anti-Christian discourse. For instance, both Soshin’s and Banzan’s thought contain elements potentially critical of hierarchically organized religion, and which moreover show a very different position towards ‘heterodoxy’ than Razan. Concretely, there is an interesting similarity between Banzan’s conception of ‘good’, and Soshin’s idea of ‘enlightenment’: both are attained through facing down the ‘confusion’ within the individual’s heart/mind. In the process of transcending that confusion one comes to the ‘knowledge’ lying within one’s own heart/mind. Both ‘good’ and ‘enlightenment’ are not revealed to the individual in ‘exterior uneasiness’, ‘the law of men’, or any other externalized social structures. Immanent knowledge is favoured over knowledge authenticated by an externalized order. This common element has a clear political relevance: it potentially supports action and judgement emanating from autonomous thought,
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which clearly runs directly against the trends underlying Razan’s anti-Christian discourse. Soshin wrote nothing about Christianity which survives; but in Banzan’s extant writings his view on ‘the Christian problem’ is clear. Like Razan, Banzan relates the problem to Buddhism, describing Buddhism as a ‘forerunner of Christianity’ in Japan.77 However, Banzan’s approach to the question of how Christianity should be controlled in Japan is quite different to Razan’s, having potentially radical and certainly highly critical political implications. Christianity spreads because of the confusion in peoples’ heart/minds, and the hardships of the masses. If the teachings of the civilized world prevail, then the confusion in peoples’ minds/hearts will be resolved, benevolent governance will alleviate the hardships of the masses, and it [Christianity] will not be able to spread. … The proof of this can be seen in China, the land of the sages. If you have civilization, then even with no forcible prohibition, it is not able to spread.78 The argument of this paragraph, contained in two of Banzan’s most popular texts, Shūgi washo 集義和書 and Daigaku wakumon 大学或問, contains a number of points that could be interpreted as highly critical of contemporaneous Japanese society. First, Banzan argues that the spread of Christianity is indicative of social ills caused by bad governance; second, he implies that contemporary Japanese political society (as represented through the nature of governance) was imperfect to the point of not having yet reached the level of ‘civilization’; third, he criticizes the use of forcible prohibition as the main vehicle for the suppression of Christianity. This last point is related to Banzan’s general political philosophy, which tends to argue against the use of force as a primary instrument of governance.79 Banzan is cheeky enough even to point out the fact that in China Christianity did not spread despite not being actively suppressed. Even on the actual issue of ‘the Christian question’ itself, Banzan’s and Razan’s ideas are quite different. As noted earlier, previous research has tended to mention Sōzoku zenkōki only fleetingly as another example of Razan’s anti-Christian discourse or private criticism of Kumazawa Banzan. But while Sōzoku zenkōki certainly does contain criticism of Banzan and Christianity, that criticism is set out within a much more comprehensive rhetorical framework. The argument engages a range of other intellectual traditions, and is set around a primary focus on two major instances of organized insurgency against the government. Razan’s argument in Sōzoku zenkōki is not simply anti-Christian or anti-Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucian: he sketches out a systematic model of the nature of an integrated heterodox thought system with which to contrast his own constructed Shinto–Confucian orthodoxy. This heterodoxy is identified by Razan not only with labels such as igaku 異学 and jasetu 邪説 (heresy), but also importantly with the label that would have the strongest negative impact in the political space within which Razan was operating: yaso (Christian). But the word ‘Christian’ mentioned here by Razan,
Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 101 and indeed the anti-Christian discourse in Razan’s work of this period – be it Sōzoku zenkōki, or his letters to Ishikawa Jōzan – is not primarily concerned with Christianity. In the same way, Razan’s reference to and use of the Keian Affair and the Jōō Incident is not primarily about armed insurgency or ‘rebellion’. In Razan’s discourse, both Christianity and these important rebellions are reconstructed as powerful symbols of an integrated and totalistic (as imagined by Razan) social and intellectual heterodoxy. The manufacture of this heterodoxy plays an important role in Razan’s attempt to delineate his own thought as an orthodoxy. Most importantly, this delineation is carried out transparently along lines relating to the utility of thought in supporting or undermining the hegemonic authority of the contemporary Tokugawa order. Looking at the context and contents of Sōzoku zenkōki, it seems difficult to accept that this delineation was an action of Razan simply as either ‘a private man’ or even as a member of a ‘private elite’ – the limitation that Herman Ooms put on his claim to the role of scholars in the construction of something constituting a ‘Tokugawa ideology’ in the seventeenth century.80 The research presented above reinforces elements of Ooms’s argument about the creation of ideology in the seventeenth century, to the extent that some of the caveats he made to his careful argument might now be dispensed with. After all, Razan’s construction of an integrated image of intellectual heterodoxy in this case was clearly related to concrete political problems of the time: the problem of displaced soldiers in the postwar era (the so-called rōnin issue), of which the Keian Affair was such a powerful example; and the problem of establishing the extent of central policy control over the regional governments (han) in the still relatively new bakuhan system, as demonstrated by the confrontation over policy autonomy between Ikeda Mitsumasa and Itakura Shigemune, of which Banzan was symbolic. The powerful Rōjūkaku 老中格 (Special Minister of State) Matsudaira Nobutsuna 松平信綱 (1596–1662), a key supporter of Razan within the shogunate, was closely involved with both these issues, and indeed in the suppressions of both the Shimabara and Keian rebellions. The alignment of Razan’s arguments with the contemporary interests and political actions of the central state, and particularly with his close individual associates in the central state apparatus (whether in regard to rōnin, Christianity, or centre-region political tensions) are also clear. Looking back on Hayashi Razan’s anti-Christian discourse as a whole, as discussed in this and the previous chapter, there is a perceptible shift from an anti-Christian discourse (predominantly expressed in diplomatic texts) where the primary object of criticism is Christianity, or at least ‘Christians’, to an ‘antiChristian discourse’ where the primary objects of criticism are clearly non-Christian indigenous Japanese thinkers. As part of this shift, anti-Christian discourse begins to play a more multidimensional role in domestic Japanese politics. Through the 1640s, 1650s and 1660s, anti-Christian discourse becomes gradually less related to the question of Christianity in contemporary Japan. In Razan’s writings of the 1650s, as Banzan’s thought becomes labelled ‘a mutation of Christianity’, so too does Razan’s ‘anti-Christian discourse’ become what we might call ‘a mutation
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of anti-Christian discourse’. For Razan, anti-Christian discourse becomes no longer a vehicle for the criticism of Christianity, but a rhetorical device to be deployed against a range of intellectual currents that do not accord with his own ideas and objectives. This of course fits into the general character of the boom in anti-Christian discourse that occurred in Japan from the 1640s, and particularly through the 1650s and 1660s, which we examined in Chapter 3. This chapter has shown how anti-Christian discourse was integrated into the heart of mainstream political discourse, playing a central role in the interpretation, and rhetorical utilization, of one of the most serious threats to Tokugawa power in the seventeenth century. In support of this process, Razan also used anti-Christian discourse centrally to systematically construct an idea of ‘heterodoxy’ with which to compare his own Shinto–Confucian synthesis as an ‘orthodoxy’ aligned to and upholding the central state. In the construction of this ‘heterodoxy’ Razan used the word yaso, and an image of Christianity that had particular impact in his political discourse space. After this time, the language and imagery of so-called ‘Christianity’ and ‘antiChristian discourse’ in Japanese political history transcnded questions related to either the Christian religion, or the historical reality of Christianity in Japan. ‘Christianity’ became code for differentiation between categories of intellectual ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heterodoxy’ – categories that would be built up in a dynamic process over the subsequent 300 years, ultimately playing an important role in the formation of modern national ideology. The intellectual role of anti-Christian discourse through the different phases of this process, like the social role of the fumie ritual in ordinary village and urban life in Tokugawa Japan, was intimately related to the control of the lower orders by the upper orders. This was also evident in the choices that were made as to what was regarded as ‘orthodox’ and what ‘heterodox’. As discussed above in relation to Soshin and Banzan, intellectual frameworks that focused on autonomous thought tended to be, ironically enough, associated with Catholic Christianity, while intellectual frameworks that embedded ideas of right and truth in the pre-existing social order generally formed the core of the orthodoxy. This categorization and use of the term ‘Christian’ to indicate intellectual frameworks that privileged autonomous thought was repeated in the late nineteenth century, during the institutional construction of modern nationalist ideology, as will be discussed in Chapter 6.
5
Mid- and late Tokugawa antiChristian discourse Continuity and change
Because there is no one who has seen a Christian book, today there is no one who possesses the knowledge to even say what kind of thing that teaching is.1 This was how Ogyū Sorai, the Tokugawa period’s most influential Confucian scholar, famously summarized Japan’s contemporary discussion of Christianity in the third decade of the 1700s – scarcely more than half a century after the boom in anti-Christian publications of the 1660s. After peaking in the midseventeenth-century, writing on Christianity, including anti-Christian discourse, had virtually disappeared from Japan’s intellectual landscape by the eighteenth century. Anti-Christian discourse would not again play a central role in Japanese political or cultural life until a second surge of anti-Christian writing took place in the nineteenth century. This fresh surge began in the last decades of Tokugawa rule and continued uninterrupted through the fall of the shogunate and into the Meiji period, evolving as it did so to play an important role in the formation of the ideology of modern Japan. Although little was written about or against Christianity in the mid-Tokugawa period, it is interesting to note that what was written tended to be by particularly important thinkers like Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) and Arai Hakuseki 新 井白石 (1657–1725). Hakuseki, in particular, demonstrated an interest not only in Christianity, but also in the Chinese and Japanese traditions of polemical writing against it. His own writings on Christianity went on to be particularly influential in the later Tokugawa resurgence of attacks on Christianity and the West in general, particularly by Mito Learning scholars. This chapter examines Japanese anti-Christian writings from the mid- and into the late Tokugawa period, beginning with the sparse yet nevertheless influential texts from the mid-Tokugawa period, then focusing on the significant role anti-Christian discourse played in the political thought of the late Tokugawa period. The analysis traces the most famous examples of anti-Christian writing chronologically: from the writings of Hakuseki at the beginning of the 1700s, through the late 1700s writings of Miura Baien 三浦梅園 (1723–89), and on to the development of the highly influential anti-Christian discourse of the Mito Learning tradition in the early to mid-1800s. The chapter thereby traces the development of this discourse up to the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, touching on the
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concrete relationships that influential bakumatsu (or ‘fall of the shogunate’) Mito anti-Christian polemicists, such as Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎 (1782–1863), had with the some of the most famous early Meiji anti-Christian writers, such as the Confucian Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 (1799–1876) and the Jōdo-sect Buddhist monk Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人 (Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定) (1814–91). While not attempting to deal with every instance of anti-Christian discourse during this period, this chapter teases out the significant, hitherto little noticed, connections between anti-Christian discourse in different periods, and focuses on the central role anti-Christian discourse played in the mainstream political thought of this time. We will see how these writers drew on Chinese Christian and anti-Christian thought to bolster a Confucian-inspired defence of social order and the Japanese state against both internal dissent and external threat. The writers had different preoccupations, based on the different political, social and intellectual milieus in which they wrote; and they came from both Buddhist and Confucian traditions; nevertheless, they drew on each other’s work, and on the previous currents of both Chinese and Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse, to mount what increasingly became a defence and legitimation of authoritarian rule – particularly after the onset of the Meiji Restoration. The later writers were also responsible for creating a corpus or canon of anti-Christian texts that influenced, indeed framed and delimited, scholarly inquiry into Japanese anti-Christian thought throughout the twentieth century.
Putting down the cudgels: the mid-Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse of Arai Hakuseki, Ogyū Sorai and Miura Baien Unlike in the seventeenth century, for most of the eighteenth-century anti-Christian discourse played no major role in the rapidly developing political discourse and political thought of Japan. The only eighteenth-century Japanese work from this period commonly referenced as an example of Tokugawa anti-Christian writing is Arai Hakuseki’s Seiyō kibun 西洋紀文. Related work by Hakuseki was first referred to as an example of anti-Christian writing as early as the end of the eighteenth century by Miura Baien in his own anti-Christian treatise Samidareshō 五月雨抄 (1784).2 Seiyō kibun’s partial inclusion in late Tokugawa and early Meiji collations of anti-Christian writings by Kiyū Dōjin (Hekijakankenroku 闢邪管見録 (1861)) and Kanzaki Issaku (Hajasōsho (1893)) really cemented this text’s place in an ‘anti-Christian canon’ of Tokugawa-period writings.3 Its elevation into the standard example of mid-Tokugawa anti-Christian writing occurred at the same time as a ‘canon’ of ‘early Tokugawa anti-Christian writing’ was established, and at the hands of the same people, through the publication of late Tokugawa editions of anti-Christian collections such as Sokkyohen 息距篇 (1860) and Hekijakankenroku.
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Arai Hakuseki’s Wild West: taking cues from China Even a cursory examination of the contents of Seiyō kibun reveals a text that is very different in character to any of the writings from the seventeenth century examined earlier in this book and usually described as ‘anti-Christian’. Rather than being a diatribe against or about ‘Christians’, Seiyō kibun seems to be primarily a record of interviews with one Catholic priest, Juan Baptista Sidotti (1668–1714).4 Although Hakuseki does present arguments against Christianity in the course of this reasonably lengthy text, his primary purpose is to convey to the reader a wide array of information about Christianity, the West and the rest of the world, largely through communicating Sidotti’s answers to Hakuseki’s questions. In other words, it reads much more like an intelligence report than a work of popular rhetoric. And indeed, that is what it was. Hakuseki interviewed Sidotti at the shogunate’s direction. This meant that not only the text’s content but also its distribution set it apart from the kind of populist anti-Christian works which made up the bulk of mid-seventeenth-century anti-Christian writing. Seiyō kibun, although it was based on interviews conducted in 1709 and was completed around 1715, became widely available only from around 1793; before then, it was read by only a limited number of scholars who were either students of Hakuseki or had some relationship with the shogunate.5 It is interesting to note that Miura Baien’s reference to an anti-Christian work by Hakuseki in his own Samidareshō of 1784 pre-dated the general availability of Seiyō kibun. Thus a version of Hakuseki’s position on Christianity, and thereby of the standard mid-Tokugawa take on Christianity, was in print well before Hakuseki’s own major writing on the subject, Seiyō kibun, had become available in print. The fact that Seiyō kibun is the only significant text of the early or mid-1700s identified as anti-Christian potentially gives us an insight into how that discourse operated during its period of greatest silence in the mid-Tokugawa. It also makes for an interesting comparison both with other texts identified in the anti-Christian genre, and with the mainstream Tokugawa approaches to Christianity found in later anti-Christian writings, from Baien at the end of the 1700s, through to Kanzaki Issaku at the end of the 1800s.6 Written almost exactly one century after the proscription of Christianity and around 80 years after complete suppression had been achieved, Seiyō kibun strikingly reveals the near-complete ignorance in early eighteenth-century Japanese society of anything to do with the European Catholic world. In this sense Hakuseki’s narration in Seiyō kibun appears to confirm the observation by Ogyū Sorai that opened this chapter. Early in the text is a passage that gives us some idea of Hakuseki’s understanding of Catholic Europe and his sources for information about it. Other than words like Nihon, Edo, Nagasaki and so on, I could not understand any of the words he [Sidotti] spoke. He himself drew a circle on a piece of paper, and pointing said the words: rōma [Rome], nanban [southern Barbary
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Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse – the West], rokuson [Luzon], casutiira [Castillia], kirishitan [Christian] and so on. When he said Rome he pointed to himself. I reported this to Nagasaki. When a Dutchman was asked about this he replied that Rome was a place in Italy in the West, and it was the capital from where Roman Catholicism was propagated. He said it was difficult to know what rokuson or casutiira were.7
This passage demonstrates that Japanized versions of European words commonly used to indicate overseas place names in the early seventeenth century were already completely unintelligible to one of the most well-educated Japanese of the early eighteenth century, and to his expert colleagues in Nagasaki, site of the only port dealing with European vessels.8 This sense of distance is also discernible in the more impartial and removed tone of Hakuseki’s references to Christianity and the West. Unlike the rhetorical diatribes observed in works of earlier Confucians such as Hayashi Razan, Hakuseki’s comments on Christianity and the West are made in a much more distant, almost anthropological, style9 – one very similar to that adopted in some of his other works on non-Japanese, in particular his similarly anthropological treatise on the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido, Ezoshi 蝦夷志.10 Seiyō kibun comprises three sections. The first relates Sidotti’s journey to Japan and his living situation there; the second describes a range of overseas places, primarily based on information provided by Sidotti in his answers to questions, and through Hakuseki’s extrapolations on those answers; and the third section discusses Christianity and Catholicism. In this final section, Hakuseki both offers information about Christianity and also criticizes certain aspects of the religion and defends the shogunate’s prohibition of it. He relies for information about Christianity not only on answers provided by Sidotti, but moreover, and indeed seemingly more centrally, on references from Catholic Christian works from Ming China, especially anti-Christian texts. In particular, Hakuseki refers to the thought of Matteo Ricci, and appears to lift these references from collections of Chinese anti-Christian works published in the late Ming, especially Pixieji 闢邪 集 (Jp. Hekijashū).11 What this means is that the image of Catholic Christianity presented in Seiyō kibun differs markedly from that in most early-modern and modern Japanese antiChristian writings. Instead of being based on images of Christianity from early Tokugawa Japan and the anti-Christian interpretation of those images, Seiyō kibun derives from descriptions by the Italian priest Sidotti, and anti-Christian imagery developed in late Ming China addressing Matteo Ricci’s form of Catholic doctrine. This could well be one reason why Hakuseki’s arguments against Christianity are in many ways so different to those seen before and after in Japan. Seiyō kibun, like many anti-Christian texts from the early Tokugawa period, characterizes the Christian emphasis on the afterlife as ‘superstition’. Unlike early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse, however, Hakuseki does not use this example of superstition as the basis for an attack on Christianity, but rather comments that it is simply ‘due to Buddhist theories, or perhaps the origin of such, either way not
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 107 worthy of discussion or analysis’.12 In this manner, and on a number of occasions, Hakuseki associates the origins of Christianity with Buddhism, just as Hayashi Razan and Kumazawa Banzan did 75 years or so earlier.13 In contrast to Razan, however, who used this tactic as a rhetorical device for smearing Buddhism with the muddy image of Christianity, Hakuseki simply mentions it as a reason why such superstitious and religious arguments are not important. This difference of approach arises at least partly from the significantly improved position of Confucianism and the Confucian scholar in Hakuseki’s time: their status was threatened very little by Buddhism, never mind Christianity, so criticism of Buddhism had become more of a habit than a necessity.14 When actually criticizing Christian doctrine, Hakuseki’s focus is a small number of points of logic and ethics, rather than on metaphysical matters such as the afterlife. In this sense, Hakuseki’s tastes in argumentation resemble Habian’s choices in Hadaiusu. Like Habian, Hakuseki selects the Christian idea of redemption of original sin as a choice point upon which to demonstrate Christianity’s lack of logic and ethics. Just like Habian, Hakuseki charges that not only is the doctrine of original sin and redemption illogical, but that it further demonstrates the criminality of God himself who, after all, had ‘manufactured the situation in which the crime [original sin] was perpetrated, and then 3,000 years later forgives the crime – what an idiotic story!’15
Hakuseki’s Christian–Confucian problematic: governance and loyalty The core of Hakuseki’s argument against Christianity, however, is not related to any of these major issues of Christian doctrine dealt with in the earliest anti-Christian texts. Instead, the springboard is Hakuseki’s own Confucian-inspired conception of governance. For Hakuseki as a Confucian political thinker and government adviser, Christianity’s critical flaw is the way it addressed, or failed to address, central ideas in his own political philosophy: the Confucian-justified system of kingly governance (ōsei 王制) and the concepts of loyalty and filial piety (chūkō 忠孝) as underpinnings of that system. Hakuseki introduces his criticism through a narration and analysis of Sidotti’s comments. In regard to [Sidotti’s] comment that ‘in discussing all countries, their relative size or distance is not relevant’, we can say this is an ostensibly open perspective. Also, in regard to his comment that ‘it is people who lead countries astray, not teachings’, we can say these words ostensibly contain reason. But he [Sidotti] then states: ‘This teaching [Christianity] holds that God, through his creation of Heaven, Earth and all the multifarious things is the Great King and Great Father. If we do not love our father, or if we do not respect our king, then that is going against loyalty (chū 忠) and against filial piety (kō 孝). So we must serve our Great King and Great Father [God] and fulfill our love and respect to him.’ [In countering this I say:] In the Book of Rites, there are rites whereby the emperor serves Shangdi
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Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse [or The Lord on High, Heaven, what Ricci equates with God], but there are not rites whereby the feudal lords [the rank beneath the emperor] or anyone below them [anyone other than the emperor] would dare to offer sacrifice to [worship] Heaven. Such practice would confuse the positions of status and respect, causing disorder. The feudal lord should serve the king in place of [as the representative of] Heaven, the son serve the father in place of Heaven, the wife should serve her husband in place of Heaven. In this manner, by serving the king we show loyalty (chū 忠), this is how we serve Heaven. By serving our husband we show righteousness, this is how we serve Heaven. Outside of the three cords [these three set social relations between sovereign and vassal, parent and child, husband and wife] there is no way to properly serve Heaven. If there is a ‘Great King’ other than our own king whom we serve, or a ‘Great Father’ other than our own father whom we serve, then that means our respect is not directed towards our own king and father, that means we would have two heads in our household and two kings of our lands, it would mean we forsake our father and forsake our king, and there is nothing worse than that. Even if we say for instance that the [Christian] teaching itself does not extend to the forsaking of kings and fathers, nonetheless, its propagation among the people would most certainly lead to the extermination of kings and fathers; and that is why we should not reconsider it [the current prohibition].16
Here Hakuseki argues that anyone other than the sovereign (in other words, just about everyone) should revere Heaven through an intermediary determined by the hierarchical relations of the existent social order: he concretely emphasizes service/worship to sovereign (emperor (tenshi 天子) or king (kun 君)), father and husband as representative intermediaries. According to Hakuseki, the Christian teaching positing ‘a Great King other than our own king whom we should serve’, makes the relationship between human sovereigns and subjects relative, thereby potentially threatening social harmony and order. Christian teachings thereby inherently threaten the very roots of social order by undermining the relationships between sovereign and subject, parent and child, husband and wife. What is noteworthy about this criticism is that it seems to directly address Ricci’s kind of Christianity. This may have been influenced by the quotes from Ricci and criticism of him in the Chinese anti-Christian texts such as Pixieji, to which Hakuseki referred while writing Seiyō kibun. The major difference between Hakuseki’s approach in Seiyō kibun and that of all previous Japanese anti-Christian writings is the way his argument takes ‘worship to Heaven’ as the subject of discussion. This can be seen in the above quote from Seiyō kibun, where Hakuseki in his own argument accepts ‘properly serving Heaven’ as the correct purpose of ethical action. In other words, while he argues against Christianity on the point of how to serve Heaven, the discussion remains within the paradigm set up by Ricci, namely that carrying out the Confucian rites is about serving Heaven. This diverges from writing like Razan’s, where the main object of action in conformity with the rites is to provide order.
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 109 In another text attributed to Hakuseki, a similar kind of political criticism of Christianity is presented in a more extreme fashion, and with much more obvious Chinese political influence. In Tenshukyō taii 天主教大意, Hakuseki justifies the banning of Christianity in Japan not only in the political theory terms outlined in Seiyō kibun, but also by reference to Chinese commentary which he links to the subjugation of the Ming state by the Manchus.17 People of the late Ming, in discussing the demise of their state, list Christianity as one of the causes. So we see that our country’s decision to strictly ban this teaching was not an excessive measure.18 Just as in Seiyō kibun, the political danger represented by Christianity is not one of ‘Christian invasion’ or any other kind of territorial threat by Christian Westerners, but of an internal weakening of the state brought on by Christian teachings’ potential to degrade the foundations of social order. In the early eighteenth century when Hakuseki was writing these texts, the Christian West was clearly not perceived as a territorial threat to either the Japanese, Chinese or Korean states, as it had been portrayed (at least in relation to Japan) in some Japanese texts of the early seventeenth century. Rather, the discourse on Christianity had become much more deeply enmeshed in the Confucian political theory of the time: Christianity was portrayed as a political threat, but in terms of its potential threat to social order. Such weakening of the social order made the state susceptible to attack either from within or from non-Christian external enemies such as the Manchu. This criticism of Christianity presented by Hakuseki, while clearly at this time influenced by Chinese anti-Christian discourse, shares obvious similarities with the earlier Japanese Confucian political critique of Christianity presented by Razan in the 1650s. Razan had also criticized Christianity using not only the same argument that Christian teachings diverted the people’s loyalty away from the sovereign, but even the same term as Hakuseki used over half a century later: ‘forsake the king, forsake the father’.19 Although Hakuseki’s criticism of Christian teachings resembled Razan’s in that its main object of attack was Christianity’s teaching that ordinary people should directly serve God, the argument used in the attack was markedly different. Razan simply argued that Christian direct worship of God was against Confucian teachings and against the feudal order underlying the shogunate. Hakuseki, on the other hand, while also noting that Christian direct worship of God was politically dangerous, centred his argument on the fact that Christian practice was ‘not the proper way of serving Heaven’. Here Hakuseki not only adopted Ricci’s use of Heaven and Shangdi to mean God, he also adopted the framework of Ricci’s argument that the Confucian rites were primarily about serving Heaven.
Hakuseki’s Honsarokukō: ambivalence revealed Hakuseki did not just frame his argument in terms of Ricci’s parameters of assessing ‘how to properly revere Heaven’, even when criticizing Ricci; his
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entire outlook on the Christian question was clearly much more open to the Christian perspective and saw the question in more complex terms than the binary categories that dominate early Tokugawa anti-Christian writings. This is more clearly revealed in a private work authored by Hakuseki after Seiyō kibun, entitled Honsarokukō 本佐録考.20 Honsarokukō records Hakuseki’s thoughts on a late Warring States text called Honsaroku, the textual history of which has been related to the syncretic Confucian text Shingaku gorinsho (referred to in Chapters 2 and 3). A thorough examination of Honsarokukō would therefore need to place it among Hakuseki’s other significant works on history, as well as explaining the textual tradition of Honsaroku itself as it is currently understood.21 These tasks take us out into the endless horizon of Hakuseki’s approach to history, so here we will do no more than touch on a couple of illuminating points from the text.22 In Honsarokukō, as in Seiyō kibun and Tenshukyō taii, Hakuseki ostensibly puts forward a comprehensively anti-Christian position. Of all the great evils our country has witnessed, I believe nothing has exceeded that of Christianity.23 Yet he also calls into question a range of issues relating to the banning of Christianity in the early years of the shogunate. Like Razan and Banzan before him, Hakuseki points out the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. From the time of the latter Han, Buddhist teaching has been propagated in our country with unprecedented vigor. Christianity is, like Buddhism, based on Western customs, and people everywhere are generally attracted to new things. As a result, they turned from the latter religion to the former, and it seems that without much effort they soon came to feel at home with it.24 But Hakuseki goes on not only to criticize the use of Buddhism in the suppression of Christianity, but also to describe this as a threat to Confucianism. He even suggests that the ban on Christianity itself was inspired partly by commercially motivated allegations by the Protestant Dutch. I believe that as the Buddhists claimed that their own teaching was correct, both sects began to fight. But from the point of view of our [Confucian] Way, what the Buddhists claim to be right cannot be right for us. Still, it was decided to ban Christianity on account of what the Dutch alleged in an effort to improve their trade.25 He also then even defends the decision of Christian samurai not to renounce the faith in this context. If at this time someone desires, for example, to practise our Confucian Way, he violates the country’s official prohibition and he is obliged to worship
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 111 the Buddha. … When the prohibition first came into force, many famous samurai were put to death. Not all believed in Christianity simply because they were taken in by the foolishness of its sentiments. There were also many who wished to die a death worthy of a samurai and would have been greatly ashamed had they not remained constant in their original convictions.26 Moving on, he continues to allege squarely that the ban was applied to nonChristians, and even that many of those persecuted in the course of the antiChristian suppression were not Christian. Under the previous [first four] shoguns even superior persons mistook those who spoke about Confucianism for followers of Christianity.27 This Hakuseki explains as his motivation for studying Christianity and interviewing Sidotti. This was the situation until I first began to study. Such explanations were perhaps part of a trick by the Buddhists, who, having gained the upper hand, wanted to get rid of us Confucians as well. But one of my greatest doubts for a long time was that a teaching such as our Confucianism could resemble Christianity, and when under the previous shogun I was ordered to meet a man belonging to the Western barbarians, I inquired about this matter and my doubts were cleared up.28 Although Hakuseki tells us here that his interview with Sidotti confirmed that Christianity was indeed an evil heresy, it is interesting to note his recollection that at the time he engaged in the interview he had doubts – doubts motivated particularly by the belief, a belief he maintains, that the ban on Christianity in the early Tokugawa period was used to suppress samurai Confucian thinkers who were clearly not Christian.29 Honsarokukō shows us that Hakuseki had doubts about the imposition of the ban on Christianity, in particular: the influence of Dutch traders on the decision to implement the ban; the role the ban played in restricting Confucian practice; and the use of the ban to suppress non-Christian samurai. These doubts led to Hakuseki’s inquisitiveness about the religion.
Ogyū Sorai: Christianity as scholarly object This kind of inquisitive approach, together with a nonetheless ostensibly negative attitude, is found also in Ogyū Sorai’s writing of the same period. Ogyū Sorai, generally considered the greatest of all Tokugawa Confucian scholars, was Hakuseki’s main competitor for shogunate attention. Although he wrote little directly about Christianity, it is interesting to note that Sorai’s Confucianism shares an emphasis on Heaven picked up in Hakuseki’s reading of Ricci.30 In speaking directly about Christianity, Sorai writes:
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Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse Today there are no Christians anywhere in Japan. Today even if we look for one family of them, we find nothing. Among the ruling clans there are no traces of their kin. The lines of Ōtomo Sōrin and Takeuchi Chikugōnokami are examples of this. The influence of higher men lasts only for five generations, of lower men likewise.31 Five generations have now passed since those who renounced Christianity turned. That being the case, they are no different to everyone else [no Christian influence remains]. Also, because there is no one who has even seen a Christian book, today there is no one who possesses the knowledge to say what kind of thing that teaching is. [This means that] when Confucianism, Buddhism or Shinto are preached badly, it is difficult to assess whether that is being affected by Christian infiltration. For this reason, the Christian texts held in the shogunate libraries should be shown to Confucian scholars so that the true nature of this heresy can be investigated.32
Part of this quote is often used to demonstrate what a distant and inaccessible thing Christianity seemed to Japanese thinkers of the early 1700s. But it also seems to suggest that Sorai wanted to see the Christian books – that there was an interest. It was an interest surely communicated in terms of a wish to serve the shogunate in discerning ‘the true nature of this heresy’, but also one that clearly lined Christianity up with Confucianism, Buddhism and Shinto as in some ways just another thought system to analyse. Like Hakuseki’s references to the use of bans on Christianity to attack Confucianism, help Dutch trade and play out power-political games within the samurai class, this quote of Sorai’s also perhaps indicates a more relativist perspective on Christianity: one which, while maintaining the ostensibly antiChristian rhetoric, also shows an interest in the religion, and a more balanced approach in lining up Christianity with other thought systems. A major difference between this approach and that of the anti-Christian writing in the late Tokugawa period is this very strong and openly expressed interest in looking at and interrogating the written sources of the Christian tradition. As has been pointed out by Katō Shūichi, this stands at odds with Mito Learning writers, who in their considerable attention to the subject of Christianity virtually never refer to Christian texts.33 The context of the mid-Tokugawa period – Japan’s stability and the lack of any perceived threat from Western or Christian empires – helped create interest in a more detached and rational assessment of Christianity than exhibited in writings on Christianity from the early Tokugawa period. Nonetheless, Hakuseki did come down against Christianity using an argument that had been deployed as early as the 1630s by Razan, and from the same perspective of representing the political interests of the existent order in Japan. The kind of xenophobic and exoticizing images used by Razan and many others in the early Tokugawa period, however, are generally absent. Instead, the influence of Chinese anti-Christian discourse seems to lead to an accentuation of the political analysis of Christianity, heavily informed by Chinese reactions to the Christianity of Matteo Ricci. Importantly, in the case of Hakuseki that political analysis extends beyond Christianity; and in
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 113 texts such as Honsarokukō, it also takes tentative steps toward a political analysis of the function of the ban on Christianity itself. This critical approach is fed by an interest in the source texts of Christianity, an interest also evident in Sorai. Nonetheless, both maintain the rhetorical clothing of the anti-Christian political norms. There are a number of aspects to this kind of anti-Christian discourse of the mid-Tokugawa period represented by Hakuseki which are particularly significant: the serious interest in the content of Christian ideas; the influence and utilization of Chinese anti-Christian texts – particularly as sources of Ricci-style Christian thought; the distance felt from Christianity, which removed a feeling of threat and prompted a more rational approach to Christian argumentation; the willingness of Hakuseki in particular, as part of his criticism, to actually adopt Christian/Ricci paradigms such as the idea of serving Heaven; and the willingness of scholars such as Hakuseki (and to an extent Kumazawa Banzan and Sorai) to take a relatively critical approach to certain aspects of the suppression of Christianity, in particular criticizing the role of Buddhists in the suppression and attacks on non-Christian (Confucian) thinkers during the early decades of the ban.
Miura Baien: the Christian threat returns We have seen that although Hakuseki did to some degree stick to the anti-Christian rhetorical norm by condemning the religion in political terms and justifying the shogunate’s ban, his work is hard to characterize as simply ‘anti-Christian’. But this did not stop the Confucian political thinkers and anti-Christian polemicists who came after him from portraying his work as classic anti-Christian writing. Indeed, this began as early as 1784, the year Miura Baien’s Samidareshō was produced. During the Hōei period [1704–11] Baptista [Sidotti] of Rome proudly told the Confucian Arai Chikugōnokami [Hakuseki] of the greatness of his [Catholic] religion, telling him how much older it was. Yet in the territory of China and the south-east corner this teaching was not able to be practised. So why has this teaching not been put into practice? Because that kind of teaching does not work in practice. It is not up to working as a universal teaching, that was the big call [made by Hakuseki] that you can see in Sairan igen.34 There are two major differences between the anti-Christian discourse of Miura Baien seen in Samidareshō and that of Hakuseki, and indeed Sorai, of about 75 years earlier. First, although Baien refers to Hakuseki’s work to talk in a cursory manner about Christianity, he does not refer directly to any Christian work. This lack of interest sets him at odds with Hakuseki and Sorai, both of whom were interested in accessing the source texts of Christianity. Second, whereas for Hakuseki and Sorai the West was a phenomenon almost unimaginably far removed in time and space, for Baien the West was a present and increasingly close threat.
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By the time Baien was writing in 1784 there was news of Russian movements around the northern reaches of what is now Hokkaido. Samidareshō is a great example of very early anti-Western writing motivated by a nascent fear of Western imperialism around Japan. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi has discussed the role of the fear of Russian incursions in the north at the close of the eighteenth century in relation to the growth of the much more famous anti-Christian and anti-Western discourse of the Mito Learning scholars Fujita Yūkoku 藤田幽谷 (1774–1826) and Aizawa Seishisai.35 Interestingly, Samidareshō was produced the same year that Seishisai went to work for Yūkoku at Mito. In this text, Miura pre-dates the Mito Learning scholars by some decades in linking a fear of Russian expansionism to a virulent anti-Christian discourse. Samidareshō opens its attack on Christianity with a classic rendition of the ‘invasion theory’, but linked to the current movements of Russia to the north of Japan. I have heard that when the Westerners want to take a country, they consider the use of arms to be simplistic. When they want to take a country they first use gold, silver, grain and silk to help the weak, relieving poverty, they use medicines to save the sick, they use tricks to confuse the senses of the people, and finally employing the Christian doctrine of the three worlds they move the hearts of the people, making them think that they are no different to their sovereigns and fathers. Seeing that they have drawn the people to their own will, they complete the job simply by bringing an army which under such conditions cannot fail to succeed in one stroke. … They are the greatest enemies of Japan. … I have heard the Westerners are currently moving into the northern reaches of Ezo [Hokkaido]. Our nation must occupy the north.36 Here Hakuseki’s detached, cool tone and interest in political theory is replaced by Baien’s almost panicky attack on Christianity as an imminent threat. Baien’s tone is much more reminiscent of the nineteenth-century treatises that would follow, and indeed some of the seventeenth century Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse of 150 or so years earlier. In particular, lines discussing the use of ‘medicines to save the sick’ strongly evoke the accounts of Christians, and Christian invasion theories, found in populist early Tokugawa texts such as Kirishitan Monogatari. In fact, more than half of the first half of Samidareshō comprises stories from Japan during its ‘Christian period’ of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These stories seem to be derived from early Tokugawa anti-Christian sources. In one of the stories in the first half of Samidareshō, the name Habian even appears in the context of a Christian debating a Zen monk.37 This story relating to Habian, especially the way his name is spelt (‘Habiyan’), and the context around it, seem to suggest that the story has been lifted from the mid-seventeenth-century Japanese text Kirishitan Monogatari.38 Baien certainly makes no secret of his use of earlier Tokugawa texts. In the preface to Samidareshō, Baien liberally praises the early seventeenth-century anti-Christian writings of the Buddhists Isshin Sūden and Suzuki Shōsan.39 He then goes on to quote Hakuseki at length.
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 115 Samidareshō’s ample use of quotation from and reference to earlier Tokugawa Japanese anti-Christian texts on the one hand, while paying scant attention to actual Christian writings on the other, is a particular characteristic of Baien’s antiChristian writing that is shared by later Mito Learning scholars. In terms of period, Baien comes about halfway between the mid-Tokugawa Confucians Hakuseki and Sorai, and the late Tokugawa boom in Confucian anti-Christian polemics associated with the Mito school. While on the one hand the position of his writings in the eighteenth century might justify grouping Baien into the ‘mid-Tokugawa’, the character of his anti-Christian discourse has much more in common with the writers of the bakumatsu (late Tokugawa) period. To an extent, Baien prefigured, by three decades or so, a number of developments in anti-Christian discourse and political writing most commonly associated with the Mito school. His extreme concern with a real territorial threat from the Western empires, his rabid recycling of earlier Tokugawa anti-Christian writing, and his lack of regard for Christian texts all precede the trends of the bakumatsu. The one point shared by all the anti-Christian writers of the mid-Tokugawa examined here is that the core of the anti-Christian argument centres on a criticism of Christianity as diluting the people’s loyalty to sovereign and parent. This point formed the basis of the most serious criticism of Christianity found in Seiyō kibun, was also emphasized in all Hakuseki’s other works, was touched upon by Sorai, and was the main point emphasized by Baien.
Late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse: Mito Learning, Christianity and ideology The late Tokugawa period ushered in a boom in anti-Christian writing usually explained in terms of the increasing threat posed by Western imperial powers.40 Yet, as we saw above, this aspect had already raised its head as early as the 1780s in the writing of Miura Baien. Compared with that writing, and indeed all earlier anti-Christian discourse, the anti-Christian discourse of the late Tokugawa period is striking because of the extent to which it linked directly into the dominant ideological paradigms of the time. The field of late Tokugawa, or bakumatsu, anti-Christian discourse, the antiChristian discourse of the early and mid-1800s, is led and dominated by the writings of Mito Learning scholars. What is today referred to as the Mito Learning tradition is a collection of scholars who worked relatively closely together in the employment of, and under the authority of, the Mito domain rulers, the highly influential secondary branch of the Tokugawa family, the head of which was regarded as a kind of Vice-Shogun. The most famous Mito scholars are Fujita Yūkoku 藤田幽谷 (1774–1826), his son Fujita Tōko 藤田東湖 (1806–55) and Yūkoku’s disciple Aizawa Seishisai. In reference to the tradition as a whole, and these figures in particular, Bitō Masahide has written that ‘partly due to the fact that they all came from middle or lower class backgrounds within the domain … they established their own claims as following the spirit of the domain lord and justified their positions in relation to that’.41 In other words, Mito Learning
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scholars, compared with other Confucian political thinkers of the time, are regarded as having presented a particularly cohesive ideological stance, heavily influenced by the political imperatives of the Mito domain lord. We will come back to particular examples of this later, but suffice to say at this stage that this is perhaps one of the reasons why Mito Learning scholarship developed in such a coherent ideological fashion and produced so many ideological paradigms later put to use by Japanese governments – in particular sonnō jōi 尊皇攘夷 (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) and kokutai 国体. The dominant political theorists of this period, Mito Learning leaders Fujita Yūkoku and Aizawa Seishisai, were both authors of important anti-Christian writings. More importantly, they are considered the originators of the political theories of sonnō jōi and kokutai, respectively, two late Tokugawa ideas generally regarded as having provided the intellectual basis of both the Meiji restoration and the developed ideology of the Meiji state and later imperial Japan. The central deployment of anti-Christian discourse in the core writings on these Mito ideological paradigms is striking. For instance, in Shinron 新論, the text where Aizawa Seishisai most famously outlines the idea of kokutai, the following passage can be found: This, their [the Western barbarians’] so-called religious doctrine [Christianity], is both shallow and evil, and at its core not worthy of even discussing. However, its basis is simplistic, its vocabulary is vulgar, and that is why it easily beguiles the masses. With pretty words it pretends to respect Heaven by forcing [meaning on] Heaven. It pretends to represent human ethical enlightenment by forsaking the Way of humanity.42 The relationship between the idea of kokutai and anti-Christian discourse in Seishisai’s writings has been mentioned in previous research.43 But the central role of anti-Christian discourse in the ideological construction of the Mito Learning scholars was evident well before the emergence of Aizawa Seishisai.
Fujita Yūkoku and Sonnō jōi thought: ordering the ruling classes The Mito Learning scholar credited with beginning the development of these ideological frameworks is Aizawa Seishisai’s mentor, Fujita Yūkoku. Although Seishisai is most usually associated with the origination of the idea of kokutai, Yūkoku, a generation earlier, is seen as having laid the foundation for the development of sonnō jōi theory, particularly through his authorship of Seimeiron 正名論 (1791). One of the main political points of Seimeiron was to resolve the tension between the legitimacy of shogunal rule and the ostensible position of the emperor as Japan’s sovereign. The co-existence of these two poles of rule – ostensible and actual – had arisen as an issue of debate at several points during the Tokugawa shogunate.44 In the early 1700s, Arai Hakuseki had famously suggested that at
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 117 least in terms of international relations, the confusion should be settled by the shogun officially adopting the title of sovereign.45 Yūkoku, however, does not approach this issue primarily from an international relations standpoint. Instead of focusing on how to present the positions of emperor and shogun abroad, Yūkoku is more interested in how to further integrate the authority of the emperor into the increasingly Confucian ideological framework of Tokugawa rule. In particular, Yūkoku seeks to deploy the politico-religious capacity of the emperor within an ‘ancient learning’ Confucian political paradigm. Rather than argue for the title or role of sovereign to be moved from emperor to shogun or vice versa, Yūkoku, heavily influenced by an ancient Confucian ideal of feudal governance mediated through the writings of Ogyū Sorai, presents a model of governance through Confucian rites and reverence which, while placing the emperor at the top of the hierarchy of politico-religious reverence, was designed to further entrench and ideologically support the position of shogun as the practical ruler.46 Yūkoku’s description of a hierarchy of worship underlying political relations specifically addresses the relationship between emperor, shogun, and the domain lords (daimyō). It is therefore clear that Yūkoku is primarily interested in domestic power relations rather than international relations, and in particular aims to construct an ideology that would mediate political relations within the ruling elite – notably between the vassals, lords and overall rulers. He does not pay special attention to the relationship between the shogunate and the masses, but instead focuses on political relations within the ruling class. If the shogunate pays homage to the imperial house, then the feudal lords revere the shogunate. When the feudal lords revere the shogunate, then the nobles and governors respect the lords. Then hierarchy is mutually maintained and there is harmony across the ten thousand lands.47 This is not to say that Yūkoku writes only about the upper echelons of the samurai classes. Indeed, when we turn to his anti-Christian writings we can see a similar ideological fear of the ‘stupid masses’ discernible in some of the early Tokugawa anti-Christian writings of Suzuki Shōsan and Hayashi Razan. In his attacks on Christianity, Yūkoku alleges an ‘invasion plot’ which reads very similarly to that lifted by Baien from early Tokugawa anti-Christian writings. Furthermore, they [Westerners] use Christian heresy to recommend themselves to the stupid masses. Stuffing them with candied words, they tell them that by acting in self-interest they can overcome hunger and cold. The stupid masses have nothing to say, people who look at self-interest and have no understanding of righteousness, they might in the end throw down their weapons and give in.48 Tōyama Shigeki, referring to this passage, has commented that ‘this view of the “stupid masses”, where the patriotism of the common people is not trusted,
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and instead only the samurai’s ability to discern duty and obligation is considered capable of carrying the heavy responsibility of defending the independence of the nation, is the particular characteristic of “sonnō jōi” thought’.49 In short, Yūkoku’s political thought, including this anti-Christian example, focuses on stabilizing a politico-religious, or Confucian-rites-based, hierarchical relationship between different strata of the ruling class – including the emperor, shogun and feudal lords. The masses are not seen as players within the ideological framework, or as objects to be acted upon directly by ideology, but are rather to be excluded from the ideological system. For those interested in thinking about the idea of ‘modernity’, this would presumably mark off Yūkoku’s ideology as not modern, in the sense that it does not address the masses of the nation.50
Aizawa Seishisai and Kokutairon: harnessing the masses Yūkoku’s successor to the mantle of leading scholar of the Mito School, Aizawa Seishisai, is generally regarded as having played a pivotal role in developing sonnō jōi thought as the Tokugawa shogunate went to the wall in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. Moreover, he is also famous for having originated the theory of kokutai, which went on to play a central role both in the political debates at the end of the Tokugawa period, and in the formation of the Meiji state and Japanese imperial ideology. As touched on above, Yūkoku’s political thought emphasized the necessity of the emperor system (notably including its politico-religious dimensions) as a central element in the shogunate order. Seishisai also emphasized the religious dimension of the emperor’s role in motivating loyalty towards the Japanese government of the shogunate.51 The major difference between Yūkoku and Seishisai is that while Yūkoku used the religious dimension of the emperor to attempt to motivate loyalty from the feudal lords to the shogun, Seishisai goes much further by stressing the capacity of the emperor to motivate loyalty from the ‘masses’ to the ‘nation’.52 Shinron, the famous treatise identified with this argument, is also the text most often quoted to explain Seishisai’s kokutai theory. The motivational argument of Shinron is that to prevent a likely Western invasion of Japan in the near future, Japan had to construct a firm national ideological foundation.53 In Shinron, Seishisai links the discussion of possible invasion to discussion of the role of the masses. In some ways reminiscent of Baien, Yūkoku, and earlier writers, Seishisai mentions the potential threat from Westerners using the masses to overthrow the rulers of Japan. In order to weaken the effect of the sovereign’s commands on our common people, in other words in order to ‘subdue the enemy without resorting to battle’, they employ the barbarian creed [Christianity] to entice our common people. In other words this is the policy [by which they achieve] ‘the best outcome of taking the country in its entirety’.54
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 119 Yet at its core, Seishisai’s approach to the masses is different to that of earlier anti-Christian ‘invasion theories’. In addition to seeing the manipulation of the Japanese masses by the West as a threat to his country, he also notices the West’s utilization of their own masses to enhance their own military potential. The various [foreign/European] countries at war train the common people as soldiers. How can we despise them as weak? Employing witchcraft [Christianity] they lead on the common people, uniting the hearts of the common people to the extent that they are capable of fighting.55 Seishisai’s radical departure is to argue that Japan should also adopt this strategy of militarizing the masses in the service of the Japanese elite. Looking at the example of the Western empires’ use of both their peasants and colonial peoples to bolster the size of their armies, Seishisai argues that the role of the masses is to serve as soldiers in times of war. This role, which had been removed from the Japanese peasantry as part of the construction of the Tokugawa systems of governance in the early seventeenth century, should be re-established in order to ‘turn the few into the many, and transform weakness into strength’.56 Then, looking at the example of the Western empires’ use of Christianity to control the masses both as soldiers and as colonial subjects,57 Seishisai introduces his theory of kokutai as an alternative ideology, both as a ‘master of the people’s minds’ acting as a bulwark against Christianity,58 and as a motivator of national unity around the emperor and nation necessary for successful resistance.59 The model of the West’s use of Christianity in imperial expansion, and the threat of Christianity as a means of undermining the loyalty of the masses, are therefore both central in Seishisai’s construction of an ideology built upon the concept of kokutai: an ideology that emphasized loyalty to the nation through the politicoreligious symbol of the emperor, but also included the masses as objects to be acted upon by that ideology.60 In other words, he sought to construct an ideology that used the emperor to motivate loyalty to the shogunate not only among the ruling elite, but also among the masses. This is what separated Seishisai’s ideology from that of Fujita Yūkoku:61 Yūkoku’s ideological emphasis, as with Confucian political thinkers such as Hakuseki and Sorai before him, was on the relationship between sovereign and vassal (kunshin 君臣); Seishisai’s was on the relationship between the rulers and the masses. Previous anti-Christian writers had pointed to the threat posed by Christianity as a tool by which the Western empires could undermine the government of Japan by manipulating the loyalty of the people. Their answer, however, had not been to construct an alternative ideology to act on the masses, but instead to simply exclude Christian thought, thereby isolating the threat of the masses being manipulated. Seishisai went much further by suggesting an ideological system in Japan that acted upon the masses, thereby actively defending against Christianity’s influence and Western imperialism. We might say, therefore, that what he proposed – in terms of the use of the emperor in his theory of kokutai as a politico-religious ideology of rule in Japan extending down to the control of the
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masses – in many ways resembled what he perceived as the role of Christianity in Western empires. In this manner, anti-Christian discourse and the image of Christianity it carried, as well as the impression of Christianity’s political utility in imperial conflict and colonization, can be seen to have played central roles in the development of key aspects of ideology in core Mito texts associated with both sonnō jōi thought and kokutai theory. Anti-Christian discourse was pivotal in arguing for the necessity of the implementation of what Seishisai called for in his kokutai theory, and to illustrate the use of ideology for the building of a strong nation and effective military.
Seishisai’s Kikōben: a focus on Christianity For that reason, in addition to the anti-Christian references we find throughout central Mito Learning texts like Shinron, the Mito School also led an energetic effort to produce specialist anti-Christian pamphlets, a good example being Aizawa Seishisai’s Kikōben 荳好弁. Published in 1828, just three years after Shinron, Kikōben took a very disciplined Confucian line in its attack on Christianity, reminiscent of the writings of Razan and Hakuseki. As Hakuseki had focused his criticism of Christianity around its degradation of the three bonds of sovereign– vassal, parent–child and husband–wife, Seishisai focuses his criticism on what he alleges is Christianity’s degradation of the five Confucian relations, adding the relationships between ‘elder and younger’ and ‘friend and friend’ to Hakuseki’s original list. Seishisai emphasizes that these ‘five ethics’ as he called them, were ‘Nature as manufactured by Heaven’, ‘human ethics’ and ‘Heaven’s Way’.62 The crux of Kikōben’s argument is that Christian teachings upset the five relations, thereby damaging governance. Sovereign and vassal, parent and child, husband and wife, elder and younger, friend and friend, people cannot evade the five relations. They are Nature as manufactured by Heaven. The ethics of the barbarians treat all as one and do not differentiate, and this is what makes their thesis false. … The vassals and masses under Heaven should revere their king, and by revering their king they revere Heaven. Heaven and sovereign are thereby one. There is one basis. But the barbarians set up a barbarian God and call him the great king. And then in relation to this king they establish a smaller [secular, worldly] king. This means there are two kings and two bases.63 The point here, echoing numerous earlier Tokugawa anti-Christian writings, is that the vassals should have only one object of reverence – the sovereign. Christian teachings that the people and lords can worship God directly are seen as threatening the underlying order of hierarchy. It is interesting to note, however, that in Kikōben Seishisai, like Hakuseki in Seiyō kibun, accepts the idea of Heaven being the object of reverence and makes this the subject of discussion. This approach could have been motivated by the approach to Heaven of mid-
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 121 Tokugawa ‘ancient learning’ Confucians such as Ogyū Sorai. We know that Seishisai was heavily influenced by Sorai and that Heaven played a central role in Sorai’s interpretation of Confucian thought.64 But on the other hand we might also wonder whether there may not have also been direct influence from Ming antiChristian texts that liberally quoted from Ricci, as there clearly was in Hakuseki’s case. Sorai’s influence on Seishisai is routinely mentioned in research on Mito Learning.65 Less attention, however, has been paid to Seishisai’s significant work on Ming and early Tokugawa anti-Christian literature. The clearest evidence of Seishisai’s and other Mito scholars’ familiarity with Ricci’s arguments comes from their efforts to collect, edit and publish a range of Ming Chinese anti-Christian writings, many of which quote from and directly challenge Ricci Christianity.
Tokugawa Nariaki’s Hajashū and Sokkyohen: creating an anti-Christian canon Although Seishisai is now remembered primarily as an ideologue, his role as a Confucian scholar in the service of the Mito domain lord was ostensibly as a scholar and a researcher. One of the major scholarly projects attributed to Seishisai during the last part of his life was the research into significant quantities of Chinese and Japanese anti-Christian writings from the past three centuries, and the publication of those documents in extensive collections through the 1850s and 1860s. In 1855, a large collection of Ming Chinese anti-Christian documents originally produced at the end of the Ming (around 1639) by Xu Changzhi 徐昌治 entitled Poxieji 破邪集 was republished by Tokugawa Nariaki 徳川斉昭 (1800–60), the domain lord of Mito. Seishisai and other Mito scholars had repackaged this collection, adding forewords and postscripts written in Chinese under Nariaki’s name. Poxieji in this form was republished as one Chinese text from Mito with the same Chinese title (the Japanese pronunciation of which is Hajashū).66 The Hajashū Mito publication of Poxieji stands today as one of the very few collections of anti-Christian documents from the significant anti-Christian movements of late Ming China that has come down to us.67 In 1860, Sokkyohen, a collection modelled on Hajashū, but this time containing Japanese anti-Christian writings, mainly from the early Tokugawa period, was published out of Mito, again under Nariaki’s name. While Hajashū was a simple reprint of a late Ming compilation with a preface and postscript added, Sokkyohen, predominantly comprising early Tokugawa Japanese anti-Christian writings, was a work produced in Mito as a result of a significant amount of research and editing done there by Mito scholars. Sokkyohen has been central to modern research on Japanese history. As will be discussed in more detail below, nearly every Japanese anti-Christian document discussed by historians and religious studies scholars during the twentieth century was accessed either from this collection, or from one other collection of Japanese anti-Christian documents, Hekijakankenroku, which, as will be discussed below, was published just a year after Sokkyohen and clearly under its influence.
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At the time of their initial publications in Japan by the Mito domain, both Hajashū and Sokkyohen were designed to play a particular ideological role in support of the significant political conflicts that the Mito domain and its Lord Tokugawa Nariaki were engaged with. As well as being the year of Hajashū’s publication, 1855 was a critical year for politics inside the Tokugawa shogunate and beyond, as the government debated how to deal with the Western threat and related domain rebellions. Nariaki led one of two opposing factions in the shogunate administration, the ‘expel the barbarians’ faction that argued for greater military mobilization and confrontation and less accommodation of Western demands. In 1855, Nariaki succeeded in convincing the shogunate of the merits of mobilizing peasant troops. But over the next few years his political fortunes waned as the confrontation between his faction and the mainstream within the shogunate, which leaned towards accommodation, became increasingly violent. Between 1858 and 1859, the shogunate cracked down on Mito-domain samurai and their allies during the so-called Ansei no goku. Large numbers of Mito-aligned samurai were rounded up and imprisoned. Nariaki himself was in effect barred from Edo and confined to Mito, while inside Edo the efficient suppression of his faction was resisted through occasional fire-bombings and other acts of urban insurgency such as the ‘Incident outside Sakurada Gate’ of 1860, where dissident Mito samurai carried out what was essentially a planned suicide attack aimed at assassinating mainstream-faction shogunate officials. It was within this highly charged political context that the Mito-domain academy Kōdōkan 公道館 published Hajashū and Sokkyohen. Therefore, when examining both texts, especially when looking at the prefaces and postscripts attributed to Nariaki, it is important to remember that at the time he was under intense political pressure (and in the case of Sokkyohen, under virtual house arrest) and at the same time locked in an intense political conflict with the government over how to deal with the Western threat. Within this political context, it is difficult not to see these texts, at least to some degree, as appeals to the readership to continue resisting the policy of appeasement. Nariaki’s forewords and postscripts continue to emphasize the kind of straight political anti-Christian argument used in Kikōben. As in Kikōben, the afterword of Sokkyohen characterizes Christianity’s exhortation of direct reverence for Heaven as a threat to the hierarchical order of Tokugawa Japan and a moral outrage. Its [Christianity’s] end is to exterminate the sovereign, to exterminate the father. This is the meaning of the Way of the barbarians.68 Just as old Tokugawa arguments such as this are used in the postscript, so too in the preface Tokugawa history itself, and Nariaki’s own family heritage, the heritage of the shogunate, are invoked to remind us of the wisdom of crushing the Christians. The poison of this witchcraft should be described in its full extent. It is a barbarian heresy that would disorder the minds of men and steal their countries. It
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 123 is a depravity of an earlier age. Nevertheless, under Ōtomo Sōrin’s influence, Oda Nobunaga became involved with this religion. Later, Nobunaga realized its depravity and sought to ban it, but could not. When Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu took up the responsibility of suppressing the barbarians [became shogun], however, the first thing he did was to strictly ban the religion. His successors Tokugawa Hidetada and Tokugawa Iemitsu continued this policy. Their successors continued this policy through the ages, burning their ships when they came.69 Five years earlier, Nariaki had opened his introduction to Hajashū with a slightly different version of this history, but still with the same basic message. When the heresy [Christianity] entered the land of the Gods [Japan] Hideyoshi Toyotomi strictly banned it, Tokugawa Iemitsu then sternly cast them [the Christians] out. Tokugawa Hidetada and Tokugawa Iemitsu continued this good policy.70 Nariaki followed major Ming and Tokugawa Confucian writers in presenting Christianity as a threat to the heirarchical relations upon which the east Asian political order was based. Christianity’s appeal to the masses to directly worship God represented an ‘extermination’ of the privileged standing of sovereign and father. The noteworthy aspect of Nariaki’s take on this argument was his emphasis on the privileged role of his own family in historically protecting Japanese (and by extension east Asian) civilization from this threat. The timing of Nariaki’s projection of this historical image was significant. The above-quoted texts were published between 1855 and 1860, at the height of Nariaki’s involvement in public political confrontations over how to deal with the Western threat of that time. In those confrontations he led the faction arguing the hardest line against the Westerners. His portrayal of the historic role of the Tokugawa family and shogunate as defenders of Japan against Western barbarism in his anti-Christian writings directly played into the contemporary political image of him and his policies as protecting the legacy of the Tokugawa house and its shogunate.
Kiyū Dōjin’s Hekijashū and Hekijakankenroku: pure-land Buddhism’s role In addition to the Mito collections Hajashū and Sokkyohen, two other collections made at this time have provided the bulk of anti-Christian sources commonly used in twentieth-century scholarship. Those collections are Hekijashū 闢邪 集 (Ch. Pixieji) and Hekijakankenroku, both published 1861. While there is some duplication, the contents of these two slightly later collections generally complement the Mito collections. Hekijashū is a collection of late Ming, predominantly Buddhist anti-Christian documents that overlaps or complements Hajashū, while Hekijakankenroku is a collection of predominantly Japanese antiChristian writings, with some late Ming and Qing anti-Christian writings added.
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The Japanese collection of Hekijakankenroku is pretty much complementary to Sokkyohen. This might indicate cooperation between the producers of these two collections and Mito scholars. The origin of these complementary and seemingly related collections might therefore come as a surprise to many scholars of Japanese history, who have been trained for so long to believe that the intellectual landscape was dominated by Confucian scholars who gave short shrift to a declining and corrupt Buddhist clergy. Hekijashū and Hekijakankenroku were edited by a prominent scholar-monk of the Jōdoshū 浄土宗 or Pure Land sect, a monk who went on to later become the head of that sect, Kiyū Dōjin, also known as Ugai Tetsujō. Despite Tetsujō being a Buddhist monk, the collections he edited, and indeed the prefaces and postscripts he authored for them, were remarkably similar to those of the Confucians over at Mito. Tetsujō’s foreword to the predominantly Japanese collection Hekijakankenroku, like the afterword of the Mito Japanese collection Sokkyohen, recounts the criticism of Christianity as undermining the feudal order. The foreign barbarians who call themselves Christians improperly enter the country and stealthily do damage to the Kingly Way, they wantonly attack it and thereby cause confused delusions among the stupid masses.71 Tetsujō’s foreword also mirrors Nariaki’s in emphasizing the historic achievement and wisdom of the Tokugawa shogunate’s founders in wiping out Christianity. In the Keichō era [1596–1615], Tokugawa Ieyasu perceived the depravity of this religion and strictly prohibited it. He employed laws to sweep aside this heresy and correct the peoples’ minds.72 So why would a ‘Buddhist’ use such Confucian-inspired arguments, mirror a structure and publishing project led by Mito Confucians, and also follow the Mito Confucians in making a point of praising the Tokugawa shogunate’s role in maintaining order and ridding the country of Christianity? Who was this Kiyū Dōjin anyway, and what was his relationship with the Mito Confucians and the shogunate? Unlike Yūkoku, Seishisai, Nariaki and other Mito figures who have been the objects of massive amounts of research and literally thousands of scholarly articles over the past century, Kiyū Dōjin has gone largely ignored. There is nothing available on him in non-Japanese languages, and in Japanese there is only one major academic work that deals with him: Serikawa Hiromichi’s Ibunka no masatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron.73 This lack of academic interest in Kiyū Dōjin is fairly indicative of the state of the field of early modern Japanese historical and religious studies, which until the last decade or so tended to (now it seems incorrectly) view Buddhism in the Tokugawa period as both
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 125 politically marginal and doctrinally uneventful.74 This view went hand in hand with a superficial reading of some of the Buddhist and Confucian sectarian texts of the period, leading to a view that at that time Buddhists and Confucians always competed and never cooperated. The two complementary collections of Tokugawa Japanese anti-Christian documents that have come down to us – Sokkyohen, edited by the leaders of the Mito Confucian school, and Hekijakankenroku, edited by the leading Jōdo sect Buddhist monk – indicate that this view is probably far from true. Moreover, these two collections represent the sources of nearly all twentiethcentury research on Japanese anti-Christian discourse.
Sokkyohen and Hekijakankenroku: Confucians and Buddhists in anti-Christian concert Turning to the contents of these collections, we see both how irrelevant Confucian– Buddhist rivalry was to their editors, and how similar their outlooks were. Sokkyohen contains most of the anti-Christian treatises of the Tokugawa period, which have since been collected in modern editions and gone on to become the main objects of modern academic studies of anti-Christian discourse.75 These include: the expulsion order Bateren tsuihō no fumi,76 Habian’s anti-Christian treatise Hadaiusu, Suzuki Shōsan’s Hakirishitan, and a range of the texts edited in the 1660s by Shōsan associates such as Kirishitan Monogatari and Edo Monogatari, together with Sesshō Sōsai’s Jakyō taii,77 and Miura Baien’s Samidareshō. Hekijakankenroku, although containing some overlap with Sokkyohen, is generally complementary in its collection of Japanese anti-Christian writings. Hekijakankenroku duplicates Sokkyohen’s publication of the Buddhists Sesshō Sōsai’s Jakyō taii and Suzuki Shōsan’s Hakirishitan, and also contains Baien’s Samidareshō. Interestingly, the other Japanese anti-Christian texts contained in Hekijakankenroku and not Sokkyohen are almost exclusively Confucian. They notably include writings by Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Gahō and Arai Hakuseki.78 Just about every significant anti-Christian text studied by twentieth-century scholars can be found in these collections. It is also a fact that if you trace the actual texts used by most twentieth-century scholars in their research, you will find the physical trail leads back in the vast majority of cases to one of these two collections of the early 1860s. Habian’s Hadaiusu partially appeared in Sokkyohen in 1861, and then was reprinted in full in 1868 by Kiyū Dōjin. If we follow the physical trail of most modern publications of this text they bring us to this 1868 edition. One of the most interesting things about the way different texts appear in these different collections is that despite one of the collections emanating from an ostensibly anti-Buddhist Confucian Academy (the Kōdōkan at Mito), and one emanating from the centre of one of the biggest mainstream Buddhist sects in Japan (the Jōdo sect), the contents of the collections in no way follow such sectarian affiliations. Quite the opposite: all the texts unique to Kiyū Dōjin’s Jōdo Buddhist compilation Hekijakankenroku happen to be by mainstream Tokugawa Confucian writers who were critical of Buddhism. Similarly, much of the content
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of the Mito collection Sokkyohen, such as the works of Sūden, Sōsai and Shōsan, were by Buddhists. All through the Tokugawa period the shogunate sponsored and supported Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy in a range of ways. The Jōdo sect, which carried out many of the Tokugawa clan rituals, was a particular favourite, the upper echelons of this sect having close connections with the shogunate. Certainly for Kiyū Dōjin (Tetsujō), who held high positions in the Zōjōji temple that served Edo Castle, service to the Tokugawa political order came no less naturally than it did to Nariaki’s Confucian fraternity in Mito. A quarter-millennium of this kind of institutional relationship between the Jōdo sect and the state meant that when the Meiji Restoration finally occurred Tetsujō and the sect’s natural inclination was to continue to serve the state’s political interests and ideologically attack its perceived enemies. For Tetsujō, the difference between his ideological role in 1863 and 1869 seemed minimal. We see this in the way Tetsujō continued to publish his own anti-Christian works through the Meiji Restoration as if it had never happened. Shōyaron 笑耶 論, a treatise published by Tetsujō in 1869, targets the theses of a Protestant text published in China and imported to Japan, but uses the same type of arguments found in many of the works published in Hekijashū and Hekijakankenroku.79 Kanzaki Issaku introduced Shōyaron in an 1893 collection by arguing that ‘this text argues that Christianity ignores loyalty and filial piety and cannot be resolved with our virtuous culture’.80 It is fascinating to note that Tetsujō continued to emphasize this essentially Confucian line of anti-Christian argument even as the early Meiji government attempted to implement its short-lived but nonetheless vicious policy of repressing Buddhism in the early 1870s. One of the most fascinating documents unearthed in the research for this book was a short treatise written by Tetsujō at the height of this suppression called Buppō fukasekiron 仏法不可斥論 (Why Buddhism should not be swept away). Imploring an end to the suppression of Buddhism by the new Meiji government, Tetsujō stresses the unity of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto as having historically supported kokutai. The many sects originate from one heart. If you look to that one heart, whether it be called Shinto, Confucianism or Buddhism, at the core is one rationale.81 While on one level speaking to religious pluralism, Tetsujō concludes his argument by emphasizing Buddhism’s necessity to the maintenance of Japanese sovereignty in terms of its historical role in defending Japan from Christianity. In the Eiroku [1558–70] and Tenshō [1573–92] eras the Western witchcraft infiltrated the capital and disordered the mindless masses. Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu strictly prohibited it [Christianity], cast out their followers, then got the Buddhist clergy to organize the registration of all under Heaven [establish the temple registration system] to defend against
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 127 the heretics. [We] corrected teachings for the good of the imperial subjects. Through beautiful works and good doctrine we adorned all parts of the realm. But now that Buddhism is being attacked, the heretics [Christians] stir up evil, disturb all under Heaven, and as these disasters of evil occur there is nothing to defend against them. This is the tenth reason why [Buddhism] should not be swept aside.82 This 1870 call on the Meiji government for religious tolerance uses exactly the same phrases as his introduction to the anti-Christian compilation Hekijakankenroku of 1863: ‘In the Eiroku and Tenshō eras the Western witchcraft infiltrated the capital and disordered the mindless masses’.83 Even in the extreme circumstance of the government’s violent crackdown on Buddhism, Tetsujō, as head of one of the mainstream sects of Buddhism in the country, used exactly the same discourse as he had used for the Tokugawa regime earlier, emphasizing the concept of loyalty and the historic and current utility of Buddhism in inspiring loyalty and protecting against disloyalty among the masses.
Yasui Sokken: the post-Restoration continuities of antiChristian discourse Tetsujō’s anti-Christian words were not the only ones to flow on little changed into the Meiji period. Just as Tetsujō lifted sentences from his own Tokugawa anti-Christian collections in his Meiji defences of Buddhism, so too extracts from Aizawa Seishisai’s writings can be seen resurfacing in the writings of the most famous early Meiji Confucian, the anti-Christian polemicist and conservative intellectual Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 (1799–1876), as he argued against representative government. In his 1873 anti-Christian treatise Benbō 弁妄, Sokken takes a line very similar to that of Aizawa Seishisai and earlier Confucians. The followers of Western learning do not understand what loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness are. … So, never giving up their liking for difference, they become Christians. And not giving up Christianity, they fall into becoming people who forsake their sovereigns and forsake their fathers.84 The ‘forsake their sovereigns and forsake their fathers’ line can be seen in Tokugawa Nariaki’s postscript to Sokkyohen, and in earlier Tokugawa antiChristian writings.85 But this form of argument was used by Sokken in a very different political context. Unlike 12 years earlier when Nariaki published Sokkyohen, in 1873 when Sokken published Benbō the new Meiji government had concluded a range of treaties with the Western powers that had stabilized Japan’s relationship with the West and removed the immediate threat of direct military intervention. This meant that new political questions had come to the fore: not whether Japan should Westernize, but how it should.86
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Nevertheless, the close interaction between anti-Christian discourse and political debate remained, particularly in the case of Yasui Sokken’s writings, which are generally regarded as one of the clearest examples of the political employment of anti-Christian discourse. Yamaji Aizan famously analysed Sokken’s Benbō as part of an organized political push by conservative politicians and intellectuals in the 1870s for the continuation of elements from the old Tokugawa order and the restriction of democratic representation in the new system. Yamaji made much of the fact that the preface to Benbō was penned by the leader of the conservative party at this time, Shimazu Hisamitsu 島津久光 (1817–87).87 But the political points being made by Sokken can also be seen in the body of his text. In the final chapter of Benbō, ‘In discussion of their followers and republican politics’, Sokken links Christianity to individualism, arguing that such individualism then leads to the masses resisting the sovereign and his right to taxation revenue. Labelling this ‘republican politics’, he links the concepts of Christianity, individualism and representative government as an interwoven fabric of evil that will undermine not only the state but also basic moral values.88 Yamaji Aizan describes Benbō as a highly important text in Japanese history not only because it demonstrated this political utilization of anti-Christian discourse in early Meiji Japan but because, as Yamaji put it, ‘[Benbō] was the first voice of criticism raised against Christianity at the time when Christianity was first planted in Japan’.89 By which Yamaji meant, since Christianity had entered Japan at the beginning of the Meiji. Yet of course, if we step back and look at both the position of Christianity, and Yasui Sokken’s use of rhetoric against it, in the context of our overall study in this volume, it is clear that just as this was not the ‘first planting of Christianity’ in Japan, so too Sokken’s criticism was not the first. Indeed, not only was it not the first, it occurred as part of a close-knit continuum of anti-Christian writings, uninterrupted by the Restoration, that began at the dawn of that century. This is clear not only from the continuity of arguments in late Tokugawa and early Meiji anti-Christian texts, but also from personal connections among the antiChristian polemicists. Students of Confucianism are usually aware that Yasui Sokken, through the introduction of Fujita Tōko, was acquainted with Aizawa Seishisai, and that through this connection there was intellectual interaction between the Mito tradition and Sokken. The intellectual legacy of this connection is fairly clear if, for instance, one refers to Sokken’s Confucian commentaries, which show a clear Mito influence.90 Nevertheless, it is interesting that Yamaji, and other scholars who have addressed Sokken’s anti-Christian writings, have not connected these to the Mito anti-Christian tradition. An even more interesting connection, and one seemingly never remarked upon until now, is the connection between Yasui Sokken and Ugai Tetsujō. Sokken is always considered an orthodox Confucian and assumed to have been anti-Buddhist, as the Confucian rhetoric of the time suggests. Yet when Sokken studied at the Shōheizaka gakumonjo 昌平坂学問所, the shogunate-sponsored orthodox Confucian academy in Edo associated with the Hayashi school of Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism, he actually boarded at the Jōdo sect scholar monastery
Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 129 attached to Zōjōji 増上寺, Konchi’in 金地院. Not only did he live there among the Jōdo sect scholar-monks for most of the time he attended Shōheizaka gakumonjo, he also studied in and utilized the collections of the Zōjōji Konchi’in libraries.91 At the time Sokken lived in the Zōjōji Konchi’in dormitory, so too did Ugai Tetsujō.92 So a connection between Tetsujō and the Mito Confucians is perceptible not only from the complementarity in terms of content and time of production of their anti-Christian collections, but also by possible personal connections between them through Sokken. In addition to these late Tokugawa connections between shogunate-aligned Buddhists and shogunate-aligned Confucians involved in antiChristian writing, we can also see solid personal links between the producers of late Tokugawa and early Meiji political anti-Christian discourse. Tetsujō edited collections at the end of the Tokugawa and continued to author anti-Christian responses to new Christian works in the early Meiji. The most prominent shogunate-aligned bakumatsu anti-Christian Confucians at Mito, and the most prominent early Meiji government-aligned anti-Christian Confucian, Sokken, were connected not only to each other, but also to Tetsujō.
Conclusion: transformation and continuity The striking picture that emerges from the selection of anti-Christian discourse from the late Tokugawa period we have assembled above is the continuity of that discourse into the Meiji period and beyond. The collections of anti-Christian writings put together at the end of the Tokugawa period by Mito and Jōdo sect scholars created a canon of anti-Christian works from the entire Tokugawa period and presented that canon in combination with Chinese anti-Christian writings in a Confucian-inspired political thought paradigm that linked Christianity with threats to imperial and monarchic government. That canon of Tokugawa antiChristian writings was accepted pretty much as is by modern scholars of Japanese history right up until the 1980s. Most anti-Christian writings collected in modern twentieth-century scholarly editions and discussed in scholarly writings can be traced to late Tokugawa collections. This is one clear continuity between late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse and the modern period. This continuity is linked to the bridging and transformative role played by some mid-Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse between the two booms of Tokugawa anti-Christian writings that occurred at the beginning and end of the period. While it is difficult to say there was a continuum of anti-Christian writings between the early and late Tokugawa periods, mid-Tokugawa writings such as Hakuseki’s and Baien’s did touch on both earlier Chinese (especially in the case of Hakuseki) and earlier Japanese (in the case of Baien) anti-Christian writings. Furthermore, Hakuseki’s internalization of the argumentative form of Ricci and his Chinese detractors (in accepting, as the main topic of discussion, how to correctly revere Heaven), coupled with thinkers such as Ogyū Sorai focusing interest on the role of Heaven in classic Confucian texts, effected a change in the nature of the debate on Christianity at this time. Mainstream Confucian discussions and anti-Christian
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discourse to some extent converged around discussion of issues regarding Heaven and ritual, issues traditionally associated with government practice. Another clearer example of the continuity in anti-Christian discourse was that the publication of anti-Christian treatises continued without interruption from the end of the Tokugawa into the Meiji period. The same players like Sokken and Tetsujō worked through the transition. While the contents began to change slightly to include new arguments designed in response to the appearance of new Christian texts, the overriding anti-Christian line continued along late Tokugawa lines: emphasizing Christianity’s threat to the concept of loyalty to sovereign. As the Meiji period continued, this kind of anti-Christian discourse also continued to grow and transform in an uninterrupted fashion. The next major transformation of anti-Christian discourse occurred in the 1880s, when new arguments were employed not only in response to new Christian texts but also by using Western texts to counter Christianity. In the 1880s, as a growing number of Japanese intellectuals became increasingly familiar with modern Western academic learning, the anti-Christian debate opened out onto new terrain. This transformation occurred together with the transformation of the Japanese state itself, as the Meiji government began to establish the institutions and ideology of a modern nation state through the 1880s and 1890s. At the same time, the promulgation during this period of the Constitution of the Japanese Empire (Imperial Constitution) and the Imperial Rescript on Education engendered the most virulent, public, and most politically and historically influential, outbreak of anti-Christian discourse in Japanese history.
6
Meiji anti-Christian discourse Modern national ideology and conservatism
If we wish to establish a constitution now, first we must look for a central axis for our nation, and establish what we should say that central axis is. Without a central axis, then at times when governance is left to the disordered arguments of the masses, ordered governance will be lost, and thereby the nation lost. If we have any wish to make the nation a nation which will survive and rule the people, then we must consider this matter deeply, and plan so that the instrumentality of rule is not lost. In Europe, the seed of constitutional government has existed for around a thousand years. Not only the training of each person in this system, but the existence of religion, and the employment of religion as a central axis, deeply embedded in the minds of the people, has ultimately unified the minds of the people. In our country, however, religion does not possess this kind of power. Not one of our religions is capable of acting as the central axis of the nation. While at one point the power of Buddhism was very strong, capable of binding together people of all stations, these days that power has declined. Shinto is a learning based on the teachings of our imperial ancestors, but its power as a religion to direct the minds of the people is weak. In our country the only thing that can be used as a central axis is the imperial house. Therefore, in the drafting of the constitution, we must focus our minds on using this point, raising up imperial rule, and striving that it not be restrained.1 In 1888, possibly the most important political figure in Meiji Japan, the man credited with authoring the Constitution of the Greater Japanese Empire (Imperial Constitution), Itō Hirobumi 伊藤博文 (1841–1909), opened the first meeting of the council of state called to draft the constitution with these words. This text is probably the best example of the explicit way that tennōsei 天皇制 ideology, the emperorcentric ideology of modern Japan, was formed in reaction to a perceived model of the ideological role of Christianity in Europe. The importance of manufacturing a national ideology was clearly articulated by the political leaders and thinkers of early Meiji Japan during the process of national construction. Ideology was seen as a necessary tool not only for establishing national independence but also, as the quote above illustrates, for the Japanese elites to maintain their control over the ‘disordered masses’. Japanese elites closely examined the political systems
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of contemporary Europe, and were completely open about justifying the worth of ideas in terms of their utility in creating a unifying and exclusivist national ideology of control based on those examples. The construction of a modern national ideology in Japan can thereby be described on the one hand as an attempt to replicate modern Western constructs of social control; conversely, the basis of what became the content of Japan’s modern national ideology was clearly indigenous.2 This contradiction is the key to understanding the importance of anti-Christian ideas, discourses and propaganda in modern Japan.3 Anti-Christian discourse presented a rhetoric that could be used to define a conception of Japan that was different (and potentially opposed) to the West on religious or ethical grounds, while not in any way rejecting Western military, industrial, scientific, or political technologies, nor the rationalistic intellectual frameworks that supported them. To put it another way, anti-Christian discourse provided a convenient rhetorical device that allowed Japanese elites to delineate an opposition to the West, without setting Japan in opposition to the sociological and technological systems of Western imperialism. The clearest example of how anti-Christian discourse functioned in this context came in the 1880s and 1890s, when anti-Christian discourse and political debates over the future of Japan both peaked at the same time and then converged in major public debates over the nature of the modern Japanese state. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, at the same time as two of the key markers of modern Japanese national ideology, the Constitution of the Japanese Empire (Imperial Constitution) and the Imperial Rescript on Education, were being promulgated and their effects debated, anti-Christian discourse in Japan reached a peak of popularity and influence.4 At this same moment, the nature of that antiChristian discourse, which had been a noteworthy presence in Japanese political thought since the beginning of that century, also transformed dramatically. Through the first 25 years of the Meiji state, particularly in the period leading up to the outbreak of the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894, anti-Christian discourse played an increasingly large role in mainstream political debate. In the first decade of the Meiji period, a continuance of the Tokugawa-period anti-Christian writings by authors such as Yasui Sokken and Kiyū Dōjin was complemented by writings of figures like Shimaji Mokurai 島地黙雷 (1838–1911). These writers, arguing in terms of new ideas imported from the West such as ‘freedom of religion’, attempted to defend Buddhism from state attack while at the same time presenting a nationalist argument for the continued control of Christianity.5 This kind of anti-Christian discourse – occasionally referencing Western concepts, and often directly addressing recent Christian publications, but still primarily based in the kind of arguments seen in the Tokugawa period – enjoyed popularity through the 1870s and early 1880s.6 But it was the complex, Western philosophical arguments against Christianity that emerged in the late 1880s and early 1890s, particularly in the writings of the Buddhist intellectual, philosopher and educationalist Inoue Enryō 井上円了 (1858–1919) and the University of Tokyo professor and Meiji ideologue Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944) (no relation), which proved
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 133 powerfully influential on mainstream political debate and national ideology formation.7 One of the reasons the anti-Christian ideas that emerged in the late 1880s and early 1890s were so politically influential was that the anti-Christian arguments of Enryō, Tetsujirō and their followers directly engaged issues under discussion in the reception of the Imperial Constitution and the Imperial Rescript on Education. These anti-Christian writings were integrated into mainstream political debates directly affecting the development of modern national ideology. Both Enryō and Tetsujirō were schooled in Western philosophy, and it was their deployment of this training in their articulation of anti-Christian and pro-nationalist ideological positions that made the anti-Christian discourse of this period so unique and influential. Consequently, this chapter will not attempt to address the huge volume of anti-Christian writing that emerged in the period between the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and the end of the nineteenth century in its entirety, and will instead focus on the anti-Christian writings of these two figures, and how they influenced the political and religious debate around them. The chapter will begin by looking at how Western philosophical paradigms were first deployed to attack Christianity by Inoue Enryō in his late-1880s writing directly addressing the Imperial Constitution. Second, it will examine the relationship between anti-Christian ideas and Inoue Tetsujirō’s influential interpretation of the Imperial Rescript on Education through his authorship in 1890 of the official Ministry of Education commentary, The Rescript Explicated (Chokugo Engi 勅語衍義). Third, an examination of the major political debates of the Meiji period, the early-1890s debates on the ‘Uchimura Kanzō Incident’ (1891) and the ‘Clash Between Education and Religion’ (1892–3), will highlight how Inoue Enryō and Inoue Tetsujirō combined forces to lead the biggest outbreak of anti-Christian publishing ever seen in Japan, directly and significantly affecting the interpretation of the Imperial Rescript and Imperial Constitution. Finally, the chapter will analyse the later historical writings of both Enryō and Tetsujirō to show that not only did Tokugawa ideas influence these figures, but also that their historical writing influenced the way the Tokugawa period, and particularly the role of anti-Christian discourse in that period, has been historicized since.
The two Inoues Inoue Enryō was one of the most influential and famous early products of the philosophy department at the University of Tokyo, from which he graduated in 1885. The year before, while still a student, Enryō had established the Society of Philosophy (Tetsugakkai 哲学会), an organization that remains today the biggest academic association for the study of Western philosophy in Japan. Immediately after graduation he founded the Institute for Philosophical Texts (Tetsugakushoin 哲学書院), a prominent intellectual publishing house, which together with Seikyōsha 政教社 (another conservative publishing group of which Enryō was also one of the founders), played a leading role in publishing conservative political and religious writings (many of them anti-Christian)
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through the late 1880s and 1890s. At the same time Enryō established the Tetsugakkan 哲学館, which went on to become the present Tōyō University 東 洋大学. Enryō had initially been sent to the University of Tokyo in 1880 with a scholarship from the Higashi Honganji Ōtani faction 東本願寺大谷派 of the Buddhist Jōdo shinshū sect 浄土真宗. He continued to position himself as an advocate of Buddhism throughout his life. Yoshida Kōhei has remarked upon links between Enryō and Kiyū Dōjin.8 But Enryō is usually known for his own individual attempt to construct a synthetic Buddhist/Hegelian philosophy.9 As will be discussed below, that philosophical venture was closely tied to Enryō’s conservative and anti-Christian political positions. Inoue Tetsujirō was one of the first graduates of the philosophy department at the University of Tokyo. In 1882, he was appointed associate professor at the University of Tokyo in charge of teaching ‘Eastern philosophy’. In October 1890, immediately after returning from six years’ study in Germany, he was appointed the first Japanese full professor in the philosophy department at the University of Tokyo. He was also asked by the Ministry of Education to author its official commentary on the Imperial Rescript on Education. In late 1892 and all through 1893, Tetsujirō used ideas he had laid out in that commentary to re-ignite a wave of anti-Christian hysteria when he published The Clash Between Education and Religion, thereby launching the so-called ‘Debate over the Clash Between Education and Religion’. Inoue Tetsujirō had been an associate professor at the University of Tokyo when Enryō was studying there, and also became one of the most active members (and later the president) of the Society of Philosophy after his return from Germany. Even though Inoue Tetsujirō’s philosophical and political thought, particularly in respect to Buddhism, always differed from Enryō’s, the activities of these two figures were nevertheless closely related through the 1890s. It is generally accepted that Tetsujirō was influenced by Enryō, both in the way he used anti-Christian discourse, and in his general conception of ‘philosophy’ in a Japanese context.10 After 1890, Tetsujirō also published many of his writings, including The Clash Between Education and Religion (Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝突) through Enryō’s publishing house.11 In most histories of the period Tetsujirō is remembered as not only one of the great conservative ideologues of Meiji Japan, but more importantly as representing state ideology’s occupation and utilization of the modern academy.12
Inoue Enryō: the Imperial Constitution and religion Inoue Enryō’s philosophical position, including his strong stand against Christianity, was first put forward in four major works published during 1886 and 1887: Shinri kinshin 真理金針 (The Needle of Truth, 1886); Tetsugaku Issekiwa 哲学一夕話 (An Evening Chat About Philosophy, 1886); Bukkyō katsuron joron 仏教活論序論 (An Introduction to Buddhist Action, 1887); and Bukkyō katuron honron daiichi: Hajakatsuron 仏教活論「破邪活論」 (Buddhist Action Part One: Action to Smash Heresy).13 As we shall see later, these works laid much of the groundwork for the anti-Christian arguments launched by Tetsujirō and others
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 135 in the public debates of the early 1890s.14 But in the late 1880s Enryō also wrote a work that directly addressed the relationship between religion, ideology and the state: Nihon seikyōron 日本政教論 (On Government and Religion in Japan) was his response to elements of the Imperial Constitution. Nihon seikyōron was published in September 1889, just seven months after the promulgation of the Imperial Constitution. The constitution’s twentyeighth article, on ‘freedom of religious belief’, is Enryō’s departure point for a discussion on the relationship between nation state and religion in Japan, and an attack on Christianity, in which he directly addresses the ideological import of the constitution itself. Enryō wanted to strengthen an exclusionary and monist interpretation of the constitution. This is made clear in the opening of Nihon seikyōron, where he begins by asserting that the relationship between politics and religion in Japan is unsatisfactory. Despite the promulgation of the twenty-eighth article of the constitution on the freedom of religious belief, the relationship between governance and religion is still ambiguous and the future direction of this relationship appears still undetermined.15 The reason Enryō thought the relationship needed to be more clearly ‘determined’ is outlined a little later in the text, where he makes clear his belief that conflict between religions could undermine the stability of the nation. Foreign religion from America and Europe is continuously entering our country, and with it those countries’ customs and passions come to be propagated among our people. The domestic religions have the power to respond with their own vigorous reaction. Looking from today into the future, I am deeply afraid that very soon the greatest debate will arise between these two, and then a day will come when the greatest trouble will descend upon the land.16 Looking at Nihon seikyōron in its totality, it is clear that for Enryō this ‘greatest trouble’ is related concretely to two concerns. The first is a fear of the ‘stupid masses’. Enryō argues that the old religious systems of the country had to be maintained so that the ‘stupid masses’ could continue to be held down, as the class system underlying the current order was supported by the social function of those religions. Enryō seems to see the social utility of religion in similar terms to Karl Marx, although from the opposite political perspective. A majority of the people of our country are stupid commoners. Followers of Shinto and Buddhism are also most numerous among the stupid commoners. So the discontents of the stupid masses are given solace, the stupid masses are kept satisfied, and this good religion teaches them in such a way that there are no riots or disturbances against the government. This is the specific strength of the old religions.17
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The second concern is that religions other than the ‘old religions’ of Shinto, Confucianism and Buddhism will inevitably cause conflict in society because they differ from ‘the spirit of Japanese civilization’. Maintenance of this spirit is seen as the necessary precondition for maintaining the independence of the Japanese state. The difference between Japanese customs and foreign ones, the difference between the Japanese mind and that of the foreigner, [the existence of] Japan as the only independent state in the Eastern seas, the continuity of our imperial line since the establishment of the country: all these things are the result of the influence of the three Ways of Shinto, Confucianism and Buddhism. Therefore, if you wish to maintain the mind of the Japanese people, to preserve the independence of Japan, to cultivate what makes the Japanese people Japanese, and what makes the Japanese state Japanese, then you must perpetuate the old religions.18 Unlike the first ‘stupid masses’ argument, which resembles those in Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse, this second concern about the integrity of Japanese culture seems to rely on a different form of cultural essentialism, one which argues that ‘what makes the Japanese state Japanese’ is a function of ‘customs’, and the ‘mind of the Japanese people’. Cultivating ‘what makes the Japanese people Japanese’ is therefore, for Enryō, a crucial part of maintaining the integrity of the modern nation. More pertinently, as the above quote illustrates, Enryō firmly holds that what cultivates culture is religion. He argues that in order to cultivate the ‘culture’ necessary for identification of a nation, longstanding traditional religions must be perpetuated.19 Our country’s traditional religions, over many generations of competitive selection, have given birth to a harmonized Shinto Buddhist form of practice.20 The evolutionary ‘harmonization’ of Buddhism and Shinto allowed them to support social stability. The use here of the evolutionary phrase ‘competitive selection’ (kyōsō tōta 競争淘汰), demonstrates the social evolutionary influence on Enryō’s idea of history, discussion of which we will return to below. Because Enryō accepted the Spencerian idea that human societies function as organisms, he believed cohesion or ‘harmonization’ could only be achieved after ‘generations of competitive selection’. In Japan, Shinto and Buddhism had already gone through this process, but introducing a new religion would create disharmony. Looking at the religions that are coming in today, speaking of both their essence and organization, it is inevitable that they will be unable to harmonize with the traditional religions.21 Harmonization has taken a different course in different countries, creating discrete organisms whose customs and culture constitute their identity.
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 137 Custom and rites defend the social order and protect the independence of each state. They are of the utmost importance. Even though the civilization of the various European and American countries flows from the same source, every country has its own particular customs. English customs are different to French, German customs are different to Russian. Their differences with each other, and each country’s independence, is due to the richness of the customs of each independent people.22 In his analysis of late nineteenth-century European society, Enryō emphasizes ‘difference’ between religion and culture as a marker of national identity, delineating individual peoples and countries. Yet, interestingly, he completely ignores the role of religion and culture as bridging devices creating a capacity for sympathy or empathy between nations. In Enryō’s mindset, under the influence of his understanding of contemporary Europe, religion is not something that plays a role in the mediation of difference. In fact, as will be examined in more detail below, this characteristic of Enryō’s thought can be seen not only to originate in a perhaps slanted view of contemporary Europe, but also to have been determined by Enryō’s particular view of philosophy. His philosophical approach does not seem to invite mediation between difference, but rather encourages ‘harmonization’ (chōsei 調 整 or chōwa 調和). The seventh chapter of Nihon seikyōron, ‘Harmonization of domestic religions’, makes the political interpretation of that philosophy clear: When religions within one country oppose each other and fight each other, then of course the mind of the people [public sentiment] of that one country is divided, and politics bears no profit or fortune. There is nothing worse than this.23 For Enryō, ‘difference’, be it based on philosophy, politics, religion or customs, has to be avoided. Mediating between a range of different opinions or ideas is not the ideal function of political structures, religions or culture. Rather, these things should be designed to ‘transcend’ the need for mediation. This becomes abundantly clear if we turn to other works of Enryō at this time that show the underlying philosophical outlook from which Enryō formed his approach to Christianity and ideology in Japan. That approach engaged Hegel’s idea of a dialectic process, but from Enryō’s own Buddhist perspective, thereby ultimately emphasizing a process of ‘transcending’ difference.
Enryō’s philosophical ‘truth’: ‘transcending’ Hegel As suggested by the title of Enryō’s first and most oft-quoted work, Shinri kinshin (The Needle of Truth), the primary concern of Enryō’s philosophical treatises was ostensibly a search of truth (shinri 真理). Even Enryō’s more overtly political and sectarian works such as Hajakatsuron, which are argued in more clearly nationalist terms, still emphasize the idea of truth and present nationalism in terms of people’s search for truth.
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Meiji anti-Christian discourse There is no one born who does not think of their nation. There is no one who learns who does not love truth. To love truth is the duty of the scholar, to defend the nation is the duty of the citizen.24
The arguments of both Bukkyō katsuron joron and Hajakatsuron, like that of Nihon seikyōron, rely on a nationalist argument which emphasizes the difference between Japan and Western countries, and Japanese religions and Christianity, in culturally essentialist terms.25 But both texts also present their arguments as ostensibly primarily interested in truth. The reason I want to keep out Christianity is not because I hate Christ the person. The reason I want to help Buddhism is not because I love Buddha the person. The reason is that what I love is truth, and what I hate is falsehoods.26 Particularly in Hajakatsuron, Enryō’s anti-Christian arguments are presented in philosophical paradigms emphasizing truth. Enryō at times uses Western philosophical arguments and Buddhist or Confucian metaphysical arguments separately against Christianity.27 But most of the time Enryō’s attack on Christianity relies on his trademark fusion of Hegelian philosophy with Buddhist metaphysics, criticizing Christianity in comparison with the idea of ‘truth’ that Enryō constructs in that paradigm.28 So what did Enryō mean by ‘truth’, and how did it relate to this fusion of East–West philosophy (as Enryō himself would later term it)? This is most clearly revealed in his 1886 work, Tetsugaku issekiwa. Presented as a Socratic-style dialogue between Enryō and his students, Tetsugaku issekiwa is Enryō’s vehicle for explaining the metaphysical philosophy upon which he based his major work of the same year, Shinri kinshin. Following Hegel, Enryō sees truth arising out of a dialectic process, as the synthesis of a thesis and antithesis. The nature of that synthesis, however, in Enryō’s combination of Buddhist thought with Hegelian philosophy, takes on a Buddhist transcendental slant. Enryō attempts to offer ‘truth’ as the synthesis of a dialectic between spiritualism and materialism that he labels ‘Enryō’s world’.29 This synthesis is intended to ‘transcend’ the ‘difference’ whereby relations between different objects are relativized. In putting forward this theory, Enryō first admits the necessity of the presence of difference and relativism in order to identify the nature of different phenomena. For instance if we look at snow and say it is white, that is because we have a norm of what is not white. If we look at the sky and see it is blue, that is because we have a norm for what is not blue.30 This argument justifies the existence of difference in order to know the true nature of something. It is from the existence of this ‘world of norms’, as Enryō refers to it, that we gain the potential to differentiate between things and discuss their differences.
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 139 Because we have the norms of justice and righteousness we can discuss the right or wrong of an action. Because we have the norm of happiness, we can discuss the utility of a thing. Because of the changes in these norms, it is not possible for there to be no difference between people.31 But for Enryō, this existence of difference is not a good thing. It is a situation that has not yet been ‘harmonized’. For Enryō, the fact that a matter needs to be discussed means that the matter has not yet been properly understood, that people have not yet ‘evolved’ to the level of ‘harmonized’ or ‘transcendent’ understanding. Lying behind Enryō’s position are two assumptions: firstly that truth is an absolute (not relative) thing, secondly that evolution is inevitable. When we evolve we arrive at the norm inside the norm, we see that which is not changing. This means in other words we see the equalizing rationale lying within the gates of differentiation. That which affects change is the norm of the relative, that which does not affect change is the norm of the absolute. To progress from the relative to the absolute, this is evolution.32 Leaving aside the rather jaded question of what is meant by the ‘norm inside the norm’,33 it is clear from this passage that for Enryō, as the elimination of difference is a good thing, so too is the elimination of the agency of change: he sees non-changing as a sign of evolution. Enryō describes the ultimate idealized outcome of that evolution in the following terms: If people completely evolve and return to that state, then they will see the sole undifferentiated truth alone, and arguments over true and false will never arise. This is Enryō’s world.34 So ‘Enryō’s world’ is a world that has ‘evolved’ to the stage where there are no longer arguments over right and wrong, or truth and falsehood; a world where the relative has been replaced completely by the absolute truth. Enryō thereby equates evolution with homogenization – or as he calls it, ‘harmonization’. Of course, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the kind of evolutionary theory that provides one of the assumptions underlying this argument was enjoying popularity throughout the world, its allure by no means restricted to Japan. But Enryō was particularly influenced by the deployment of evolutionary theory in contemporary Western sociological thought. The strong influence of evolutionary theory on Enryō’s conception of political society can be seen throughout his writings. In Tetsugaku issekiwa, Enryō had linked evolutionary ideas to his argument against the agency of change;35 in Shinri kinshin, Enryō deploys evolutionary theory in arguing against the idea of free will itself. Those who reject this idea [free will] are called determinists. Determinists argue that each object and action does not occur because of people’s intentions, but rather that people’s thoughts and actions are all ultimately natural functions
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Meiji anti-Christian discourse of the laws of nature. These laws are like the [karmic] laws of cause and effect. This means that it is not possible that things happen due to human will, but that it is also not chance that makes things happen. Each object and action cannot occur without a cause. There is an effect because first there is a cause. Effects happen because of causes. So whether the universal nature of our minds is unfathomable, or whether our will is free, this is because there is a proper cause, this has not arisen by chance. But because until now there has been nothing that clearly tells us what this cause is, the theory of free will has gained currency in the world. Recently, however, thanks to progress in the study of evolution, for the first time the ultimate cause has been illuminated and we have come to realize that will is not free. For this reason, most scientists in the world today espouse determinism. None of them teach free will. But the Christians still believe the old teachings, and stick to their position that human will is originally free.36
Here Enryō argues that theories of evolution prove that free will is illusory and all is determined. Interestingly, of all Enryō’s works the one which most advances a social evolutionary agenda is also the text most focused on criticism of Christianity: Hajakatsuron. Enryō devotes three of its chapters, entitled ‘Evolution’, to explaining Spencerian social evolutionism, directly invoking Herbert Spencer’s (1820–1903) social organism theory.37 The idea of ‘transcending’ relativism and ‘evolving’ towards an absolutism where there is no need to discuss right or wrong, as outlined in Tetsugaku issekiwa, the rejection of the possibility of free will and the assertion of a determinist world view seen in Shinri kinshin, and over half the anti-Christian contents of Hajakatsuron, all show the influence of Spencerian social organism theory on Enryō’s take on Buddhist metaphysics. Enryō, however, in his explication of social organism theory from a Buddhist perspective, had manufactured his own take on social organism theory which, ‘by synthesizing organic and non-organic into one unified substance’, ‘transcended’ the organic nature of the social organ.38 In this manner, Enryō developed his own interpretation of social organism theory that departed from a strict compliance with Spencerianism. Social organism theory, for all its faults, was to an extent a theory relying on the natural-science idea of an organism, and thereby potentially a concept that could be scientifically argued against and disproved.39 By replacing the physical ‘organism’ within Spencer’s social organism theory with his own Buddhist metaphysical religious concept of ‘one unified substance’, Enryō removed the natural-science basis upon which to prove or disprove the theory. In other words, he based the theory in Buddhist metaphysics, placing it outside science and beyond the ‘world of norms’ where discussion of truth or falsehood prevailed. We might say that Enryō made sacrosanct, or religious, the logical basis of social organism theory, removing its rational component and thereby the basis upon which it could be argued against.40 Enryō’s anti-Christian discourse employed new Western philosophical and scientific arguments and a complex Buddhist/Hegelian synthesized conception of
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 141 ‘truth’, heavily influenced by contemporary social evolutionary theory. Through these paradigms Enryō presented anti-Christian discourse in a way that interacted with modern global philosophical, religious and scientific discussions about the world. In that sense he overcame the more narrowly focused anti-Christian discourse of the Tokugawa period. Yet it was also the highly sophisticated philosophical terminology used in this explication, and its liberal use of new Western theory and complex interpretations with Buddhist metaphysics that restricted its readership to the philosophically educated elite. Nihon seikyōron directly addressed major political issues to do with the constitution, maintained elements of continuity with Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse, and was presented in 1889 in the midst of debate over the constitution. Nonetheless even this text, like his other 1880s writings, was most popular among a highly educated elite of conservative-aligned, Buddhist-inclined readers. The arguments presented by Enryō in these texts of the late 1880s were deployed in more mainstream political debates in Japan in the early 1890s, in the years directly after the promulgation of the Imperial Rescript on Education. In mainstream public debates that occurred in 1892–3, many of the issues previewed in Enryō’s earlier writings were presented as part of a popular, mass-media-driven discussion.
Meiji political debate and the Imperial Rescript on Education While the Meiji Restoration of 1868 is often referred to as the dawn of ‘modern Japan’, in fact most of the central institutional structures of a modern state, such as a constitution, were not realized in Japan until the late 1880s and early 1890s. Not only the ideology of the modern Japanese state, but indeed its basic political inclination, was widely debated and questioned during the 1870s and 1880s. The establishment of institutions and ideological symbols, such as the Imperial Constitution and the Imperial Rescripts, the embedding of these institutions, and the attribution of fixed political meanings to these symbols, occurred in the late 1880s and early 1890s, a period often referred to as ‘the second restoration’.41 The world in the late nineteenth century was burgeoning with political ideas advocating everything from inclusive liberal democracy (with voting rights for women and the lower classes – still revolutionary ideas largely unimplemented in the northern hemisphere nations of this time) to genetic determinism and the rejection of free will. Radical liberal democratic ideology and social evolutionary and genetic determinist ideas from Britain, together with conservative political thought from Germany, heavily influenced political debates within the Japanese elites of the late nineteenth century. As a result, through the 1870s and 1880s debates that began among small groups of the educated elite such as the shortlived Meirokusha 明六社 group, spread to become debates between burgeoning middle-class movements. On the one side stood the liberal movement for liberty and civil rights (jiyūminken undō 自由民権運動), from which emerged publishing groups like Minyūsha 民友社. On the other stood the conservatives,
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who set up reactionary publishing groups like Seikyōsha 政教社 to oppose the liberals.42 The Meiroku debates of the early 1870s are often described as a contest between those advocating ‘rights’ and those advocating ‘loyalty’, while the evolved form of these debates in the late 1880s and 1890s is often described as an argument between those advocating ‘egalitarianism’ (heimin shugi 平民主 義) and those advocating ‘nationalism’ (kokusui shugi 国粋主義). Even in the late 1880s, however, the former dichotomy was a highly visible point of conflict in the debates between liberals and conservatives. Minyūsha writers advocated civil rights and democracy, whereas their opponents argued for continuity of power and loyalty to the sovereign. In promulgating the Imperial Constitution in February 1889, the state sought to delimit the parameters of these debates by laying down legal and symbolic frameworks that institutionalized and privileged certain positions. The constitution gave limited civil and democratic rights to most Japanese males. But it also institutionalized important parts of the conservative (loyalty) position in the debates of the previous decades by making the government emperorcentric and consequently potentially centralized and authoritarian, as well as by giving virtually no political rights to females and by severely limiting both the civil and democratic rights given to the male citizenry. The promulgation of the Imperial Rescript on Education in October 1890 has since been viewed as an even stronger entrenchment of the conservative position, because it is held to have institutionalized state codification and compulsion of ‘emperor worship’, and as having justified limits on civil rights, in particular freedom of faith and expression. Moreover its overall tone is usually described as being inherently antiegalitarian. This general image of the ideological significance and symbolism of the Imperial Constitution, and particularly of the Imperial Rescript on Education, a document which in itself does not even fill one page, is due mainly to the way it was attributed political meaning immediately after its promulgation. In particular, extensive public debates were carried out in the mass media between 1891 and 1893 about the implementation of the Rescript and its relationship with both Christianity and the principles of liberalism. These public conflicts are usually referred to as debates around the ‘Uchimura Kanzō Incident’, and the ‘Clash Between Education and Religion’, and will be examined in depth below.
The Rescript Explicated: Inoue Tetsujirō’s commentary Even before these public conflicts broke out, however, the public reception of the single-page Imperial Rescript on Education was significantly affected by the Ministry of Education’s publication of an official 150-page commentary. The ministry commissioned the newly appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo, Inoue Tetsujirō, to write the commentary, The Rescript Explicated, which was published in October 1890 and issued by the Ministry of Education to all schools together with the actual Imperial Rescript on Education between October 1890 and January 1891. Tetsujirō used the opportunity of the
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 143 authorship of this official government guide to lay much of the groundwork for his 1893 attack on Christianity. Looking at the Imperial Rescript on Education itself, the first thing to strike a present-day reader is the apparent dominance of Confucian ideas – in particular, through references to the ‘five relations’ of Confucian ethics (sovereign–vassal, parent–child, husband–wife, siblings and friends). Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire [kokutai 国体],43 and herein also lies the source of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents; affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious;44 as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore advance public good and promote common interests; …45 In his commentary, Tetsujirō focuses on these Confucian contents, praising the Rescript for its role in ‘inculcating the virtues of filial piety, respect for authority, loyalty and faith, and cultivating the righteous path of collective patriotism’.46 Throughout The Rescript Explicated, the phrase ‘filial piety, loyalty, faith, and the doctrine of collective patriotism’ is repeated like a mantra. But why did Tetsujirō see this ‘doctrine’ as so essential? This is explained in terms of his view of the international climate of his time, outlined in the introduction to The Rescript Explicated. Tetsujirō argues that Japan and China were the only countries that remained sovereign states, having not succumbed to aggressive Western imperialism. But China, Tetsujirō points out, was not developing, and therefore Japan was the only country which could be relied upon not to fall to the West. This leads Tetsujirō to the conclusion that, ‘we must consider that we are surrounded by enemies on all four sides’.47 In this manner, Tetsujirō’s introduction to The Rescript Explicated frames his argument, and indeed the tone of the reception of the Rescript itself in schools and the broader community, in terms of a reaction to the perceived external threat. Throughout The Rescript Explicated, Tetsujirō presents as a defence against this threat the ultimate weapon of ‘the unity of the mind of the people’ (minshin no ketsugō 民心の結合). This phrase appears on nearly every page of the introduction to The Rescript Explicated. It is also a phrase used continuously in Enryō’s works quoted above, as well as appearing in late Mito works. Tetsujirō’s use of this term, however, is linked to an emphasis on social homogeneity and integration of the Japanese people throughout the commentary. For instance, in his commentary to the Rescript passage, ‘Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof’, Tetsujirō writes as follows:
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‘The unity of the mind of the people’ is one of several key terms that Tetsujirō establishes in connection with the Rescript through his commentary in 1890, and then employs to attack Christianity and liberalism during the debates of 1892– 4. This is despite the fact that this term does not appear in the Rescript itself. One term that does appear in the Rescript, and which Tetsujirō uses freely in his attacks on Christians, egalitarians and liberals in 1893, is ‘loyalty and filial piety’ (chūkō 忠孝). His interpretation of the term is made clear in his commentary on the Rescript passage ‘this is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire [kokutai 国体], and herein also lies the source of Our education’. If the masses and the aristocracy are loyal to their king and filial to their fathers, then there will be high moral standards. Therefore, if perchance there are teachings in the world that stand in opposition to this state of affairs, there is not the slightest need for our country to inquire into them.49 Attacks on Christianity in Japan traditionally emphasized the Confucian idea of ‘loyalty and filial piety’, and argued that the Christian practice of placing loyalty to God above all others diminished both the authority of the sovereign, and the cultural practice of ancestor worship. Of course these kinds of arguments had also been used continuously by the conservative camp against liberals and others advocating civil rights over the previous twenty years; but Tetsujirō’s emphasis on and interpretation of these arguments in an official Ministry of Education commentary issued to schools added further political colour to the nation’s reception of the Rescript. Readers used to encountering the same arguments in conservative political treatises were immediately able to identify the tenor of the Rescript commentary. In this way, we can see that even in 1890, before the Uchimura Kanzō Incident had occurred, and before the Rescript had been openly deployed against Christianity, Tetsujirō had already begun to attribute a particular meaning to the Rescript that emphasized loyalty to the nation, and set that loyalty in a paradigm of opposition to a perceived threat. The most interesting point in Tetsujirō’s arguments – both in his 1890 commentary on the Rescript, and as we shall see later, in The Clash Between Education and Religion – concerns his attitude to a part of the Rescript revolving around the key term hakuai 博愛 (Ch. boai). That section of the Rescript, in its official English translation, simply exhorts the people to ‘extend your benevolence to all’ (hakuai shū ni oyoboshi 博愛衆に及ぼし). Hakuai, the word translated as ‘benevolence to all’ in the Ministry of Education’s official English translation of the Imperial Rescript on Education, appears in some of the Confucian classics, and also in the ancient Chinese philosophical text Mozi (purportedly authored by Mozi 墨子 (c.480–390 BC)), where it is often translated into English as ‘philanthropy’. This is quite close to the literal
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 145 translation of the combination of two Chinese characters making up the word, which is ‘broad love’ or ‘broad caring’. In the history of Chinese philosophy, the meaning of this term has been a traditional point of contention. Many commentators use the term to describe the philosophy of Mencius, one of the key Confucian texts (purportedly authored by Mencius 孟子 (c.373–289 BC)). Others point out that the word boai/hakuai does not actually appear in Mencius, but is a term favoured by Mozi, a philosopher explicitly condemned in Mencius for having a conception of love that is too undifferentiated or universal.50 As we will discuss in detail later, in The Clash Between Education and Religion Tetsujirō used this ancient Chinese argument as a key point of attack on Christianity: he argued that the Christians, by advocating love for all, weakened peoples’ sense of loyalty to their own nation. Interestingly, in the 1890 commentary, Tetsujirō was already setting up this argument. Because the word hakuai appears as a positive virtue in the Rescript itself, Tetsujirō could not attack the term head on. So in The Rescript Explicated, he first heaped praise on the positive implications of ‘benevolence to all’, before going on to point out the dangerous ways this phrase can be used, and warning against a misinterpretation of the term’s meaning. But, in terms of benevolence to all [hakuai], there must be an order/gradation [junjo 順序]. If you throw away your own family and put another family first, or if you put another country before ours, then that is not being ‘benevolent to all’. If you do not distinguish between those who are close and those who are not, if you do not discriminate between us and them, if you love all equally, if you do not set up a gradation or ranking, then you would love people from all nations equally, and as a result your passion for loyalty and patriotism would vanish. That is why all people should put the duty of serving our Emperor and loving our Country first.51 In the Rescript itself, this kind of interpretation is not alluded to in any way whatsoever. There is no limitation placed on the idea of ‘extending your benevolence to all’. But in his commentary Tetsujirō placed a heavy political spin on the idea, and tried to limit its applicability. Hakuai, ‘benevolence to all’ as the official Ministry of Education translation of the Rescript quite accurately coins it, is indeed a value present in the east Asian philosophical tradition. But the meaning of that value in the Confucian tradition is open to interpretation. The interpretation found in The Rescript Explicated and particularly pursued, as we will see below, in The Clash Between Education and Religion, is a clear example of the way Tetsujirō sought to limit or direct the Confucian framework of the Rescript in a particularly conservative and exclusivist direction. These tensions were the ones exploited by Tetsujirō in the wake of the Uchimura Kanzō Incident, in the debate he launched in 1893.
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The Uchimura Kanzō Incident Although Tetsujirō’s commentary had already prepared the ground for a political utilization of the Imperial Rescript on Education, it was its actual introduction into schools in January 1891 and the resultant political controversy that first caused the Rescript to be deployed as an ideological tool in political conflict. The Ministry of Education had set out detailed guidelines for the conduct of a ceremony to be held in all schools to introduce the Rescript to the staff and students. The students and teachers were to line up individually in front of a copy of the Rescript and bow in worship to the emperor’s seal attached to the document. During the conduct of this ceremony at the premier school in the country, Tokyo First Higher Middle School (Daiichi kōtōchūgakkō 第一高等中学校), an important Christian intellectual and teacher, Uchimura Kanzō 内村鑑三 (1861–1930), citing Christian teachings against idolatry, refused to pay worship to the emperor’s seal. This became known as the ‘Uchimura Kanzō lèse-majesté incident’ (Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken 内 村鑑三不敬事件). Uchimura’s ‘disrespect to the emperor’, as it was widely and excitedly reported in newspapers shortly after the event, triggered a huge media attack on Uchimura in particular, and Christians in general. In more than 50 different publications and at least 200 different essays, Uchimura was attacked as being disrespectful to the emperor in an array of colourful language strong enough to incite attacks on Christians and drive Uchimura and his family out of Tokyo. While some Christians and the Christian media, as well as some writers in the popular liberal journal Kokumin no tomo 国民之友 came to Uchimura’s defence, the media coverage in general involved little debate and lots of what in contemporary Japan would be called ‘media bashing’.52 Before considering some of the frenzied public debate that emerged directly after the Uchimura Kanzō Incident, it is worth considering the exact nature of the incident and Uchimura’s own attitude to it. After the event it was commonly reported that Uchimura’s lèse-majesté, or disrespect, was that he had, during the ceremony introducing the Rescript, refused to bow to a picture of the emperor displayed on the wall. Impressions of the extent of Uchimura’s ‘disrespect’ were heightened by this common misunderstanding of the nature of his actions on the day in question. In fact, he had refused to bow to the imperial seal attached to the copy of the Rescript presented at the school.53 But the idea that he had refused to bow to the emperor’s photograph continued to circulate in popular literature, even pro-Christian literature, for decades after the event.54 So why was it that Uchimura refused to follow everyone else and bow to the seal? After all, while not bowing to photographs may have been a greater disrespect, it is also easier to understand as a form of idol worship. There are two accounts we have from him on what went through his mind at the time. One is an account written several years later in Japanese. We knew beforehand [that the Rescript ceremony] was going to be trouble, so Christian colleagues [fellow teachers at the school who were Christian, in particular Nakajima Rikizō and Kimura Shunkichi] deliberately took the
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 147 day off. I also thought I would probably take the day off, but I was not able to. When it eventually came around to my turn [to pay worship to the seal], I hesitated for quite some time. I thought I would really give a deep bow. But I saw many of my students of that time around me, staring intensely at me. And when I thought of them for some reason I just could not do a full bow. I just bowed my head a little. And then it all started.55 Directly after the incident, in a letter written in English to an American acquaintance C.D. Bell, Uchimura gave a similar version of events. There was not time to think about it. And for that reason I was doubtful and hesitating I decided to do the safe thing and follow my conscience as a Christian. … It wasn’t a refusal, it was hesitation, and my conscientious scruples, that is what made me at that moment refuse to bow.56 What both these sources make clear is that Uchimura had not planned not to bow to the Rescript, it had been a spur-of-the-moment moral decision motivated more by the atmosphere and people around him and his reaction at that instant. Later, Uchimura also explained his action by saying: ‘I was not opposing the Rescript itself, that is its contents … rather I was opposing the worship of it’.57 Yet we also see from the first source that there was an awareness days before the ceremony among the Christian teachers at the school that there would be trouble. If, as Uchimura maintains, he did not oppose the contents of the Rescript, then why was there uneasiness among the Christian teachers about its introduction? And why did Uchimura instinctively (or instantaneously and morally, as he explains it) feel reluctant about bowing to the Rescript? In considering this question, it is worthwhile to remember that The Rescript Explicated (Inoue Tetsujirō’s commentary) had been distributed by the Ministry of Education to schools in anticipation of the ceremony. Uchimura and other teachers can be assumed to have read it. The reason ‘trouble’ was expected is that through the propagation of the commentary and other measures carried out by the Ministry, including instructions sent on the conduct of the ‘ceremony’, it had quickly become clear to intellectuals like Uchimura that the Rescript was already being deployed in a political movement that reached well beyond anything in the content of the Rescript itself.58 Nevertheless, the response to Uchimura’s action in the massive media frenzy that followed mostly interpreted it squarely as a rejection of the Rescript and an impertinence to the emperor. Ozawa Saburō has recorded reactions to the incident in at least 136 articles in no less than 56 different publications just in the two months thereafter.59 Most of these were highly critical of Uchimura:60 almost all used the word ‘disrespect’ and attacked Uchimura’s lack of ‘loyalty’. Criticism tended to concentrate on Uchimura personally, instead of on Christianity itself. He was labelled ‘disrespectful’, ‘an ill-mannered yob’, ‘a teacher with no shame’, ‘a disloyal vassal’, ‘a bandit vassal in rebellion’, ‘an impure lecturer’, ‘a man of no manner and no shame’, ‘hugely disrespectful’, ‘a disrespectful bandit vassal’,
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‘a Chinese bandit’ and an ‘animal’, among other things.61 Some of these terms are strangely reminiscent of Hayashi Razan’s seventeenth-century attacks on Kumazawa Banzan, in particular the portrayal of Uchimura as ‘a bandit vassal in rebellion’. Many of these personal attacks on Uchimura lambasted him as a Christian, but attacks on Christianity itself in 1891 were more limited.62 While the heated tabloid-style attacks on Uchimura of 1891 succeeded in driving him from Tokyo, they did not constitute a concerted attack on Christianity itself, nor did they gain traction among intellectuals or significantly affect debate on other political issues. The real assault on Christianity emerged nearly two years later, in what proved to be a much larger, more politically savvy and more influential debate.
‘The clash between education and religion’ In November 1892, just as the heat was dying down on Uchimura, Inoue Tetsujirō gave a speech in which he argued, for the first time publicly, that Christianity and the Japanese nation were inherently incompatible. This transformed the debate from a largely tabloid affair centring on Uchimura’s personal conduct, to a highly politicized mainstream intellectual debate about the question of whether Christianity itself was reconcilable with the Japanese nation. The significance of this debate was that for the first time the constitution and Rescripts were deployed by conservatives to argue that there were certain ideas (in this instance labelled ‘Christian’) that were irreconcilable with the modern Japanese nation. In other words, the modern Japanese nation, as symbolized through these institutional documents, was presented as a political body that inherently excluded certain kinds of ideas. From January 1893, Tetsujirō published a series of essays entitled The Clash Between Education and Religion (Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝 突), in which he argued that Christianity and the nation state were incompatible, and that Christianity was inherently anti-nationalist. The publication of The Clash Between Education and Religion opened a huge debate of the same name, which continued through 1893 and, unlike the earlier discussion of the Uchimura Kanzō Incident, engaged many of the most important intellectuals and political commentators in Japan. Tetsujirō’s series of essays, published as one book in April 1893, was quoted in nearly all of the many hundreds of articles and essays that constituted the debate.63 The Clash Between Education and Religion thereby stands as the key document in understanding how the controversy around the Imperial Rescript on Education was turned into an anti-Christian debate that ended up attaching particular conservative interpretations to the Rescript itself. Close examination of the main arguments in the so-called ‘Debate on the Clash Between Education and Religion’, most of which were initiated in the text of the same name by Tetsujirō, give us an important insight into how the meanings we now associate with the Rescript, and indeed tennōsei ideology, were originally established in the public sphere. The linkage between the publication of The Clash Between Education and Religion and the Uchimura Kanzō Incident is clear
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 149 from the copious references Tetsujirō makes in The Clash Between Education and Religion both to the incident, and to the Imperial Rescript on Education.64 The basic premise of The Clash Between Education and Religion is made clear in the following passage, where Tetsujirō clearly sets up Christianity and the Rescript as polar opposites: Our Japan has also [like Europe] possessed its own kind of national ethic since ancient times. It is found in the Imperial Rescript and is the standard for education. Therefore, the reason why the main intent of the Rescript cannot be resolved with Christian teachings is that the very roots from which these teachings spring are different. The fact that Christianity and the Rescript cannot even be slightly resolved should cause any Christian to waver.65 Tetsujirō condemns Christianity because, as he sees it, it is inherently opposed to ‘the national ethic’, as symbolized by the Rescript. In Tetsujirō’s argument, however, the Rescript is not seen simply as symbolizing ‘the national ethic’, but moreover as being the basis of it. The Rescript is a rendering in writing of the ordinary practical ethics as they were practised in Japan in its original state.66 Ironically enough, in the Rescript itself the thing that is ‘rendered in writing of the ordinary practical ethics as they were practised in Japan in its original state’ is actually the five relations of (originally Chinese) Confucian ethics. This is actually acknowledged in the text of Tetsujirō’s The Clash Between Education and Religion.67 It is impossible to deny that Christian teachings are the direct opposite of the teachings of Confucius and Mencius which center on ‘ruling the country and regulating the house’. Therefore, from that we should be able to deduce that it would be difficult to align Christianity with the spirit of the Rescript.68 Tetsujirō argued that while Christianity is antithetic to the state, Asian religions, by which he means Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto, are not. The attack on Christianity thereby in large part relies on why it is different to these Asian religions. There are four main points where Christianity is different to the Asian religions: first, it does not put the state first; second, it does not value loyalty [to the social order]; third, it places import on unworldly things and undervalues the social world; fourth, their concept of benevolence to all (hakuai 博愛) is like Mozi’s, it is a non-discriminatory egalitarian form of benevolence.69 Of these ‘four points’, by far the most interesting and unique point is the last one, the ground for which had been prepared in 1890 through Tetsujirō’s approach
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to the word hakuai as it appeared in the Rescript itself. As remarked earlier, in the history of Chinese philosophy the meaning of this term has been a traditional point of contention between those who use it to describe the philosophy of Mencius and those who point out that it was used by Mozi, a philosopher explicitly condemned in Mencius for his overly broad conception of love. In The Clash Between Education and Religion, Tetsujirō uses this latter tradition to deploy Mencius against an egalitarian interpretation of hakuai, ‘benevolence for all’. First he points out that the word hakuai does not appear in Mencius or Confucius Analects, but only in a less central Confucian text, Xiaojing 孝経. He then argues that the term is associated primarily with Mozi and refers to the section in Mencius where Mozi is condemned for his heretical non-Confucian idea of ‘love without differentiation’ (兼愛 Ch. jianai, Jp. ken’ai). Often glossed in Japanese as hakuai, the word jianai is key to an important section of Mencius that Tetsujirō deployed in the debate. A standard English translation of this section of Mencius reads as follows: Yang advocates everyone for himself, which amounts to a denial of one’s prince; Mo[zi] advocates love without discrimination [jianai], which amounts to a denial of one’s father. To ignore one’s father on the one hand, and one’s prince on the other, is to be no different from the beasts. … If the way of Yang and Mo does not subside and the way of Confucius is not proclaimed, the people will be deceived by heresies and the path of morality will be blocked.70 Tetsujirō could not reject the term hakuai out of hand, because it appears in the Rescript. So instead, he establishes a ‘Confucian kind of hakuai’ (which is ‘differentiated’). He then sets it up in a dichotomy against a ‘Mo-ist and Christian kind of hakuai’, which he labels using Mencius’s term jianai (love without discrimination), and which he condemns as heretical and dangerous.71 Employing this philological tradition nominally against the Christians in The Clash Between Education and Religion, Tetsujirō argues that the Christian idea of hakuai, like Mozi’s, is the absolute opposite of the Confucian (and therefore for Tetsujirō, interestingly, the ‘Asian’) form of hakuai. He argues that Mencius developed a gradation/order (junjo 順序) in the concept of hakuai. This Confucian hakuai, he asserts, is discriminatory (yūsabetsuteki 有差別的) (meaning it discriminates between different categories of people) and thereby possesses order (junjo). Tetsujirō likens the Christian hakuai to the heterodox non-Confucian thinker Mozi’s non-discriminatory hakuai so that it is thereby, like Mozi, set up as a heterodoxy opposed to the Confucian order, and condemned.72
‘The Clash’ and egalitarianism Tetsujirō’s argument, however, employs this criticism of the ‘Christian hakuai’ not only to demonstrate that it is un-Asian and heterodox; his attack on Christianity and its conception of hakuai is also carried out on a much more openly political
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 151 level, by linking the heterodox (Mozi/Christian) conception of hakuai with the concept of egalitarianism. According to Christianity, beneath God all human beings are absolutely equal. There is not even a hierarchy between men and women. This is basically social egalitarianism. But in Japan and China we have from olden days had a custom of hierarchy between men and women. Scholars should follow this pre-existing custom.73 Political and philosophical arguments over the concept of equality had already played an important role in Meiji intellectual history during the 1870s amid the Meirokusha scholars. The debate between Meirokusha members Fukuzawa Yukichi 福沢諭吉, Nakamura Masanao 中村正直, Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之, Mori Arinori 森有礼 and Sakatani Shiroshi 阪谷素 over equality between men and women is well documented.74 In that debate, initially carried on in terms of the parameters of liberal philosophy, the husband-and-wife ethics in the ‘five ethical relations’ system of Confucian philosophy were quickly employed on both the conservative and progressive sides of the argument. Of course, the hot political issue lying behind the Meirokusha debate over equality between women and men, and equal rights for men and women, was the contemporary political issue of civil rights itself. The argument about social egalitarianism in The Clash Between Education and Religion in the same way took gender relations as a field of argument; but underlying the issue of gender, the issues of human freedom and human rights themselves were insinuated. This was really the driver behind Tetsujirō’s use of the word junjo 順序 (ranking/order). The nominally antiChristian argument clearly fed the ongoing major political debate of the period: rights versus loyalty, liberalism versus conservatism. Looking at Tetsujirō’s entire argument surrounding the concept of hakuai as outlined in The Clash Between Education and Religion, it is difficult not to see it as part of an overall reaction against liberalism in general, and democratic movements in particular. Twenty years earlier, in one of the most famous antiChristian works of the early Meiji period, Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 railed against Christianity as a Trojan horse through which representative government would be foisted upon Japan. Sokken’s anti-Christian treatise, Benbō 弁妄, included a preface written by Shimazu Hisamitsu 島津久光, the leader of the conservative party at the time.75 Yamaji Aizan famously analysed much of Sokken’s so-called anti-Christian argument in terms of conservative attempts to put a lid on calls for democracy in the 1870s.76 As mentioned in the previous chapter, Sokken linked Christianity with representative government using the word kyōwa 共和, the standard Japanese translation for republic. In The Clash Between Education and Religion, Tetsujirō picks up on this, quoting from Sokken, and noting links between republicanism (which, in terms of Meiji Japan’s reverence for the emperor, was an unthinkably radical heresy) and Christianity.77 Hakuai was, and is, the Japanese word usually used to translate the word ‘fraternity’ in the phrase ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’. Tetsujirō’s reference to ‘republicanism’, like his reference to gender
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equality, infers an attack on the idea of egalitarianism. Tetsujirō also concludes his argument by characterizing Christianity as inherently ‘egalitarian’, such that it stands in direct opposition to ‘ancient Japanese traditions’. Making clear what the real target of his criticism is, Tetsujirō concludes his treatise by arguing that Christianity could exist harmoniously in Japan only if the Christians rejected egalitarianism. I am not insisting that Christianity must be rejected or eliminated. If the Christians do not oppose the nationalism of our country, conform to the customs of the East just as much as they can, and devote themselves only to maintaining the morality of individuals, then how could they not but bring profit to our country? But if they persist with their anti-nationalism, and their destruction of the unity of the mind of the people, then they will surely bring great loss to our country.78 The basic line was that Christianity was anti-nationalist, and the reason was that it addressed social questions and promoted equality. Christianity could be reconciled with the Japanese state only if the Christians desisted from propagating ideas that went beyond the private sphere, and renounced egalitarianism. Here the real targets of the argument for which Tetsujirō used the code word ‘Christian’ became clear. As is made obvious in his introduction to The Rescript Explicated, the key point of the Rescript for Tetsujirō was its role in creating one homogeneous people, united out of a sense of loyalty. He saw unwavering loyalty to the units of state and house by a united mass as the message of the Rescript. This is a vision of society held together by vertical hierarchical bonds. On the other hand, the idea of ‘benevolence to all’ not only offered the terrifying prospect of people being benevolent to others outside their own family or nation, but also of social bonding on a horizontal level. Tetsujirō’s four main points, outlined in The Clash Between Education and Religion and quoted above, dominated the debate of the same name that followed. In 1893 alone, a countless number of articles, books and essays appeared addressing these questions. Some of the most important of the anti-Christian essays from that year were collected as an edited edition by Seki Kōsaku 関皐作 and published that October by Inoue Enryō’s publishing house, Tetsugakushoin. This collection, Inoue hakase to kirisutokyōto 井上博士と基督教徒, remains one of the best compilations of the arguments of this debate.79 Some of the articles collected focus on the loyalty issue, basically punching home arguments that had been used fairly widely for a long time. Others, such as ‘How Christianity debilitates the nation’ by Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬, address the question more subtly, expanding on Tetsujirō’s discussion of the hakuai issue to present a dichotomy between universalism and particularism, where the antiChristian case is argued as a championing of particularism. Universalism can be expressed in other words as a doctrine of philanthropy (hakuai shugi 博愛主義). Nationalism is in other words a doctrine based on
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 153 patriotism. But if philanthropy is the broad love of all under Heaven, and patriotism is love of one’s own country, it would seem that their intentions must be different. If that is so, is it then impossible for one who has forthrightly taken up the doctrine of patriotism to avoid a conflict with the doctrine of philanthropy? If that were the case, then where on earth could one find citizens of a nation prepared to practise philanthropy? … If one nation is one part of the world, then the happiness of the world must come into being through the happiness of each nation. If all the nations of the world each cultivate their individual uniqueness, then the world will be cultivated. For each individual nation’s uniqueness to be cultivated and developed, people should be patriotic to each of their individual nations. That being the case, patriotism is in fact philanthropy. What we call nationalism, is in fact where true philanthropy resides.80 As a result of the debates that pursued anti-Christian themes during the early 1890s, the meaning of the Imperial Rescript on Education in the public sphere became framed within a particular discourse. That discourse affixed certain meanings to the symbolism of the Rescript that did not originate in the text: it framed the Rescript in the context of international imperial competition; it presented the Confucian values of the Rescript in a much more conservative fashion than they were written, and used this interpretation to falsely contrast the contents of the Rescript against Christian ideas; it presented the Rescript as a representation of particularism against universalism; and underlying all this, it interpreted the terminology (especially the Confucian terminology) of the Rescript in a particularly conservative and politically loaded way, presenting the Rescript in opposition to liberal, democratic and egalitarian ideas. Thus, the promulgation of a key symbolic text of the new modern state, the Imperial Rescript on Education, through a massive public debate centred on anti-Christian discourse, ended up being associated with a particular form of nationalism that used cultural particularism to argue for a ‘national ethic’ – an ethic that just happened to directly argue the conservative ‘loyalty’ side in a debate going to the heart of what kind of political system the new nation would adopt. The so-called ‘anti-Christian’ side of the debate was dominated by arguments that intersected directly with the conservative side in contemporaneous political confrontations, and that in particular labelled social egalitarianism as an affront to national loyalty, associating it with the foreign creed.81
History making and making history Enryō and Tetsujirō were not only leading conservative public intellectuals, they also both played major roles in establishing the nature of modern university education in Japan, and in laying down much of the groundwork for the integration of the studies of history and philosophy into national ideological frameworks. Inoue Tetsujirō is remembered today primarily not for his role in the anti-Christian controversies of the early 1890s, but rather for his role in the
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manufacture of national history. His most enduring academic works are those he wrote in the first years of the twentieth century on what it is normal today to call the ‘intellectual history of Japan’, but which he referred to as ‘the history of Japanese philosophy’. As referred to earlier, in 1890 Tetsujirō became the first Japanese to be appointed full professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Tokyo. Since his 1882 appointment as an associate professor, one of his main duties at the university had been to take charge of the teaching of ‘Eastern philosophy’. The main academic contribution of his career is usually viewed in terms of his attempt in this post, especially during the late Meiji period, to integrate the teaching of east Asian thought, in particular Confucianism, into a Western academic framework, creating a basis in intellectual history for the ‘national ethic’ as ‘Japanese philosophy’. The works of Tetsujirō most famously associated with this project, and indeed his most enduring works overall, are his three volumes on the history of Confucianism in Japan published between 1900 and 1905: The Philosophy of Japan’s Wang Yang-ming-ist School, The Philosophy of Japan’s Ancient Learning School, and The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School.82 The period of Tetsujirō’s life between 1890 and 1905 thereby represents the height of his influence as both a maker of history, and as a history maker. During this period he not only led one of the most popular intellectual debates of political consequence in the mid-Meiji period, but moreover set the framework for how the intellectual history of Japan would be studied by the modern academy. As we will see below, these two enterprises were linked through the establishment of a historical narrative illustrating the ‘national ethic’. In Tetsujirō’s 1900–05 trilogy on the history of Japanese Confucianism, he presents the history of Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism in Japan as having laid the foundations for the ‘national ethic’ of modern Japan, and ‘the glory of the Meiji regime’.83 He opens The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School, the final and culminating volume of the trilogy, by pointing out the uniqueness of Japanese Zhu Xi-ism over the other Confucian schools.84 In his conclusion, Tetsujirō describes the development of Confucian philosophy in the Tokugawa period as having led to the achievements of the Meiji Restoration.85 He says Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism, during the 300 years of Tokugawa rule, laid the basis of Japan’s ‘doctrine of education’ upon which the success of Meiji Japan was built.86 Tetsujirō also clearly wants to present Japanese Zhu Xi-ism as a philosophy of global historical standing: he speaks of his own study of Zhu Xi-ism as ‘a demonstration to the scholars of Europe and America as to why our country is great’87 and also draws parallels between Zhu Xi-ist moral philosophy and the Neo-Kantian moral philosophy of Green and Muirhead.88 Tetsujirō emphasizes five main aspects to what he sees as Zhu-Xi-ism’s crucial developmental role in Japan. First, he argues that Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism played a key developmental role, particularly in the early seventeenth century, by ‘secularizing’ Japanese society.89 Second, he describes Confucianism in general, and Zhu Xi-ism in particular, as having developed historically in three stages through the Tokugawa period, its third stage yielding the ‘fruit’ that was the Meiji Restoration.90 Third, he claims a key role for Zhu Xi-ism in establishing
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 155 and protecting ideas of ‘homogeneity’ in Japanese thought: in both the first and third phases of the development of Zhu-Xi-ism in the Tokugawa period, he says it played a decisive role in ‘excluding heterodox thinking’ from Japan. Tetsujirō particularly praises Zhu Xi-ism’s role in making thinkers apolitical, and in establishing the principle of homogeneity to suppress liberal and utilitarian ideas.91 Fourth, Tetsujirō claims that Japanese Zhu Xi-ism had provided universal values and an ethical system that could be integrated into the Western tradition of ethical thought. He describes these parallels with Western ethical thought in terms of Zhu Xi-ism’s emphasis on cultivation of the person, and respect for the sovereign.92 Fifth, Tetsujirō views Japanese Zhu Xi-ism through the Tokugawa period as having developed from a dualist to an integrated epistemology, declaring this to have been ‘a brilliant progression in philosophy’.93 The overriding and most infamous achievement of The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School as a history, however, is simply that it establishes an image of ‘Confucianism’ as representing the ‘moral doctrine’, or ‘educational doctrine’ of Tokugawa Japan.94 Maruyama Masao is often condemned for calling Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism the ‘guiding doctrine’ of Tokugawa Japan, and describing Hayashi Razan as the originator of a kind of state ideology in Tokugawa Japan based on Confucianism. But it was Inoue Tetsujirō, not Maruyama, who established this idea in the modern academy.95 As mentioned above, Tetsujirō attributes Tokugawa Japan’s ‘doctrine of education’ to the development of Zhu Xi-ist Confucian philosophy, and praises it as the basis of both modern Japan’s strength and its ‘national ethic’. He moreover attributes the origins of the development of this ‘doctrine’ to Hayashi Razan personally. The one who fixed Zhu Xi-ism as the doctrine of education for the 300 years of the Tokugawa period was Hayashi Razan.96 Tetsujirō’s assertion that Razan established the place of Zhu Xi-ism in Japanese society has since been soundly disproved. Research in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s made it clear that Razan’s influence in the Tokugawa government was limited.97 But if we wish to understand the reasons why Tetsujirō himself saw Razan as the most important figure in Tokugawa Confucianism, we need first to look at what it was about Razan that led Tetsujirō to rate him so highly. The two facets of Razan that Tetsujirō focused on and most highly praised were his role in ‘eliminating heterodoxies’, and his fusion of Confucianism with ‘Our country’s Shinto’.98 Tetsujirō emphasizes this first point of ‘eliminating heterodoxies’ to the extent that nearly his entire discussion of Razan’s Confucian writings focuses on this theme. Of the 24 pages he devotes to discussing Razan’s ideas, nearly half are devoted solely to Razan’s attacks on Christianity. Most of the other half is devoted to Razan’s critique of Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism, or his criticism of Wang Yang-ming-ist attributes in Fujiwara Seika.99 The basis of Tetsujirō’s conception of the intellectual history of the Tokugawa period, therefore, is heavily reliant on the sectarian nature of Razan’s role. What
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basically qualifies Razan, in Tetsujirō’s mind, as the founder of the ‘doctrine of education’ upon which the ‘national ethic’ and Meiji success were formed, and upon which the national ideology should be founded, is his central role in promoting Tokugawa sectarianism.
Eastern ‘philosophy’ versus Christian ‘religion’ Tetsujirō did not establish his view of Tokugawa intellectual history and role of Confucianism in Japanese society simply through the publication of the trilogy. His subsequent public lectures and lobbying on the issue of Confucianism’s role in society, and his continued occupation of the top academic post in Japan dealing with the history of east Asian thought and Japanese intellectual history, further supported his ability to set in stone his view of the historic mission of ‘Eastern philosophy’ in Japan. Tetsujirō’s view of what role Confucianism should play in society in general was made unflinchingly clear in a speech he gave to the Society of Philosophy in 1908, three years after the publication of the final instalment of his three-volume series on Japanese Confucianism. Introducing his paper, entitled ‘Strengths and Weaknesses of Confucianism’,100 Tetsujirō addresses the fact that at that time calls for the ‘reintroduction of Confucianism’ (jukyō fukkatsu 儒教復活) were gaining wide currency in a number of different quarters. The underlying cause of these calls, Tetsujirō suggests, was an impression that, ‘the Imperial Rescript on Education in itself is somehow not enough’.101 Not enough for what, exactly, is not articulated; but given our inquiries so far we can assume he means not enough for the elimination of intellectual heterodoxy and unification of the minds of the people (minshin no ketsugō 民心の結合). Tetsujirō interprets the calls for the ‘reintroduction of Confucianism’ broadly, in terms of a call for the use of Confucianism in moral education. He then argues that to consider whether Confucianism is suitable for this purpose, it is necessary to look in detail at what Confucianism is.102 He therefore frames his investigation of Confucianism in terms of a perceived sociopolitical need for a particular kind of moral teaching, defined in terms of the parameters of the Imperial Rescript on Education. After looking at the history of Confucianism in Japan in terms that broadly summarized his approach in his trilogy, Tetsujirō concludes his paper by first restating the need for moral instruction. The motivation of pure morality is the single most urgent need of our time.103 He then goes on to recommend the introduction of Confucianism to the national education system as moral philosophy. He does this primarily by contrasting Confucianism with Christianity and Buddhism, to argue that Confucianism is not a religion.
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 157 It would be good to have something like Confucianism in schools. I say it would be good to have it because the aim of Confucianism is pure morality on a grand scale. Also, there is no impediment to teaching it in schools. That is because it does not contradict the teachings of natural science. We would have trouble if we taught Buddhism or Christianity in schools because their teachings are not compatible with the natural sciences.104 In this paragraph Tetsujirō’s conclusions about the social utility of Confucianism are presented in terms of emphasizing its compatibility with ‘science’, which in many ways parallel his definition of parts of Confucianism as ‘philosophy’. The delineation of philosophy, especially in comparison with ‘religion’, was carried out in close concert with issues in the political context related to ‘moral education’ and ‘national ethics’. Tetsujirō’s definition of ‘Confucianism’ as moral philosophy supportive of national ideology (represented by the Imperial Rescript on Education), and in contrast to Christianity, played directly into the kind of paradigm articulated by Itō Hirobumi in 1888.105 But it augmented that paradigm because imperial rule, personified by the Rescript, was perhaps, ‘not enough’. Tetsujirō’s role – defining the term ‘philosophy’ to include an ‘Eastern philosophy’ antagonistic to Christianity and directly supportive of national ideology as represented by the ‘national ethics’ of the Rescript – provided a framework, justified in modern academic conceptions of philosophy, for the identification of a ‘central axis’ of Japanese national culture. Tetsujirō’s intellectual history of Japan emphasized Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism, as it evolved in Japan during the Tokugawa period, as having developed philosophical thinking. He argued that the Japanese Zhu Xi-ists progressed Confucianism philosophically, both through overcoming its inherent dualism, and by developing the ethics within Confucianism to a level commensurate with Western ethical philosophy. In these terms, it seems clear that for Tetsujirō, Japanese Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism was a philosophy; more importantly, it was a ‘Japanese philosophy’ of which Tetsujirō had shown the historical development inside Japan. He had made a distinction between ‘Western religions’, which he saw as antithetic to the Japanese nation, and ‘Eastern religions’, which he saw as essentially benign in The Clash Between Education and Religion in 1893, as well as repeatedly in his writings in the early twentieth century.106 Inoue Enryō supported this distinction between philosophy on the one hand and Christianity on the other in his own writings in the early twentieth century. Enryō’s approach was a little different to Tetsujirō’s, in that through his synthesis of Western philosophy with Buddhism he sought to construct a dichotomous relationship between Christianity on the one hand, and philosophy and Eastern religions (including Buddhism) on the other. Enryō also presented this dichotomy in a historical world view – what he called ‘East–West philosophy’. Enryō’s conception of ‘East–West Philosophy’ was most famously represented in his creation of what he called ‘The Great Hall of Philosophy’ (tetsugakudō 哲 学堂). In ‘The Great Hall of Philosophy’ were ‘enshrined’ thirteen ‘philosophers’ to whom visitors could come and pay homage. The choice of the thirteen was
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based on Enryō’s view of philosophical history seen from a Japanese national perspective. In his 1913 work A Glance at the World of Philosophy (Tetsukai ichibetsu 哲界一瞥), Enryō identified Confucius, Buddha, Socrates and Kant as the four representative figures in the history of world philosophy. Interestingly, as part of his explanation of the choice of these four figures, Enryō explicitly mentioned his exclusion of Jesus, stating both that ‘while Jesus was a great religious figure, he was not a philosopher’, and that ‘just glancing at these four names, it is obvious that Jesus is not at a level to be included’.107 He then went on to identify a further six figures who were representative of the development of ‘Eastern philosophy’, and a further three who were representative of the development of ‘Japanese philosophy’. These three figures were chosen one each from the traditions of Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism: Hirata Atsutane 平田 篤胤 (1776–1843), Hayashi Razan, and Gyōzen 凝然 (1240–1321), respectively. All are associated with integrating these religious/intellectual traditions into the framework of governance.108 Both Inoue Tetsujirō and Inoue Enryō were key figures in the discussions of the 1890s and early 1900s over what ‘philosophy’ was. In particular, they both developed the delineation between ‘philosophy’ and ‘religion’ during the ‘Debate on the Clash Between Education and Religion’. They developed this distinction in different ways, but with similar political objectives and overtones. Inoue Tetsujirō’s exposition of Confucianism as moral philosophy in his publications between 1900 and 1905 was in content and method quite different to Enryō’s ‘integration’ of ‘Buddhist philosophy’ and ‘Western philosophy’ from the late 1880s. But it rested on the same basic foundations, which essentially emphasized the separation of the political and individual spheres, supported by the separation of the categories of philosophy and religion. ‘Philosophy’ was created as a category which fitted into the modern pantheon of rational knowledge and thereby had a role in discussions affecting politics and governance. Christianity – as both the traditional anti-Christian arguments, and the new ones that relied on Western philosophy, sociology and science suggested – represented an irrational and potentially misleading element that had no role in serious social concerns. Importantly, underpinnings of liberal politics, in particular the ideas of free will and egalitarianism, were grouped in with ‘other Christian teachings’ as part of this irrational world. This view of a negative and unscientific religion was contrasted against ‘Japanese philosophy’, which supported a ‘national ethic’ that, like Western national ethics, was organic to the nation and therefore also capable of supporting the ideological imperatives explicitly articulated by Itō Hirobumi in the political sphere in the 1880s.
Conclusion: discursive fusion and enduring dichotomies The anti-Christian discourse of the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods rarely used contemporary or universal arguments; it was instead anti-Western, relying on conservative Chinese Confucian arguments, and xenophobic Japanese images of Christians left over from the seventeenth-century anti-Christian pogroms. The
Meiji anti-Christian discourse 159 discourse that emerged in the late 1880s, however, utilized contemporary Western philosophy to attack Christianity. This discourse was nationalist, but was also (at least nominally) pro-rationalist, and often pro-Western. Indeed, utilizing the argument that ‘Western philosophy’ stood in opposition to ‘religion’ was a key point in many anti-Christian texts of the 1880s and 1890s. On a larger level, the conservative or ‘loyalty’ side in the political debates against liberals and democrats during this period was increasingly employing complex Western philosophical ideas to support their arguments. A favourite was Spencerian social organism theory, but Neo-Kantian philosophy was also beginning to be employed to argue for organic and particularistic ideas of identity, and particularly by Tetsujirō to justify ‘traditional’ social hierarchy historically. Yet the new anti-Christian discourses that developed as part of this trend used not only modern Western philosophical and scientific arguments; they also ultimately utilized the anti-Christian traditions of the Tokugawa period as well. They did this, however, not simply by appropriating arguments and imagery from the earlier traditions, as had been done all through the 1800s, but more pertinently by shaping modern conceptions of national history based on dichotomies constructed around Tokugawa anti-Christian imagery. These constructs embedded an anti-Christian position as part of the base understanding of Japanese intellectual history. Consequently, these arguments, which linked the conception of what it was to be ‘Japanese’ to constructs that opposed Japan to the Christian ‘Other’, became enmeshed in the systems of education and academia. Just as certain conservative political ideas had been privileged through institutionalization in the constitution and Rescripts, so too this new anti-Christian discourse as national history was entrenched through a process of academic institutionalization. Tetsujirō’s emphasis in The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School on Razan’s role in ‘eliminating heterodoxy’ is interesting not only because of the amount of attention he focused on this issue, but also because of the historical role of Tokugawa sectarianism that it projected. The role he saw Tokugawa sectarianism (as exemplified by Razan) playing resembles the Mito-gaku and Jōdo-shu compilations’ description of the role of early Tokugawa anti-Christian ideas. Underlying their discussions of anti-heterodox thinking is an assumption that heterodox ideas are eliminated from societies (in this case Tokugawa society) by the force of other ideas. Christianity, for instance, is a particular heterodoxy, which is often described as being ‘cast out’ by Confucian anti-Christian discourse such as Razan’s. The (historically false) idea that anti-Christian discourse played an important and heroic role in the fight against Christianity in the early Tokugawa period is omnipresent in the late Tokugawa compilations that reintroduced these early Tokugawa texts to a wide audience. It was developed by Inoue Tetsujirō, academically in The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School, and ideologically in his lectures and The Clash Between Education and Religion. The creation of modern ideology in Japan has attracted much attention in recent times. This is in part because the process by which modern ideology emerged in Japan seems to fit neatly into recent theories that point out how the ‘invention of tradition’ is used to create a sense of national identity.109 To understand the
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‘invention of tradition’, or more pertinently the invention of modern nationalist historical paradigms of ‘tradition’, ‘thought’ and ‘religion’, however, it is necessary to look not only at the modern process of this construction, but also at the historical processes underlying the pre-modern discourses upon which they rest. Rather than simply rehashing arguments about the process of ‘modernization’, it is necessary to look at the concrete links between what people like to call ‘modern political society’ and the societies that immediately preceded them. While showing how anti-Christian discourse became enmeshed in modern imperial Japanese ideology through a number of events that occurred during the Meiji period, this chapter has also shown how the use of that anti-Christian discourse in modern state ideology was concretely linked to the creation of historical narratives of anti-Christian discourse from the late Tokugawa period. Interestingly, it is these elements of anti-Christian discourse originating in the Tokugawa period (for instance the portrayal of Christianity as ‘foreign’ and Confucianism as ‘indigenous’) that have been most resistant to revisions in history writing through the later twentieth century. Indeed it seems that much modern academic scholarship has struggled to transcend the assumptions and dichotomies put forward by the likes of Razan and the two Inoues, and has played into these paradigms rather than actually critiquing them.
Conclusion
Reading anti-Christian discourse: whose frameworks? Much of the source material of anti-Christian discourse in the Tokugawa period has come down to us by the hand of anti-Christian polemicists of the nineteenth century who researched, collated and republished anti-Christian writings from earlier centuries in the decade immediately leading into the Meiji Restoration. Most sources of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century anti-Christian discourse referenced in twentieth-century research were brought to scholars’ attention through their inclusion in two collections made in the 1860s by anti-Christian polemicists (Tokugawa Nariaki’s Sokkyohen and Ugai Tetsujō’s Hekija kankenroku).1 Even the sources of major debates of the 1890s are generally referenced from edited collections made at the time by Meiji anti-Christian polemicists (Seki Kōsaku’s collection of articles from the ‘debate over the clash between education and religion’: Inoue hakase to kirisutokyōto being the most widely used example).2 Likewise the earliest modern academic secondary literature on the intellectual history of the Tokugawa period was written by the leading anti-Christian polemicist of the Meiji period (Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku). Major originators of nineteenth-century anti-Christian writings – Aizawa Seishisai, Ugai Tetsujō, Inoue Tetsujirō and Inoue Enryō – thereby set the primary source canon and established the parameters of the secondary literature dealing with anti-Christian discourse.3 This is a key historiographical fact that no academic publication until this book has acknowledged. This volume has attempted to unmask the historical connections, and systems of remanufacture of anti-Christian discourse through the course of the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, tracing its development over the three-century period from 1600 to 1900. It has also presented the first comprehensive study which demonstrates links between the anti-Christian writings of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. There were a range of similarities and differences, but most importantly an array of concrete relationships and parallel functions between the two. Not only was nineteenth-century anti-Christian discourse clearly influenced by that of the seventeenth century, but there were also a range of similarities between both periods in terms of the way anti-Christian discourse was deployed during political confrontations against non-Christian internal Japanese opponents. In both periods,
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anti-Christian discourse was employed as a significant tool in the construction of ideological orthodoxies which encouraged maintenance and development of existent social and class power relations. But there were also important differences. Investigating the significance of those differences has involved unravelling the textual connections between historical sources from different periods. Understanding Meiji historiography’s influence on the construction of images of the Tokugawa intellectual past has been essential for understanding the real influence of Tokugawa ideas on Meiji politics.
Building ideology with history Unlike the picture presented in most twentieth-century scholarship, the relationship between Christian and non-Christian texts, figures and arguments directly before the early seventeenth-century ban on Christianity was no clash of cultures. In fact, there was a striking degree of parallel and commonality in many of the discussions which occurred separately among Christians and Confucians in Japan at this time. Some Christian and some Confucian writers, Habian and Fujiwara Seika being good examples, shared a focus on the human heart or soul and a dislike for the imposition of orthodoxy. Other Christian and Confucian writers, such as Pedro Gomez and Hayashi Razan, shared a zest for imposing orthodoxy, bringing ideas under institutional control, and linking the discernment of right action with institutional authority.4 In the opening decades of the seventeenth century, the latter trend became dominant within the Catholic Church in Japan and amongst Confucian scholars favoured by the shogunate.5 When anti-Christian writing emerged as a significant political discourse in the mid-seventeenth century it was clearly and directly related to this latter trend. Rather than being indicative of any kind of ‘East–West’ religious or cultural confrontation, it was instead focused on the political concerns of the time of writing. Because by this time Christianity had already been eradicated, those concerns had more to do with political issues pertinent to the emerging feudal politics of the Tokugawa shogunate. Hayashi Razan employed anti-Christian discourse against clearly non-Christian targets such as Kumazawa Banzan and Soshin. Suzuki Shōsan, Itakura Shigemune and others deployed it to justify particular forms of feudal and bureaucratic social organization in the provinces.6 In diplomatic correspondence, anti-Christian discourse was directly used to advance political arguments of the state.7 Here it interacted with more complex and longstanding ideological constructs like the Sino-centric civilization versus barbarism paradigm. It is clear thereby that at least by the 1650s in Japanese domestic and diplomatic political fields anti-Christian discourse had become a brand, or discursive tool, for delineating intellectual and political orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and for attacking clearly non-Christian political enemies and ideas. The anti-Christian discourse of the latter Tokugawa shogunate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was also deployed to fulfill ideological functions. Often this literature relied on early Tokugawa constructs. Miura Baien, Fujita Tōko and Aizawa Seishisai focused on the threat of the ‘stupid masses’, addressed
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Christianity primarily as a threat to the class system, and quoted liberally from early Tokugawa anti-Christian writings. But anti-Christian discourse at this time also played a role in the manufacture of larger, more comprehensive ideological constructs. The development of concepts like kokutai and sonnō jōi that went on to play key roles in the modern nationalist ideology of imperial Japan was heavily influenced by, and articulated in terms of, the parameters of Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse.8 Anti-Christian discourse thereby not only influenced ideas central to the Meiji Restoration, but showed a continuity of development through it. In the years directly after the Meiji Restoration, Yasui Sokken and Ugai Tetsujō deployed antiChristian arguments even more directly and in more specific and obvious political causes. This trend deepened as the Meiji period continued, reaching a climax in the use of the Christian issue to argue against liberalism and egalitarianism in the early 1890s. Although in this sense there was a strong continuity of anti-Christian discourse through the nineteenth century, on the other hand there was profound change to it, along with most Japanese political thought through the early Meiji period. That change culminated in the writings of the late 1880s and early 1890s where anti-Christian arguments were packaged in new pro-rational and pro-Western clothes. Inoue Enryō in particular, and Inoue Tetsujirō later, while on the one hand continuing to use Tokugawa anti-Christian images of the Christians as being against loyalty and sovereign, also claimed that because it was anti-nationalist, anti-scientific and anti-evolutionary, Christianity was therefore against the modern, Western world of science and nations. Anti-Christian discourse was thereby transformed into a key plank supporting a national ideology which conceived of Japan as different (and potentially opposed) to the West on religious or ethical grounds, while not in any way rejecting Western military, industrial, scientific, or political technologies, nor the rationalistic intellectual frameworks which supported them. Anti-Christian discourse thereby enabled an ideology through which Japanese elites could delineate an opposition to the West, without setting Japan in opposition to the sociological and technological systems of Western imperialism. It was within this kind of anti-Christian paradigm that Meiji ideologues like the Inoues portrayed the philosophical underpinnings of political liberalism (the concept of free will) and ideas of social egalitarianism (which supported calls for representative government) as anti-nationalist, anti-scientific and anti-modern, while simultaneously positioning them as against Japanese tradition. Western concepts linked to contemporary theories on the nature of modern nation states, social organism theory for example, clearly influenced modern national ideology formation in Japan as they did in many other parts of the world. In Japan, however, social evolutionary ideas were deployed in the context of the rise of Western science to cast the old Christian West as against modernity. This led to a portrayal of Japan sans Christianity as almost more ideally Western than the West. This kind of argument, seen in the likes of Inoue Enryō in the 1880s, far preceded the fascist period construction of Japan ‘overcoming modernity’.9
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By attacking liberalism through anti-Christian discourse as non-deterministic and therefore non-scientific and anti-Western, the likes of the Inoues skillfully played into and utilized the modernist fiction of a ‘secularized modernity’ for their own political purposes. Just as much twentieth-century scholarship was taken in by the early Tokugawa writers’ rhetorical ploy of pretending they were fighting Christianity when it had already been wiped out, so too it was taken in by this ploy of Meiji ideologues: that their political discourse and anti-Christian rhetoric was inherently different, showing a massive rupture with the past and a great leap forward into the world of modern Western rationalism. This is perhaps one reason why the two periods of anti-Christian discourse have so rarely been linked or discussed in tandem. Historians who insist on seeing Meiji thinking only as a radical modern rupture with the past, or as no more than an invention of tradition, have failed to remove the rhetorical wrapper from the package of Meiji ideology.
Modern secularization or something more? But does the fact that the ‘secular modernity’ argument was used as a trope of Meiji ideology mean it is not relevant to understanding the 300 years of antiChristian discourse examined in this book? After all, there is no doubt that in the construction of new regimes both in the early Tokugawa period and during the early Meiji anti-Christian discourse was used to justify a continued process of increasing the authority of the central government by bringing the religious sphere completely under the domination of the state. Was this part of a continuing narrative of history, dating from the sixteenth century as alluded to by Maruyama – the secularization of modernization?10 We could offer answers in both the affirmative and negative. Yes, there was development of the ideological use of anti-Christian discourse through the Tokugawa into the Meiji period. But the ideological use of anti-Christian discourse in the late Tokugawa and Meiji periods was also a process of redeploying old ideological paradigms from the early Tokugawa state and beyond: not an invention of tradition, but a redeployment of existent (and already engaged) political ideology. The importance of this cyclical use of ideology is also indicated by the fact that early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse itself repeatedly alluded to earlier ideological uses of anti-religious arguments. Reference to earlier Chinese sources linking Wudoumi rebellions with Daoist ideas in the Han is one striking example.11 The only development connected with anti-Christian discourse which could be termed uniquely modern (in the sense that it fits with political modernization theory) was examined in Chapter 5 of this volume. That was the attempt to project the politico-religious charismatic power of the ruler down to inspire direct loyalty to the state from the masses. This was an especially significant development because it also represented elements of the Tokugawa oligarchy’s acceptance and utilization of the main aspect of political organization they had associated with Christianity and thereby criticized: the direct religious links between the masses and God or sovereign.
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Since the seventeenth century, a key anti-Christian argument had been that Christianity, by encouraging the people to directly worship God, undermined the hierarchical structure of east Asian society by removing the roles of lords and sovereigns as intermediaries in the worship of Heaven. Developing ideas of Ogyū Sorai, Aizawa Seishisai deployed the concept of kokutai to construct a model whereby the Emperor as Heaven stood as the object of direct reverence for the entire nation. This led ineluctably to a system whereby the people were encouraged to directly revere the Emperor as Heaven without the intermediary structure of the feudal system – in the end precipitating the end of the very feudal structures that Mito was trying to preserve. The writings of Aizawa Seishisai himself, but also of major Meiji authors and politicians such as Itō Hirobumi, overtly linked the ideological role of Christianity in European empires to their own constructs of what developed into the emperor-centric nationalist ideology of the Japanese empire. They themselves thereby acknowledged the example of the ideological role of Christianity in the West in their own designs of national ideology.12 These ideological changes coincided with the change in the organization of the Japanese state from a still nominally feudal order to a centralized imperial order using modern Western state structures. Some might be tempted then to describe this in terms of a rupture from the past in a process of ‘modernization’. But can we really say that extending the religious charisma of the ruler down to inspire loyalty from the masses to the state is only a ‘modern’ phenomenon? After all, isn’t that the basis of tribalism? We could even argue that by importing political theory influenced by the tribal heritage of a comparatively primitive monist and monotheistic Judeo-Christian religious tradition, Japan regressed from a more ‘modern’ and civilized pluralist model of the state. Alternatively, focusing on political structure, we could say that the Meiji Restoration represented the final victory in Japan of the Chinese bureaucratic model of government over Japanese feudalism – but would that be an argument for ‘modernization’?13 And then there is the problem of the theoretical link between modernization and secularization. How can the idea of separation of church and state as one of the theoretical bases of a modern state be reconciled with the reality of the increasing role of religion in the systems of control of states in Japan during the period studied – and indeed in the world today? My point here is of course not to suggest that Japan is, or was, ‘not modern’. It is rather to point out that the idea of modernity in general, and the linkage of the concept of secularization to it in historical theory is not necessarily very useful for understanding the kinds of relationships between power and religion observed in this study. A glance at the way large sections of the British Empire were governed until quite recently shows a similar central role of spectres of religion in social control to what has been examined in this book – be it the use of religious rivalry in India, or Christian sectarianism in Scotland, Ireland and Australia. This calls into question the very theory that ‘secularization’ is part of the development of modern nations.14 Rather, the most successful modern nations seem to rely heavily on spectres of religion to maintain strong political control. Political deployment of religious paradigms has clearly played a central role in modern nationalist
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imperialism and governance – but does the word ‘secularization’ really do justice to the multifaceted use of such paradigms? Moreover, does such usage occur only in processes leading into ‘modern’ periods – or is it something the roots of which we find at a much deeper level in the political organization of societies as diverse as the Chinese Han dynasty of the second century and the European Union of the twenty-first century?15 This brings us back to one of the most striking things revealed in the study presented in this book: the extent of similarities in the ideological employment of anti-Christian discourse in two discrete historical periods during the constructions of two different states. The processes which have been described as secularization did not only occur during the nineteenth-century period leading towards the industrialized modern nation state. On the contrary, these processes were also at work during the construction of the Tokugawa state in the seventeenth century – and as Maruyama rightly pointed out, well before then also. Parallels in the political employment of religion and spectres of religion during the formation of the Tokugawa and Meiji states were clearly related to similar political contexts. But these were political contexts which can also be seen in other places and periods. Forceful increase in central government authority in response to political instability and to ensure the integrity of a state is not a phenomenon limited to Japanese history. Sure enough, this was what the beginning of the Tokugawa and Meiji periods had in common – but I would hazard a guess that the same kind of phenomenon can be seen in many other societies and periods. Perhaps the increasing use of religion and the spectre of religion in the global politics of the early twenty-first century could be explained in terms of attempts to address the decline in state power brought on by globalization and corporatization, in much the same way that the uses of anti-Christian discourse were linked to moves to increase state power in the two periods dealt with in this book. It is through these kinds of historical patterns – cyclical rather than linear, and universalist rather than particularist – that the ideological role of antiChristian discourse in Japan over the 300 years studied in this book, and indeed the histories of Tokugawa and Meiji ideologies in general can perhaps be better understood.
Notes
Introduction 1 No new treaty was actually ratified, rather the Japanese and Soviet governments agreed on this day that they would return to respecting the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty, which the pre-revolutionary Russian government and Japan had ratified in 1905 to end the Russo-Japanese War. This treaty and other follow-up agreements between the Russian Empire and Japan had been ignored in the period following the Russian Revolution of 1917. 2 This English translation of kokutai is drawn from the official English translation of the Imperial Rescript on Education published by the Japanese government in 1931. There kokutai is translated as ‘the fundamental character of our empire’ (Monbushō 文部省 (Ministry of Education), Kaneifutsudoku kyōiku chokugo shakusan 漢英仏獨 教育勅語釈纂 (Chinese, English, French, German, Imperial Rescript on Education Collected Translations), Tokyo: The Herald Press (authorized publishers), 1931). 3 Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰, Kinsei nihon kokuminshi, Tokugawa bakufujōki, gekan, 近 世日本国民史、徳川幕府上記、下巻、Tokyo: Minyūsha, 1936, pp. 1–3. 4 The classic foundational establishment of this linkage in academic writing was in Inoue Tetsujirō’s 井上哲次郎 Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku日本朱子学派之 哲学, Tokyo: Seigyōsha, 1905, pp. 2–4. After 1945 the word kokutai became taboo, but some Japanese scholars still alluded to a similar central role of anti-Christian discourse in the development of Japanese nationalism and a ‘modern Japan’; a good example is Nakamura Hajime中村元, Kinsei nihon no hihanteki seishin 近世日本の 批判的精神, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1965, pp. 149–66. 5 Andrew Barshay argues that: ‘There can be no question that the promulgation of the Constitution, Education Rescript, Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, and other hortatory edicts, represents the crystalization of an enabling ideology that, combined with the proven power of official bureaucracy stamped Japanese political evolution with a heavily statist character’ (Andrew Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988, p. 10). 6 See, for instance, Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 132–5. 7 Maruyama Masao 丸山真男, Gendai seiji no shisō to kōdō 現代政治の思想と行動, Tokyo: Miraisha, 1964. 8 Victor Lieberman, Beyond Binary Histories: Re-imagining Eurasia to c. 1830, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999, p. 37. 9 The deliberate nature of this manufacture of a nationalist ideology is discussed at length in Chapter 6 of this book. Discussion of this can also be found in Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, pp. 102–56.
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10 The standard work describing the interaction between the state and legitimating ideology in the Tokugawa period is Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs 1570–1680, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. 11 Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. 22–3. 12 A similar use of the word can also be seen in intellectual history writings of the likes of J.G.A. Pocock. For instance, J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975, p. 341. Here Pocock emphasizes the political impact of discourses on a group’s image of itself as a marker of that discourse being ideological. 13 Terry Eagleton, Ideology: an introduction, London: Verso, 1991, p. 8. 14 Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory, pp. 13–19. 15 Maruyama Masao, 丸山真男, Kōgiroku 講義録, vol. 6, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2000, pp. 119–20. 16 As articulated by Maruyama in comments following on from the above quote, ibid., p. 129. 17 Originally and most famously in Maruyama Masao, Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū日 本政治思想史研究, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1952 (English translation: Maruyama Masao, Mikiso Hane (trans.), Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1974). The thesis presented in this volume, however, was written hurriedly during the final stages of the Second World War. Important works of the 1980s which overcame problems in Maruyama’s thesis include: Kojima Yasunori小島康敬, Soraigaku to hansorai徂徠学と反徂 徠, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1987; and Watanabe Hiroshi渡辺浩, Kinsei nihon shakai to sōgaku近世日本社会と宋学, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1985. Maruyama himself had also comprehensively revised his own thesis by the 1960s as can be seen in Maruyama Masao, Kōgiroku, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1998–2000 (in particular, the second half of volume 6, 2000). The influence of this later, more developed thesis of Maruyama’s can be seen in a lot of Japanese scholarship since the late 1990s; interestingly, most often in work by scholars who produced some of the key research which overturned the thesis presented in the 1945 work. See for instance: Kurozumi Makoto黒住真, Kinsei nihon shakai to jukyō 近世日本社会と儒教, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2003; Kurozumi Makoto, Fukusūsei no nihon shisō 複数性の日本思想, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2006; Sueki Fumihiko末木文美士, Kindai nihon no shisō saikō 1, Meiji shisōkaron 近代日本の思想再考 I: 明治思想家論, Tokyo: Transview, 2004; Sueki Fumihiko, Kindai nihon no shisō saikō 2, kindai nihon to bukkyō 近代 日本の思想再考II:近代日本と仏教, Tokyo: Transview, 2004; Watanabe Hiroshi渡 辺浩, Higashi ajia no ōken to shisō 東アジアの王権と思想, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1997; Kojima Yasunori 小島康敬, Kagami no naka no nihon to kankoku 鏡の中の日本と韓国, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2002. 18 Kurozumi Makoto黒住真, Kinsei Nihon shakai to jukyō 近世日本社会と儒教, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2003, p. 158. 19 The above quote from Tokutomi is one example, but a more central academic example would be Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, pp. 1–6. 20 For instance, John Breen and Mark Williams, Japan and Christianity: Impacts and Responses, London: Macmillan, 1996, p. 1. 21 For instance, Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Nanbanji kōhaiki, jakyō taii, myōtei mondō, hadaiusu 南蛮寺興廃記・邪教大意、妙貞問答, 破提宇子 Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1964, p. 117; George Elison, Deus Destroyed, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 153; Ide Katsumi 井出勝美, Kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu キリシタン思想史研究序説, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1995, p. 186. In Elison, acknowledgment of the complex array of reasons behind the suppression is alluded to (p. 4), yet the discussion and analysis of anti-Christian discourse reverts to
Notes (pp. 5–11)
22
23 24
25 26 27 28
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characterizing the function of that discourse in terms of the rhetorical categories within which it is presented; in other words, as an East-versus-West dichotomy (this is particularly the case in Elison’s discussion of texts like Myōtei Mondō, Hadaiusu 破提宇子, and Haiyaso 排耶蘇, for instance at pp. 165–6). Ikkō Ikki were peasant states united using the charismatic power of ikkō 一向 (Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗) Buddhism. They controlled significant areas of Japan during the late fifteenth, and early to mid sixteenth centuries. These states are often characterized as being broadly egalitarian in nature. See for instance, Pierre Souryri, The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 181–95. For a good examination of the latter, see Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, status, power, law, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. Significant anti-Christian writing continued through the early 1900s (see discussion of Inoue Tetsujirō towards the end of Chapter 6 and also reference to works by Katō Hiroyuki and others in bibliography), but the study of modern anti-Christian discourse in this book is restricted to its peak period in the late 1800s. A reasonably current example in English of a history presented within this kind of dichotomy is George Elison, Deus Destroyed, op. cit. For a discussion of early Tokugawa Confucianism in this light see Kurozumi Makoto, ‘The Nature of Early Tokugawa Confucianism’, in Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 20, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 337–75. As evidenced by collections like NST25, Washio Junkyō 鷲尾順敬, Nihon shisō tōsōshiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1970, and the corresponding choices of translation in George Elison’s Deus Destroyed. For instance, nearly all the sources used in modern studies of early Tokugawa antiChristian writings like those of Ebisawa Arimichi and George Elison can be found in these compilations. See Elison, Deus Destroyed; and Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.) Kirishitansho/Haiyasho キリシタン書・排耶書, Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想体系, vol. 25, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970 (NST25).
1 Japanese Christian thought 1 An obvious example being the quote from Tokutomi Sohō at the head of the Introduction to this book. 2 According to Jesuit records, Habian entered the society in 1586, and studied Latin and scholastic philosophy in the Jesuit colleges in Japan. He is recorded as also having developed his knowledge of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto at the same time. This may have been related to one of his main tasks at the college, the teaching of Japanese language and culture to the European priests as well as the young Japanese Jesuits. Habian was responsible for editing a version of Heike Monogatari for use as a Japanese language textbook, in addition to supervising a range of other publishing projects (Habian (annotator and editor), Heike Monogatari 平家物語, Iida Yukiko 飯田雪子 (transcription), Heike Monogatari, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1966). I use the name Habian because this is the way Habian himself spelt his name in the last work we have by him – Hadaiusu. In Myōtei Mondō he called himself Fukansai Habian, which Elison and others have translated as Fukan Fabian. Obviously Habian was derived from the Portuguese/Latin rendering of the name of the third-century pope and martyr St. Fabian. In Japanese Jesuit records extant from the early seventeenth century the name was also spelt this way in Roman script. However, given that by the end of his life he seems to have not been a Christian, and that we have no sources extant where he himself gives a version of his name in Roman letters, I have preferred to simply use a phonetic transcription of the Japanese name he himself last used. 3 On Habian’s general biography including anti-Christian activities and reference to Jesuit records see: Ide Katsumi 井出勝美, Kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu キリシ
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4
5
6 7 8 9 10 11
12
13
Notes (pp. 11–14) タン思想史研究序説, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1995, pp. 186–90; George Elison, Deus Destroyed, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 142–157. This chapter concentrates on Habian’s Christian ideas and therefore does not deal with Hadaiusu. Analysis of Hadiausu is conducted in the next chapter, further analysis of this text can be found in Kiri Paramore, ‘Seiji shihai to haiyaron: tokugawa zenki ni okeru yasokyō hihan no seijiteki kinō’ 政治支配と排耶論――徳川前期における 耶蘇教批判の政治的機能, PhD dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, 2006, pp. 82–8. Habian was portrayed as a caricatured example of the treacherous Christian in a number of Tokugawa period works. A notable example is the famous anti-Christian work Kirishitan Monogatari 吉理支丹物語. First published in 1637, this work became popular when reprinted by disciples of Suzuki Shōsan in the 1660s and continued to be influential throughout the Tokugawa period. These works are discussed at length in Chapter 3 of this book. Although the Habian represented in Kirishitan Monogatari (along with most of the other contents of the work) is clearly fictitious, this has not stopped this representation affecting the way modern scholars portray Habian in their academic writing. See for instance, Ebisawa Arimichi’s treatment of Habian’s apostasy in NST25, pp. 602–3. As time went by, the portrayal of Habian in literature became increasingly monstrous, see for instance, Nanbanji kōhaiki 南蛮寺興廃記, in Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.), Nanbanji kōhaiki / Jakyōtaii 邪教大意/ Myōtei Mondō / Hadaius, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1964. This discourse is seen not only in more literary works like Kirishitan Monogatari, but can also be observed in more intellectually inclined texts from the mid-seventeenth century, particularly those of Hayashi Razan. A famous example is the short text Haiyaso 排耶蘇, which can be found in Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū 林羅 山文集, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1977, pp. 672–3. See for instance, Ebisawa Arimichi, Nanbanji kōhaiki / Jakyōtaii / Myōtei Mondō / Hadaius, pp. 117–18; Ide Katsumi, Kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu, pp. 258–9. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, Nanban kōki 南蛮広記, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1925, pp. 96–7. For instance, Ebisawa Arimichi, Nanbanji kōhaiki, jakyō taii, myōtei mondō, hadaiusu, p. 277. Elison’s Deus Destroyed inverted the value judgement of the Christian historians to describe Habian’s apostasy in terms of a natural loss by Christianity in a ‘clash of dogmas’ (op. cit., pp. 252–4). While a similar paradigm also exists in scholastic philosophy, Habian presents his argument using the Chinese terms familiar from the Buddhist/Confucian texts. See the Tentō texts from this period Shingaku gorinsho 心学五倫書 and Honsaroku 本佐録 in Ishida Ichirō (ed.) Fujiwara Seika / Hayashi Razan, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 28, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975 (NST28), pp. 257–301. Discussion on the relationship between Confucianism and Christianity in these texts can be found in the same volume on pp. 490–4. Fukansai Habian Myōtei Mondō, in Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.) Kirishitan kyōrisho キ リシタン教理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993 (KKRS MT), p. 290. Interestingly, this theme of personal loss also manifests in the careers of many historically verifiable intellectual figures of this period, including Habian himself, the contemporary Confucian Fujiwara Seika 藤原惺窩, and the Buddhist charismatic and figure in the shogunate of the mid-seventeenth century, Soshin 祖心 (discussed in Chapters 2 and 4, respectively). All these figures were orphaned as a result of war in the late sixteenth century. Ide Katsumi, Kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu, p. 264; Ebisawa Arimichi, ‘Kaidai’ 解題, in Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.), Kirishitan kyōrisho キリシタン教理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993 (KKRS EA), p. 512.
Notes (pp. 14–24)
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14 For further discussion of the significance of Habian’s approach to human ethics see: Kiri Paramore, ‘ “Habian” tai “Fukan” 17seiki shoto nihon no shisō bunmyaku ni okeru habian shisō no igi to Haiyaso’ 「「ハビアン」対「不干」―十七世紀 初頭日本の思想文脈におけるハビアン思想の意義と『排耶蘇』」, Nihon shisōshigaku 日本思想史学, no. 36, 2004. 15 Ebisawa Arimichi, Kirishitan nanban bungaku nyūmon キリシタン南蛮文学入門, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1991, p. 117. 16 George Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 158, 169. 17 Detailed development of this argument, including the emphasis on causation (sakuin 作因) can be seen at KKRS MT, pp. 294–6. 18 Ibid., p. 301. 19 In the metaphysics of Song Confucianism (sometimes referred to as Neo-Confucianism in English), creation is explained through reference to the Supreme Ultimate 太極 (Ch. taiji; Jp. taikyoku) and begins with the initial division of Yin and Yang. 20 KKRS MT, p. 357. 21 Ibid., pp. 370–5. 22 Ibid., p. 386. 23 Ibid., pp. 394–5. My use of the Latin terms instead of English in these translations follows Habian’s original text which uses Japanese phonetic renderings of the Latin terms instead of translating the meanings into Japanese. 24 Ibid., p. 395. 25 Ibid., p. 399. 26 Ibid., p. 397. 27 Ibid., pp. 398–9. 28 Ibid., pp. 399–400. 29 Ibid., p. 395. Similar references can be found throughout the text, see for instance, pp. 301–3, 354, 374, 367. In the reference on p. 367, Habian praises Confucianism in terms suggesting that Confucian ethics acknowledge the God-given attributes of anima rationalis. 30 See for instance, Ebisawa Arimichi, KKRS EA, p. 512. 31 Dochirina Kirishitan in Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.) Kirishitan kyōrisho キリシタン教理 書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993 (KKRS DC), p. 15. 32 KKRS DC, p. 18. 33 Ibid., p. 38. 34 Ibid., p. 17. 35 Ibid., pp. 19–20. 36 Ibid., p. 23. 37 Ibid., p. 24. 38 KKRS MT, p. 407. 39 Ibid., p. 408. 40 Kirishitan kokoroegaki in Ebisawa Arimichi (ed.) Kirishitan kyōrisho キリシタン教 理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993 (KKRS KE), p. 179. 41 NST25, pp. 183–4. 42 NST25, p. 232. 43 Lat. Compendium Catholicae Veritatis; Jp. Kōgi Yōkō (講義要綱). Gomez served in this position from 1590. Today Jesuit ‘provinces’ usually lie along national boundaries. At this time, however, the Jesuit Order in Japan constituted a ‘sub-province’ within the larger East Indies province. Thus, although a provincial inspector (like Valignano) ranked above Gomez, within the order in Japan Gomez held the supreme position. 44 Ide Katsumi, Kirishitan shisōshi josetsu, p. 284. 45 Ohara Satoru 尾原悟, Iezusukai nihon korejiyo no kōgiroku yōkō イエズス会日本 コレジヨの講義要綱, vol. 2, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1998, pp. 29–30. I have chosen to focus on examination of Compendium instead of Japan’s Catechism here for a range of reasons. Firstly, as mentioned, Compendium is more thorough. More importantly,
172
46 47
48
49
50
51 52
53 54
Notes (pp. 24–26) however, there are significant problems with the consistency of certain elements of Japan’s Catechism as it has come down to us, which make it difficult to consider it authentic as a unified text. For more on this issue, see Kiri Paramore, ‘Seiji shihai to haiyaron – tokugawa zenki ni okeru yasokyō hihan gensetsu no seijiteki kinō’, PhD dissertation, University of Tokyo, 2006, footnote 65, pp. 44–6. Ide Katsumi, Kirishitan shisōshi josetsu, p. 284. The fact that in previous research this passage does not seem to have been used in explaining the ‘anomalies’, or what I would rather call diversity, in Japanese Jesuit thought of this period is probably due to the fact that the discovery of Compendium in the archives was fairly recent. It was transcribed from manuscripts and printed into book form only in the late 1990s. The influence of Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 天主實義 (Jp. Tenshu Jitsugi) on anti-Christian thought in Japan is discussed in Kiri Paramore, ‘Seiji shihai to haiyaron – tokugawa zenki ni okeru yasokyō hihan gensetsu no seijiteki kinō’, pp. 49–62. The influence of Tianzhu Shiyi on anti-Christian thought in Korea is discussed in Kang Jae-eon 姜在彦, ‘Chōsen jukyō no tenshukyō hihan’ 朝鮮儒教の天主教批判, Shisō 思想, No. 792, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990, pp. 87–9. From the 1620s right through into the eighteenth century, the Ricci approach to Christianity, usually favoured by the Jesuits in China, repeatedly came under attack from doctrinaire Catholics. In the eighteenth century, Rome directly ruled against the pro-Ricci camp. A thorough examination of the historical conflict between the Ricci approach to Christianity and its opponents through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can be found in the first two-thirds of Paul Rule, K’ung-Tzu or Confucius – The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986, especially pp. 88–100. In addition to being the main focus of histories of Christian–Confucian interaction in European languages, references to Ricci can be found in such sources as the official Chinese histories of the Ming Empire. Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 et al. (eds), Mingshi 明 史, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974, pp. 339, 359, 528, 2438, 6493, 8459–61. A concrete example of this is Hayashi Razan’s Haiyaso 排耶書, NST25, p. 415, where Tianzhu Shiyi and Myōtei Mondō are mentioned together by Razan. It was particularly in the early years of the seventeenth century (the years directly after the publication of Tianzhu Shiyi and Myōtei Mondō) that conflict arose between Ricci supporters in China and Japan-based Jesuits. For more on this see Paul Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius – The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism, pp. 85–7, and Ide Katsumi, Kirishitan shisōshi josetsu, pp. 338–9. For more on this see Kiri Paramore, ‘Seiji shihai to haiyaron: Tokugawa zenki ni okeru yasokyō hihan gensetsu no seijiteki kinō’, PhD dissertation, University of Tokyo, 2006, pp. 49–50, footnote 67. I translate from Tianzhu Shiyi using the original Chinese language text printed in Gotō Motomi’s 後藤基巳 annotated Japanese edition (Gotō Motomi, Tenshu jitsugi 天主実義, Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971), as well as the Chinese printed in the Chinese–English edition The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven, edited by Edward J. Malatesta S.J. (Matteo Ricci S.J., The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven, Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1985). Both these texts have errors and omissions but they are also both so well established that those errors are by now common knowledge among specialists and are taken into account in the one case where the text is inaccurate in a translation I use in this chapter. I have referred to, but usually not followed, Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-Chen S.J.’s English translation contained in the latter text. Most differences between their translations and mine arise from the fact that Lancashire and Kuo-Chen are clearly trying to communicate the Christian meaning of the text in the philosophical/religious terms of today, whereas I translate sometimes more literally in order to demonstrate the cross-overs between other scholastic and Confucian texts current in the seventeenth century. This first quote can be found in the
Notes (pp. 26–32)
55 56 57
58 59 60
61
62 63
64 65 66
67 68
69 70 71
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Gotō text on p. 41 and in the Malatesta/Lancashire/Kuo-Chen on pp. 68–9, para. 23. I translated lingcai (Jp. reisai) 霊才 as ‘soul/anima’. This differs from the Lancashire/ Kuo-Chen translation as ‘intellect’. Gotō, p. 41, Malatesta pp. 68–9, para. 23. KKRS MT, p. 401. Tianzhu Shiyi, Gotō: pp. 43–4, Lancashire: pp. 84–5 (paras. 45 and 46). I have translated the four causes literally from the Chinese as maker, form, matter and end. Standard English terms used today in translation of Aristotle are: active, formal, material and final. Tianzhu Shiyi, Gotō: p. 150, Lancashire: pp. 222–3 (paras. 234–5). Tianzhu Shiyi, Gotō: p. 44, Lancashire: pp. 70–1 (para. 28). For instance, in the Gotō text, such quotes can be found on p. 89 (from The Doctrine of the Mean and The Rites of the Zhou), p. 90 (from The Book of Changes and The Book of Rites), p. 124 (from The Book of Odes and The Book of Documents), p. 128 (from the Spring and Autumn Annals), p. 183 (from The Book of Documents), p. 295 (from Mencius), among others. The Supreme Ultimate 太極 (Ch. taiji, Jp. taikyoku) is considered in Song metaphysics to be what existed before the initial division of Yin and Yang giving birth to the universe. Most modern scholars agree that the use of the Supreme Ultimate theory to systematically explain the origins of the universe is an attribute of so-called ‘NeoConfucian’ thought. In other words, it is a product of trends in Confucianism which emerged from the tenth century C.E. onwards and were systematized at the end of the twelfth century, rather than being part of older kinds of ancient Confucianism. Gotō, pp. 70–1, Malatesta, pp. 106–7, para. 78. Gotō, pp. 89–90, Malatesta, pp. 120–5, para. 103. There is an omission of the word guo 国 (country) here in the Malatesta Chinese text although Lancashire and KuoChen’s English translation correctly includes the word. I follow the Chinese here printed in the Gotō text. The source of The Doctrine of the Mean quotation can be found in Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集注, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983 (ZX), p. 27. The Analects reference can be found in ZX, p. 65. Gotō, p. 194, Malatesta, pp. 324–5, para 384. A good example was one of Ricci’s teachers at the Collegium Romanum, the astronomy professor Cristoph Clavius S.J. (1537–1612). Discussed in D.E. Mungello, Curious Land – Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1989, pp. 25–8. Ibid. In Myōtei Mondō, Habian demonstrates a wide knowledge of Buddhist, Song Confucian, and Shinto thought. Some commentators have assumed he acquired this knowledge in a Buddhist seminary before he joined the Jesuits at the age of 18. There is, however, no documentary evidence attesting to Habian’s training before he joined the Jesuits at 18. Nevertheless, I would agree that given Habian’s literacy, it is likely he had some education before joining the Jesuits and that would likely have been at a (Buddhist) temple. However, given Habian’s age when he joined the Jesuits, and his erudition in Song Confucian thought in particular, there is cause to think that he acquired much of his knowledge of east Asian thought through self-study while with the Jesuits. Given that one of his main duties as a young Jesuit was as an instructor of Japanese language and culture, it is likely that he continued to read and work on Japanese and Chinese texts while in the Jesuit Order as part of his duties. His publication of an annotated version of Heike Monogatari while a Jesuit is an example of his work on East Asian literature while with the Jesuits. Ebisawa, KKRS EA, p. 512. Hayashi Razan, Haiyaso, in Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 673. Ebisawa Arimichi, KKRS EA, p. 512.
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Notes (pp. 34–37)
2 Japanese Confucianism and Japanese Christianity 1 Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Nihon kinsei no shisō to bukkyō 日本近世の思想と仏 教, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 1989; Nakamura Hajime 中村元, Kinsei nihon no hihanteki seishin 近世日本の批判的精神 (The Critical Spirit of Early-Modern Japan), Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1965. 2 The idea that the rise in popularity of Tokugawa Confucianism affected a move towards rationalism was established already by the beginning of the twentieth century through works like Inoue Tetsujirō’s Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku. Maruyama Masao’s Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, although not focusing on this point, did not challenge the idea that Tokugawa Confucianism had a rationalizing effect on Japanese thought. Although this picture of Tokugawa thought as rationalist had already been approached critically in the 1960s by scholars such as Minamoto Ryōen (a classic example well known in the Western world being Minamoto Ryōen 源了 円, Giri to ninjō義理と人情, Tokyo: Chūōkōron shinsha, 1969), a recent and much more comprehensive presentation of a competing picture emphasizing the diversity and spirituality of Tokugawa thought can be seen in Kurozumi Makoto’s 2003 and 2006 works Kinsei nihon shakai to jukyō, and Fukusūsei no nihon shisō. 3 Of course, this assumption has been well challenged in late twentieth-century scholarship, most notably in English through Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. But the paradigm lives on even today as can be seen in the general inclination of the coverage of this period in recent publications such as William Theodore de Bary et al. (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 4 For discussion of the development of figures who distinguished themselves as ‘Confucian’, against Buddhist paradigms, see Abe Yoshio 阿部吉雄, Nihon shushigaku to Chōsen 日本朱子学と朝鮮, Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1976, p. 62. 5 References in Myōtei Mondō include quotes from Zhuzi wenji 朱子文集 (pp. 356–8), Jinsilu 近思録 (p. 357), and numerous references to the Zhouyi 周易 (Jp. Shūeki) and Sishu jizhu 四書集註. 6 KKRS MT, p. 356. 7 KKRS MT, p. 355. 8 KKRS MT, p. 367. 9 KKRS MT, p. 400. Not only the emphasis on the classic Confucian virtues of benevolence, justice, custom, knowledge and faith, but also the continued use of the associated Neo-Confucian concept of ‘Principle’ gives these passages a heavy Confucian feel. 10 KKRS DC, p. 61. 11 Joseph Munitiz and Philip Endean (trans.), Saint Ignatius of Loyola – Personal Writings, London: Penguin, 1996, pp. 351–3. 12 See Ishige Tadashi 石毛忠, ‘Shingaku gorinsho no seiritsu jijō to sono shisōteki tokushitsu’ 心学五倫書の成立事情とその思想的特質, NST28, pp. 490–504. 13 See Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真攻 and Ozawa Tomio 小沢富夫, Bizen shingaku wo meguru ronsōsho 備前心学をめぐる論書, Tokyo: Tamagawa daigaku shuppanbu, 1998, pp. 478–9. 14 This description in modern historical writing dates back to at least Inoue Tetsujirō’s Nihon shushigaku no tetsugakuha of 1905, can still be observed in Maruyama Masao’s Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan and lives on even if in more subtly presented forms in other mid- and later twentieth-century writings, for instance W.J. Boot, The Adoption and Adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The Role of Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan, Second version, Leiden: W.J. Boot, 1992. Total reform of this picture and a delineation of Seika in a more diversified intellectual context can be found most notably in Herman Ooms’s Tokugawa Ideology, op. cit. (footnote 3
Notes (pp. 37–42)
15
16 17 18 19
20 21 22
23
24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 32 33 34
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above). As will be discussed below, Seika’s writings included influences from writers later associated with Wang Yang-ming-ist rather than Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism. Of course, both these trends, which Hayashi Razan and others identified as opposing schools of thought, can be identified by the English language term ‘Neo-Confucian’, which can sometimes confuse issues. Of course, rationalist tendencies in thought often arise out of spiritualist movements. Much counter-Reformation thought, and indeed the foundation of the Jesuits themselves, is often associated with spiritualist movements and especially with lay meditation circles. The emergence of rationalist tendencies in Islam is also often observed in areas where Sufism and other mystical traditions are strong. For instance, Kanaya Osamu 金谷治, ‘Fujiwara Seika no jukyō shisō’ 藤原惺窩の儒 教思想 in Ishida Ichirō 石田一郎, Kanaya Osamu (eds), Fujiwara Seika / Hayashi Razan, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 28, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975 (NST28), p. 451. Fujiwara Seika, Daigaku yōryaku 大学要略, NST28, p. 44. Ibid. p. 47. This is a direct quote from Lin. A classic English translation of this passage is James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vols. I, II, Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1991 (a reprint of the classic Oxford University Press printing of 1935), pp. 357–8. The passage in the original can be found in ZX, p. 3. Zhu Xi’s commentary on The Great Learning in ZX, p. 4. Seika uses the same sentence in his commentary on the same work in NST28, p. 57 NST28, p. 57. For further discussion of Seika’s idea of ‘investigating things’ and a range of his writings on the topic meticulously translated into English by W.J. Boot, see Wm. Theodore de Bary et al. (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, Volume 2, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 42–9 (these page numbers are for the hardback volume including the post-Meiji second part of Volume 2). See Ishida Ichirō’s comments in NST28, pp. 421–4. While it is presently fashionable to argue that there was no orthodox position within Confucianism in Japan in the early seventeenth century, Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹 (1608–48), a Confucian of that period and one of Razan’s main competitors, himself made it abundantly clear that Razan was identified as a representative of a new orthodoxy (NST29, p. 19). Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism and its influence in Japan at this time will be discussed in further detail below. NST28, pp. 198–202. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, pp. 346–9. For more on this and its political significance for later seventeenth-century thought see Ishida Ichirō, NST28, pp. 471–89; for later writings in Hayashi Razan Bunshū emphasizing Wang Yang-ming Confucianism as a heterodoxy see Hayashi Razan Bunshū, pp. 92–4. These letters can be found in Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, pp. 12–16. NST28, p. 204. All of this quote except the final sentence is taken from W.J. Boot’s translations in de Bary, Sources of Japanese Tradition, p. 51. For more on this see W.J. Boot, The Adoption and Adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The Role of Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan, Second version, Leiden: W.J. Boot, 1992, pp. 165–71. NST28, p. 423. NST28, p. 425. In addition to the Tentō thought examples offered earlier, such trends can also be seen in aspects of the writing of figures like Kumazawa Banzan and Soshin, as will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. For an excellent description of the relationship between the political context of the Japanese Warring States period and religious and intellectual developments during
176
35
36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44
Notes (pp. 42–47) this time, see Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Sengoku shūkyō shisōron 戦国宗教思想論, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 1989, in particular pp. 410–28. Tenkō, or turning, is a favoured word in Japanese historiography most commonly applied to leftists who turned over to the ultra-nationalist side in modern history. The number of such cases is so large that there is even an emerging field of ‘tenkō studies’. Habian seems to be one of the earliest historical figures in relation to whom this term is commonly used. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, Nanban Kōki 南蛮広記, pp. 96–7. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, Kirishitan hakugaishichū no jinbutsu jiseki 切支丹迫 害史中の人物事跡, Tokyo: Dōbunkan, 1930, pp. 465–95. Ibid., p. 471. Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 157–64. Elison’s research was at the time a huge improvement on the contemporary orthodoxy represented by Ebisawa, who argued that Habian’s apostasy was simply proof that ‘he was not up to being a religious person’ (Ebisawa, Nanbanji kōhaiki, jakyō taii, myōtei mondō, hadaiusu, p. 277). Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 166. The contents of this section support the suggestions of Anesaki and Elison as to possible organizational/political motivations for Habian’s departure from the order. NST25, p. 435. Ibid., p. 426. Ibid., p. 429. There are some difficult issues related to the translation of this passage. I translate several key words here differently to Elison (Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 266.). In this paragraph, the first appearance of the word ‘Nature’ is here a translation of the word hōsei 法性. Elison translates hōsei here as ‘thusness’ and in another section as ‘the law body of thusness’. The term is Buddhist and has its own complex history explained by Elison in footnote 93 on pp. 440–1. Elison identifies the Buddhist textual origins of this term in the history of Buddhist doctrine and translates accordingly. In the context that this phrase occurs in Hadaiusu, however, I think simply using the term ‘Nature’ makes the comparison between sentient creation by a being contrasted against existence as natural immanence more clear. Elison’s emphasis on translating terms in line with the philological origins of those terms often means that his translation into English is based on the terms’ role in different arguments, which were often carried out many centuries previously and often in different cultures. This removes the translation too far from the context of Habian’s argument and the time, space and culture in which he was arguing. The intellectual debate occurring in this time and space was by its very nature intellectually syncretic. It involved arguments based on a range of doctrinal traditions interacting dynamically. It was therefore by its very nature completely different to the context from which ‘philologically authentic’ English translations are taken. A similar problem arises in Elison’s translation of the Zhu Xi-ist phrase kyorei fumai 虚霊不昧. As Elison points out, this phrase has both Buddhist and Confucian backgrounds, but is most commonly associated with Zhu Xi’s commentary on The Great Learning. As Elison states, this is clearly the context of the phrase when used by Habian in Myōtei Mondō. Elison seems to think that in Hadaiusu the term is used in a Buddhist sense, probably because the term hōsei coming directly before it is Buddhist in origin. This suggestion also fits in with Elison’s view that Hadaiusu is written from a broadly ‘Buddhist’ perspective. I think the phrase should be read in the Zhu Xi-ist sense as in Myōtei Mondō. That is because I do not see a need to resolve the use of Buddhist and Confucian phrases in the same sentence by associating the utterance with one school or another. It must be remembered that the general nature of most intellectual discourse in Japan at this time, and especially Habian’s, was syncretist. Regardless of these issues, kyorei fumai is an extremely hard phrase to translate. Basically it relates to the original presence of ‘the illumination of virtue’ in the undisturbed soul or mind. In Myōtei Mondō this is likened to anima rationalis.
Notes (pp. 47–54)
45 46 47 48 49 50
51
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Here in Hadaiusu the argument is that it is endowed in nature. The argument thereby becomes the classic one relating to the existence or non-existence of sentient agency in creation. For a solid analysis of the meaning of Zhu Xi’s phrase kyorei fumai, see Shimada Kenji 島田虔次 Daigaku/Chūyō 大学・中庸, vol. 1 上, Chūgoku kotensen 6, Asahi shinbunsha, 1993, pp. 47–8. NST25, p. 126. NST25, pp. 431–2. NST25, p. 432. The quotation beginning ‘The mind of human beings is only …’ is found in Zhu Xi’s introduction to The Doctrine of the Mean, ZX, p. 14. NST25, p. 432. NST24, p. 441. The quotation beginning ‘In all cases the precepts …’ comes from Zhu Xi’s introduction to The Great Learning, ZX, p. 1. This is further made clear in passages such as the last line of the seventh step in Hadaiusu, where Habian argues: ‘To attempt to discern Heaven’s Will using the essence 気 (Ch. qi, Jp. ki) of human beings is the ultimate ignorance’ (NST25, p. 442). Similar references in these terms to the state and the five relations can be found by comparing Hadaiusu (NST25, p. 441) with Suzuki Shōsan’s work Hakirishitan 破吉 利支丹 (NST25, p. 451). For more detailed analysis of the ideological relevance of Shōsan’s work see Nakamura Hajime, Kinsei Nihon no hihanteki seishin. This text is also dealt with in the next chapter.
3 Early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 1 What I refer to here as the ‘anti-Christian canon’ comprises the set of texts usually referred to by modern scholars such as Ebisawa Arimichi and George Elison in such collections as Nihon shisō taikei (NST25) and Deus Destroyed. As mentioned earlier, all these texts originate from 1850s and 1860s compilations of anti-Christian texts by Tokugawa Nariaki and Kiyū Dojin. Modern scholars’ anti-Christian ‘canon’, therefore, was determined by Buddhist and Confucian pro-Tokugawa shogunate anti-Christian polemicists of the mid-nineteenth century, as will be discussed in Chapter 5. 2 Few of these texts were included in late Tokugawa collections, and none of them were included by Ebisawa or Elison or discussed in their own ‘canonical’ collections. 3 Gonoi Takashi 五野井隆史, Tokugawa shoki kirishitanshi kenkyū 徳川初期キリシ タン史研究, Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1993; George Elison, Deus Destroyed; Murai Sanae, Bakuhansei seiritsu to kirishitan kinsei 幕藩制成立とキリシタン禁制, Bunken shuppan, 1989. 4 This period of suppression had been preceded by a short-lived ban on Christianity by Hideyoshi Toyotomi and limited action against priests in 1587. But this action was not sustained, and importantly did not target the general population. After burning a few unfortunate priests, Hideyoshi soon reconciled with the Jesuits, and many of the Japanese forces involved in Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea carried standards bearing the cross and were blessed by Catholic priests as they went into battle. The action of 1587 was little more than an intra-elite spat in comparison with the suppression of the early seventeenth century, which was a societally transforming political event affecting all segments of the population. 5 Gonoi, Tokugawa shoki kirishitanshi kenkyū, p. 122. 6 The order can be found in the Tōdai ki 当代記 records for the twenty-first day of the third month Keichō year 17, in Dai nihon shiryō 大日本史料, vol. 9 of series 12 (第 十二編の九), Tomiyamabō, 1906, p. 558. 7 Gonoi, Tokugawa shoki kirishitanshi kenkyū, p. 122. 8 Fujii Jōji 藤井譲治, Edo kaimaku 江戸開幕, Nihon no rekishi vol. 12, Shūeisha, 1992, pp. 149–52.
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Notes (pp. 54–60)
9 They were appointed to the extraordinary positions of bateren tsuihō no sōbugyō 伴 天連追放の総奉行, and provided with a proclamation signed by Hidetada called Bateren tsuihō no fumi 伴天連追放之文 (Proclamation on the Deportation of Priests). This should not be confused with Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s Bateren tsuihōrei 伴天連追 放令 of 1587. 10 Kurozumi Makoto, Kinsei nihon shakai to jugkyō, p. 158. 11 Although contemporaneously described as a Christian-inspired rebellion, there is some doubt as to how ‘Christian’ the Shimabara rebels actually were. There is no doubt that the rebels used Christian imagery, and there is some evidence that many of the rebels’ ancestors may have been Christian; but the Christianity of this rebellion was likely more of an imagined memory of symbols rather than an organizational element in the foundation of the rebellion. For a recent take on the role of Christianity in the Shimabara Rebellion see Kanda Chisato 神田千里, Shimabara no ran – kirishitan shinkō to busō hōki 島原の乱―キリシタン信仰と武装蜂起, Tokyo: Chūō shinsho, 2005. 12 This sentence is all based in Buddhist terminology. The five crimes and ten sins are gogyaku jūaku 五逆十悪; the Buddha, Dharma and Clergy are, in Buddhist terminology, the so-called ‘three treasures’ sanbō 三宝. 13 This sentence suggests the famous Analects phrase ‘if you commit a crime against Heaven then you will have no place to pray’ (ZX, p. 65). 14 This is another Confucian phrase oft associated with Mencius. It is found about six times in Mencius and several times in Analects, for instance at ZX, p. 58. 15 In the original Chinese there is no subject articulated, but the ‘they’ I have inserted here refers to the ancient sage kings, who seem to be the subjects of these sentences, as the exhortation to follow their examples seems to suggest. 16 ‘Afraid’ here could also be interpreted as ‘respect’. The meaning of the character refers to both. This passage is reminiscent of sections from both the Rites of Zhou and Analects, which exhort readers to respect the example of the ancient sage kings. See for example, ZX, p. 172. 17 The text of Bateren tsuihō no fumi can be found in NST25, pp. 491–2. 18 Baterenki can be found in Kokushokankōkaihen, Zokuzoku gunsho ruijū 続々群書 類従, vol. 12, Kokushokankōkai, 1907, pp. 570–89. The thesis that the unknown author was an apostate priest was presented in Ebisawa Arimichi, Nanbanjikōhaiki, Jakyōtaii, Myōtei Mondō, Hadaiusu, Heibonsha, 1964, p. 1. 19 For discussion of the text and Chūan, see H. Cieslik, ‘The case of Christovão Ferreira’, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 29, No. 1, Sophia University, Tokyo, 1974, pp. 1–54, especially p. 36. 20 See Ebisawa Arimichi, Nanban gakutō no kenkyū 南蛮学統の研究, Sōbunsha, 1958, p. 260. 21 As discussed further in Chapter 5. 22 The ranki 乱記 genre of tales recalling the triumphs of shogunate troops at Shimabara is an example. 23 Ebisawa particularly mentions Kiristhian Monogatari 吉利支丹物語 and Hakirishitan 破吉利支丹 as examples of this ‘populist’ literature ‘directed at the masses’ (NST25, pp. 603–4). 24 Kirishitan Monogatari, in Kokushokankōkaihen, Zokuzoku gunsho ruijū 続々群類 従, vol. 12, pp. 545–6. 25 Ibid., pp. 534–5. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 I use the word ‘traveller’ here in the Irish sense as an imperfect translation for kabukimono, and offer ‘hobo’ as a possible American equivalent. I avoid the complexities of translating hinin by simply likening this to ‘low caste’. Kojikimono
Notes (pp. 60–68)
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
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means homeless, or in the early-modern context not attached to a recognized clan, family or work group. Zokuzoku gunsho ruijū, vol. 12, p. 535. Ibid., p. 531. Ibid. Ibid., p. 536. Ibid., p. 543. See Ebisawa Arimichi’s comments in NST25, p. 603. For discussion of these texts, see Ebisawa in NST25, pp. 603–4. So-called shinbutsu icchiron 神仏一致論. NST25, p. 451. NST25, p. 421. NST25, p. 451. Ibid. Ōkuwa Hitoshi, Nihon kinsei no shisō to bukkyō 日本近世の思想と仏教, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 1989, pp. 272–7. NST25, p. 453. Nakamura Hajime in Kinsei nihon no hihanteki seishin 近世日本の批判的精神 (The critical spirit of early-modern Japan), Shunjūsha, 1965, p. 154, refers to this element of Shōsan’s thought as representing an early example of a ‘rationalism’ in early modern Japanese thought. Actually, this argument had already been made in regard to Christians at least 40 years earlier by Razan in the diplomatic correspondence examined later in this chapter. It was also a common element in the propaganda used by powerful warlords against Ikkō Buddhism in the early 1500s. NST25, pp. 456–7. Nakamura Hajime in Kinsei nihon no hihanteki seishin, pp. 154–7. NST25, p. 435. In Kanzaki issaku 神崎一作, Hajasōsho 破邪叢書, Tetsugakushoin, 1893, pp. 55–9. NST35, pp. 79–80. NST30, pp. 223, 445; Hayashi Razan, Jubutsu mondō 儒仏問答 (第九件) manuscript in Tōkyō Daigaku shiryōhensanjō, daikyūken. NST25, p. 462. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Sessō Sōsai: zen to kokka to kirishitan 雪窓宗崔―禅と 国家とキリシタン (Sessō Sōsai – Zen, Nation and Christianity), Tokyo: Dōhōsha shuppan, 1984, pp. 363–6. Ibid. Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 38, 135, 137. The existence of this phenomenon in the seventeenth century, however, might also throw into doubt certain theories that seek to posit a relationship between this kind of discrimination and processes of so-called ‘modernization’. Or indeed, it could even suggest a much earlier beginning to processes of political modernization. Certainly it does not appear to fit neatly into any of the current theories on this issue. George Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 233. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 673. Ibid. Ibid. KKRS MT, p. 393. The criticism of Buddhism, which comprises the first two-fifths of the text, is heavily based on this argument (KKRS MT, p. 301). For a good example of this argument employed against Confucianism and Shinto see KKRS MT, p. 393. KKRS MT, pp. 396–400. What Razan refers to as an enbo no chizu 円模之地図 on p. 672, Hayashi Razan Bunshū. In addition to this kind of substitution of vocabulary and terms, the meaning of certain key words, like li 理 and yong 用, Principle and function, are subtly different. This can
180
62 63
64 65
66 67 68
69
70 71 72
73
74
Notes (pp. 68–72) be observed for instance by comparing Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 416 with Myōtei Mondō, KKRS MT, p. 397. The claim is made by the editor of Hayashi Razan Bunshū, Razan’s son Hayashi Gahō, who assumedly annotated the date to the document in the collection. It is important, however, to note here that the lines attributed to Fukan in Haiyaso, like the one quoted earlier about ‘non-sentient unthinking substance’ (musō munen 無想 無念), are not only inconsistent with Habian’s position, but equally so with Ricci’s portrayal of God and creation. While Razan addresses Ricci texts, his portrayal of the ‘Christian ideas’ is inconsistent with both Ricci’s and Habian’s true positions. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 246. Myōtei Mondō had been produced only a year before the date of the alleged debate. Tianzhu Shiyi was first imported into Nagasaki from China at around the same time. Indeed there is no evidence that any copies of Tianzhu Shiyi had reached Kyoto by 1606. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Zhu Xi ji 朱熹集, Sichuan: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996, pp. 226– 37. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, pp. 242–6. For a more detailed discussion of the origins of Haiyaso see Kiri Paramore キリ・ パラモア, ‘Fukan tai Habian – 17 seiki shotō nihon shisō ni okeru Habian shisō no igi to “Haiyaso” ’ 不干対ハビアンー 17 世紀初頭日本思想におけるハビアン 思想の意義と「排耶蘇」 in Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思想史学, no. 36, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2004, pp. 82–99. Many of the diplomatic sources found in Ikoku Nikki (Sūden, Ei’inbon – Ikoku Nikki – Kinjiin Sūden gaikō monjo shūsei 影印本―異国日記―金地院崇伝外交文書集成, Tokyo: Tokyo Bijitsu, 1989) are correspondence drafted by Sūden. Ishin Sūden was a monk in the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu. This practice of a scribe/monk serving a political/military leader was common in Japan, particularly during the Warring States period. They served their masters primarily as scribes, but also occasionally by giving them lectures or even classes. While the former role allowed some influence, and the latter role occasionally allowed them to advise, they were not considered primary advisers. This role usually fell to vassals and relatives of the leader. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 79. Razan had authored his first piece of diplomatic correspondence for the shogunate in 1610 (Hori Isao 堀勇雄, Hayashi Razan 林羅山, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1964, p. 140). I translate daikan 代官 as prefect instead of governor in order to delineate between a position giving responsibility for provincial administration but appointed by the shogun, and the position of daimyo (governor), a position usually inherited through the internal feudal processes of each domain. Suetsugu had attained this position in 1618 by informing on one of his associates, labelling him a Christian and having his entire family executed. For a Confucian-educated reader, the word gekizetsu immediately recalls the phrase from Mencius, ‘southern barbarian, bestial, yabbering people, they do not possess the Way of the ancient kings’ (Mencius in ZX, p. 261). By the sixteenth century ‘southern barbarian’ was the phrase used in Japan and coastal China to indicate Westerners, but at the time of the compilation of Mencius it probably referred to non-Han Chinese in what is now southern China. The word is used to indicate the languages of peoples or nations not acknowledged by the ‘Way’ of Sinocentric ‘civilization’. Shuri is similarly a word used to refer to the music of ‘barbarian’ non-Han peoples living to the west of early China. References of this kind can be found, for instance, in the Rites of Zhou, Spring Minister. Or indeed again in Mencius, for instance ZX, p. 198. So Razan employs an established centre/periphery dichotomy, identifying Japan on the Sinocentre, and the Christians on the barbarian outer. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 136.
Notes (pp. 72–81)
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75 Quoted in Daiyūindono gojikki 大猷院殿御実紀, Annals of Tokugawa Iemitsu, quoted in Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 260. 76 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 137. 77 Of course, this was untrue: Japanese piracy had been a problem since at least the early fifteenth century. 78 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 136. 79 Differences in the tone of diplomatic correspondence originating from the shogunal centre and the peripheral provinces who actually dealt with foreigners is an important theme in early modern Japanese history. On this issue see James B. Lewis, Frontier Contact between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003, p. 22. 80 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 691. 81 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 692. 82 In addition to Ming Trading Vessels, another example of the increasingly statist or legalist nature of diplomatic correspondence is a letter drafted by Razan in 1640, this time to Macau. This letter opens with the phrase, ‘governance and pacification of the masses is the core role of the state (kokka 国家)’ (Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 690). 83 For a well-referenced introduction to this paradigm shift in Japanese historiography see Bruce Batten, To the Ends of Japan: Premodern Frontiers, Boundaries and Interactions, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003, pp. 1–14. 84 Arano Yasunori 荒野泰典, Kinsei Nihon to higashi ajia 近世日本と東アジア, Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan, 1988, p. 31. Under this revisionist view, it has become standard to use the term kinkoku 禁国 (national regulation) in place of sakoku (national isolation). 85 Ibid., p. 36. 86 For a discussion on debates on this issue between Nishikawa and shogunate-aligned thinkers such as Arai Hakuseki see ibid., p. 55. 87 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, pp. 690–4. 4 Attacking non-Christian ‘Christians’ 1 The image of Razan’s ideas as the determinist principles of Tokugawa power can be seen in Inoue Tetsujirō’s Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, pp. 5–6. The ‘official philosophy’ reference can be found in Maruyama Masao, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, p. 15. Here Maruyama also refers to Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism as the ‘ideological foundation’ (p. 8) and ‘dominant social ethos’ (p. 12) of Tokugawa Japan. 2 Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩, Sōgaku to kinsei nihon shakai 宋学と近世日本社会, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1984, p. 24. 3 W.J. Boot, The Adoption and Adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The Role of Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan, ‘Second Version’ printing of PhD thesis, Leiden: W.J.Boot, 1992, p. 244. 4 Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹, ‘Rinshi kami wo sori kurai wo ukuru no ben’ 林氏、髪を剃 り位を受くるの弁, in Bitō Masahide 尾藤正英 (ed.), Nakae Tōju中江藤樹, Nihon shisō taikei, Vol. 29, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974, (NST29), p. 19. The reference to shaving his head relates to Razan’s decision to nominally become a Buddhist monk so that he could take up a position within the shogunate. Tojū sees this as a sell-out of his Confucian principles. 5 For sources on the attitude of powerful shogunate figures towards Banzan’s reforms in Bizen see Itakura Shigemune’s comments as recorded in the entry for the 26th day of the seventh month Jōō year 3 (1654) in Ikeda Mitsumasa Nikki 池田光政日記, Okayama: Sanyō tosho, 1967. For good research and discussion on the reforms in Bizen, Banzan’s role, and the intrigues in Edo, see James McMullen, Idealism, Protest
182
6
7 8 9
10
11
12 13
14
Notes (pp. 81–83) and the ‘Tale of Genji’: The Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan (1619–91), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 116–19. Further issues touching on the relationship between Sokō, Banzan and Razan will be dealt with in our examination of Sōzoku zenkōki later in this chapter. The idea that Razan saw Sokō as a threat and therefore sought to portray him as a ‘heterodox thinker’, however, has been argued by Hori Isao among others. ‘Razan attacked military thought as heterodoxy because Yamaga Sokō has already published Shūshin juyō shō 修身受用抄 where he had integrated militarist and Confucian thought’ (Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 397). The classic example of this is Inoue Tetsujirō’s use of these sources in his description of Razan’s thought in Nihon shushigaku no tetsugaku, pp. 50–83. Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 394. For instance, the Kokusho sōmokuroku 国書総目録refers to the two texts by one title, Sōzoku zenkōki (Kokusho sōmokuroku, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1990, p. 273). The catalogues of the Kokkai toshokan (Diet Library) and Naikaku Bunko (Cabinet Library) also refer to the text using this conflated title. Of the manuscripts of this text in the Gakushuin University Library, one is referred to in the catalogue as Sōzoku zenkōki, and one as Sōzoku ki. Care should be used with this latter title, however, as there are many different Japanese and Chinese texts (not written by Razan) from a variety of periods which are known by this title. In this book I follow the standard format as established in Kokusho sōmokuroku, and in the Diet Library catalogue, of calling the text Sōzoku zenkōki, except where I wish to differentiate between the two (zenki and kōki) sections. In all versions of the manuscript seen by the author, zenki and kōki, while having separate headings in the text, are bound together in a larger compilation containing unrelated texts. Very recently, the manuscript text Jubutsu mondō 儒仏問答has been increasingly used in academic conferences and symposiums in Japan to show Razan’s antiBuddhist position (for instance at the annual conference of the Association of Japanese Intellectual History in Tokyo in September 2005). The text was for the first time made available in printed form in 2006 (Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Maeda Ichirō 前田一郎 (eds.), Jubutu mondō儒仏問答, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2006). Kiyū Dōjin used them in his edited collection of anti-Christian documents in 1861, Inoue Tetsujirō relied on them more than any other sources in his casting of Razan as the ‘founder of the Tokugawa doctrine of education’ in The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi School, and they are still used in pride of place by researchers today (Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, pp. 81–3; George Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 235–6). Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 394. Both the terms ‘master-less samurai’ and rōnin have unfortunately acquired rather exotic connotations in English. I use these terms out of convention, but note that the social conditions which created the phenomenon of large numbers of rōnin in early seventeenth-century Japan were basically a process of gradual demobilization after a long period of war and insecurity. Therefore, when we think of rōnin during this period, particularly when referred to by commentators such as Hayashi Razan, the familiar twentieth-century imagery of the post-WWI ‘demobbed soldiers’ – aimless gangs of soldiers roaming about with little income and no gainful employment – might be closer to what Razan was trying to convey in his use of the word ‘rōnin’. Throughout this chapter I use the phrase ‘military thought’ to refer to heigaku 兵学, gungaku 軍学, heihō 兵法, or gunpō 軍法, all terms used in Japan in the seventeenth century to indicate the confluence of Chinese binxue 兵学 traditions like that of Sunzi with indigenous Japanese military thought which might also be referred to as ‘strategy’ in the broad sense of the English word as it is sometimes used in relation to Sunzi. The same words at this time also denoted the mixing of these strategic thought traditions with more tactical and practical forms of martial knowledge such as simple
Notes (pp. 83–87)
15
16
17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
32
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weapons training. In Sōzoku Zenkōki in particular it can be discerned that for Razan the meaning of the word gungaku ranges from the ‘high level’ of the Chinese strategic thought tradition down to instructions on the use of particular Japanese weapons. Thus the rather non-specific English translation of ‘military thought’ used here. Hayashi Razan (as Ro Yōshi 路陽子), Sōzoku zenkōki 草賊前後記, 1803, manuscript in Cabinet Library, Tokyo, 1–3 chō. There are no page or chō numbers written on this text. I give chō numbers by numbering from the opening of Sōzoku zenki as 1 chō and numbering through Sōzoku kōki consecutively from zenki to the end of Kyō Kaen’s notes on 12 chō. Of course, one of the defining features of the Shimabara Rebellion, setting it apart from peasant uprisings, was the large number of samurai or former samurai on the rebel side. Nevertheless, the vast majority were peasants. The conspirators in the Keian Affair were nearly all samurai. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 87. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 87. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid. Elison translates the phrase yaso no hen as ‘Jesuitry transformed’ (op cit, p. 236). However ‘a mutation of Christianity’, or to use Elison’s preferred term, ‘a transformed version of Christianity’, is a more grammatically precise translation. This is an important point because Elison’s translation tends to imply a more conscious ‘Jesuit plot’ as it were, to transform. This strong transitive sense is not implied in the original and limits the interpretation of the phrase, making it easily misinterpreted as an equation to Christianity. Similary, McMullen’s translation of ‘basically a version of Christianity’ (James McMullen, Idealism, Protest, and ‘The Tale of Genji’: The Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan, p. 118), by missing the fact that it is not simply ‘a kind’ of Christianity but a ‘mutated’ or ‘transformed’ kind, makes it too easy for the phrase to be misinterpreted, as it often is, as an equation with Christianity. Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 396. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 93. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 93. Razan also refers to this process as ‘selling’ these traditions. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 692. Hayashi Razan, Jubutsu mondō, daikyūken. Some specialists in Tokugawa history treat the incidents separately, emphasizing the differences between them. For instance, Bitō Masahide sees the Keian Affair as a political rebellion, but considers the Jōō Incident to have basically been a large-scale attempted robbery (Bitō Masahide, Genroku jidai元禄時代, nihon no rekishi, vol. 19, Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1975). Bitō’s analysis is supported by one of the versions of the Jōō Incident narrated by Hayashi Razan in the contemporary source Sōzoku kōki; on the other hand, however, Sōzoku kōki also provides a counter-narrative which presents the Jōō Incident as a political rebellion in basically the same terms as the Keian Affair. This has been pointed out in much of the research on the Keian Affair, for instance, Shinji Yoshimoto進士慶幹, Yui Shōsetsu由比正雪, Jinbutsu sōsho, vol. 68, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1961, p. 2; Norizuki Toshirō法月俊郎, ‘Kaidai’, p. 3, in Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai 静岡郷土研究会 (ed.), Yui Shōsetsu jikki, Matsuki shinzaemon shimatsu kikigaki由比正雪実記・松木新左衛門始末聞書, Tōkai bunko, vol. 5, Shizuoka: Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1928.
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Notes (pp. 87–91)
33 A good collection of these can be found in books 16–22 of Tokugawa Nariaki (ed.)徳 川斉昭, Sokkyohen息距編, 1860, manuscript in University of Tokyo Sōgō toshokan shoko, C60:73. 34 Yui Shōsetsu Monogatari Daizen油井正雪物語大全, Yui Yume Monogatari油井夢物 語, and Bōen Zatsuroku望遠雑録fall in this category. The most famous nineteenthcentury narration of the Keian Affair was Koizumi Sanshin小泉三申, Yui Shōsetsu, Tokyo: Shōka bōkan, 1896. Like many of the late Tokugawa versions, Koizumi presented Shōsetsu as a hero seeking to restore imperial rule 200 years before it actually happened. Late Tokugawa and Meiji accounts of the Keian Affair often contain this anti-shogunate, pro-emperor political narrative. 35 Other than Sōzoku zenkōki, the main extant contemporary source on the Keian Affair is Yui Shōsetsu jikki 由比正雪実記. It is usually held that this document was edited by Kusakawa Gozaemon草川五左衛門shortly after the event (for instance in Hoteikan Kokusho sōmokuroku 補訂刊 国書総目録, vol. 4, Iwanami shoten, 1990, p. 433). Looking at the Yui Shōsetsu jikki itself, however, it seems that while one of the documents contained therein, ‘Kusakawa Oboegaki’ 草川覚書, was written by Kusakawa shortly after the incident, the other documents may have been collated later. A printed version of Yui Shōsetsu jikki is available in volume 5 of the Tōkai bunko series, Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1928. The textual transmission of Keian Taiheiki 慶安太平記and other texts associated with Yui Shōsetsu jikki is discussed at length in P.F. Kornicki, ‘Manuscript not print: scribal culture in the Edo period’, in The Journal of Japanese Studies, no. 32:1, 2006, pp. 41–9. 36 Kokushokankōkaihen, Jijitsu bunpen事実文編, vol. 4, Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1911. 37 Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkaihen, Yui Shōsetsu jikki, Matsuki shinzaemon shimatsu kikigaki. 38 For instance, Shinji Yoshimoto, Yui Shōsetsu, pp. 5–6; George Elison, Deus Destroyed, p. 236. 39 Hoteikan Kokusho sōmokuroku 補訂刊 国書総目録, vol. 5, Iwanami shoten, 1990, p. 273. 40 From the pen name, it is unlikely the scribe was a monk. Also, from the fact that the manuscripts are concentrated in places such as Gakushuin and the old Tokugawa stacks in Mito, there is a possibility the scribe was associated with semi-official educational institutions of the Tokugawa shogunate, either the evolved form of the Hayashi school, the Shōheizaka gakumonjo昌平坂学問所, or the Mito domain academy, Kōdōkan公 道館. 41 This question of authenticity arising from the language use has not appeared in published research, but has been mentioned to me verbally by a number of senior academics at meetings of the Association for the Study of Japanese Intellectual History. 42 Hayashi Razan (as Rō Yōshi), Sōzoku zenkōki, 1803, manuscript in Cabinet Library, Tokyo, 12 chō omote. There are no page or chō numbers written on this text. I give chō numbers by numbering from the opening of Sōzoku zenki as 1 chō and numbering through Sōzoku kōki consecutively from zenki to the end of Kyō Kaen’s notes on 12 chō. 43 Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 96. 44 Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 1 chō omote. 45 Ibid., 1 chō ura. 46 Ibid., 2 chō omote. The reference here to Mastudaira Nobutsuna 松平信綱 (1596– 1662) being in charge of the operation to suppress the rebellion is important. Nobutsuna held a position as Rōjūkaku 老中格within the shogunate, a title that we might translate into contemporary English as something like Special Minister of State. In this position he was also responsible for leading the suppression of the Shimabara
Notes (pp. 91–94)
47 48 49 50
51
52 53
54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
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Rebellion. Nobutsuna is also considered to have been one of Razan’s main supporters within the shogunate. Ibid., 3 chō ura. While Razan refers to Shōsetsu as a ‘monk’ and Soshin as a ‘nun’, it is not possible to confirm the ordination of either. Both were members of the buke (samurai) class. In the 1651 letter, Razan states: ‘They have caused confusion among the mindless masses by making up their own texts and designing their own strategies’ (Hayashi Razan, Hayashi Razan Bunshū, p. 88). Hori Isao, Hayashi Razan, p. 397. References to Soshin’s attempts to promote Sokō within the shogunate can also be found in Tokugawa Jikki 徳川実記 in Shintei Zōho Kokushi taikei 新訂増補 国史大系, Vol. 5, Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981, p. 218. Some of Soshin’s writings were included in the 1916 compilation Mitamura Engyo (ed.) 三田村鳶魚, Kinsei bukkyō shūsetsu近世仏教集説, Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1916. In 1937, an article appeared in the local Fukushima journal Ganban shidan (Maeda Kōji前田恒治, ‘Soshinni’ 祖心尼, Ganban shidan岩磐史談, vol. 2, Fukushima: Ganban kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1937). Since then no research has appeared on Soshin until a presentation at the annual meeting of the Tōyō Gakkai by Sueki Fumihiko in 2005. A short paper by Sueki on Soshin’s Buddhist writings was published in 2006: Sueki Fumihiko, ‘Soshinni – chosaku to shisō’ 祖心尼 著作と思 想, in Tamamuro Fumio圭室文雄 (ed.), Nihonjin no shūkyō to shominshinkō 日本人 の宗教と庶民信仰, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2006. The image of Tokugawa Japan in general, and the samurai class in particular, as a ‘Confucian’ and ‘Militarist’ male-dominated society has been strongly challenged by significant research since the 1990s which has clearly shown that during most of the Tokugawa period women both had an unusual degree of freedom and wielded significant political influence. A good recent example of such research, including references to a number of articles by Watanabe Hiroshi that were highly influential in recasting this historical outlook is: Sekiguchi Sumiko関口すみ子, Goisshin to gendā: Ogyū Sorai kara kyoiku chokugo made御一新とジェンダーー荻生徂徠か ら教育勅語まで, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2005. In Tokugawa Jikki, for instance, she is often referred to as Soshinni (Tokugawa Jikki, Kokushi taikei, Vol. 5, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1982, pp. 217–8). The information in the above paragraph comes from a biographical reference to Soshin in Tokugawa Jikki which explains how she came to be in the central circles of the shogunate. This reference gives further details of her and her husband’s family connections. Tokugawa Jikki, ibid. Tokugawa Jikki, Vol. 3, p. 646; Sueki Fumihiko, ‘Soshinni-chosaku to shisō’. Ibid. Mitamura Engyo (ed.), Kinsei Bukkyō shūsetsu, Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1916. Sueki Fumihiko, ‘Soshinni – chosaku to shisō’. Ibid. Soshin, Soshinni kōhōgo祖心尼公法語, in Mitamura Engyo (ed.), Kinsei Bukkyō shūsetsu, p. 274. Ibid., p. 272. The character which should appear as the last word in the translation of this phrase is illegible in the original manuscript due to damage. Sueki Fumihiko, ‘Soshinni – chosaku to shisō’. A good Suzuki Shōsan text for comparison in this regard is Hakirishitan, which can be found in NST25, pp. 449–58. Seishōji chūkō kiroku yōryaku済松寺中興記録要略, as quoted in, Maeda Kōji, ‘Soshinni’, Ganban shidan, vol. 2, Ganban kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1937, p. 456. The statement about people in the castle knowing nothing about Zen could be related to the fact that the Tokugawa family were originally Jōdo 浄土 (Pure Land) sect Buddhists. It was at about this time, 1647, that the Tokugawas began to conduct family rituals at the Tendai sect (which included Zen trends) temple Kan’eiji 寛永寺 as well as at the
186
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66 67 68 69
70 71 72
73 74 75 76
77 78 79 80
Notes (pp. 94–101) Jōdo sect temple Zōjōji 増上寺. These two major temples sit on either side of Edo Castle. Other references to Soshin directly criticizing unbending orthodoxy include: Soshin, Soshinni kōhōgo, in Mitamura Engyo (ed.), Kinsei Bukkyō shūsetsu, pp. 267, 270–1. Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 5 chō omote, ura. In his translation of the last sentence of this passage McMullen refers to them as not just ‘bandits’, but ‘Amakusa bandits’. He also translated the title of Sōzoku zenkōki as ‘Amakusa bandits’. The word Amakusa, referring to the Christian-linked Shimabara rebellion of the late 1630s does not appear in the text. McMullen, as he points out in a footnote (p. 117) takes this allusion from the writings of Ebisawa (McMullen, op cit, pp. 117–18). As a full reading of Sōzoku zenkōki makes perfectly clear, this text does not refer in any way to Amakusa or Shimabara. Ebisawa’s original interpretation was incorrect. Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 5 chō ura. Ibid., 8 chō ura, 9 chō omote ura. Ibid., 9 chō ura. The five prohibitions are the Buddhist teachings banning killing, theft, adultery, slander and drunkenness. The ten virtues are a similar set of prohibitive commandments. The similarities with Christianity to which Razan alludes are clear. For more on the significance of the use of the term tenshu 天主 (Ch. tianzhu) by Razan, and its relationship to the role in early and mid-seventeenth century Japan of texts authored by Matteo Ricci in China, see Kiri Paramore, ‘Hayshi Razan’s redeployment of anti-Christian discourse: the fabrication of Haiyaso’, in Japan Forum, 18:2, London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 185–206. Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 10 chō omote. Ibid., 10 chō omote, ura. A good example of the contemporary shogunate view of these activities as threats to the existing order is Ikeda Mitsumasa’s account of warnings given to him by senior shogunate officials in 1652. Ikeda Mitsumasa Nikki, entry for the sixth day of the fifth month of Jōō 1 (1652). The issue of whether the publication of Sōzoku zenkōki caused these kind of negative attitudes from senior shogunate figures towards Banzan and his interpretation on Confucianism seen in the above-mentioned Ikeda Mitsumasa Nikki sources, or whether (quite conversely) the attitudes of these figures led the toadying Razan to write the text, is a complex one. Gotō Yōichi argues the former position in Gotō Yōichi後藤陽一 (ed.), Kumazawa Banzan熊沢蕃山, Nihon shisō taikei, Vol. 30, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971, (NST30) pp. 482–4, while Bitō Masahide suggests rather that the opposition to Banzan originated from the shogunate politicians for political reasons in Bitō Masahide, Nihon hōken shisōshi kenkyū日本封建思想史研 究, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1961. Either way, there is no doubt that there was a dynamic political context to the production of these texts. Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 10 chō ura. In 1651, Kumazawa Banzan was on a stipend of 5,000 koku in Bizen Okayama, while Razan was on no more than 400 koku in Edo – the maximum direct stipend he was ever regularly paid. Soshin, Soshinni kōhōgo, pp. 270–1. Kumazawa Banzan, Shūgi washo集義和書, in NST30, p. 213. All the quotes in inverted commas are from the second book of Confucius Analects. The term I have translated as ‘sober oneself’ comes from The Greater Learning and Doctrine of the Mean. The same term could be classically translated as ‘rectify oneself’. Ibid., p. 223. The same phrase can also be found in Kumazawa Banzan, Daigaku wakumon大学或問, in NST30, p. 445. Kumazawa Banzan, Daigaku wakumon, p. 445. The same phrase also appears in Kumazawa Banzan, Shūgi washo, p. 223. For discussion on this aspect of Banzan’s thought see McMullen, op cit, pp. 157–62. Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology, p. 289.
Notes (pp. 101–107)
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5 Mid- and late Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 1 Ogyū Sorai, Seidan 政談, in Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 (et al., eds.), Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 36, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973 (NST36), p. 434. 2 See references to Seiyō kibun in the writings of Ebisawa Arimichi, for instance in his comments on anti-Christian discourse in NST25. 3 As will be discussed further below. 4 Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人, Hekijakankenroku 闢邪管見録, Edo: Zōzōji, 1861; Kanzaki Issaku, Hajasōsho 破邪叢書, Tokyo: Tetsugakkan, 1893. 5 NST35, p. 22 (fn). Sidotti came ashore in Satsuma around August 1708 and was interrogated by Hakuseki in late 1709. In the intervening period he had been questioned in Nagasaki using Dutch interpreters and advice. Hakuseki’s accounts of Sidotti in Seiyō kibun include reference to the Dutch comments as well as to work by Ricci from China, as referred to earlier. A full understanding of the interaction between Hakuseki and Sidotti would require close examination of the Dutch and Japanese records relating to the period between Sidotti’s capture and his delivery to Edo. No such research has been undertaken in depth, but the author hopes to do so in the future. The discussion here, however, is thus restricted to Hakuseki’s position as put forward in Seiyō kibun, without an in-depth discussion of the possible origins. Matsumura Akira 松村明 (et al., eds.) Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 35, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975 (NST35), pp. 507–10. 6 As will be discussed in detail below, both Baien and Kanzaki portray Seiyō kibun as being part of a mid-Tokugawa ‘anti-Christian’ discourse following the tradition of earlier anti-Christian writing. 7 Arai Hakuseki, Seiyō kibun, in NST35, p. 8. 8 Further demonstration of these changes in language can be seen at NST35, p. 9. 9 See for instance, NST35, p. 12. 10 Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū新井白石文集, vol. 6, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1907, pp. 685–6. See also Hakuseki’s treatise on the Ryukyuans, Nantōshi 南島志, Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 3, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1906, pp. 690–1. 11 The reference in Seiyō Kibun can be found in NST35, pp. 62–3. Pixieji has recently been reprinted in the compilation Zhou Erfang (ed.) 周駬方, Mingmo Qingchu tianzhujiao shi wenxian congbian 明末淸初天主敎史文獻叢編, Beijing : Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2001. An influential Japanese reprint of Pixieji was Kiyū Dōjin (ed.), Hekijashū, 1861. The Harvard–Yenching catalogue gives an incorrect reading for the first character of this title, listing it as Byakujashū instead of Hekijashū. Reference to the University of Tokyo catalogue confirms the correct reading of the first character as heki in this title. In addition to references to these kinds of works published in Chinese and completely unrelated to Sidotti, Hakuseki’s interpretation of utterances by Sidotti himself was also influenced by the earlier interrogations of Sidotti which had been recorded in Nagasaki using Dutch interpreters attempting to communicate with Sidotti in Latin. Hakuseki himself comments on the untrustworthiness of tradedriven protestant Dutch advice in his text Honsarokukō, as discussed below. 12 NST35, p. 79. 13 NST35, pp. 67, 79, 81. 14 Beatrice Bodart-Bailey, ‘The Persecution of Confucianism in Early Tokugawa Japan’, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 48, no. 3, 1993, pp. 293–314, presents an important, if at times rather overstated, argument as to the difficulties faced by Confucians in the early Tokugawa period. 15 NST35, pp. 79–80. 16 NST35, pp. 66–7.
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Notes (pp. 107–113)
17 Hakuseki could well have taken this implication from the 1643 Pixieji, produced the year before the establishment of the Manchu Qing dynasty, although the 1639 Poxieji 破邪集 (Jp. Hajashū) also contains arguments that suggest Christianity undermines the state. 18 Arai Hakuseki, Tenshukyō taii 天主教大意, in Miyazaki Michio 宮崎道生(ann.), Shintei Seiyō Kibun新訂西洋紀聞, Toyō bunko 113, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1968, pp. 199–200. 19 Hayashi Razan, Sōzoku zenkōki, 10 chō omote. 20 Found in Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū新井白石文集, vol. 6, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1907. 21 For more on this see Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, Shingaku gorinsho no kisoteki kenkyū 「心学五倫書」の基礎的研究, Tokyo: Gakushuin daigaku, 1985. 22 Beatrice Bodart-Bailey also uses the text in a similar manner in her article ‘The Persecution of Confucianism’, op. cit., footnote 15. 23 Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 6, p. 549; translation from Bodart-Bailey, ‘The Persecution of Confucianism’, p. 299. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 6, pp. 549–50; translation from BodartBailey, ‘The Persecution of Confucianism’, p. 300. 27 Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 6, p. 550; translation from Bodart-Bailey, ‘The Persecution of Confucianism’, p. 301. 28 Ibid. 29 Bodart-Bailey assesses that Hakuseki is thinking in particular of the case of Kumazawa Banzan’s patron and domain lord in Bizen Okayama, Ikeda Mitsumasa (BodartBailey, ‘The Persecution of Confucianism’, pp. 308–10). 30 This emphasis on Heaven in Sorai’s thought has been well documented (Kojima Yasunori小島康敬, Soraigaku to hansorai 徂徠学と反徂徠, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1994, pp. 9–17; Kurozumi Makoto, Kinsei nihon no shakai to jugaku, pp. 351–70). Because Sorai references his comments on Heaven so closely to classic pre-Han Chinese texts, any scholar even inferring that Sorai may have been affected by Christian thought would be on dangerous ground. It is known, however, that Sorai did possess the same Ming collections of anti-Christian documents as Hakuseki, which relate large sections of Ricci Christian theory. 31 Here Sorai quotes from Mencius. The full context in English translation can be found in D.C. Lau (trans.), Mencius, London: Penguin, 1970, p. 132. 32 Ogyū Sorai, Seidan 政談, NST36, pp. 434–5. 33 NST35, p. 509. 34 Miura Baien 三浦梅園, Samidareshō 五月雨抄, in Washio Junkyō 鷲尾順敬 (ed.), Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969, p. 437. Here Baien refers to Hakuseki’s Sairan igen 采覧異言, a work produced after a request by the shogunate and using information from Sidotti coupled with sources from Ricci and Dutch advice. In the production of Sairan igen, Hakuseki referred to Ricci’s map of the world, Kunyu wanguo quantu, which we saw Hayashi Razan refer to in Haiyaso. The content of Sairan igen squares with the second section of Seiyō kibun. Seiyō kibun was not itself released for public consumption until 1793, nine years after the production of Samidareshō. 35 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986, p. 76. 36 Miura Baien, Samidareshō, in Washio Junkyō, Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō, Vol. 10, pp. 433–4. 37 Ibid., pp. 449–51. 38 Ibid., pp. 443–56. 39 Ibid. p. 435.
Notes (pp. 115–119)
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40 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, pp. 53, 117. 41 Imai Usaburō 今井宇三郎 (et al., eds.), Mitogaku 水戸学, Nihon shisō taikei, Vol. 53, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973 (NST53), p. 561. 42 Aizawa Yasushi, Shinron新論, NST53, pp. 94–5. 43 Bitō Masahide in NST53, p. 579; Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, pp. 143–4. 44 As indeed it had at times during the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates earlier. 45 Arai Hakuseki, Shintei no an 進呈之案, in Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 6, pp. 264–7. More detailed discussion on Hakuseki’s ideas on resolving the positions of emperor and shogun can be found in Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics: Arai Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 175–201, 228–31. 46 For a section of Seimeiron particularly indicative of this see Fujita Yūkoku, Seimeiron, NST53, p. 13. For discussion of this aspect of Yūkoku’s ideas, particularly his interpretation of the term meibun 名分, see Bitō Madahide in NST53, pp. 560–1. 47 Fujita Yūkoku, Seimeiron 正名論, NST53, p. 13. 48 Fujita Yūkoku, Yūkoku Zenshū 幽谷全集, Tokyo: Yoshida Yahei, 1935, pp. 703–4. 49 Tōyama Shigeki 遠山茂樹, Meiji ishin 明治維新, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2000, pp. 79–80. 50 Indeed, it is questionable whether the word ‘nation’ should be used here, and perhaps this also brings into question Tōyama’s interpretation in relation to Yūkoku. I try to avoid engaging too fully these fashionable questions relating to ‘modernity’ and ‘modern nation’ because, as any serious scholar of history before the twentieth century and outside of the West knows, these constructs (as they are commonly used in academic literature today to indicate some singular rupture in world history) are highly culture- and era-centric to the late twentieth-century developed nations. For an excellent set of in-depth and linked case studies demonstrating the problem of using this term in relation to east Asian history in particular, see Alexander Woodside, Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea and the Hazards of World History, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. 51 Aizawa Seishisai, Shinron, NST53, p. 72. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi included a good English translation of Shinron in his Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, pp. 147–277. In this chapter, I use my own translations, but reference to Wakabayashi’s well-annotated, full translation provides a much more contextualized view of the work. 52 See the introduction to Shinron, NST53, p. 51. 53 NST53, pp. 50–1. 54 Ibid., p. 137. Both quotations are from Sunzi. The final sentence is a quote from Sunzi meaning: the way of completely taking a country intact, without destroying it through warfare. This is the ‘best’ way to take a country, according to Sunzi. 55 Ibid., p. 77. 56 Ibid., p. 78. The reference to use of the masses and colonial subjects can be seen in the text directly before the previous quote, p. 77. 57 See ibid., p. 68 in relation to the use of Christianity to subjugate colonial subjects, and indeed for a more detailed rendition of a ‘Christian invasion theory’. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., pp. 67–74. 60 Of course, I do not suggest here that Seishisai’s theory was motivated only by looking at the example of Western imperialism. His emphasis on using peasants as soldiers is also motivated by tactical considerations that he draws from Sunzi, among other classic east Asian sources (see, for example, ibid., p. 137, where he discusses the ease of provision of troops situated in their own areas). Seishisai’s ideas on using peasants as soldiers are also clearly tied to his theory of returning samurai to the land, a theory
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Notes (pp. 119–123) put forward by Ogyū Sorai in the previous century, and by Kumazawa Banzan in the century before that (ibid. pp. 73–4). It is also what could differentiate it as truly ‘national’ and ‘modern’ for those interested in such categories, because it creates an ideology that links the idea of the nation in one inclusive ideological construct from the emperor down to the masses, defined by the geographic and cultural boundaries of the country. Aizawa Seishisai, Kikōben 豈好弁, Gyokugenshodō, 1828, 23 chō ura. Aizawa Seishisai, Kikōben, 8 chō (omote, ura), 9 chō (omote). For more on the importance of the idea of Heaven in Ogyū Sorai, see Kojima Yasunori, Soraigaku to hansorai, pp. 9–17; Hiraishi Naoaki平石直昭, Ten 天, Tokyo: Sanseido, 1996, pp. 100–10; Kiri Paramore, ‘Modern Philosophy or Confucian Fundamentalism – the concept of Heaven in Ogyū Sorai’s Analects commentary’, Honours Thesis, Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1999. Bitō Masahide in particular has emphasized the effect of Sorai on Mito learning, especially on Aizawa Seishisai (NST53, p. 564). Tokugawa Nariaki 徳川斉昭, Hajashū 破邪集, Mito: Kōdōkan, 1855. Researchers on the history of Christianity in late Ming and early Qing China can thank the Mito scholars for bringing to us the only surviving copies of most of the writings included in this selection. The significance of this Mito collection for current scholarly research on seventeenth-century Chinese history was demonstrated by the demand for its reprinting in Beijing in 2001. It was republished, together with an even later Ming collection Pixieji 闢邪集, discussed below, and a number of Qing anti-Christian writings in Zhou Erfang (ed.) 周駬方, Mingmo Qingchu tianzhujiao shi wenxian congbian 明末淸初天主敎史文獻叢編, Beijing: Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2001. Poxieji (Hajashū), is a collection of late Ming anti-Christian discourse produced around 1639 made up of eight chapters. The first two chapters are government documents relating to the anti-Christian movement in Nanjing in the second decade of the seventeenth century (for more on this see Eric Zurcher, The First Anti-Christian Movement in China: Nanking, 1616–1621, Leiden: Acta Orientalia Nederlandia, 1972); the next four chapters are anti-Christian writings by late Ming Confucians; the final two chapters are anti-Christian treatises by late Ming Buddhists. This book does not directly tackle the history of Chinese anti-Christian discourse, a vast subject requiring more than a separate book of its own. Suffice to say that Chinese anti-Christian writing, particular Poxieji and Pixieji, had a clear effect on Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse and possibly other Confucian writing – as touched on above in relation to Hakuseki, Sorai and Mito learning. This issue itself needs further research, but it is clear there are three different kinds of Chinese anti-Christian discourse that appear in writings in Japan. The first and most influential genre was the late Ming writings in Poxieji, which were read by at least Hakuseki (and probably also Sorai and others) in the early eighteenth century, and read by at least Baien and the Mito scholars in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and reprinted by Nariaki in 1855 as Hajashū. This discourse was predominantly Confucian but included some Buddhist anti-Christian discourse also. (For more on this text see Xiaochao Wang, Christianity and Imperial Culture, Leiden: Brill, 1998, pp. 144–53.) The second kind was late Ming Buddhist writings countering Ming period Jesuit writings – most of the documents contained in Pixieji fall into this category. The third kind are Qing-period Confucian writings inspired by the competition between Jesuits and Confucians at the Qing court – these can be seen in the second half of Hekijakankenroku and appear to be the least influential. Tokugawa Nariaki, Sokkyohen 息距編, 1860, manuscript in University of Tokyo Sōgō toshokan shoko, C60:73, ato. Tokugawa Nariaki, Sokkyohen, 1860, 1–3 chō. Tokugawa Nariaki, Hajashū, 1855, manuscript in University of Tokyo Sōgō toshokan shoko, C60:75, 1 chō.
Notes (pp. 124–127)
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71 Kiyū Dōjin, Hekijakankenroku, 1861, manuscript in University of Tokyo Sōgō toshokan shoko, C60:110, 2 chō, also quoted with Japanese kundoku in Serikawa Hiromichi 芹川博通, Ibunka no masatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron 異文化の摩擦と理解―鵜飼徹定のキリスト教論, Tokyo: Hokujushuppan (sic.), 1994, p. 336. 72 Kiyū Dōjin, Hekijakankenroku, 2 chō. This section of Tetsujō’s introduction is also included in Serikawa Hiromichi, Ibunka no masatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron, p. 336. 73 Serikawa Hiromichi, Ibunka no masatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron. The only other book in which he is mentioned is the official Jōdo sect history Chioninshi, Kyoto, Chionin, 1937, but this is an official rather than academic history, totally ignores all points of conflict in Tetsujō’s life, and gives a highly sanitized and historically fairly useless account. There is also supposed to be a collection of essays by Yoshida Shōhei with the title Tetsujō shōnin 徹定上人, but as of 2006 this work was unavailable in any major Japanese library. One essay, Yoshida Shōhei, ‘Inoue Enryō no hajaron nisoku – Ugai Tetsujō to Atkutagawa Ryūnosuke’, can be found in Inoue Enryō sentā nenpō, vol. 12, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 2003, July, but as the title suggests this article is primarily about Enryō not Tetsujō. 74 Recent works to overcome this perception include Ōkuwa Hitoshi, Nihon bukkyō no kinsei 日本仏教の近世, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 2003; Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, Nihon bukkyōshi – shisōshi toshiteno apurōchi 日本仏教史―思想史としてのアプロー チ, Tokyo: Shingensha, 1996. 75 These documents form the basis of the anti-Christian collection in Washio Junkyō, Nihon shisō tōso ronshū, vol. 10, and NST25. These documents are found in books 8 to 15 in Sokkyohen, which was made up of 22 sections. The first section contains various Tokugawa legal documents relating to anti-Christian activity; sections 2 to 8 are official Tokugawa records relating to the Christian problem; sections 9 to 15 contain an array of the most famous anti-Christian treatises of the Tokugawa period; and sections 16 to 22 contain accounts of the Shimabara rebellion. 76 Entitled Haikirishitan 排切支丹 in this collection, as it also is in the modern NST25 collection. 77 Here referred to as Taiji jashūron 退治邪執論, as it also is in NST25. 78 Notably a good proportion of Hakuseki’s Seiyō kibun, and Razan’s Nagasaki Itsuji. 79 Shōyaron is a critique of the Chinese Christian text, Mengxing zhenyu 夢醒真論. Discussion of this and other texts Tetsujō wrote criticizing Chinese Christian writings of the late nineteenth century can be found in Serikawa Hiromichi, Ibunka no masatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron, pp. 461–83. Tetsujō’s critiques of these texts follow in the tradition of late Ming works he compiled in the first half of Hekijashū (Hekijashū, kaminomaki). 80 Kanzaki Issaku, Hajasōsho, p. 400. 81 Kiyū Dōjin, Buppō fukasekiron仏法不可斥論, (publisher unknown), 1870, April (Meiji year 3, 3rd month), manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku shiryō hensanjō. 82 Ibid. 83 Kiyū Dōjin, ‘Jo’, in Kiyū Dōjin (ed.), Hekijakankenroku. 84 Yasui Sokken, Benbō, in Nakamura Yukihiko中村幸彦 (et al., eds.) Kinsei kōki juka shū近世後期儒家集, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 47, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973 (NST47), p. 271. 85 Tokugawa Nariaki, Sokkyohen, ato; Arai Hakuseki, Seiyō kibun, in NST35, pp. 66–7. 86 Aside from this change of political context, the debate on Christianity was also dramatically changed at this time by the fact that Christian missionaries were now able to enter Japan, and Christian books, notably the Bible, were available. This can be seen in Benbō’s use of the Bible, for instance, NST47, pp. 249–54.
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Notes (pp. 128–134)
87 Yamaji Aizan 山路愛山, ‘Gendai nihon kyōkai shiron’ 現代日本教会史論, in Sumiya Mikio 隅谷喜男 (ed.), Tokutomi Sohō / Yamaji Aizan, Nihon no meicho vol. 40, Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1971, pp. 354–5. 88 Yasui Sokken, Benbō, NST47, p. 271. The word I translate here literally in modern terms as ‘republican politics’ (kyōwa seiji 共和政事) was also used at the time to mean simply representative government, which is what Shimazu Hisamitsu and the conservative camp were opposing. In this quote, however, Sokken’s reference to taxation in a seemingly American republican manner (linking taxation with representation) would seem to indicate that he does mean republicanism. Of course at the time it is possible that many readers and thinkers would not be able to differentiate clearly between the ideas of representative government and republicanism. 89 Yamaji Aizan, ‘Gendai nihon kyōkai shiron’, in Sumiya Mikio (ed.), Tokutomi Sohō / Yamaji Aizan, pp. 354–5. 90 For instance in Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉, Kanbun taikei 漢文大系, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1880. 91 NST47, p. 271. In yet another link back to the anti-Christian past, this Konchi’in, by this time within the Zōzōji complex near Edo Castle, was originally established in Sunpu (Shizouka) by Sūden, the author of Bateren tsuihō no fumi. Indeed, the collection of his papers was preserved here, accessible to both Tetsujō and Sokken. 92 The reference to Tetsujō living at Zōzōji at this time can be found in Serikawa Hiromichi, Ibunka no massatsu to rikai – Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron, pp. 16–17. 6 Meiji anti-Christian discourse 1 Sūmitsuin 枢密院 (Privy Council), Sūmitsuin kaigi gijiroku 枢密院会議議事録, vol. 1, Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1984, pp. 156–7. 2 The links between the formation of the kokutai concept and anti-Christian discourse are discussed in the previous chapter and can also be found in Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, pp. 143–4; and Bitō Masahide ‘Mitogaku no tokushitsu’ in NST53, p. 579. 3 By ‘modern Japan’, I here simply mean Japan between 1868 and 1945, the standard use of the term in Japanese historiography. 4 The central role of the constitution and Rescript in marking out the parameters of national ideology at this time has been remarked upon by many scholars. For instance in Andrew Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 10. 5 Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, Meiji shisōkaron 明治思想家論, Tokyo: Toransubyū, 2004, pp. 23–31. 6 For a thorough study of the anti-Christian writings of the early Meiji period, particularly the writings before the Uchimura Kanzō Incident of 1891, see Sakurai Tadashi 桜井 匡, Meiji shūkyōshi kenkyū 明治宗教史研究, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1971, pp. 107–64. A number of anti-Christian writings from the late 1860s are contained in Meiji Bunka Zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 15 (shisōhen), Tokyo: Hyōronsha, 1929. 7 It is standard to refer to Japanese historical figures after 1868 by their surnames if not using the full name. Therefore, I should refer to either Inoue Enryō or Inoue Tetsujirō as ‘Inoue’. However, in this chapter, I refer to them by their given names in order to differentiate between them. 8 Yoshida Kōhei 吉田公平, ‘Inoue Enryō no hajaron nisoku’ 井上円了の破邪論二則, in Inoue Enryō Center Nenpō 井上円了センター年報, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 2003. 9 Sueki Fumihiko, Meiji shisōkaron, pp. 43–61. 10 Ibid., p. 63. 11 Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝突, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Although most copies of this title found today were sold by the
Notes (pp. 134–139)
12 13
14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
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publisher Keigyōsha, the first compiled edition was simultaneously published by three publishing houses on April 10, 1893, Keigyōsha 敬業社, Bunsandō 文盛堂 and Inoue Enryō’s Tetsugakushoin 哲学書院. Sueki Fumihiko, Meiji shisōkaron, pp. 62–3. Inoue Enryō, Shinri kinshin, in Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 11 (religion), Tokyo: Hyōronsha, 1927; Inoue Enryō, Tetsugaku issekiwa, in Inoue Enryō senshū 井 上円了選集, vol. 1; Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō kasturon honron dai ichi ‘Haja katsuron’, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Shinri kinshin and Bukkyō katsuron joron were also included in the popular Meiji bunka zenshū collection of sources published in the 1920s and have consequently been well studied, forming the basis of much of the twentieth-century academic writing on Enryō. Even work like Sueki’s Meiji shisōkaron, while also using the recently published Inoue Enryō senshū collection of texts, notably Tetsugaku issekiwa, still quotes Shinri kinshin more than any other. Inoue Enryō, Nihon seikyōron 日本政教論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1889, Inoue Enryō senshū, vol. 8, Tokyo: Tōyō University Press, 1991, p. 51. Ibid., p. 51 Ibid., p. 57–58. Ibid., p. 55 Ibid. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid. Ibid., p. 55. Ibid., p. 56. Throughout this chapter I have translated minshin 民心 literally as ‘mind of the people’. An even more literal translation would be ‘mind/body of the masses’, and a smoother and more standard translation would be ‘public sentiment’. However, while ‘public sentiment’ might be the best translation for this and many of the other usages of this phrase quoted in this chapter, for some usages it would not work. In particular, in quotations from Inoue Enryō which link this phrase to social organism theory, I think it necessary to stay with the literal translation. In the interests of standardization, I have used this same more literal translation throughout. Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katsuron joron, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1887, p. 1. On this, see Sueki, Meiji shisōkaron, p. 59. This quote can be found in Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katsuron joron, p. 73; and Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katsuron honron daiichi – Hajakaturon, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1887, p. 2. For the former see Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katsuron joron, p. 17, for the latter see Bukkyō katsuron honron daiichi – Hajakaturon, pp. 27–9. This kind of anti-Christian argument can be seen in Shinri kinshin as well as the other two works of 1887. On this see Sueki, Meiji shisōkaron, p. 55. This is most clearly explained in Inoue Enryō, Tetsugaku issekiwa, in Inoue Enryō Senshū, vol. 3, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 1987, p. 83. See also Sueki Fumihiko, Meiji shisōkaron, p. 51. Inoue Enryō, Tetsugaku issekiwa, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1886, in Inoue Enryō Senshū, vol. 3, p. 82. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., p. 83. I am reticent to attempt a deconstruction of Enryō’s famously complex metaphysics here. I will say, however, that the ideas of ‘the norm within the norm’ and the ‘transcendence’ of difference are related to Enryō’s view that the difference between spiritual and physical experience can be transcended to arrive at a kind of thusness, which he refers to using the traditional Buddhist concept of shin’nyo 真如. Therefore, in regard to the underpinning assumptions of Enryō’s thought, I might venture to suggest that in addition to the two assumptions I articulate in the body of the text [that
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34 35 36 37 38 39
40
41 42
43 44
45
46
Notes (pp. 139–143) is, 1) that truth is an absolute (not relative) thing, and 2) that evolution is inevitable], could be added: 3) that truth is by its very nature transcendental. Inoue Enryō, Tetsugaku issekiwa, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1886, in Inoue Enryō Senshū, vol. 3, p. 83. ‘That which does not affect change is the norm of the absolute. To evolve from the relative to the absolute, this is evolution.’ (ibid.) Inoue Enryō, Shinri kinshin, in Meiji bunka zenshū, vol. 11, p. 322. Spencer is mentioned by name in Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katsuron honron daiichi: Hajakaturon, p. 11. The chapters devoted to social evolutionism are found on pp. 101–45. Inoue Enryō, Bukkyō katuron honron daiichi – Hajakatsuron, p. 125. Enryō, like many thinkers outside Japan at this time, did not understand that Spencer’s social organism theory pre-dated Darwin’s so-called theory of natural selection, and was in fact based on a theory of natural selection by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744– 1829) which Darwin had criticized. On the difference between Lamarck and Darwin see Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. It should also be noted that arguments extremely similar to those associated with social evolutionary theory can be found in Japanese writing from the eighteenth century which clearly pre-dates the theories discussed here. For instance, as touched on in the previous chapter, Arai Hakuseki wrote treatises on the ‘barbarians’ of Hokkaido, which noted their ‘underdeveloped’ (mikai 未開) state, and Miura Baien called for the colonization of ‘barbarian’ lands in the same area. Arai Hakuseki, Ezoshi, in Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 6, pp. 685–6. Miura Baien, Samidareshō, in Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō, vol. 10. For instance in Satō Yoshimaru 佐藤能丸, Meiji nashonarizumu no kenkyū 明治ナシ ョナリズムの研究, Tokyo: Fuyōshobō, 1998, p. 10. Minyūsha published the journal Kokumin no Tomo 国民の友, generally used by historians today as one of the standard sources for liberty and civil rights arguments. Seikyōsha was formed by the conservatives primarily to counter this journal with the publication of their own reactionary periodical Nihonjin 日本人. For research on the formation and activities of these groups and their publications see Nishida Tsuyoshi 西田毅 et al. (eds), Minyūsha to sono jidai: shisō, bungaku, jānarizumu no kiseki 民 友社とその時代―思想・文学・ジャーナリズムの軌跡, Tokyo: Minerva shobō, 2003; Satō Yoshimaru 佐藤能丸, Meiji nashonarizumu no kenkyū: seikyōsha no seiritsu to sono shūhen 明治ナショナリズムの研究―政教社の成立とその周辺, Tokyo: Fuyō shobō, 1998. Scholars of modern Japanese history writing in English today would do well to note this 1931 official Ministry of Education English translation of the term kokutai: ‘the fundamental character of our empire’. As has been pointed out and discussed by Watanabe Hiroshi, the virtue inherent in the relationship between husband and wife has been changed from ‘distinctiveness’ in the original Chinese to ‘harmonious’ in the Japanese of the Imperial Rescript on Education (and indeed in previous Japanese explications of these relations since the Tokugawa period). This is the only divergence from the standard Confucian relations paradigm. Discussion of the significance of this divergence can be found in Sekiguchi Sumiko 関口すみ子, Goisshin to jendā: Ogyū Sorai kara kyōiku chokugo made 御一 新とジェンダー-荻生徂徠から教育勅語まで, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2005, pp. 311–30. Monbushō 文部省 (Ministry of Education), Kaneifutsudoku kyōiku chokugo shakusan 漢英仏獨教育勅語釈纂 (Chinese, English, French, German, Imperial Rescript on Education Collected Translations), Tokyo: The Herald Press (authorized publishers), 1931. Inoue Tetsujirō, Chokugo Engi 勅語衍義, Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1890, pp. 1–4.
Notes (pp. 143–149) 47 48 49 50 51 52
53 54 55 56
57 58 59 60 61
62
63
64 65 66 67
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Ibid., p. 2. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid, p. 12. Mencius: translated with an introduction by D.C. Lau, London: Penguin, 1970, p. 114. Inoue Tetsujirō, Chokugo Engi, pp. 69–70. The classic research on this incident, supplying excellent details not only of what happened before and during the incident itself, but more importantly an in-depth survey of the media reaction to the event, is Ozawa Saburō 小沢三郎, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken 内村鑑三不敬事件, Tokyo: Shinkyō, 1980. One of Uchimura’s most faithful non-Christian supporters was Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰 (1863–1957), at the time a central figure in running Kokumin no tomo. Tokutomi not only defended Uchimura in writing, but more concretely lent him money and assisted him in getting out of Tokyo and setting up in less dangerous situations in the countryside. Ironically, by the mid-1930s Tokutomi had transformed into one of the most vocal anti-Christian right-wing ideologues. Ozawa uses Ministry of Education official sources to show that the object of reverence was the seal. An official Ministry Gazette of January 14, 1891 makes this clear. Ozawa Saburō, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken, pp. 49–51. Ozawa shows references to this narrative in writings by the Christian Yamaji Aizan ten years after the event (ibid., p. 49) and by Inoue Tetsujirō immediately after the event (ibid., p. 50). Ibid., p. 57. Uchimura Kanzō, ‘Letter to Bell, 6th March, 1891’, in Uchimura Kanzō, Uchimura Kanzō chosakushū 内村鑑三著作集, vol, 18, Tokyo: Iwanami, 1954, pp. 266–8. I was not able to find a copy of the original letter in English so I have translated back into English from the Japanese translation. Ozawa Saburō, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken, p. 62. Interestingly, Wasuji Tetsurō took a similar stand, see ibid., p. 65, fn 50. On official Ministry of Education gazettes outlining in detail the conduct of ceremonies and the ‘attitude’ to be taken to the Rescript, see Ozawa Saburō, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken, pp. 47–52. Ibid., p. 130; for an overview of the distribution see pp. 126–31. Miyakawa Tōru 宮川透, Kindai nihon shisō ronsō 近代日本思想論争, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1963, p. 237. Ozawa Saburō, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken, pp. 139–40; Miyakawa Tōru, Kindai nihon shisō ronsō, p. 238. All these terms were used in January or February. Incidentally, Uchimura was not in any sense ‘Chinese’. The use of these terms, however, gives some insight into general attitudes towards Chinese in the press just three years before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War. Interestingly, this latter kind of attack seemed to emanate predominantly from the Buddhist press, which tended to argue the familiar line that ‘The Christians are those who in the end would kill our Japanese Empire’. Ozawa Saburō, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken, p. 147 (footnote 54). The best compilation of sources from this debate remains a book published at the end of 1893, as the debate was still going on, by Tetsugakushoin: Seki Kōsaku 関皐作, Inoue hakase to kirisutokyōto 井上博士と基督教徒, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893, reprinted by Misuzu Shobō, 1988. Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝突, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893, pp. 21–30, 39, 85, 98. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 33. It is quite intriguing that in 1893, a year before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, the main problem with Christianity for Japanese nationalists like Tetsujirō was
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68 69 70 71 72 73 74
75 76 77 78 79 80
81
82
83 84
Notes (pp. 149–154) that it was ‘different to Eastern teachings’. Eastern teachings here clearly means the Confucian five relations. Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu, p. 106. Ibid., p. 125. Mencius: translated with an introduction by D.C. Lau, p. 114. Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu, pp.116–19. Ibid. Ibid., p. 131. This debate began with the serialization of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Gakumon no susume 学問のすすめ (Fukuzawa Yukichi, Gakumon no sususme, Tokyo: Iwanami bunko, 2003). A good selection of the articles that further constituted this debate, particularly from Meiroku zasshi 明六雑誌 and Minkan zasshi 民間雑誌, can be found in Meiji bunka zenshū, vol. 18 (journals), Tokyo: Hyōronsha, 1928. Closer referencing and a detailed explication and discussion of this debate can be found in Kiri Paramore, ‘Jinrin no ōmoto: nihon 1874–5 ni okotta danjodōkenronsō ni kanshite’ 「人倫の大 本」-日本1874–5におこった男女同権論争に関して, in Shisōshi kenkyū 思想史 研究, no. 4, 2004, pp. 97–115. This introduction can be found in NST47, pp. 246–7. Yamaji Aizan, ‘Gendai nihon kyōkaishi ron’, in Sumiya Mikio (ed.), Tokutomi Sohō / Yamaji Aizan, p. 394. Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu, pp. 108–10. Ibid., p. 136. Seki Kōsaku, Inouehakase to kirisutokyōto, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Washio Junkei, ‘Kirisutokyō ha ikani kokka wo shōgaisuruka wo ronsu’ 基督教は 如何に国家を戕害するかを論す, originally published in Bukkyō kōron 仏教公論 on July 10, 1893, quotation taken from Seki 1893/1988, pp. 302–3. Washio went on to become one of the most influential intellectual historians of the mid-twentieth century. His post-WWII compilations such as the series Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本 思想闘争史料 continue to be used as important texts today. The success that anti-Christian discourse had in the debates of the early 1890s in establishing this interpretation of the Rescript is demonstrated by the fact that many Christian commentators, most notably Uchimura Kanzō himself, steered clear of making any comment which detracted from the definition of the Rescript framed by Tetsujirō and others. Instead, the intensity of the attacks upon their Christianity forced figures such as Uchimura to focus their debating efforts on proving that Christianity also favoured loyalty to the nation. Indeed, Uchimura Kanzō’s early support for the First Sino-Japanese war in 1894, support he later withdrew, is often explained in terms of the political climate established during the debates of the early 1890s. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Nihon yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku 日本陽明学派之哲 学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1900; Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku 日本古学派之哲学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1903; Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku 日本朱子学派之哲学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1905 (republished with additions 1945). Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, p. 5. Ibid., p. 2. In English language literature what Tetsujirō describes as ‘Yang-mingist’ is either described by the full name of Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism, or more commonly as School of Mind Confucianism. This latter description, however, indicates a Chinese context that goes beyond Wang Yang-ming, so I have stuck with a literal translation of Tetsujirō’s description. What Tetsujirō describes as the ‘ancient learning school’ is most notably the Confucianism of mid-Tokugawa thinkers such as Itō Jinsai and Ogyū Sorai, who were critical of Zhu Xi-ist interpretations of Confucian texts, and advocated a return to Han-period or earlier texts, and reading the Chinese classics in the original Chinese. In historical reality, Jinsai, Sorai and others grouped in this category did not constitute a unified ‘school’. What Tetsujirō refers to as Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism is often referred to in English as School of Principle, or Neo-
Notes (pp. 154–161)
85 86 87 88 89
90 91 92 93 94 95
96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109
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Confucianism. Both of these terms can be misleading in the Japanese context. I stick with Tetsujirō’s use of the term Zhu Xi-ist, which is the term historically used in Japan to refer to this dominant trend of Confucianism. Ibid., p. 597. Ibid. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., pp. 595–6. Interestingly, Maruyama Masao later took up this point from the opposite political standpoint. He also argued that Hayashi Razan and other Zhu Xiists’ delineation of ‘heterodoxy’ in Confucianism, and attacks on Christianity could be linked to an ongoing process of secularization in Japanese history visible since the mid-sixteenth century (Maruyama Masao, Kōgiroku, vol. 6, p. 118). Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, p. 597. Ibid., pp. 598–9. Ibid., pp. 600–1. Ibid., pp. 602–3. Ibid., pp. 4–5. One could even say that Maruyama’s approach was to reform this standpoint inherited from Tetsujirō by concentrating on the political impact of thinkers who were critical of Razan and the Zhu Xi-ists, primarily of course Ōgyu Sorai, whom Tetsujirō had written off with all the other non-Zhu Xi-ist ‘heterodoxies’. Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigaku no tetsugaku, p. 49. Bitō Masahide 尾藤正英, Nihon hōken shisōshi kenkyū 日本封建思想史研究, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1961, pp. 277–8; Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩, Kinsei nihon shakai to sōgaku 近世日本社会と宋学, Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1985, pp. 14–16. Inoue Tetsujirō, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku, pp. 83–4. Ibid., pp. 61–85. This speech can be found as an appendix to later editions of Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku. Here we reference the 1945 edition, which contains this lecture on pp. 745–807. Ibid., p. 746. Ibid., p. 748. Ibid., p. 806. Ibid. See quote that opened this chapter. Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu, p. 125. Inoue Enryō, Tetsukai ichibetsu 哲界一瞥, in Inoue Enryō senshū, vol. 2, Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1987, p. 70. Ibid., p. 71. For instance, Stephen Vlastos, Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, pp. 1–3.
Conclusion 1 For instance, all the works included and transcribed/translated in NST25, edited by Ebisawa Arimichi; in Washio Junkei’s Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō, vol. 10; and in George Elison’s Deus Destroyed. Although there are earlier versions of some texts in existence and some of them have been referenced in these collections (for instance Elison references a 1660s copy of Kirishitan Monogatari), the choices of which documents to print match those made for the 1860s compilations. We can surmise this is because the 1860s texts were used to identify the texts, and also because they provided easily accessibly transcriptions and sometimes even references and annotations. The selection of the canon has been set by the Mito and Jōdo-shū scholars.
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Notes (pp. 161–166)
2 This is the case for all research which references this debate, including research focusing on the ideological rather than anti-Christian aspects, see for instance the reference in Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, pp. 129–32, fn 122. 3 Inoue Enryō’s publishing house Tetsugakushoin published Inoue Tetsujirō’s writings, Seki Kōsaku’s collection, and a popular collection of Tokugawa anti-Christian writing (Kanzaki Issaku 神崎一作, Haja sōsho 破邪叢書, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893) based on Ugai Tetsujō’s earlier collections. 4 See Chapters 1 and 2. 5 It is interesting to note that Christian voices like Habian and Matteo Ricci were first silenced in Japan not by the Tokugawa shogunate’s ban on Christianity, but by the hierarchical machinations of the Catholic Church itself in the years preceding the ban. Hierarchical pressure contributed to Habian’s decision to leave the Church around 1608, and the Japanese Jesuit hierarchy around the same time decided not to propagate Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi within Japan. It was only later, from 1613, that the Tokugawa government moved to comprehensively ban the religion and its books. 6 Shōsan through his propagation of shogunate structures of government in Kyushu; Shigemune on behalf of Matsudaira Nobutsuna in confronting the reform agenda of Ikeda Mitsumasa and Kumazawa Banzan in Okayama (see references from Ikeda Mitsumasa Nikki in Chapter 4). 7 Most notably in correspondence authored by Isshin Sūden and Hayashi Razan (see Chapter 3). 8 See Chapter 5. 9 As Sueki Fumihiko has pointed out, the two positions are related through the indirect influence of Inoue Enryō on the development of certain Kyoto School intellectual trends (Sueki Fumihiko, Kindai nihon to bukyō; Sueki Fumihiko, Meiji shisōkaron). This relationship has been missed by most who write on the twentieth-century phenomenon. For instance, Harry Harootunian describes the position as having emerged from the socio-economic context of early twentieth-century Japan (Harry Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 1–30). It is clear from the sources examined in Chapter 6 that the intellectual basis of this ideological framework was already being deployed in the 1880s, well before the socio-economic phenomenon mentioned by Harootunian appeared. 10 Maruyama described the process of early-modern secularization as ‘bringing religious power in general into confrontation with secular authority, religious influence in the end becoming completely subordinated to the latter’ (Maruyama Masao, Kōgiroku, vol. 6, pp. 119–20). 11 See Chapter 4. 12 On acknowledgment by Aizawa see Chapter 5, by Itō see Chapter 6. 13 On the tension between bureaucratism and feudalism in east Asian political history, and the problems with applying historical theories of modernization in this area, see Alexander Woodside, Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea and the Hazards of World History, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. 14 For discussion of this problem see Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001 (in particular pp. 30–54). 15 The longevity of Han discourses which condemned peasant rebellions by demonizing Daoist sects was discussed in Chapter 4. There are many recent examples of the role of religion in sustaining nineteenth-century constructs of cultural nationalism with the contemporary European Union. During the German presidency in the first half of 2007 there were several well-publicized comments relating Christian ethics to European culture as one of the defining features of the Euro-state. EU commissioners often define the boundaries of the EU state in cultural nationalist terms by using religion. See, for instance, Ján Figel (European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture, and
Notes (pp. 166)
199
Youth), ‘Developing a Culture of Cooperation in Europe: The Role of the Churches’, Speech in Sibiu, 6 September, 2007 (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/figel/ speeches/docs/07_09_06_Sibiu_en.pdf accessed May 27, 2008).
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Due to space constraints, a shortened bibliography appears below. To increase the utility of the bibliography, well-known English language works which have not been directly referenced have been omitted to make way for a more comprehensive list of primary sources and of secondary Japanese works which might be less known to an English language readership. Reference in this list to some manuscripts as ‘uncatalogued’ means they have not been catalogued in the computerized general library system of the institution concerned, although they may be catalogued in the superseded hard-copy card system attached to an individual stack or departmental collection. The call numbers quoted relate to those latter superseded systems.
Printed series collections of relevant primary sources Arai Hakuseki Zenshū 新井白石全集, 6 volumes, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1905–7. Inoue Enryō senshū 井上円了選集, 25 volumes, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 1987–2004. Jūroku, jūnana seiki Iezusukai Nihon hōkokushū 十六・七世紀イエズス会日本報告集, (Matsuda Kiichi 松田毅一 (ed.)), Period 1: 5 volumes, Period 2: 3 volumes, Period 3: 7 volumes, Tokyo: Dōhōshashuppan, 1987–94. Banzan zenshū 蕃山全集, 7 volumes, Tokyo: Meichoshuppan, 1978–80. Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 5, zasshihen 雑誌編, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronshinsha, 1955. Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 6, gaikōhen外交編, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronsha, 1927. Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 11, shūkyōhen 宗教編, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronsha, 1928. Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol 15, shisōhen 思想篇, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronsha, 1929. Mingmo Qingchu tianzhujiao shi wenxian congbian 明末淸初天主敎史文獻叢編, 5 volumes (Zhou Erfang (ed.) 周駬方), Beijing: Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2001. Mitogaku shiryō水戸学史料, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1970. Mitogaku taikei 水戸学大系, 5 volumes, Tokyo: Ida shoten, 1943. Mitogaku zenshū水戸学全集, 6 volumes, Tokyo: Nihon shoin, 1933–4. Nihon kyōiku shisō taikei 日本教育思想大系, vol. 9, Fujiwara Seika 藤原惺窩, Tokyo: Nihon tosho sentā, 1970.
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Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 17, Renyo / Ikkō ikki 蓮如・一向一揆, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 25, Kirishitansho / Haiyasho キリシタン書・排 耶書, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 28, Fujiwara Seika / Hayashi Razan 藤原惺窩・林 羅山, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 29, Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 30, Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1971. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 32, Yamaga Sokō 山鹿素行, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 35, Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1975. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 36, Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 41, Miura Baien 三浦梅園, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1982. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 47, Kinsei kōki jukashū 近世後期儒家集, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 53, Mitogaku 水戸学, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. Nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系, vol. 57, Kinsei bukkyō no shisō 近世仏教の思想, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1973. Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 9, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Tokugawa jikki 徳川実記, 10 volumes, in Shinteizōho Kokushitaikei 新訂増補『国史大 系』, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1981–2. Uchimura Kanzō chosakushū 内村鑑三著作集, 21 volumes, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1953–5. Zoku Tokugawa jikki 続徳川実記, 5 volumes, in Shintei zōho kokushitaikei 新訂増補『国 史大系』, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1982. Zokuzoku Gunsho ruijū 続々群書類従, vols 11 and 12, shūkyōbu 宗教部, vol. 13, shibunbu 詩文部、 Tokyo: Zokugunshoruijūkanseikai, 1969–78.
Primary sources consulted Author Unknown, Kirishitan monogatari 吉利支丹物語 (c.1639), in Kokushokankōkaihen, Zokuzokugunshoruijū 続々群書類従, vol. 12 (religion), Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai, 1877. Author Unknown, Shingaku gorinsho 心学五倫書, in NST28. Author Unknown, Honsaroku 本佐録, in NST28. Author Unknown, Kirishitan yūraijikki 切支丹由来実記, publication data unknown, uncatalogued manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:145). Author Unknown, Kirishitan shūmon raichōjikki 切支丹宗門来朝実記, 1789 manuscript print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko. Also in Kokushokankōkaihen, Zokuzokugunshoruijū 続々群書類従, vol. 12 (religion), Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai, 1877.
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Author Unknown, Shimabara yaso chūbatsu ryakki 島原耶蘇誅伐略記, publication data unknown but stamp of Kyū Wakayama Tokugawashizō 旧和歌山徳川氏蔵の印 visible on uncatalogued manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (東京大学総合 図書館書庫 (C60:153). Author Unknown, Baterenki 伴天連記, in Kokushokankōkaihen, Zokuzoku gunsho ruijū 続々群書類従, vol. 12 (religion), Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai, 1877. Author Unknown, Yasoshūmon kōhairoku 耶蘇宗門興廃録, publication data unknown, uncatalogued manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:185). Author Unknown, Nanbanji kōhaiki 南蛮寺興廃記, in Washio Junkei (ed.) 鷲尾順敬, Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Author Unknown, Nanbanji monogatari 南蛮寺物語, in Washio Junkei (ed.) 鷲尾順敬, Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Author Unknown, Chijihen 知恥篇, in Shinmura Izuru 新村出 (ed.), Nanbankōmōshiryō 南蛮紅毛史料, vol. 1, Kyoto: Kōseikaku, 1930. Author Unknown, Saijahyōron 摧邪評論, in Ozawa Tomio 小沢富夫 and Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功 (eds), Bizenshingaku wo meguru ronsōsho 備前心学をめぐる論争 書, (shiryōhen), Tokyo: Tamagawa daigaku shuppanbu, 1998. Author Unknown, Jubutsuronbunsho 儒仏論聞書, in Ozawa Tomio 小沢富夫 and Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功 (eds), Bizenshingaku wo meguru ronsōsho 備前心学を めぐる論争書, (shiryōhen), Tokyo: Tamagawa daigaku shuppanbu, 1998. Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, Shinron 新論, in NST53. Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, Kikōben 豈好弁, Gyokugenshodō, 1828. Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, Kagaku jigen 下学邇言, in Mitogaku taikei 水戸学大系, vol. 2, Tokyo: Ida shoten, 1943. Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, Tekiihen 廸彜篇, in Mitogaku taikei 水戸学大系, vol. 2, Tokyo: Ida shoten, 1943. Aizawa Seishisai 会沢正志斎, Dokuchoku hirei 読直毘霊, in Mitogaku taikei 水戸学大 系, vol. 2, Tokyo: Ida shoten, 1943. Aquinas, St. Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle`s De Anima, Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1994. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Tenshukyō taii 天主教大意, in Miyazaki Michio 宮崎道生 (ed.), Shintei Seiyō kibun 新訂西洋紀聞, Tōyō bunko 113, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1968. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Seiyō kibun 西洋紀聞, in NST35. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Sairan igen 采覧異言, in Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki zenshū 新井白石全集, vol. 4, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1906. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Nantōshi 南島志, in Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki Bunshū, vol. 3, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1906. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Ezoshi 蝦夷志, in Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki zenshū 新井白 石全集, vol. 6, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1907. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, Honsarokukō 本佐録考, in Arai Hakuseki, Arai Hakuseki zenshū 新井白石全集, vol. 6, Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1907. Aristotle, De Anima, London: Penguin Books, 1986. Asai Ryōi 浅井了意 (瓢水子) (ed.), Kirishitan hakyakuronden 鬼理志端破却論伝, uncatalogued manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku sōgōtoshokan shoko (C60:81); also in Shinmura Izuru 新村出 (ed.), Nanban kōmō shiryō 南蛮紅毛史料, vol. 1, Kyoto: Kōseikaku, 1930. Date Chihiro 伊達千広, Taisei santenkō 大勢三転考, Tokyo: Haruo Kamejirō, 1873. Fujita Yūkoku 藤田幽谷, Seimeiron 正名論, in NST53, and in Kikuchi Kenjirō 菊池謙二 郎 (ed.), Yūkoku zenshū 幽谷全集, Tokyo: Yoshida Yahei, 1935.
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Fujita Yūkoku 藤田幽谷, Nagakubo Sekisui ate shokan 長久保赤水宛書簡, in Kikuchi Kenjirō 菊池謙二郎 (ed.), Yūkoku zenshū 幽谷全集, Tokyo: Yoshida Yahei, 1935. Fujiwara Seika 藤原惺窩, Daigaku yōryaku 大学要略, in NST28, and in Fujiwawa Seika 藤原惺窩, Fujiwara Seika shū 藤原惺窩集, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1978. Fujiwawa Seika 藤原惺窩, Fujiwara Seika shū 藤原惺窩集, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1978. Fukuzawa Yūkichi 福沢諭吉, Gakumon no susume 学問のすすめ, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1942. Gomez, Pedro, Compendium catholicae veritatis, in Ohara Satoru 尾原悟 (ed.) Iezusukai Nihon korejio no kōgi yōkō イエズス会日本コレジヨの講義要綱, 3 volumes, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1997–9. Guerreiro, Fernão, SJ. Relaçam annal das covsas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de IESUS, nas partes da India Oriental, & em algũas outras da conquista deste Reyno nos annos de 607. & 608. & do processo da conuersaõ & Chirstanade daquellas partes, com mais hũa addiçam a relaçam de Ethiopia, Lisbon: Impresso pro Pedro Crasbeeck, 1611. Habian ハビアン, Hadaiusu 破提宇子 (1621), in NST 25; and in Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人 (ed.), Hadaiusu 破提宇子, 1868. Habian (Habiyan) (ed.), Heike Monogatari 平家物語 (1592), in Kamei Takayoshi 亀井高 孝 and Iida Yukiko 飯田雪子 (trans.) Heike Monogatari: Habiyan shō, Kirishitan ban, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1966. Habian, Myōtei Mondō 妙貞問答 (1605), in Ebisawa Arimich 海老沢有道 (ed.), Kirishitan kyōrisho キリシタン教理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993. Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉, Kanbun taikei 漢文大系, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1880. Hayashi Razan 林羅山 (Ro Yōshi 路陽子), Sōzoku zenkōki 草賊前記後記, 1651–2, in: — Gunsho Ichikaku 『群書一轂』, 1803 hand-copied manuscript in Naikaku bunko 内 閣文庫 (和 27689). — Sōhōkakusōshoryō 漱芳閣叢書料, 1803 hand-copied manuscript in Kokkai toshokan 国会図書館 (214-141). — Shōshobetsuroku 抄書別録, 1851 hand-copied manuscript in Gakushuin University Library. — Chōchūkyoshahon 雕蟲居写本, 1886 hand-copied manuscript in Gakushuin University Library. — Jijitsubunpen 事実文編, Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai, 1911. — Yui Shōsetu jikki / Matsumoto Shinzaemon kikigaki 由比正雪実記・松本新左衛門聞 書, Tōkai bunko vol. 5, Shizuoka: Shizuoka kyodo kenkyūkai, 1928. Hayashi Razan 林羅山, “Genkū, seidō wo motte nangyō wo nasu” 源空、聖道を以て難 行と為す, in Kakuzan, Dōrakuin 廓山・堂楽院 (ed.), “Jōdoshū to nichirenshū shūron no ki” 浄土宗与日蓮宗宗論之記, in Dai Nihon bukkyō zensho 大日本仏教全書, shūronsōsho 宗論叢書, Tokyo: Busshokankōkai, 1914. Hayashi Razan 林羅山, Hayashi Razan bunshū 林羅山文集, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1979. Hayashi Razan 林羅山, Hayashi Razan shishū 林羅山詩集, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1979. Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤, Kokon’yōmikō 古今妖魅考, in Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬 (ed.), Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 9, Meichokankōkai, 1969. Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤, Honkyōgaihen 本教外編, in Shinshū Hirata Atsutane zenshū 新修『平田篤胤全集』, vol. 7, Tokyo: Meichochuppan, 1978. Hota Wakasanokami 保田若狭守 (Sessō Sōsai 雪窓宗催), Keirikirisutoki 契利斯督記 (c.1662), printed with an introduction by Fukuyama Ōta 福山太田, 1797, uncatalogued in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:68).
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Ikeda Mitsumasa 池田光政, Ikeda Mitsumasa Nikki 池田光政日記, Okayama: Sanyō tosho, 1967. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Bukkyō katsuron honron daiichi – hajakatsuron 仏教活論本論第 一「破邪活論」, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1889. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Chūkōkatsuron 忠孝活論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Kyōiku shūkyō kankeiron 教育宗教関係論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Shinri kinshin 真理金針, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1886; also in Meiji bunka zenshū, vol. 11, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronsha, 1928. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Bukkyō katsuron joron 仏教活論序論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1888; and in Meiji bunka zenshū, vol. 11, Tokyo: Nihonhyōronsha, 1928. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Tetsugaku issekiwa 哲学一夕話, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1886; and in Inoue Enryō senshū 井上円了選集, vol. 3, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 1987. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Tetsukai ichibetsu 哲界一瞥 (1913), in Inoue Enryō senshū 井上 円了選集, vol. 2, Tokyo: Tōyō University, 1987. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, Nihon seikyōron 日本政教論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1889; and in Inoue Enryō senshū 井上円了選集, vol. 8, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku, 1991. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Chokugo engi 勅語衍義, Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1890. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教との衝突, Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1893. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Nihon yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku 日本陽明学派之哲学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1900. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku 日本古学派之哲学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1903. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Nihon shushigakuha no tetsugaku 日本朱子学派之哲学, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1905. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Naichizakkyoron 内地雑居論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1889; also in Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 6, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1927. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, Naichizakkyozokuron 内地雑居続論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1891; also in Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集, vol. 6, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1927. Ishin Sūden 以心崇伝, Bateren tsuihō no fumi 伴天連追放之文, in Dainihonshiryō 大日 本史料, vol. 9 of edition 12 第十二編之九, Tokyo: Tomiyamabō, 1906. Ishin Sūden 以心崇伝, Ikoku sōsho 異国叢書 (Murakami Naojirō 村上直次郎 (ann.)), Tokyo: Shunnansha, 1929. Ishin Sūden 以心崇伝, Eiinbon – Ikoku nikki – Konjiin Sūden gaikō bunsho shūsei 影印 本――異国日記――金地院崇伝外交文書集成, Tokyo: Tōkyō bijutsu, 1989. Kan Chazan 菅茶山, Fuyu no nichiei 冬の日影 (1846), in Nihon jurin sōsho 日本儒林叢 書, vol. 6, Tokyo: Ōtori shuppan, 1978. Kanzaki Issaku 神崎一作, Haja sōsho 破邪叢書, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之, Meisōtekiuchūkan 迷想的宇宙観, Tokyo: Heigo shuppansha, 1908. Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之, Kirisutokyōtokyūsu 基督教徒窮す, Tokyo: Dōbunkan, 1909. Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之, Kirisutokyō no gaidoku 基督教の害毒, Tokyo: Kinkōdōshoseki, 1911. Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山, Daigaku wakumon 大学或問, in NST30; also in Masamune Atsuo 正宗敦夫, Banzan Zenshū 蕃山全集, Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1978–80. Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山, Shūgi washo 集義和書, in NST30; also in Masamune Atsuo 正宗敦夫, Banzan Zenshū 蕃山全集, Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1978–80.
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Martin, William (Ding Tiliang 丁題良) (author), Nakamura Masanao 中村正直 ((Japanese annotation 訓点), Tiandao suyuan 天道溯原 (Jp. Tendō sogen), Yamadashunzō, 1875 print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:55). Miura Baien 三浦梅園, Samidareshō 五月雨抄 (1784): — uncatalogued manuscript from 1839 in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:48). — uncatalogued manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:149). — Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬 (ed.), Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Monbushō 文部省 (Ministry of Education), Kaneifutsudoku kyōiku chokugo shakusan 漢英仏獨教育勅語釈纂 (Chinese, English, French, German, Imperial Rescript on Education Collected Translations), Tokyo: The Herald Press (authorized publishers), 1931. Murai Shōkō 村井昌弘 (ed.), Yasotenchūki 耶蘇天誅記, manuscript with taishikan 大思 館 mark in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:184). Nagaoka Kenkichi 長岡謙吉, Kanshūroku 閑愁録, 1867, in Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬 (ed.), Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meicho kankōkai, 1969. Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹, “Rinshi, kami wo sori kurai wo ukuru no ben” 林氏、髪を剃り位 を受くるの弁, in NST29. Nakajima Hirotari 中島広足, Dōji mondō 童子問答, in Nakajima Hirotari zenshū 中島広 足全集, vol. 2, Tokyo: Ōokayama shoten, 1933. Ohara Ryōtarō 尾原亮太郎, Kyōiku tetsuron 教育哲論, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1892. Ōhashi Junshū 大橋順周, Hekija shōgen 闢邪小言, Edo: Shiseijuku, 1852 年, this print uncatalogued in Tōkyō daigaku shiryō hensanjo (1021:83). Ōkuni Takamasa 大国隆正, Shinri kōhōron 真理公法論 (1867), in Meiji bunka zenshū 明 治文化全集, vol. 15, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1929. Ozaki Hiromichi 小崎弘道, Kirisutokyō to kokka 基督教と国家, Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1889. Rai Sanyō 頼山陽, Nihongaishi 日本外史, Tokyo: Iwanami bunko, 1976. Ricci, Matteo; Elia, Pasquale M. d’ (ed.), Fonti Ricciane, Rome: Liberia dello Stato, 1942–9. Ricci, Matteo, Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義: — Gotō Motomi 後藤基巳 (ed.), Tenshu jitsugi 天主実義, Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1971. — Li Madao 利瑪竇, Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義, Taipei: Guofang yanjiu yuan, 1967. — Matteo Ricci S.J., The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven (Edward J. Malatesta S.J. (ed.)), Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1985. Ricci, Matteo 利瑪竇, Kunyu wangkuo quantu 坤輿萬國全圖, Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1996. Seki Kōsaku 関皋作 (ed.), Inoue hakase to kirisutokyōto 井上博士と基督教徒, Tokyo: Tetsugakushoin, 1893. Sessō Sōsai 雪窓宗催, Taijijashūron 対治邪執論, in NST25. Sessō Sōsai 雪窓宗催, Jakyō taii 邪教大意 (alternate title of Taijijashūron) in Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Nanbanji kōhaiki, jakyō taii, myōtei mondō, hadaiusu 南蛮寺興 廃記・邪教大意、妙貞問答, 破提宇子, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1964. Shingai Inshi 深慨隠士, Sekija manpitsu 斥邪漫筆, (1865), in Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文 化全集, vol. 15, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1929. Shingai Inshi 深慨隠士, Sekija nipitsu 斥邪二筆, (1866), in Meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化 全集, vol. 15, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha, 1929.
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Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai 静岡郷土研究会 (ed.), Yui Shōsetsu jikki, Matsuki shinzaemon shimatsu kikigaki 由比正雪実記・松木新左衛門始末聞書, Tōkai bunko, vol. 5, Shizuoka: Shizuoka kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1928. Soshinni 祖心尼, Soshinni kōhōgo 祖心尼公法語, in Mitamura Engyo 三田村鳶魚, Kinsei bukkyō shūsetsu 近世仏教集説, Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1916. Sūmitsuin 枢密院 (Privy Council), Sūmitsuin kaigi gijiroku 枢密院会議議事録, vol. 1, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1984. Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三, Hakirishitan 破吉利支丹, in NST25. Suzuki Shōsan 鈴木正三, (Suzuki Tesshin 鈴木鉄心 (ed.)), Suzuki Shōsan shōnin zenshū 鈴木正三道人全集, Tokyo: Yamakibō busshorin, 1962. Tajima Shōji 田島象二, Yaso ichidai benbōki 耶蘇一代弁妄記, Jūtensha sōhan, 1874. Takinokawa Josui 滝川恕水, Takinokawa shingakuron 滝川心学論, in Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, Shingaku gorinsho no kisoteki kenkyū 『心学五倫書』の基礎的研究, Tokyo: Gakushūin daigaku kenkyū sōsho vol. 12, Gakushuin daigaku, 1985. Tokugawa Nariaki 徳川斉昭, Hajashū 破邪集, Mito: Kōdōkan, 1855. Tokugawa Nariaki 徳川斉昭, Sokkyohen 息距編, Mito: Kōdōkan, 1860, initial manuscript print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:73). Uchimura Kanzō 内村鑑三, “Letter to Bell, 6th March, 1891”, in Uchimura Kanzō, Uchimura Kanzō chosakushū 内村鑑三著作集, vol. 18, Tokyo: Iwanami, 1954. Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定(Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人) Hekijakankenroku 闢邪管見録, 1861 initial print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:110). Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定 (Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人), Hekijashū 『闢邪集』, 1861 print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:111). Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定 (Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人) (ed.), Habian, Hadaiusu 破提宇子,1868. Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定 (Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人), Shōyaron 笑耶論, uncatalogued 1869 print in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:190). Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定 (Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人), Buppō fukasekiron 仏法不可斥論 (publisher unknown) 1870, April (Meiji year 3, 3rd month), manuscript in Tōkyō daigaku shiryō hensanjo (1014:113). Ugai Tetsujō 鵜飼徹定 (Kiyū Dōjin 杞憂道人), Shakkyō seibyū shoha 釈教正謬初破 (1868), in Washio Junkei 鷲尾順敬 (ed.), Nihon shisō tōsō shiryō 日本思想闘争史料, vol. 10, Tokyo: Meichokankōkai, 1969. Valignano, A, Catechismus Christianae Fidei, In quo veritas nostrae religionis ostenditur, & sectae Iaponenses confutantur, Olysippone, 1586. Yasui Sokken 安井息軒, Benbō 弁妄, in NST47. Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 (author), Andō Sadakazu 安藤定 (Japanese translation), Benbō wakai 弁妄和解, 1873 print with Kishū Wakayama Fujii zōshi 紀州和歌山藤井蔵梓 stamp in Tōkyō daigaku sōgō toshokan shoko (C60:54). Yasui Sokken 安井息軒 (author), Kuroki Moriyuki 黒木盛幸 (editor and annotation), Yasui Sokken shokanshū 安井息軒書簡集, Kiyotakechō (Miyazaki): Yasui Sokken kenshōkai, 1987. Yokoi Shōnan 横井小楠, Numayama taiwa 沼山対話, in Yokoi Shōnan kenkō 横井小楠遣 稿, Tokyo: Nisshin shoin, 1942. Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 et al. (eds), Mingshi 明史, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974. Zhang Weihua 張維華, Mingmo Folangji Lüsong Helan Yidali sizhuan zhushi 明史佛郎機 呂宋和蘭意大里亞四傳注釋, Beijing: Hafo yanjing xueshe, 1934. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju ji zhu 四書章句集注, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Jinsi lu 近思録, Tokyo: Meiji shoin, 1975. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Zhuzi yulu 朱子語類, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994. Zhu Xi 朱熹, Zhu Xi ji 朱熹集, Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996.
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Research monographs Abe Yoshio 阿部吉雄, Nihon shushigaku to chōsen 日本朱子学と朝鮮, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1965. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, Kirishitan hakugaishichū no jinbutsu jiseki 切支丹迫害史 中の人物事跡, Tokyo: Dōbunkan, 1930. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, Kirishitan dendō no kōhai 切支丹伝道の興廃, Tokyo: Dōbunakan, 1930. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, Kirishitan shūkyō bungaku 切支丹宗教文学, Tokyo: Dōbunkan, 1932. Araki Kengo 荒木見悟, Bukkyō to yōmeigaku 仏教と陽明学, Tokyo: Regurusu bunko, 1979. Arano Yasunori 荒野泰典, Kinsei nihon to higashi ajia 近世日本と東アジア, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1988. Asao Naohiro 朝尾直弘, Sengo nihonshigaku no tenkai 戦後日本史学の展開, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977. Asao Naohiro 朝尾直弘, Nihonshikenkyū no genjō 日本史研究の現状, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977. Asao Naohiro 朝尾直弘, Kinsei hōken shakai no kisoteki kōzō: kinai ni okeru bakuhan taisei 近世封建社会の基礎的構造:畿内における幕藩体制, Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobō, 1978. Asao Naohiro 朝尾直弘, Tenka ittō 天下一統, Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1988. Asao Naohiro 朝尾直弘, Asao Naohiro chosakushū 朝尾直弘著作集, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2003–4. Banzan sensei sanbyakunensai jikkō iinkai 蕃山先生三百年祭実行委員会 (ed.), Sanbyakunensai kinenshi Kumazawa Banzan 三百年祭記念誌熊沢蕃山, Okayama: Banzan sensei sanbyakunensai jikkō iinkai, 1991. Barnes, Jonathon, Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Barshay, Andrew, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Bary, de, William Theodore, et al. (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, second edition, volume 2, New York: Columbia Unversity Press, 2001. Bitō Masahide 尾藤正英, Nihon hōken shisōshi kenkyū 日本封建思想史研究, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1961. Boot, W.J., The Adoption and Adaptation of Neo-Confucianism in Japan: The Role of Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan, second version, Leiden: W.J. Boot, 1992. Breen, John and Williams, Mark, Japan and Christianity: Impacts and Responses, London: Macmillan, 1996. Ching, Julia, Confucianism and Christianity – A Comparative Study, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1977. Cieslik, Hubert チースリク、H (ed.), Kirishitan キリシタン, Tokyo: Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1998. Doi Tadao 土井忠生, Kirishitan bunkenkō 吉利支丹文献考, Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1963. Doi Tadao 土井忠生 (trans.), Nippo jisho 日葡辞書, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1980. Dōshisha daigaku jinbunkagaku kenkyūjo 同志社大学人文科学研究所 (ed.), Haiyaron no kenkyū 排耶論の研究, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1989. Eagleton, Terry, Ideology: An Introduction, London: Verso, 1991. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan no kenkyū 切支丹の研究, Tokyo: Bōbō shobō, 1942.
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Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan tenseki sōkō 切支丹典籍叢考, Tokyo: Takubundō, 1943. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Nanbangakutō no kenkyū 南蛮学統の研究, Tokyo: Sōbunkan, 1958. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道 (trans.), Nanbanjikōhaiki / Jakyō taii / Myōtei mondō / Hadaiusu 南蛮寺興廃記・邪教大意・妙貞問答・破提宇子, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1964. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Nihon kirishitanshi 日本キリシタン史, Tokyo: Hanawa shobō, 1966. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Chihō kirishitan no hakkutsu 地方切支丹の発掘, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobō, 1976. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan no dan’atsu to teikō キリシタンの弾圧と抵 抗, Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppan, 1981. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan nanban bungaku nyūmon キリシタン南蛮文 学入門, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1991. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, Kirishitan kyōrisho キリシタン教理書, Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993. Elison, George, Deus Destroyed, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Freeden, Michael, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Fujii Jōji 藤井讓治, Edo kaimaku 江戸開幕, Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1992. Gluck, Carol, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. Gonoi Takashi 五野井隆史, Nihon kirisutokyōshi 日本キリスト教史, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1990. Gonoi Takashi 五野井隆史, Tokugawa shoki kirishitanshi kenkyū 徳川初期キリシタン 史研究, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1993. Goodman, Grant K., Japan and the Dutch, Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000. Haga Kōshirō 芳賀幸四郎, Azuchi-Momoyama jidai no bunka 安土桃山時代の文化, Tokyo: Shibundō, 1964. Harootunian, Harry, History’s Disquiet, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Harootunian, Harry, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Hayashi Reiko 林玲子, Josei no kinsei 女性の近世, Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1993. Hibbs, Thomas (ed.), Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1999. Hiraishi Naoaki 平石直昭, Tokugawa shisōshizō no sōgōteki kōsei: ‘nihonka’ to ‘kindaika’ no tōitsu wo mezashite 徳川思想史像の総合的構成:「日本化」と「近代化」の 統一をめざして, Tokyo: Hiraishi Naoaki, 1996. Hiraishi Naoaki 平石直昭, Ten 天, Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1996. Hiraishi Naoaki 平石直昭, Nihon seiji shisōshi: kinsei wo chūshintekini 日本政治思想 史-近世を中心的に, Tokyo: Hōsō daigaku kyōiku shinkōkai, 1997. Hirakawa Sukehiro 平川祐弘, Mateo Ricchi (Matteo Ricci) den マテオ・リッチ伝, vols 1–3, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1969–97. Hori Isao 堀勇雄, Hayashi Razan 林羅山, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1990. Hoshiyama Keiko 星山京子, Tokugawa kōki no jōi shisō to seiyō 徳川後期の攘夷思想と 「西洋」, Tokyo: Fūkan shobō, 2003. Ide Katsumi 井手勝美, Nihon kirishitan kyōkaishi 1602–1620 日本キリシタン教会史 1602–1620 年, Tokyo: Yūshōdō shoten, 1977.
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Ide Katsumi 井手勝美, Kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu キリシタン思想史研究序説, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1995. Imai Jun 今井淳, Nihon shisō ronsōshi 日本思想論争史, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1979. Imanaka Kanshi 今中寛司, Kinsei nihon seiji shisō no seiritsu: Seikagaku to Razangaku 近世日本政治思想の成立 : 惺窩学と羅山学, Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1972. Inoguchi Atsushi 猪口篤志, Fujiwara Seika 藤原惺窩, Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1982. Ishida Ichirō 石田一良, Fujiwara Seika / Hayashi Razan 藤原惺窩・林羅山, Tokyo: Shintō taikei hensankai, 1988. Itō Tasaburō 伊東多三郎, Kinseishi no kenkyū 近世史の研究, vol. 3, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981. Kanda Chisato 神田千里, Ikkō ikki to shinshū shinkō 一向一揆と真宗信仰, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1991. Kanda Chisato 神田千里, Ikkō ikki to sengoku shakai 一向一揆と戦国社会, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1998. Kanda Chisato 神田千里, Shimabara no ran 島原の乱, Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsho, 2005. Katō Eiichi 加藤栄一 (et al. ed.), Bakuhansei kokka to chiiki/ikoku 幕藩制国家と地域・ 異国, Tokyo: Kōsō shobō, 1989. Keijō tenshukyō kai 京城天主教会 (ed.), Chōsen tenshukyō shiryō tenkan mokuroku 朝鮮 天主教史料展観目録, Seoul (Keijō): Keijō tenshukyō kai, 1931. Kinugawa Yasuki 衣笠安喜, Kinsei nihon no jugaku to bunka 近世日本の儒学と文化, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1990. Kirishitan bunka kenkyūsho キリシタン文化研究所 (ed.), Kirishitan kenkyū キリシタ ン研究, 28 volumes, Tokyo: Tōkyōdō, 1942; Tokyo: Tōyōdō, 1944; Tokyo: Yōyōdō, 1957; Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1959–88. Kitanishi Hiromu 北西弘, Chūsei shakai to ikkō ikki 中世社会と一向一揆, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1985. Kōda Shigetomo 幸田成友, Ōshio Heihachirō 大塩平八郎, Tokyo: Sōgensha, 1942. Koizumi Sanshin 小泉三申, Yui Shōsetsu 由比正雪, Tokyo: Shōka bōkan, 1896. Kojima Yasunori 小島康敬, Soraigaku to hansorai 徂徠学と反徂徠, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1987. Kojima Yasunori 小島康敬, Kagami no naka no nihon to kankoku 鏡の中の日本と韓国, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2002. Koyasu Nobukuni 子安宣邦 (supervising editor), Nihon shisōshi jiten 日本思想史辞典, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2001. Kreiner, Josef (ed.), The Road to Japan: Social and Economic Aspects of Early EuropeanJapanese Contacts, Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsantalt, 2005. Kuroe Ichirō 黒江一郎, Yasui Sokken 安井息軒, Miyazaki: Nikkō bunko kankōkai, 1953. Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, Kinsei nihon shakai to jukyō 近世日本社会と儒教, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2003. Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, Fukusūsei no nihon shisō 複数性の日本思想, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2006. Laures, Johannes (J. ラウレス) S.J. (ed.), Kirishitan bunko 吉利支丹文庫, Tokyo: Rinsen shoten, 1985. Lieberman, Victor, Beyond Binary Histories: Re-imagining Eurasia to c. 1830, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Maruyama Masao 丸山真男, Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū 日本政治思想史研究, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1998.
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Maruyama Masao 丸山真男, Maruyama Masao kōgiroku 丸山真男講義録, vol. 7 (1967), Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1998. Maruyama Masao 丸山真男, Maruyama Masao kōgiroku 丸山真男講義録, vol. 6 (1966), Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2000. Matsushima Eiichi 松島栄一 (ed.), Meijishi ronshū 明治史論集, Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1965–76. McMullen, James, Idealism, Protest, and the Tale of Genji – The Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円, Giri to ninjō 義理と人情, Tokyo: Chūōkōron shinsha, 1969. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円 (ed.), Edo no jugaku: ‘daigaku’ juyō no rekishi 江戸の儒学 : 『 大学』受容の歴史, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1988. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円 and Sagara Tōru 相良亨 (eds), Edo no shisōkatachi 江戸の思想 家たち, Tokyo: kenkyūsha shuppan, 1979. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円 and Seki Akira 関晃, Shinkannen no hikaku bunkaronteki kenkyū 神観念の比較文化論的研究, Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1981. Miyazaki Michio 宮崎道生 (ann.), Shintei Seiyō Kibun 新訂西洋紀聞, Toyō bunko 113, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1968. Miyazaki Michio 宮崎道生, Kumazawa Banzan no kenkyū 熊沢蕃山の研究, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1990. Miyazaki Michio 宮崎道生, Kumazawa Banzan: jinbutsu, jiseki, shisō 熊沢蕃山:人 物・事績・思想, Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu jūraisha, 1995. Mizuguchi Yasuo 溝口靖夫, Tōyō bunka shijō no kirisutokyō 東洋文化史上の基督教, Tokyo: Risōsha shuppanbu, 1941. Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨 (ed.), Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆 (revised edition), Mochizuki bukkyō daijiten 望月仏教大辞典, Tokyo: Sekai seiten kankō kyōkai, 1970. Mori Ryūkichi 森竜吉, Bakuhan taisei to shūkyō: Honganji kyōdan wo taishō toshita hōkenteki shūkyō no shisōtekina shiron 幕藩体制と宗教――本願寺教団を対象とし た封建的宗教の思想史的な試論, Tokyo: Sanni shobō, 1959. Mungello, D.E., Curious Land – Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. Munitiz, Joseph and Endean, Philip (trans.), Saint Ignatius of Loyola – Personal Writings, London: Penguin, 1996. Murai Sanae 村井早苗, Bakuhansei seiritsu to kirishitan kinsei 幕藩制成立とキリシタ ン禁制, Tokyo: Bunken shuppan, 1989. Murai Sanae 村井早苗, Kirishitanshi no shinhakken キリシタン史の新発見, Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppan, 1995. Murai Sanae 村井早苗, Tennō to kirishitan kinsei 天皇とキリシタン禁制, Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppan, 2000. Murai Sanae 村井早苗, Kirishitan kinsei to minshū no shūkyō キリシタン禁制と民衆の 宗教, Tokyo: Yamakawa tosho shuppan, 2002. Muraoka Tsunetsugu 村岡典嗣, Kirishitan bungakushō 吉利支丹文学抄, Tokyo: Kaizōsha, 1926. Muraoka Tsunetsugu 村岡典嗣, Shinhen Nihon shisōshi kenkyū 新編日本思想史研究, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2004. Naganome Tōru 中野目徹, Seikyōsha no kenkyū 政教社の研究, Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppansha, 1993. Nagata Hiroshi 永田広志, Nihon tetsugakushi 日本哲学史, Tokyo: Mikasa shobō, 1938. Nagata Hiroshi 永田広志, Nihon tetsugaku shisōshi 日本哲学思想史, Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1967.
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Nagazumi Yōko 永積洋子, Kinsei shoki no gaikō 近世初期の外交, Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1990. Nakamura Hajime 中村元, Tōyōjin no shii hōhō 東洋人の思惟方法, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1962. Nakamura Hajime 中村元, Kinsei nihon no hihanteki seishin 近世日本の批判的精神, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1965. Nakamura Hajime 中村元, Tozai bunka no kōryū 東西文化の交流, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1965. Nakamura Hajime 中村元, A History of the Development of Japanese Thought, Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1969. Nishida Takeshi 西田毅 (et al., eds.), Minyūsha to sono jidai: shisō, bungaku, jānarizumu shūdan no kiseki 民友社とその時代――思想、文学、ジャーナリズム集団の軌 跡, Kyoto: Minerva shobō, 2003. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Sessō Sōsai: zen to kokka to kirishitan 雪窓宗催――禅と国家と キリシタン, Kyoto: Dōhōsha shuppan, 1984. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Nihon kinsei no shisō to bukkyō 日本近世の思想と仏教, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 1989. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Sengoku shūkyō shisōron 戦国宗教思想論, Kyoto: Hōsōkan, 1989. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, Maeda Ichirō 前田一郎 (eds), Jubutu mondō 儒仏問答, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2006. Ōno Izuru 大野出, Nihon no kinsei to rōsō shisō: Hayashi Razan no shisō wo megutte 日本 の近世と老荘思想 : 林羅山の思想をめぐって, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1997. Ooms, Herman, Tokugawa Ideology, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. Ooms, Herman, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. Ōta Seikyū 太田青丘, Fujiwara Seika 藤原惺窩, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1985. Ozawa Eiichi 小沢栄一, Kinsei shigaku shisōshi kenkyū 近世史学思想史研究, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1974. Ozawa Saburō 小沢三郎, Uchimura Kanzō fukei jiken 内村鑑三不敬事件, Tokyo: Shinkyō shuppan, 1980. Ozawa Tomio 小沢三郎, Mappō to Massei no shisō 末法と末世の思想, Tokyo: Yūzankaku shuppan, 1974. Ozawa Tomio 小沢三郎, Ningenkan to shoruikei 人間観と書類型, Tokyo: Bunka shobō hakubunsha, 1978. Ozawa Tomio 小沢三郎, Nihon shisōshi ronsōshi 日本思想史論争史, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1979. Ozawa Tomio 小沢三郎 and Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, Bizen shingaku wo meguru ronsōsho 備前心学をめぐる論争書, Tokyo: Tamagawa daigaku shuppanbu, 1988. Pocock, J.G.A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975. Rikkyō daigaku toshokan 立教大学図書館 (ed.), Ebisawa Arimichi bunko mokuroku 海老 沢有道文庫目録, Tokyo: Rikkyō daigaku, 1999. Rule, Paul, K’ung-tzu or Confucius – The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism, Sydney: Allen&Unwin, 1986. Sagara Tōru 相良享, Kinsei no jugaku shisō 近世の儒学思想, Tokyo: Hanawa sensho, 1966. Sakurai Tadashi 桜井匡, Meiji shūkyōshi kenkyū 明治宗教史研究, Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1971.
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Satō Yoshimaru 佐藤能丸, Meiji nashonarizumu kenkyū: seikyōsha no seiritsu to sono shūhen 明治ナショナリズム研究――政教社の成立とその周辺, Tokyo: Fuyō shobō, 1998. Sekiguchi Sumiko 関口すみ子, Goisshin to gendā: Ogyū Sorai kara kyoiku chokugo made 御一新とジェンダーー荻生徂徠から教育勅語まで, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2005. Serikawa Hiroshi 芹川博通, Ibunka no massatsu to rikai: Ugai Tetsujō no kirisutokyōron 異文化の摩擦と理解――鵜飼徹定のキリスト教論, Tokyo: Hokuju shuppan, 1994. Shimada Kenji 島田虔次, Shushigaku to yōmeigaku 朱子学と陽明学, Tokyo: Iwanami shinsho, 2002. Shinji Yoshimoto 進士慶幹, Yui Shōsetsu 由比正雪, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1961. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, Nanban kōki 南蛮広記, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1926. Shinmura Izuru 新村出, Nanban kōmō shiryō 南蛮紅毛史料, 2 volumes, Kyoto: Kōseikaku, 1930. Shimura Izuru 新村出 Nanban kōsa 南蛮更紗, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1995. Souryri, Pierre, The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, Meiji shisōkaron 明治思想家論, Tokyo: Transubyū, 2004. Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士, Kindai nihon to bukkyō 近代日本と仏教, Tokyo: Transubyū, 2004. Sugimoto Isao 杉本勲 (et al., eds.), Tokugawa jikki sakuin 徳川実記索引, 3 volumes, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1972. Sumiya Mikio 隅谷喜男 (ed.), Tokutomi Sohō / Yamaji Aizan 富蘇峰・山路愛山, Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1971. Suzuki Kenichi 鈴木健一, Hayashi Razan tenpukō 林羅山年譜稿, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1999. Takahashi Susumu 高橋進, Shuki to Ō Yōmei: mono to kokoro to ri no hikaku shisōron 朱 熹と王陽明 : 物と心と理の比較思想論, Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1977. Takahashi Susumu 高橋進, Li Taikei (Yi T’oegye) to kei no tetsugaku 李退渓と敬の哲学, Tokyo: Tōyō shoin, 1985. Takase Kōichirō 高瀬弘一郎, Kirishitan jidai taigai kankei no kenkyū キリシタン時代対 外関係の研究, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1994. Takase Kōichirō 高瀬弘一郎, Kirishitan jidai no kenkyū キリシタン時代の研究, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977. Takase Kōichirō 高瀬弘一郎, Iezusukai to nihon イエズス会と日本, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1981. Toby, Ronald P., State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan – Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Tokugawa Iesato 徳川家達, Kinsei nihon no jugaku 近世日本の儒学, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1939. Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰, Kinsei nihon kokuminshi, Tokugawa bakufujōki, gekan 近世日 本国民史、徳川幕府上記、下巻, Tokyo: Minyūsha, 1936. Tōyama Shigeki 遠山茂樹, Meiji ishin 明治維新, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1951. Tōyama Shigeki 遠山茂樹, Meiji ishin to gendai 明治維新と現代, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968. Tyler, Royall, Selected Writings of Suzuki Shosan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell China–Japan Program, 1977.
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Uno Shigehiko 宇野茂彦, Hayashi Razan / (fu) Hayashi Gahō 林羅山・(附)林鵝峰, Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1992. Veer, Peter van der, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Vlastos, Stephen, Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. Wajima Yoshio 和島芳男, Nihon sōgakushi no kenkyū 日本宋学史の研究, Tokyo: Shibundō, 1962. Wajima Yoshio 和島芳男, Chūsei no jukyō 中世の儒教, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1965. Wajima Yoshio 和島芳男, Shōheikō to hangaku 昌平校と藩学, Tokyo: Shibundō, 1966. Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi, Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩, Kinsei nihon shakai to sōgaku 近世日本社会と宋学, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1985. Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩, Higashi ajia no ōken to shisō 東アジアの王権と思想, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1997. Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩 (ed.), Kankoku, Nihon, Seiyō: sono kōsaku to shisō hennō 韓 国・日本・「西洋」-その交錯と思想変容, Tokyo: Keiō daigaku shuppan, 2005. Wildman Nakai, Kate, Shogunal Politics: Arai Hakuseki and the Premises of Tokugawa Rule, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Woodside, Alexander, Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea and the Hazards of World History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Yabuuchi Gensui 薮内彦瑞 (ed.), Chioninshi 知恩院史, Kyoto: Chionin, 1937. Yamaguchi Teruomi 山口輝臣, Meiji kokka to shūkyō 明治国家と宗教, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1999. Yamaji Aizan 山路愛山, Gendai nihon kyōkaishiron 現代日本教会史論, in Sumiya Mikio 隅谷三喜男 (ed.), Tokutomi Sohō / Yamaji Aizan 徳富蘇峰・山路愛山, Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1971. Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, Shingaku gorinsho no kisoteki kenkyū 『心学五倫書』の 基礎的研究, Tokyo: Gakushūin daigaku, 1985. Yoshida Tora 吉田寅 (ed.), Tōyō kirisutokyōshi kenkyū bunken mokuroku 東洋基督教史 研究文献目録, Tokyo: Ajia kenkyūkai, 1955.
Articles in academic journals and edited volumes Aoki Chieko 青木千枝子, “Nihon ni genzonsuru ‘Konyo bankoku zenzu’ shozu ni tsuite” 日本に現存する「坤興万国全図」諸図について, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, no. 102, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1993. Aomori Tōru 青盛透, “Suzuki Sōsan ni okeru kinsei bukkyō shisō no keisei” 鈴木正三 における近世仏教思想の形成, Bukkyōshigaku kenkyū 仏教史学研究, 18:1, Tokyo: Bukkyōshigaku kenkyūkai, 1976. Asoya Masahiko 安蘇谷正彦, “Hayashi Razan no shintō shisō keisei ni tsuite: Shintō shikō no yōin wo megutte” 林羅山の神道思想形成について――神道志向の要因 をめぐって, Shintō shūkyō 神道宗教, no. 156, Tokyo: Shintō shūkyō gakkai, 1994. Bitō Masahide 尾藤正英, “Hōken rinri” 封建倫理, in Nihon rekishi 日本歴史, kinsei 2, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1963.
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Blussé, Leonard, “The Grand Inquisitor Inoue Chikugono Kami Masashige, Spin Doctor of the Tokguawa Bakufu”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 7, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2003. Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice, “The Persecution of Confucianism in Early Tokugawa Japan”, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 48, no. 3, Tokyo: Sophia University, 1993. Boot, W.J., “Education, Schooling, and Religion in Early Modern Japan”, The Two Faces of the Early Modern World, Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 1999. Boot, W.J., “Maxims of Foreign Policy”, Itinerario, 24:2, Leiden: History Department, Leiden University, 2000. Boot, W.J., “Review Article – James McMullen: Idealism, Protest and the Tale of Genji. The Confucianism of Kumazawa Banzan”, Japonica Humboldtiana, vol. 7, 2003. Brockey, Liam, “Largos Caminhos E Vastos Mares – Jesuit Missionaries and the Journey to China in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 1, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2000. Cieslik, Hubert, “Seminariyo no kyōiku seishin ni tsuite” セミナリヨの教育精神につい て, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 8:1, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1964. Cieslik, Hubert, “Fabian Fukanden nōto” ファビアン不干伝ノート, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 15:3, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1972. Cieslik, Hubert, “Tōzai shisō no deai ni kansuru ichishiryō” 東西思想の出会いに関する 一史料, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1978. Cieslik, Hubert, “Shinhakken no kirishitanhan” 新発見のキリシタン版, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 27:3, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1987. Cieslik, Hubert, “Kirishitan insatsujo ni kansuru ichi kōsatsu” キリシタン印刷所に関す る一考察, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 27:4, Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1987. Correia, Pedro Lage Reis, “Allessandro Valignano Attitude Towards Jesuit and Franciscan Concepts of Evangelization in Japan (1587–1597)”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 2, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2001. Costa, Joao Paulo Oliveira e, “A Route Under Pressure – Communication Between Nagasaki and Macao”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 1, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2000. Dōke Hiroichirō 道家弘一郎, “Arai Hakuseki ‘Seiyō kibun’: shizen shingaku no kanōsei ni tsuite 新井白石「西洋紀聞」―自然神学の可能性について, Seishin joshi daigaku ronsō 聖心女子大学論叢, no. 75, Tokyo: Seishin joshi daigaku, 1990. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, “Kirisutokyō to nihon shūkyō to no kōshō zōsetsu” キ リスト教と日本宗教との交渉総説, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1978. Ebisawa Arimichi 海老沢有道, “Fukan Habian no kamiyoki hihan” 不干ハビアンの神 代紀批判, Nihon rekishi 日本歴史, no. 405, Tokyo: Nihon rekishi gakkai, 1982. Elisonas, J.S.A., “The Jesuits, The Devil, and Pollution in Japan – The Context of a Syllabus of Error”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 1, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2000.
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Fujiyoshi Jikai 藤吉慈海, “Suzuki Shōsan no shisō” 鈴木正三の思想, Zen bunka kenkyūjo kiyō 禅文化研究所紀要, no. 10, Kyoto: Zen bunka kenkyūjo, 1978. Fujiyoshi Jikai 藤吉慈海, “Suzuki Shōsan to kirisutokyō” 鈴木正三とキリスト教, Zen bunka kenkyūjo kiyō 禅文化研究所紀要, no. 11, Kyoto: Zen bunka kenkyūjo, 1979. Fujiyoshi Jikai 藤吉慈海, “Suzuki Shōsan no ‘Inga Monogatari’ nitsuite” 鈴木正三の「 因果物語」について, Zen bunka kenkyūjo kiyō 禅文化研究所紀要, no. 12, Kyoto: Zen bunka kenkyūjo, 1980. Hirai Naoko 平井直子, “Arai Hakuseki no kirisutokyōkan” 新井白石のキリスト教観, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 8:3, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1966. Hurvitz, Leon, “The Samidare-shō of Miura Baien”, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 8–9, Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1952–3. Ide Katsumi 井手勝美, “Habian to ‘Myōtei Mondō’ ” ハビアンと『妙貞問答』, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1978. Ide Katsumi 井手勝美, “Shiryō shōkai: kōchū Habiancho ‘Hadaiusu’ (1620 nen)” 史料紹 介 校註 ハビアン著『破提宇子 (ハダイウス) 』 (1620 年), Kirisutokyōshigaku キ リスト教史学, no. 51, Tokyo: Kirisutokyōshi gakkai, 1997. Ide Katsumi 井手勝美, “Kirishitan chishikijin Habian to ‘Hadaiusu’ (1620 nen)” キリシタ ン知識人ハビアンと『破提宇子 (ハダイウス) 』 (1620 年), Hikaku shisō kenkyū 比較思想研究, special edition 23 (23 別冊), Tokyo: Hikaku shisō gakkai, 1997. Ikeda Masaru 池田勝, “Yui Shōsetsu to rōnin mondai” 由比正雪と牢人問題, Kumamoto kōkyō daigaku kenkyū hōkoku 熊本工業大学研究報告, 10:1, Kumamoto: Kumamoto kōkyō daigaku, 1985. Ishida Ichirō 石田良一, “Tokugawa hōken shakai to sōgakuha no shisō” 徳川封建社会と 宋学派の思想, Tōhoku daigaku bungakubu kenkyū nenpō 東北大學文學部研究年報, no. 13, Sendai: Tōhoku daigaku bungakubu, 1957. Ishige Tadashi 石毛忠, “Edo jidai shoki ni okeru ten no shisō” 江戸時代初期における 天の思想, Nihon shisōshi kenkyū 日本思想史研究, no. 2, Sendai: Tōhoku daigaku bungakubu nihonshisōshikenkyūshitsu, 1978. Ishige Tadashi 石毛忠, “Edo jidai chūki ni okeru ten no shisō” 江戸時代中期における 天の思想, Nihon shisōshi kenkyū 日本思想史研究, no. 3, Sendai: Tōhoku daigaku bungakubu nihonshisōshikenkyūshitsu, 1979. Ishige Tadashi 石毛忠, “Hyōron: Ōkuwa Hitoshicho ‘Nihon kinsei no shisō to bukkyō’ ” 評論:大桑斉著『日本近世の思想と仏教』, Nihon Rekishi 日本歴史, no. 505, Tokyo: Yoshikwawa Kōbunkan, 1990. Ishiyama Yō 石山洋, “Nichiran shūkō yonhyakunen to shomotsu (5) Arai Hakuseki no ‘Seiyō kibun’ ” 日蘭修好四百年と書物 (5) 新井白石の『西洋紀聞』, Nihon kosho tsūshin 日本古書通信, 65:5, Tokyo: Nihon kosho tsūshinsha, 2000. Kaneko Tsutomu 金子務, “Shidocchi [Sidotti] / ‘Seiyō kibun’no senkyōshi” シドッチ/『 西洋紀聞』の宣教師, Rekishi dokuhon 歴史読本, 50:4, Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu jūraisha, 2005. Kanezawa Hideyuki 金沢英之, “Chikyū gainen no motarashita mono: Hayashi Razan ‘Haiyaso’ wo yominagara” 《地球》概念のもたらしたもの—林羅山「排耶蘇」 を読みながら, Hikaku bunka ronsō 比較文化論叢, no. 14, Sapporo: Sapporo daigaku bunka gakubu, 2004. Kang Jae-Eon 姜在彦, “Chōsen jukyō no tenshukyō hihan” 朝鮮儒教の天主教批判, Shisō 思想, no. 792, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990. Kashiwabara Yūsen 柏原祐泉, “Suzuki Shōsan no shomin kyōka” 鈴木正三の庶民教化, Ōtani gakuhō 大谷学報, 49:2, Kyoto: Ōtani gakkai, 1969.
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Katō Sakae 加藤栄, “Bakuhansei kokka no keisei to kinkyō no ronri” 幕藩制国家の形 成と禁教の論理, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 27:3, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1987. Kitajima Masamoto 北島正元, “Edo bakufu to bakuhan taisei” 江戸幕府と幕藩体制, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 10:2, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1968. Kobayashi Chigusa 小林千草, “Habiancho ‘Myōtei mondō’ ni kansuru ichikōsatu: ikyo/ kanren shiryō wo meguru” ハビアン著「妙貞問答」に関する一考察―依拠・関 連資料をめぐって, Kokugo kokubun 国語国文, 47:5, 1978. Kobayashi Chigusa 小林千草, “Habiancho ‘Myōtei mondō’ Hossōshū no koto to ‘Hossō nikanshō’ ” ハビアン著「妙貞問答」法相宗之事と「法相二巻抄」, Gengo to bungei 言語と文芸, no. 87, 1979. Kobayashi Shio 小林志保 and Kuriyama Yoshihisa 栗山義久, “Haiyasho ‘Gokoku shinron’, ‘Haiyaso no mudōri’ ni miru shinshū honganha no haiya undō” 排耶書『護 国新論』、『耶蘇教の無道理』にみる真宗本願派の排耶運動, Nanzan daigaku toshokan kiyō 南山大学図書館紀要, no. 7, Nagoya: Nanzan daigaku toshokan, 2001. Kobori Keiichirō 小堀桂一郎, “Tendōkō” 天道攷, parts 1–5, Hikaku bunka kenkyū 比較 文化研究, nos. 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku kyōyō gakubu, 1986–89. Kojima Yoshishige 小島幸枝, “Fukan Habian no buntai to yōgo: ‘Hadaiusu’ ni okeru” 不干ハビアンの文体と用語―「破提宇子」に於ける, Dokkyō daigaku kyōyō shogaku kenkyū 独協大学教養諸学研究, no. 24, Saitama: Dokkyō daigaku gakujutsu kenkyūkai, 1989. Kojima Yoshishige 小島幸枝, “Myōtei mondō seiritsu no hito sokumen: Fukan Habian no buntai wo motomete” 「妙貞問答」成立の一側面―不干ハビアンの文体を求 めて, Dokkyō daigaku kyōyō shogaku kenkyū 独協大学教養諸学研究, 25, Saitama: Dokkyō daigaku gakujutsu kenkyūkai, 1990. Kojima Yoshishige 小島幸枝, “Habian no buntai to yōgo: ‘Amakusa Heike Monogatari’ no ba’ai” ハビアンの文体と用語―「天草本平家物語」の場合, Dokkyō daigaku kyōyō shogaku kenkyū 独協大学教養諸学研究, 27:1, Saitama: Dokkyō daigaku gakujutsu kenkyūkai, 1992. Komatsubara Chisato 小松原千里, “Arai Hakuseki ‘Seiyō kibun’: bateren shimatsutan” 新井白石「西洋紀聞」―伴天連始末譚, Kindai 近代, no. 74, Kobe: Kōbe daigaku hakkōkai, 1993. Kornicki, P.F., “Manuscript not print: scribal culture in the Edo period”, in The Journal of Japanese Studies, no. 32:1, 2006. Kurachi Katsunao 倉地克直, “Suzuki Shōsan no shisō: Bakuhansei seiritsuki no shihai shisō” 鈴木正三の思想―幕藩制成立期の支配思想についての一つの試み, Nihonshi kenkyū 日本史研究, no. 155, Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1975. Kuriyama Yoshihisa 栗山義久, “ ‘Tendō sugen (Tiandao suyuan)’ ni miru kirisutokyō shisō to jukyō shisō no yūgō” 『天道溯原』にみるキリスト教思想と儒教思想の 融合――『天主実義』との比較を通して, Nanzan daigaku toshokan kiyō 南山大 学図書館紀要, no. 7, Nagoya: Nanzan daigaku toshokan, 2001. Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, “Tokugawa zenki jukyō no seikaku” 徳川前期儒教の性格, Shisō 思想, no. 792, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1990. Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, “Kirishitan kinsei to kinsei nihon” キリシタン禁制と近世日 本, Mizoguchi Yūzo 溝口雄三 (et al., eds), Ajia kara kangaeru (4) shakai to kokka ア ジアから考える [4] 社会と国家, Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1994. Kurozumi Makoto 黒住真, “The Nature of Early Tokugawa Confucianism”, Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 20, No. 2, 1994.
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Kurozumi Makoto, “Zenkindai nihon shisō / shūkyō fukugō to kirisutokyō” 前近代日本思 想・宗教複合とキリスト教, Seigakuin daigaku sōgō kenkyūjo kiyō 聖学院大学総 合研究所紀要, no. 19, Saitama: Seigakuin daigaku sōgō kenkyūjo, 2000. Kusumoto Masatsugu 楠本正継, “Zentai taiyō no shisō” 全体大用の思想, Nihon Chūgoku gakkaihō 日本中国学会報, no. 3, Tokyo: Nihon Chūoku gakkai, 1951. Machida Saburō 町田三郎, “Yasui Sokken – oboegaki” 安井息軒 覚書, Tōhōgaku 東方 学, no. 72, Tokyo: Tōhō gakkai, 1986. Maeda Tsuneharu 前田恒治, “Soshinni” 祖心尼, Ganban shidan 岩磐史談, vol. 2, Fukushima: Ganban kyōdo kenkyūkai, 1937. Maeda Tsutomu 前田勉, “Hayashi Razan ‘Honchō jinjakō’to sono hihan” 林羅山『本朝 神社考』とその批判, Aiichi Kyōiku Daigaku kenkyū hōkoku: jinbun / shakaikagaku 愛知教育大学研究報告 人文・社会科学, no. 48, Kariyashi (Aiichi): Aiichi Kyōiku Daigaku, 1999. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円, “Nihon ni okeru jitsugaku undō no tenaki –6– Bukkyō kara jukyō e no tenkō to Hayashi Razan no jitsugakukan” 日本における実学運動の展 開―6―仏教から儒教への転向と林羅山の実学観, Kokoro 心, 28:7, Tokyo: Mukō shokan, 1975. Minamoto Ryōen 源了円, “Fujiwara Seika to Hayashi Razan: kinsei shotō no gakugei” 藤 原惺窩と林羅山―近世初頭の学芸, Bungei kenkyū 文芸研究, no. 87, Sendai: Nihon bungei kenkyū kai, 1978. Miura Masahiko 三浦雅彦, “Suzuki Shōsan no shisō: seibutsukan wo chūshin ni shite” 鈴 木正三の思想―成仏観を中心にして, Hikaku shisō kenkyū 比較思想研究, no. 27, special edition, 2000. Miura Masahiko 三浦雅彦, “Suzuki Shōsan no monryū to Menzan Zuihō no kankei” 鈴 木正三の門流と面山瑞方の関係, Hikaku shisō kenkyū 比較思想研究, no. 30 special issue, Tokyo: Hikaku shisō gakkai, 2003. Miura Masahiko 三浦雅彦, “Suzuki Shōsan no bushikan to buppō chikokuron” 鈴木正三 の武士観と仏法治国論, Hikaku shisō kenkyū 比較思想研究, no. 30 号, special issue, Tokyo: Hikaku shisō gakkai, 2003. Miura Masahiko 三浦雅彦, “Suzuki Shōsan no monryū to kinsei dōsai wo meguru hito kōsatsu: Hakuin to menzan no shiten kara” 鈴木正三の門流と近世洞済をめぐる一 考察 — 白隠と面山の視点から, Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思想史学, no. 36, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2004. Miyasaki Michio 宮崎道生, “Hayashi Razan to Arai Hakuseki” 林羅山と新井白石, Kokushigaku 国史学, no. 180, Tokyo: Kokushi gakkai, 2003. Mizawa Katsumi 三沢勝己, “Kinsei nihon no jusha to tendō” 近世日本の儒者と天道, Heiwa to shūkyō 平和と宗教, no. 20, Tokyo: Niwano heiwa zaidan, 2001. Morioka Kiyomi 森岡清美, “Zokukan shinkō to kirisutokyō” 俗間信仰とキリスト教, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1978. Motomura Masafumi 本村昌文, “Hayashi Razan no bukkyō hihan: shiseikan wo chūshin toshite” 林羅山の仏教批判――死生観を中心として, Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思 想史学, no. 33, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2001. Mukai Tatsuo 向井達夫, “Fukansai Habian no shinkyō to kikyō: mietekita koto to mienai koto” 不干斎ハビアンの信教と棄教—見えてきたことと見えないこと, Yōgakushi kenkyū 洋学史研究, no. 21, Tokyo: Yōgakushi kenkyūkai, 2004. Nagura Masahiro 名倉正博, “Samidareshō ni mieru kirisutokyō hihan” 「五月雨抄」 に見えるキリスト教批判, Chūgoku koten kenkyū 中国古典研究, no. 37, Tokyo: Waseda daigaku chūgoku koten kenkyūkai, 1992.
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Nagura Tetsuzō 奈倉哲三, “Bakuhansei shihai ideorogii toshite no shinjū shūgō shisō no seiritsu wo jiku toshite” 幕藩制支配イデオロギーとしての神儒習合思想の成立― 国家観念の成立を軸としてー, Rekishigaku kenkyūkai 歴史学研究会編集 (ed.), Sekaishi ni okeru minzoku to minshu shugi 世界史における民族と民主主義, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1974. Nasu Hidekatsu 那須英勝, “Fukansai Haiban no jōdokyō hihan: Myōtei mondō ni okeru jōdo shigisetsu no juyō” 不干斎ハビアンの浄土教批判―『妙貞問答』における 浄土四義説の受容, Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度学仏教学研究, 50:2, Tokyo: Nihon indogaku bukkyōgaku kai, 2002. Nishida Nagao 西田長男, “Yoshidaka kyūsōhon ‘Myōtei mondō’ kaisetu” 吉田家旧蔵 本『妙貞問答』解説, Kokugakuin zasshi 国学院雑誌, 73:10, Tokyo: Kokugakuin, 1972. Okumoto Takehiro 奥本武裕, “Kinsei zenki no jiin fukkō undō: Suzuki Shōsan wo chūshin” 近世前期の寺院復興運動―鈴木正三を中心にして, Ryūkoku shidan 竜 谷史壇, no. 87, Kyoto: Ryūkoku daigaku shigakkai, 1986. Okumoto Takehiro 奥本武裕, “Kinsei zenki jiin fukkō undō to josei: Suzuki Shōsan wo chūshin ni” 近世前期寺院復興運動と「女性」―鈴木正三を中心に, Ryūkoku shidan 竜谷史壇, no. 91, Kyoto: Ryūkoku daigaku shigakkai, 1988. Ōkuwa Hitoshi 大桑斉, “Kinsei shinshū igi no rekishiteki seikaku” 近世真宗異義の歴史 的性格, Bukkyō kenkyū ronshū 仏教研究論集, Tokyo: Seibundō, 1975. Ōshima Akira 大島晃, “Naru sekai to tsukureru sekai: Fukansai habian no shushigaku hihan wo megutte” 「なる世界」と「つくれる世界」――不干斎ハビアンの朱 子学批判をめぐって, Sophia ソフィア, 33:2, Tokyo: Jōchi daigaku, 1984. Ōta Seikyū 太田青丘, “Fujiwara Seika no gakuteki taido” 藤原惺窩の学的態度, in Tokugawa Iesato 徳川家達, Kinsei nihon no jugaku 近世日本の儒学, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1939. Ōuchi Saburō 大内三郎, “Nihon kirisutokyō shisōshijō ni okeru dentō no mondai” 日本 キリスト教思想史上における「伝統」の問題, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Toyo: Perikansha, 1978. Paramore, Kiri キリ・パラモア, “Habian tai Fukan: 17 seiki shotō nihon no shisō bunmyaku ni okeru Habian shisō no igi to ‘Haiyaso’ ” 「ハビアン」対「不干」—一 七世紀初頭日本の思想文脈におけるハビアン思想の意義と『排耶蘇』, Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思想史学, no. 36, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2004. Paramore, Kiri キリ・パラモア, “Jinrin no ōmoto: Nihon 1874–5 nen ni okotta danjo dōken ronsō ni kanshite” 「人倫の大本」―日本 1874–5 年におこった男女同権論争に関 して, Shisōshi kenkyū 思想史研究, no. 4, Tokyo: Shisō/shisōshi kenkyūkai, 2004. Pina, Isabel, “The Jesuit Missions in Japan and China: Two Distinct Realities”, Bulletin of Portuguese–Japanese Studies, vol. 2, Lisbon: Centro de Histaoria Alem-mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2001. Sakaguchi Mitsuhiro 坂口満宏, “Bakumatsu ishinki no haiyaron” 幕末維新期の排耶 論, Kindai nihon shakai to kirisutokyō 近代日本社会とキリスト教, Tokyo: Dōhōsha shuppan, 1989. Shibata Jun 柴田純, “Nawa Kassho no shisō” 那波活所の思想, Nihonshi kenkyū 日本史 研究, no. 210, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobō, 1980. Shibata Jun 柴田純, “Kinsei shotō no shakai to jusha” 近世初頭の社会と儒者, Nihonshi kenkyū 日本史研究, no. 301, Tokyo: Kashiwa shobō, 1987. Shimada Kenji 島田虔次, “Taiyō no rekishi ni yosete” 体用の歴史に寄せて, Bukkyōshigaku ronshū 仏教史学論集, Tokyo: Tsukamoto hakase shōsu ki’nen kai kankō, 1961.
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Shimizu Hirokazu 清水紘一, “Kinsei shotō Kyōto ni okeru jakkan no kirishitan torishimerei ni tsuite” 近世初頭京都における若干のキリシタン取締令につい て, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 7:3, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1976. Shimizu Hirokazu 清水紘一, “Kirishitan kankei hōsei shiryōshū” キリシタン関係法 制史料集, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化研究会報, 20:1, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1979. Shimizu Naomi 清水直美, “Yasui Sokken no ‘benbō’nitsuite: jō” 安井息軒の「弁妄」 について―上, Ōbirin daigaku Chūgoku bunkgaku ronsō 桜美林大学中国文学論叢, no. 11, Tokyo: Ōbirin gakuen, 1986. Shimizu Naomi 清水直美, “Yasui Sokken no ‘benbō’ni tsuite: ge” 安井息軒の「弁妄」 について―下, Ōbirin daigaku Chūgoku bunkgaku ronsō 桜美林大学中国文学論叢, no. 13, Tokyo: Ōbirin gakuen, 1987. Shinji Yoshimoto 進士慶幹, “Keian jiken no shinshiryō” 慶安事件の新史料, Nihon hōgaku 日本法学, 39:3, Tokyo: Nihon daigaku hōgakkai, 1974. Sueki Fumihiko, “Soshinni – chosaku to shisō” 祖心尼―著作と思想, in Tamamuro Fumio 圭室文雄 (ed.), Nihonjin no shūkyō to shominshinkō 日本人の宗教と庶民信 仰, Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2006. Suzuki Kenichi 鈴木健一, “Hayashi Razan nenpu kō (1)” 林羅山年譜稿 (1), Jinbungakka ronshū 人文学科論集, no. 28, Kagoshima: Kagoshima daigaku hōbungakubu, 1995. Suzuki Kenichi 鈴木健一, “Hayashi Razan nenpu kō (2)” 林羅山年譜稿 (2), Jinbungakka ronshū 人文学科論集, no. 29, Kagoshima: Kagoshima daigaku hōbungakubu, 1996. Suzuki Kenichi 鈴木健一, “Hayashi Razan nenpu kō (3)” 林羅山年譜稿 (3), Jinbungakka ronshū 人文学科論集, no. 30, Kagoshima: Kagoshima daigaku hōbungakubu, 1997. Takahashi Hiroshi 高橋裕史, “Higashi Indo shinsatsushi Aressandoro Varinyāno nihon fukyō shisaku no shosō ni tsuite” 東インド巡察師アレッサンドロ・ヴァリニャー ノ日本布教施策の諸相について, Kirishitan bunka kenkyū kaihō キリシタン文化 研究会報, no. 100, Tokyo: Kirishitan bunka kenkyūkai, 1992. Takahashi Miyuki 高橋美由紀, “Hayashi Razan no shintō shisō” 林羅山の神道思 想, Kikan Nihon shisōshi 季刊日本思想史, Shintōshi special edition, no. 5, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1977. Tamakake Hiroyuki 玉懸博之, “Hayashi Razan ni okeru ‘fuhen’to ‘kobetsu’: sono shintō shisō wo megutte” 林羅山における「普遍」と「個別」—その神道思想をめ ぐって, Nihon shisōshi kenkyū 日本思想史研究, no. 33, Sendai: Tōhoku daigaku bungakubu nihon shisōshi kenkyū shitsu, 2001. Tanaka Shirō 田中司郎, “Yasui Sokken no kanseki kyōju: jagō / na / gūkyomei / sankyō jukuki no bōtōbun” 安井息軒の漢籍享受―雅号・名・寓居名・三計塾記の冒頭 文・斑竹山房学規, Higashi ajia nihongo kyōiku / nihon bunka kenkyū 東アジア日本 語教育・日本文化研究, no. 2, Fukuoka: Fujii Shigetoshi, 2000. Tanaka Shirō 田中司郎, “Yasui Sokken no kanseki kyōju: kanshi / kanshi sanko” 安井息 軒の漢籍享受―管子・管子纂詁, Higashi ajia nihongo kyōiku / nihon bunka kenkyū 東アジア日本語教育・日本文化研究, no. 4, Fukuoka: Fujii Shigetoshi, 2002. Tanaka Shirō 田中司郎, “Yasui Sokken no kanseki kyōju: Kanpeishi / shokei” 安井息軒 の漢籍享受—韓非子・書経, Higashi ajia nihongo kyōiku / nihon bunka kenkyū 東ア ジア日本語教育・日本文化研究, no. 6, Fukuoka: Fujii Shigetoshi, 2003. Tanaka Shirō 田中司郎, “Yasui Sokken no kanseki kyōju: shinkoku de no hyōka” 安井息 軒の漢籍享受—清国での評価, Higashi ajia nihongo kyōiku / nihon bunka kenkyū 東 アジア日本語教育・日本文化研究, no. 7, Fukuoka: Fujii Shigetoshi, 2004.
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Tsuchida Kenjirō 土田健次郎, “Shuki no shisō ni okeru kokoro no bunseki” 朱熹の思想 における心の分析, Philosophia, no. 83, Tokyo: Waseda daigaku tetsugakkai, 1989. Tsuchida Kenjirō 土田健次郎, “Shuki rikiron no saikentō” 朱熹理気論の再検討, in Naitō Motoharu 内藤幹治 (ed.), Chūgokuteki jinseikan sekaikan 中国的人生観・世 界観, Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 1994. Tsujii Kiyosato 辻井清吾, “Suzuki Shōsan ni miru ongi no shisō to shokugyō rinri” 鈴 木正三に見る恩義の思想と職業倫理, Bukkyō keizai kenkyū 仏教経済研究, no. 33, Tokyo: Komazawa daigaku bukkyō keizai kenkyūjo, 2004. Tsutsumi Kunihiko 堤邦彦, “Kinsei kōsōden to jitsuroku no aida: ‘Banzuii Shōnin shokokugyōkaden’ no atosaki” 近世高僧伝と実録のあいだ—『幡随意上人諸国行 化伝』のあとさき, Edo Bungaku 江戸文学, no. 29, Tokyo: Perikansha, 2003. Tsutsumi Kunihiko 堤邦彦, “Edo no kōsō densestu: Banzuii Shōnin to ryūjo” 江戸の高 僧伝説—幡随意上人と竜女, Kyōto seika daigaku kiyō 京都精華大学紀要, no. 26, Kyoto: Seika Daigaku, 2004. Wakaki Taiichi 若木太一, “Suzuki Shōsan no shisō to bukkyō: Shimabara / Amakusa no ran sono ato” 鈴木正三の思想と教化――島原・天草の乱その後, Kokubun kenkyū 語文研究, nos. 31, 32, Fukuoka: Kyūshū daigaku kokugo kokubun gakkai, 1971. Watanabe Kazuyasu 渡部和靖, “Kirisutokyō to jukyō” キリスト教と儒教, Kikan shisōshi 李刊思想史, no. 6, Tokyo: Perikansha, 1978. Yamaji Yūichirō 山地悠一郎, “Shidan jūrai / kita kara minami kara Yui Shōsetsu no katonbo” 史談往来/北から南から 由比正雪の蚊とんぼ, Rekishi kenkyū 歴史研究, Osaka: Ōsaka gakugei daigaku rekishigaku kenkyūshitsu, 43:8, 2001. Yamamoto Kōki 山本幸規, “Yasui Sokken no ‘benbō’to Meiji shonen no kirisutokyōkai” 安井息軒の「弁妄」と明治初年のキリスト教界, Kirisutokyō shakai mondai kenkyū キリスト教社会問題研究, no. 32, Kyoto: Dōshisha daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūjo, 1984. Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, “Shohyō: Ide Katsumicho ‘kirishitan shisōshi kenkyū josetsu’ ” 書評:井出勝美著『キリシタン思想史研究序説』, Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思想史学, no. 28, Tokyo: Nihon shisōshi gakkai, 1999. Yamamoto Shinkō 山本真功, “Kana seiri no seiritsu ni kansuru hitoshiron” 『仮名性 理』の成立に関する一試論, Nihon shisōshi gaku 日本思想史学, no. 10, Tokyo: Nihon shisōshi gakkai, 1978. Yi Wŏmshik 李元植, “Hayashi Razan to Chōsen tsūshinshi” 林羅山と朝鮮通信使, Chōsen gakuhō 朝鮮学報, nos. 119, 120, Nara: Chōsen gakkai, 1986. Yoshida Kōhei 吉田公平, “Ri Matō no ‘tenshu jitsugi’ni tsuite’ ” 利瑪竇の『天主実義』 について, in Minamoto Ryōen 源了円 and Seki Akira 関晃 (eds), Shinkannen no hikaku bunkaronteki kenkyū 神観念の比較文化論的研究, Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1981. Yoshida Kōhei 吉田公平, “Inoue Enryō no hajaronnisoku: Ugai Tetsujō to Akutagawa Ryūnosuke” 井上圓了の破邪論二則—鵜飼徹定と芥川龍之介, Inoue Enryō sentā nenpō 井上円了センター年報, no. 12, Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku Inoue Enryō sentā, 2003. Zhao Gang 趙剛, “Edo shoki ni okeru shushigaku no tenkai to Hayashi Razan: Tokugawa Ieyasu to no kakawari wo chūshinni” 江戸初期における朱子学の展開と林羅山— 徳川家康との関わりを中心に, Kōgakkan ronsō 皇学館論叢, 35:6, Ise: Kōgakkan daigaku jinbungakkai, 2002.
Index
academy see modern academy Aizawa Seishisai 8, 104, 114, 115, 116, 118, 124, 127, 161, 162–3, 165; Kikōben 120–1, 122; Kokuitairon 118–20; Shinron 118–20, 120 Anesaki Masaharu 43–4, 45 anima rationalis, in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 15, 16, 22, 36, 38, 41, 47, 48–9 anima theory (Aristotelian): in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 15–18, 22, 26–8, 45, 46, 47, 67–8; relationship with Christian doctrine 23–5; in Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 26–8, 30 Answer to Fujian letter (Hayashi Razan) 72–4, 74–5, 75, 76 anthropology, Hakuseki’s work 106 anti-Buddhist outlook: Kōdōkan (Mitodomain academy) 125; in Razan–Jōzan correspondence 83, 85–6; view of Sokken as having 128 anti-Christian discourse: in context of clash of religious cultures 2, 5; context of emergence 42, 55–6; in context of Western ideas 132–3; during Tokugawa state 3, 4–5, 5, 6–7, 7–8, 10; from Meiji period 2, 103, 104, 126–7, 129–30, 132–3, 158–9; in Habian’s Hadaiusu 42–5, 50; importance of Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 26; influence of Confucianism in late Tokugawa period 104, 129, 129–30, 134–5; influence of Inoue Enryō and Inoue Tetsujirō 133; ‘Japanese canon’ 52, 64, 64–6, 104, 129; little in mid-Tokugawa period 103; political context in early Tokugawa period 3–5, 8, 52–3, 78–9; role in formation of modern national ideology 8–9, 10, 53, 165, 166; scope of study 5–9; second surge in late Tokugawa and
into Meiji period 103, 129–30; source material 161, see also diplomatic correspondence; populist antiChristian texts; proclamations anti-Christian ideology 1–3, 76–7; elements of continuity with Christian thought 43–5 anti-Communist stance 1 apostasy: Habian 42, 43–4; as term 44–5 Aquinas, Thomas 29 Arai Hakuseki 7, 26, 64, 103, 111, 112–13, 125, 129; compared with Miura Baien 113–14; famous suggestion about shogunate 116–17; Honsarokukō 109–11, 113; Seiyō kibun 104, 105–9, 110, 120; Tenshukyō taii 109, 110 Arano Yasunori 75 aratame practices/system 55 Aristotelian thought 29–30, 31, see also anima theory Asao Naohiro 75 Asian religions, comparisons of Christianity with 65, 149–50 authoritarianism: anti-Christian writings in defence of 1; modern Japanese state associated with 3, 164; and problem of Myōtei Mondō 50 autonomy: association with Catholic Christianity 102; in attitudes of Banzan and Soshin 99–100; clash with institutional authority in seventeenth century 52; in early seventeenth-century intellectual thought 41–2; emphasis in Myōtei Mondō 50 Averroes see Ibn Rushd bakuhan system 101
222 Index Bateren tsuihō no fumi (Proclamation on the Deportation of Priests) 56–8, 60, 62, 63, 65, 71, 73, 125 Baterenki (anti-Christian text) 58; compared with Kirishitan Monogatari 59, 60 Bell, C.D. 147 Bitō Masahide 115 Bizen Okayama-han 80–1 Buddha 158 Buddhism: analysis in Myōtei Mondō 13, 14, 15, 46; anti-Christian writers in early Meiji period 132–3; argument that Christianity evolved from 64; associated with Christianity by Hakuseki 11, 107, 110–11, 113; changes during early Tokugawa period 34; in crisis during Warring States period 4, 37; critiqued in Nihon no katekizumo 35; differentiation from Confucianism by Habian 35–6; in Enryō’s conception of East–West philosophy 158; flawed view of as marginal in Tokugawa period 124–5; influence on Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 12, 17, 30, 47; integration with Western philosophy by Enryō 158; Mito scholars 126; Razan’s critique in letters and debates 85–6, 86–7, 107; Razan’s linking of with Christianity 96, 98; and study of Confucianism 35, 129; temple registration system 55; Ugai Tetsujō’s anti-Christian writings 124, 125, 126–7; used in Seiyō kibun to attack Christianity 106–7, see also Jodo (Pure Land) sect; Shinto-Buddhist synthesis; Zen Buddhism Buddhist/Hegelian philosophy, Inoue Enryō 134, 137, 138–41 Cabinet Library 88 China: copies of Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi imported from 25, 26; diplomatic correspondence with 71; Han period 97, 166; importance of Matteo Ricci 25, 30; Ming dynasty 73, 75; Protestant text published in 126; retention of sovereignty 143 Chinese civilization, paradigm used by Razan 72, 73 Chinese thought: anti-Christian documents in Hekijashū 123; influence on Japanese anti-Christian
discourse 104, 113, 123, 129, 164; Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 13, 25 Christian humanism 24, 43 ‘Christian revision’ 54–5 Christian texts: Sorai’s desire to see 112; Western concepts used to counter 132 Christian thought 25; discussed in Hadaiusu 45–50, 50, 63–4; elements of continuity with anti-Christian thought 43–5; importance of Myōtei Mondō 13, 14; scholastic fusion with Aristotelian philosophy 29–30, see also Japanese Christian thought Christianity: conflicts parallel to Confucian conflicts 41–2, 45, 51, 162; dehumanized image of Christians in Kirishitan Monogatari 60–1; discussed in Sōzuku zenkōki 87, 95, 96–7, 98; early eighteenth-century perception 109; Habian’s ‘apostasy’ from 42, 43–4; Habian’s and Ricci’s explanations compared 29–31; linked with individualism by Sokken 128; Maruyama’s perspective on prohibition of 4; more distant treatment by Hakuseki 105–6; Razan’s theories in 1654 letter 85–6, see also anti-Christian discourse ; anti-Christian ideology; suppression of Christianity civil rights 142 civil war 32 Clavius, Christoph (S.J.) 30 Collegium Romanum, Italy 30 Communism, Soviet Union 1 Confucian–Christian dichotomy 7, 66, 77, 78, 109, 123, 157 Confucianism: analysis in Myōtei Mondō 13, 14, 14–15, 35–6, 46; conflicts parallel to Christian conflicts 41–2, 45, 51, 162; in discourse relating to domestic politics 79–81; elements in Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 13, 25, 28; emergence of ‘Confucians’ and identification by Jesuits 35; in Enryō’s conception of East–West philosophy 158; ‘five relations’ 120, 143, 149; founding of school/tradition of 37; governance through rites and reverence 117, 130; ideas in Imperial Rescript on Education 143–4, 145, 153, 156–7; importance of Razan’s position in 80; influence on anti-Christian discourse in late Tokugawa period 104, 107–9, 129, 129–30, 158, 159; influence on
Index 223 Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 12, 17, 28, 30, 32, 43; influence on Japanese Christian texts 6, 31; Inoue Tetsujirō’s history of 154–5, 159; Ogyū Sorai 111–12; as presented by Razan in Haiyaso 70; and problem of emperor’s authority 117; Razan’s debate with Buddhism 86–7; relationship with Buddhism in Tokugawa period 125, 129; Ricci’s knowledge of 30, 31, 32; rise in early Tokugawa period 34–5, 80–1; Seika’s thought 38–9, see also Shinto-Confucian orthodoxy; Song Confucianism; Wang Yangming-ist Confucianism; Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism Confucius 158; Analects 29, 150 conservatism: advocating continuation of old Tokugawa order 128; in framing of Imperial Rescript on Education 153; Inoue Enryō 133, 134, 141; in late-nineteeth-century political debates 141–2; Shimazu Hisamitsu 151 Constitution of the Greater Japanese Empire see Imperial Constitution corporatization 166 creation theory: in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 14, 15–16, 45, 46–7; Ricci’s attack on Song metaphysical thesis 28; Shōsan’s attack on Christian doctrine 6 culturalist approaches 5, 10; Enryō’s idea of Japanese civilization 136–7 customs see tradition/customs Daoism: association of Wudoumi rebellions with 97, 164; criticized by Razan in 1654 letter 85, 86 ‘Debate on the Clash Between Education and Religion’ (1892–3) 8, 133, 134, 142, 148, 158 Diet Library 88 diplomatic correspondence 7, 52, 66, 70–1, 77, 162; drafted by Hayashi Razan 71–5, 75, 76, 78 Dochirina Kirishitan 12–13, 18–23, 25, 31, 32; compared with Myōtei Mondō 19–22, 36, 37, 45–6 Eagleton, Terry 3 ‘East–West philosophy’, Inoue Enryō’s conception 157–8 ‘Eastern thought’: construction of conflict with ‘Western thought’ 11–12, 51, 58; role of Tetsujirō in mission of 156
Ebisawa Arimichi 11, 14, 32, 78, 81 Edo Monogatari 125 Edo (Tokyo) 81, 92, 128–9 education see ‘Debate on the Clash Between Education and Religion’ (1892–3); Imperial Rescript on Education; modern academy egalitarianism 163; argument in The Clash Between Education and Religion 150–3 Elison, George 44, 45, 78, 81; Deus Destroyed 11–12, 14 emperor see imperial ideology; sonnō jōi theory ethics: conception in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 14, 17, 24; parallel perspectives of Habian and Seika 41; Soshin’s Buddhist approach 93 Europe: considered in relation to Japan’s imperial ideology 131–2; Enryō’s analysis of society of 137; Hakuseki’s understanding of Catholic world of 105–6 European clergy 38 European Jesuit texts 23–5 European Union 166 evolutionary theory, Inoue Enryō 139–40, 141, 163 Fabian see Habian faith: emphasized in work of Jesuits 24–5, 29, 31; Sohin’s ‘mind/heart’ 94, see also fides fascism: modern Japanese state associated with 3; period of ‘overcoming modernity’ 163; research during preWorld War II-period of 11, 43 Ferreira, Christovão see Kengiroku feudalism: hierarchies in early seventeenth century 41, 165; in political relations 117 fides: in Dochirina Kirishitan 19–20, 22, 36; relationship with anima rationalis 23–4 filial piety 107, 126, 143, 144 foreign priests: banishment of 54; exoticized barbarian images of 74 Franciscans 59–60 Freeden, Michael 3 Fujian see Answer to Fujian letter Fujita Tōko 115, 128, 162–3 Fujita Yūkoku 114, 115, 116, 116–18, 118, 124 Fujiwara Seika 37, 38–9; conflict and differences with Hayashi Razan 39–41,
224 Index 42, 49, 50, 79, 94, 155; in context of emerging Neo-Confucianism 42; parallels with Habian 37–8, 39, 41, 162 Fukan see Habian Fukansai see Habian Fukuzawa Yukichi 151 fumie practices 55, 102 Gakushuin University library 88 gender relations, argument in The Clash Between Education and Religion 151–2 globalization 166 Gluck, Carol 65 Gomez, Pedro 29, 162; Compendium of Catholic Doctrine 23–5, 31 Gonoi Takashi 53 governance, Confucian paradigm 107, 117 government documents: critical comparison of Christianity with other religions 65; early anti-Christian texts 56, see also diplomatic correspondence; proclamations ‘Great Exile’ 54 ‘The Great Hall of Philosophy’ 157–8 The Great Learning 38–9 Gyōzen 158 Habian 10–12, 23, 32, 37; explanation of Christianity compared with Ricci’s view 29–31; parallels with Fujiwara Seika 37–8, 39, 41, 162; representation in Haiyaso 66; story in Samidareshō about 11, see also Hadaiusu; Myōtei Mondō Hadaiusu (Habian) 26, 42, 42–5, 58, 63–4, 125; compared with Hakuseki’s Seiyō kibun 107; elements of continuity with Myōtei Mondō 45–50; presented as complete rejection of Myōtei Mondō 42, 44 Haiyaso (Hayashi Razan) 66, 66–70, 71, 78, 81 hakuai (benevolence to all) 144–5, 150, 150–2 Hayashi Gahō 81, 82, 98, 125 Hayashi Razan 7, 13, 26, 32, 125, 155, 158; analysis of Principle 47–8; anti-Christian discourse in debates and correspondence 79, 81–2, 101–2; anti-Christian discourse in diplomatic correspondence 71–5, 78, 80, 162; attacks on Kumazawa Banzan 79, 88, 90, 94, 94–5, 96, 98, 99–101, 148; concept of ‘the investigation of things’
40–1; conflict and differences with Seika 39–41, 42, 49, 50, 79; context of emerging Neo-Confucianism 37, 38, 42, 64, 80; correspondence with Ishikawa Jōzan 82–7, 89, 91, 98; Hakuseki compared with 107, 109, 110; Inoue Tetsujirō’s praise of 155–6; parallels with European Jesuits 41, 162; rise in influence 79–80, see also Haiyaso; Sōzuku zenki; Sōzuku zenkōki Hayashi Razan Bunshū 39–40, 66, 68, 69, 82, 89, 96, 98 heart/mind: Seika’s emphasis 38, 40, 41; in Soshin’s writings 93, 94, 99 Hegel, G.W.F. see Buddhist/Hegelian philosophy Hekijakankenroku (anti-Christian documents) 104, 121, 125, 125–6, 127 heresy: Hakuseki’s view of Christianity 111; Razan’s image of Christianity as 97 heterodoxy: discussed in Sōzuku zenkōki 87, 96, 98; and intellectual orthodoxy 102; in Razan’s thought 86, 101, 155–6, 159; Soshin’s and Banzan’s position towards 99 Hirata Atsutane 158 history: concerns in this study 161–2; Hakuseki’s approach to 110, 159; importance of Sokkyohen 121, 122–3; influence of Inoue Enryō and Inoue Tetsujirō 133, 154, 160; patterns of ideological role of anti-Christian discourse 160, 166; portrayal of Razan’s ‘late-period anti-Christian discourse 81, 82; recording of Razan’s 1654 letter to Jōzan 85; use of Habian in ‘Eastern–Western’ thought debate 11–12 Hokkaido 106, 114 Honsaroku (Warring States period text) 110 Hori Isao 81, 83, 85, 91 Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 29 Ide Katsumi 23, 24 ideology/ideologies 3; in anti-Christian discourse during Tokugawa state 7, 76–7, 101, 162–3, 164, 166; in Inoue Enryō’s discussion of constitution 135–7; Mito scholars in late Tokugawa period 115–16; political role of Hajashū and Sokkyohen 122;
Index 225 Seishisai’s kokutai theory 119–20, see also modern national ideology Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises 36 Ikeda Mitsumasa (Lord) 80–1, 94–5, 101 Ikkō Ikki 5 Imperial Constitution 2, 8, 130, 131, 141; ideological significance 132, 133, 142; in Inoue Enryō’s discussion of nation state and religion 135 imperial ideology: concept of ‘unique Japanese thought’ 1; in debate on education and religion 148; exemplified in constitution 131, 142; scholars responsible for 8, 165 Imperial Rescript on Education 2, 8, 130, 141, 144; Confucian ideas 143–4, 145, 153; ideological significance 132, 142, 153, 156–7; Meiji political debate 141–2, 148–50; Tetsujirō’s commentary 133, 134, 142–3, 146 Incident outside Sakurada Gate (1860) 122 individualism, Sokken’s association of Christianity with 128 Inoue Enryō 132–3, 133–4, 134–5, 160, 161; Bukkyō katsuron joron 138; Hajakatsuron 137, 138, 140; importance in debates on ‘philosophy’ 158, 163; Nihon seikyōron 135–7, 138, 141; role in establishing modern academy and ideology 153; Shinrin kinshin 137, 138, 139–40; synthesis of Western philosophy with Buddhism 157–8; Tetsugaku issekiwa 138–9, 140 Inoue Masashige 74, 80 Inoue Tetsujirō 12, 132–3, 134, 160, 161; The Clash Between Education and Religion 134, 144, 145, 147–53, 157, 159; importance in debates on ‘philosophy’ 158, 163; The Philosophy of Japan’s Zhu Xi-ist School 154–6, 159; public lectures 156–7; The Rescript Explicated 133, 142–5, 147; role in establishing modern academy and ideology 153–6; speech on Christianity’s incompatibility with Japan 148 Inoue hakase to kirisutokyōto 152–3, 161 Institute for Philosophical Texts 133–4 intellectual factors: conflicting trends at onset of Tokugawa period 41–2, 51, 52; Razan as symbol of orthodoxy 80, 102; Razan’s explanation of Keian Affair 90; shift between Myōtei
Mondō and Hadaiusu 49, 50; similar attitudes of Banzan and Soshin 99 international relations: discourses in diplomatic correspondence 7, 66, 75–6, 77, 78; research into shogunate’s ‘isolationist’ policy 75 ‘invasion theory’ 65, 114, 117–18, 118–19 Ishida Ichirō 41 Ishikawa Jōzan, Razan’s correspondence 82, 82–7, 89, 91, 98, 101 Ishin Sūden 71, 71–2, 74, 79, 114, 126 Islamic theology see Ibn Rushd Itakura Shigemune 54, 101, 162 Itō Hirobumi 131, 157, 158, 165 Japan: birth of early-modern systems of control 4, 131–2; conception presented in anti-Christian rhetoric 132; early-modern and modern states 2; formation of national ideology 2–3, 53, 149; in Razan’s paradigm of Chinese civilization 73; retention of sovereignty 143 Japanese Christian thought 5–6, 33; association with mainstream orthodoxies 41; development as concurrent with rise of Confucianism 34; diversity of early texts 31; genres 12–13; Hayashi Razan’s Christian– Confucian dichotomy 7; internal Jesuit texts 23–5 Japanese empire 2 Japanese-Russian Treaty (1925) 1 Japaneseness: construction of conflict with ‘non-Japaneseness’ 11, 12; Enryō’s idea of Japanese civilization 136; uniqueness of Japanese thought 1 Jesuits: authoritarian religious perspective 50; conflict within scholastic tradition 41; conservatism and particularism 31; disapproval of Ricci’s approach 13, 25; Habian’s apostasy or tenkō from 43, 43–4; importance of Habian 11; involvement in theological conflicts 29–30; Japanese and Chinese traditions as presented by Razan 70; Japanese texts for use inside the Order 23–5; origin of term tenshu 96; origination of Dochirina Kirishitan 13, 18; parallels with Razan 41; works written by korobi kirishitan 58
226 Index Jesus 158 jianai (love without discrimination) 150 Jijitsu bunpen (text of Sōzuku zenkōki ) 87–8, 95, 97 Jōdo (Pure Land) sect 124, 125, 128–9, 129, 134 Jōō Incident (1652) 83, 95–6, 101 Jubutsu mondō(A Confucian–Buddhist Dialogue) 86–7 kakure kirishitan (hidden Christians) 53 kana (Japanese language) 61 kanbun (Classical Chinese) 61, 64, 73; in Sōzuku zenkōki 88, 89 Kansai region 53, 83 Kant, Immanuel 158 Kantō 53, 54, 83 Kanzaki Issaku 104, 105, 126 Kasuga no Tsubone 92 Katō Hiroyuki 151 Katō Shūichi 112 Kawata 5 Keian Affair (1651): account in Sōzuku zenki 82, 87, 88, 89, 89–91, 94–5; in Razan–Jōzan correspondence 83–5, 86, 101 Kengiroku (Sawano Chūan) 58 Kirishitan Monogatari (The Tale of the Christians) 59–61, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 74, 77, 97, 114, 125 Kiyū Dōjin see Ugai Tetsujō knowledge: conception in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 17, 32; parallel perspectives of Habian and Seika 41; similar attitudes of Banzan and Soshin 99–100; treatment in Dochirina Kirishitan 23 Kokumin no tomo (journal) 146 kokutai (‘the fundamental character of our empire’) 1, 2, 116, 119, 120, 126, 163 Korea 26, 71, 75 korobi kirishitan (‘turned Christians’) 58 Kumazawa Banzan 37, 64, 80–1, 85, 101, 107, 110, 113; criticized in works of Razan 79, 88, 90, 94, 94–5, 96, 98, 99–101, 148, 162; similar attitudes to Soshin 99, 102 Kurozumi Makoto 4 Kyō Kaen (scribe) 88 Kyoto 11, 35, 37, 39, 69, 5405 Laozi 46 Latin terms 19 liberalism 141; attacked by two Inoues 162–3
Lin Zhaoen 38 loyalty: Confucian view in anti-Christian arguments 107, 109, 115, 126, 130, 143, 144; conservatives’ advocation of 141, 153, 159, 165 Lu Xiangshan 40 Manchus 75, 109 Maruyama Masao 4, 5, 155, 166 Marx, Karl 135 ‘the masses’: in Enryō’s argument for maintaining old religious systems 135; ideological fear of 117–18, 123, 127, 162–3; Meiji elites’ need to control 131, 164, 165; Seishisai’s warning about Westerners’ use of 118–20 Matsudaira Nobutsuna 101 media, reaction to Uchimura Kanzō Incident 147–8 medical practice: anti-Christian images 60, 97; anti-Western descriptions 114 Meiji ideology, role of anti-Christian discourse 8–9, 12, 163 Meiji Restoration: anti-Christian discourse 2, 103, 104, 126–7, 129–30, 132–3, 166; government’s establishment of institutions 130, 141, 142; historical arguments over concept of equality 151; importance of Yasui Sokken 127; modern national ideology and social control 3, 77, 131–2, 165 Meiroku debates 142 Meirokusha group 141, 151 Mencius 145, 150 military thought: attacked in in Sōzuku kōki 87, 95–6, 97, 98; criticized in Razan’s letters 84–5, 86, 91, 95 mind/heart see heart/mind Ming China 39, 73, 106, 109, 121 Ming Trading Vessels (Hayashi Razan) 74, 76 Ministry of Education 133, 134, 142, 147 Minyūsha (publishing group) 141 Mito Learning scholars 8, 103, 112, 115, 124; academy 122; fear of Western imperialism in anti-Christian discourse 114, 129; key scholars and ideological stance 115–23; Sokken’s intellectual links with 128; Tetsujō’s connection with 124, 129, see also Kōdōkan Miura Baien 103, 104, 105, 115, 117, 118, 129, 162–3; Samidareshō 105, 113–15, 125
Index 227 modern academy: role of Inoue Enryō and Inoue Tetsujirō in establishing 153, 155; role in state ideology 134, 155 modern national ideology 2–3, 77, 159–60; Enryō’s emphasis on Japanese culture and civilization 136–7; established in instruments of Meiji state 2, 131–3, 142, 165; key concepts of kokutai and sonnō jōi 1, 8, 163; role of antiChristian discourse in formation of 10, 53, 102, 103, 132–3, 163; role of Inoue Enryō and Inoue Tetsujirō 153–4, 155; Western influence 8, see also ideology/ ideologies modernization 160; and secularization 3, 4, 164, 165–6 moral instruction, Tetsujirō’s establishment of 155, 156–7 Mori Arinori 151 Mozi 144, 145, 150 Myōshinji Temple 92 Myōtei Mondō (Habian) 10, 11, 12, 12–13, 13–18, 25–6, 31; compared with Tianzhu Shiyi 26–9; differences with Dochirina Kirishitan 19–22, 36, 37; discussion of Confucianism 35–6; elements of continuity with Hadaiusu 45–50; Hadaiusu and Habian’s own attack on 42, 43, 44; importance in context of social and intellectual climate 32–3; referred to in Haiyaso 67–8; similarities with Dochirina Kirishitan 18 Nagasaki 11, 42, 54, 59 Nagasaki Itsuji 68–9 Nakae Tōju 80, 85 Nakamura Hajime 63 Nakamura Masanao 151 national ethics 8; Inoue Tetsujirō’s ideology 156, 157, 158 national ideology: and history of antiChristian thought 10, see also modern national ideology nationalism: Enryō’s discussions in terms of search for truth 137–41; in Hakirishitan 62, 63; modern Japanese state associated with 3, 63; and Westernization 159, 163 natura, equated with xing by Habian 36 Neo-Confucian theory 15, 17, 32, 42; differences between Seika and Razan 50, 51, see also Song Confucianism Nichiren Buddhism, Fujufuseha sect 5
Nihon no katekizumo (Jesuit text) 35 Nishikawa Joken 76 non-samurai classes 53 Ogyū Sorai 7, 103, 105, 111–12, 113, 117, 121, 129, 165 Okamoto Ōhachi 53 Ōkubo Tadachika 54, 56 Ōkuwa Hitoshi 62, 64 Ooms, Herman 101 original sin: emphasis in Dochirina Kirishitan 21, 22; emphasis in Gomez’s Compendium of Catholic Doctrine 25; in Hadaiusu and Seiyō kibun 63–4, 107 orthodoxy: Christianity and categories of heterodoxy 102; Razan as symbol of 80, 102, 162 Osaka castle 54 Otherness: in ‘civilized versus barbarian’ paradigm’ 73–4; treatment of Christians by populist texts 59, 71, 77 Ōtomo Sōrin 123 Ozawa Saburō 147–8 peasantry 119; Wudoumi Rebellions 97 philanthropy 144–5, 152–3 philosophy see ‘East–West philosophy’; Western philosophy piracy 72–3, 78 Pixieji 108 politics: context of diplomatic correspondence 70–1, 77, 162; context of Habian’s Hadaiusu 45; context of Razan’s debates and conflicts 79–80, 98, 101; and definition of ideologies 3; employed in Yasui Sokken’s anti-Christian writings 128; in Hakuseki’s analysis of Christianity 112–13; ideological role of Hajashū and Sokkyohen 122; increasing use in religion in global era 166; integrating emperor’s power into Confucian framework 117–18; ‘isolationist’ policy of Japan 75; Meiji government and question of Westernization 127, 132; neglected in histories of antiChristian discourse 2; political order in Hakirishitan 62, 63; public debates about Japanese state in 1880s and 1890s 132–3, 133, 141–2, 148–50, 163; and religion in Inoue Enryō’s discussion of constitution 135–7; role in early Tokugawa anti-Christian discourse 3–5, 7, 8, 52–3, 78–9, 102;
228 Index roots and consequences of suppression of Christianity 53–6; use of Imperial Rescript on Education as ideological tool 146; worldwide burgeoning of ideas in late nineteenth century 141, 163, see also socio-political conditions populist anti-Christian texts 7, 52, 56, 58–9, 66, 70–1, 77, 78; importance of Suzuki Shōsan 61, see also Kirishitan Monogatari; Tentō Portugal 75 Poxieji (Ming Chinese anti-Christian documents) 121 priests see foreign priests; proclamations proclamations 52, 66, 78, see also Bateren tsuihō no fumi Qing dynasty 75, 123 religion: importance of Soshin’s writings 92–3; increasing use in global politics 166; in Inoue Enryō’s discussion of constitution 135–7; role in political modernization 3, 4, 160, 164, 165–6; in traditional history of anti-Christian discourse 2, 165–6, see also ‘Clash Between Education and Religion’ religious identity, Shinto-Buddhist synthesis 57, 61 Ricci, Matteo 13, 25, 32, 67; compared with Habian 29–31; Hakuseki’s reading of 106, 108, 109–10, 111–12, 113, 121, 129, see also Tianzhu Shiyi Roman Catholicism 10; dehumanization of Catholics in Kirishitan Monogatari 60; doctrine criticized in Hadaiusu 50; hierarchy of the Church 41, 162 Russia 114, see also Japanese-Russian Treaty (1925); Soviet Union Sakai Tadakatsu 80 Sakatani Shiroshi 151 salvation, concept in Myōtei Mondō and Dochirina Kirishitan 20, 21–2, 22 samurai classes: Confucians with key government roles 80–1, 117; as initial target of anti-Christian measures 53, 54, 110–11; involvement in Keian Affair 83; ran ki (records of rebellion) 87 Sawano Chūan, Kengiroku 58 scholasticism 29; concept of natura in Habian 36; conflict within Jesuit groups 41, 42; Ricci’s education 30, 31
School of Mind (Ming China) 39, 42 secularization, in political modernization 3, 4, 164, 165–6 Seikyōsha (publishing group) 133–4 Seishōji chūkō kiroku yōryaku 94 Seki Kōsaku 152, 161 Serikawa Hiromichi 124 Sessō Sōsai 126; Jakyō Taii 64, 125 Shangdi (Lord of Heaven) 28–9, 30, 109 Shimabara Rebellion (1639) 55, 58, 61, 83, 87, 101 Shimaji Mokurai 132 Shimazu Hisamitsu 128, 151 Shingaku gorinsho (Tentō text) 37, 38, 42, 110 Shinmura Izuru 12, 43 Shinto: analysis in Myōtei Mondō 13, 14, 14–15, 15, 30; critique in Nihon no katekizumo 35; differentiated from Confucianism by Habian 36; in Enryō’s conception of East–West philosophy 158; temple registration system 55 Shinto-Buddhist synthesis, used in antiChristian texts 56, 56–7, 61–3, 65, 71, 102 Shinto-Confucian orthodoxy, Razan’s construction 100–1, 155 Shizuoka 53, 83; printing of Sōzuku zenkōki 87, 88 shogunal rule: in Aizawa Seishisai’s works 118–20; in Fujita Yūkoku’s thought 116–17, 118 Shōheizaka gakumonjo (orthodox Confucian academy) 128–9 Sidotti, Juan Baptista 105, 105–6, 107–8, 111, 113 Sino-Japanese War (1894) 132 Sinocentrism 76, 162; in Answer to Fujian letter 72, 75 social classes/groups: excluded categories in Kirishitan Monogatari 60; and suppression of Christianity 53 social control: institutionalized aratame system 55; Meiji government’s use of Western constructs 132; role of ShintoBuddhism in Hakirishitan 62 social organism theory 8, 140, 159 Society of Philosophy 133, 134, 156 socio-political conditions: context of Suzuki Shōsan’s idea of the Good 50; late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries 41–2, 51; neglected in research on populist anti-Christian texts 58
Index 229 Socrates 158 Sokkyohen 104, 121, 122–3, 124, 125, 127, 161 Song Confucianism: Buddhist elements 12; identified by Habian 35, 47; metaphysical thesis of creation 2, see also Neo-Confucian theory sonnō jōi theory (‘revere the emperor, expel the barbarians’) 8, 116, 116–18, 118, 120, 163 Soshin: background and importance 91–2; reference in Sōzuku zenki 91–5, 98, 99–101; religious writings 92–4, 99, 162; similar attitudes to Banzan 99, 102 Soshinni kōhōgo 93, 94 sovereignty: Japan’s and China’s retention of 143; sovereign–vassal relationship 119, 120 Soviet Union, threat of Communism 1 Sōzuku kōki 82, 87, 95–8 Sōzuku zenki 82, 87, 89–91, 94–5 Sōzuku zenkōki 82, 87–9, 91, 94, 98, 100–1 Spain 75 Spencer, Herbert, social organism theory 140, 159 state institutions, Meiji government’s establishment of 130, 141, 142 Sueki Fumihiko 92–3, 93 Suetsugu Heizō 72 suicide attack, Incident outside Sakurada Gate (1860) 122 Sunpu see Shizuoka Sunzi 84 superstition: anti-Christian references to medical practice as 97, 98; Hakuseki’s view of afterlife as 106–7 suppression of Christianity: Hakuseki’s perspective 110–11, 113; historical significance regarding social control system 55; political roots 53–4; popular imagery of violence 55; propagandist treatment by Kirishitan Monogatari 59–61; represented by anti-Christian discourse 1–2, 4–5, 11, 25–6, 42, 52; spread to general population and consequences 54–6; tenko in context of 44 Suzuki Shōsan 13, 50, 114, 126, 162; Hakirishitan (Smash the Christians) 61–3, 64, 65, 77, 125; politically subservient Buddhism 93–4
temple registration system 53, 55 ten commandments, Habian’s criticism in Hadaiusi 48 tenkō (turning/change of allegiance): Habian 43, 45, 49; as term 44–5 tennōsei ideology see imperial ideology Tentō 12, 37, 86 Tetsugakushoin (publishing house) 152 theological issues: in Compendium of Catholic Doctrine 23–5; scholastic fusion of Aristotelian with Christian thought 29–30 Tianzhu Shiyi (Ricci) 12–13; compared with Japanese Christian texts 25–9, 31; referred to in Haiyaso 67, 68 Toby, Ronald 75 Tōkai bunko series 87 Tokugawa Hidetada 54, 72; proclamation Bateren tsuihō no fumi 56–8 Tokugawa Iemitsu 91–2 Tokugawa Ieyasu 53, 54, 79 Tokugawa Nariaki 8, 124, 161; Hajashū and Sokkyohen 121–3, 127 Tokugawa Jikki 93, 94 Tokugawa shogunate (1600–1868): antiChristian discourse 1, 2, 3–4, 6–7, 7–8; association of Razan with 42, 80, 81, 155; bakumatsu (late) period 7–8, 104, 115, 129; construction of international relations system 75; context of emerging Japanese Confucian thought 6, 41, 79; early ‘rational’ thought 34, 38; importance of Haiyaso in early period 66–7; importance of Soshin 91–2; major concerns in year 1855 12; political argumentation and anti-Christian discourse 87–9; Tetsujō’s praise of 124; Tokugawa Nariaki’s portrayal 123; uses of ideological discourse 3, 101, 166, see also suppression of Christianity Tokutomi Sohō 1 Tokyo: First Higher Middle School 146, see also Edo; University of Tokyo torture: in popular imagery of suppression of Christianity 55; punishments in proclamation Bateren tsuihō no fumi 56–7 Tōyō University 134 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 54, 56, 76 tradition/customs, in creation of national identity 136, 159–60 tribalism 165
230 Index truth: Enryō’s emphasis in discussions on nationalism 137–41; ideas of Seika and Habian 38; Zhu Xi-ist analysis in Habian’s Myōtei Mondō 48–9 Uchimura Kanzō Incident (1891) 146–7; debate 8, 133, 142, 145; link with Clash Between Education and Religion 148–9 Ugai Tetsujō (Kiyū Dōjin) 8, 104, 124–5, 126, 130, 132, 161, 163; Buppō fukasekiron 126–7; Hekijakankenroku 104, 123–4, 125, 161; Hekijashū 123–4; Inoue Enryō’s links with 134; Shōyaron 126; Sokken’s connection with 128–9 ‘the unity of the mind of the people’ 143–4 University of Tokyo 132, 133, 134, 154 Valignano, Alexandro 18, 29; edition of Japan’s Catechism 23, see also Dochirina Kirishitan violence: narratives in Hakirishitan 62; in popular imagery of suppression of Christianity 55, 59, 60–1; punishments in proclamation Bateren tsuihō no fumi 56–7 Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi 114 Wang Yang-ming-ist Confucianism 39, 40, 98; Kumazawa Banzan 98, 99; linked with Christianity by Razan 81, 85, 86, 155; similarity with ‘mind/ heart’ ideas of Soshin 94 Warring States period: emergence of Tentō 37; religious and social characteristics 34, 38, 42; text Honsaroku 110 Washio Junkei 152–3 the West: in Hakuseki’s anti-Christian position 110, 113; Meiji government’s conclusion of treaties with 127; Miura Baien’s attitude to 113–14; Seishisai’s ideological system in defence against
119–20; Tokugawa Nariaki’s use of history against 123 Western imperialism 132, 143 Western philosophy 130, 132–3, 159 ‘Western thought’: creation of conflict with ‘Eastern thought’ 5, 11–12, 51, 58; idea of Christian thought as offshoot of 33; influence on nature of modern states 8, 132–3; integration with Buddhism by Enryō 158; Yasui Sokken’s criticism of 127 women, importance of Soshin 91, 92–3, 95 Wudoumi Rebellions 97, 164 xenophobia, imagery in anti-Christian discourse 55, 65, 77, 158 Xiaojing (Confucian text) 150 xing (Mencian concept) 36 Xu Changzhi 121 Yamaga Sokō 81, 91, 91–2, 92, 94, 98 Yamaji Aizan 128, 151 Yamazaki Ansai 47–8 Yasui Sokken 104, 127–9, 130, 132, 163; Benbo 127–8, 151 Yoshida Kōhei 134 Yoshida Soan 40 Yui Shōsetsu 83–4, 90–1, 94 Zen Buddhism 40; Soshin’s practices 92, 94, 98, 99 Zhu Xi 35, 40; commentary on the Four Books 40–1; commentary on The Great Learning 39 Zhu Xi-ist Confucianism: common assumption about 35; employed in Razan’s Haiyaso 66; Habian’s knowledge of 35, 47, 47–8; ideas on universal truth 38, 41; orthodox Confucian academy 128; portrayal of Razan’s thought as 40, 41, 81; Tetsujirō’s history of 154–5, 159 Zōjōji Konchi’in 129