Commentary: SILENCE. by Shusaku Endo.

Commentary:
SILENCE. by Shusaku Endo.

The Episcopal Church of Christ the King Bookworms Club:

http://www.ecctk.org

selected the following book, read by our members for the June, 1999, meeting, held at 8:00 PM, June 19, 1999. Bill Moore took notes.

SILENCE. by Shusaku Endo, William Johnston (Translator)
Paperback (March 1980).
Parkwest Publications.
ISBN: 0800871863 ;

Summary of Japanese History.

      First, a brief summary of Japanese history, for the U. S. readers of these notes. According to legend, Japan was founded in the sixth century B.C., when the Sun Goddess descended to earth, and became the mother of the first Japanese emperor. According to this tradition, all Japanese people were eventually descended from the Sun Goddess, and thus have a special status compared to other peoples in the world. Japan had an entirely oral culture until the seventh century A.D., during the Tang Dynasty in China, when Japan borrowed the writing system from China.

      Immediately before 1600, during the so-called Sengoku Period, Japan was a relatively disorganized feudal society, with different feudal lords (daimyos), presiding over different districts, and constantly fighting among one another. There was no strong central government in Japan.

      Christianity was brought to Japan in 1549 by St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest from the Basque country, north of Spain and Portugal in Western Europe. The first Christian missionaries received a mixed reception, but in districts where they were unwelcome, it was always possible to leave the area and go to a more receptive audience. By 1579, there were some 150,000 Christians in Japan.

      In the late 1500s, Hideyoshi, the Japanese Horatio Alger, the son of a poor fisherman in Nagoya, rose to power, and unified all of Japan. Hideyoshi also conquered most of Korea, but he died during this expedition, and the Japanese invaders returned home. Hideyoshi is regarded as a hero among Japanese, but as a villain among Koreans.

      Under the Tokugawa shoguns, starting with Ieyasu, power in Japan was consolidated and centralized, and Westerners became unwelcome. SILENCE covers the period at the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate, when the Christian missionaries in Japan were either exiled or killed. The title refers to God's silence (apparently) during this Christian Holocaust in Japan. There followed a two-and-a-half century of relative peace in Japan, but at the same time there was no social or technological progress.

      There was essentially no Western contact with Japan until U. S. Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to Western trade in 1868, soon after the U. S. Civil War. The shoguns were overthrown, and Meiji, the first of the modern Japanese emperors, assumed power. Japanese culture underwent a remarkable transformation, and became fully Westernized technologically within a quarter-century.

Discussion about the book.

In speaking with some older Japanese Christians, I believe that there is some resonance between the early Tokugawa era and the pre-World-War-II situation among Japanese Christians. There are also many Christian Holocausts underway elsewhere in the world (for example, in Sudan and China). Numerically, there have been more Christian martyrs in this century than in any previous century.

p. 75. Why didn't Jesus prevent Judas Iscariot from betraying Him? It is not possible that Jesus did not love Judas. Furthermore, Judas was terribly remorseful after his betrayal of Our Lord.

But it could not be so. Christ wanted to save even Judas. If not, he would never have made him one of his disciples. And yet why did Christ not stop him when he began to slip from the path of righteousness? This was a problem I had not understood even as a seminarian. I asked many priests about it. Certainly I must have asked Father Ferreira also, but I cannot recall what his answer was. This very fact indicates that he gave no solution.

'These words were not uttered in anger or hatred. They were words of disgust,' someone had said. But what kind of disgust? Were they disgust for everything in Judas? Did Christ at that moment cease love him? 'By no means,' came the answer. 'Take the example of a husband betrayed by his wife. He continues to love her; but he never forgives the fact that she, his wife, should betray him. This is the feeling of the husband who loves his wife but feels disgust at such behavior.... and Christ's attitude toward Judas was something like that.

p. 77; p. 164. Kichijiro's lament: Many Christians live in peaceful times, or in relatively protected countries, where Christianity may be practiced freely. Could Kichijiro have been a good Christian in another setting? What about us, living in a civilized country, with guaranteed rights of free speech and freedom to practice one's own religion?

'Mokichi was strong -- like a strong shoot. But a weak shoot like me will never grow no matter what you do.' He seemed to feel that I had dealt him a severe rebuke, because with a look like a whipped dog he glanced backwards. Yet I had not said these words with the intention of rebuking him; I was only giving expression to a sad reflection that was rising in mind. Kichijiro was right in saying that all men are not saints and heroes. How many of our Christians, if only they had been born in another age from this persecution would never have been confronted with the problem of apostasy or martyrdom but would have lived blessed lives of faith until the very hour of death.

....If there had been no persecution, this fellow would undoubtedly have lived out his life as a happy, good-humored Christian man. 'Why was I born into the world! Why?....Why...?' The priest thrust his fingers into his ears to shut out that voice that was like the whining of a dog.

p. 86. The guards behave heartlessly toward their prisoners. Sin may not be defined as lying or stealing. Rather, it is to walk brutally over the lives of others. See Romans 5:12. There was no Sin until there was the Law. (Original Sin).

These guards, too, were men; they were indifferent to the fate of others. This was the feeling that their laughing and talking stirred up in his heart. Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind. And then for the first time a real prayer rose up in his heart.

p. 87. The early Christian missionaries from Europe were contemptuous of Japanese natives. Even Japanese seminary graduates were not allowed to become priests. Racism in European Christianity. Compare to genderism in the Christian priesthood, not so long ago.

'Why don't you say something?' exclaimed the man, getting angry now. 'The fathers always ridiculed us. I knew Father Cabral -- he had nothing but contempt for everything Japanese. He despised our houses; he despised our language; he despised our food and our customs -- and yet he lived in Japan. Even those of us who graduated from the seminary he did not allow to become priests.

p. 109. A tree flourishes one one soil, but withers in another. Is Christianity really a universal religion? Or is it intrinsically Eurocentric? The magistrate's complaint is belied by the fact that Japanese Christians must be persecuted in order to make them renounce their faith. If Christianity were truly a bad fit in Japan, then it would wither spontaneously, which was historically not the case.

'All the fathers keep saying the same thing. And yet....' The interpreter slowly translated the words of yet another samurai. 'A tree which flourishes in one kind of soil may wither if the soil is changed. As for the tree of Christianity, in a foreign country its leaves may grow thick and the buds may be rich, while in Japan the leaves wither and no bud appears. Father, have you never thought of the difference in the soil, the difference in the water?

p. 147. Father Ferreira's monologue. Japan is a swamp for Christian concepts. European Deus = Japanese Dainichi (= Great Sun). Consider the importance of the Sun Goddess in Japanese tradition.

'For twenty years I labored in the mission.' With emotionless voice Ferreira repeated the same words. 'The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country.'

'It is not that it does not take root,' cried Rodrigues in a loud voice, shaking his head. 'It's that the roots are torn up.'

At the loud cry of the priest, Ferreira did not so much as raise his head. Eyes lowered he answered like a puppet without emotion: 'This country is a swamp. In time you will come to see that for yourself. This country is a more terrible swamp than you can imagine. Whenever you plant a sapling in this swamp the roots begin to rot; the leaves yellow and wither. And we have planted the sapling of Christianity in this swamp.

p. 175. Father Rodrigues' conflict: If I apostatize, then the miserable peasants will be saved. Obviously the Shogun leadership has a double-standard for the upper-class priests. They torture the peasant Christians directly, but the Christian leadership is given preferential treatment. The leaders are not directly tortured, but they must observe their congregration being tortured. Consider the (allegedly) classless Christian faith: in Christ there is no East or West, no Jew or Gentile.... (Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews.)

I fell. But, Lord, you alone know that I did not renounce my faith. The clergy will ask themselves why I fell. Was it becasue the torture of the pit was unendurable? Yes. I could not endure the moaning of those peasants suspended in the pit. As Ferreira spoke to me his tempting words, I thought that if I apostatized those miserable peasants would be saved. Yes, that was it. And yet, in the last analysis, I wonder if all this talk about love is not, after all, just an excuse to justify my own weakness.