Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan

A former bonze of the most perverse sect, the physician Jacuin, tasked with searching throughout Japan for whatever might be prostituted to the lust of Taicosama, wishing to inspire in him his own hatred for the Catholic faith, explained to him that Catholic women alone took no account of his promises, his money, or his threats; that the authority of the Jesuits was stronger than that of the Emperor; and that they would eventually rule in his place or deliver Japan to the Spaniards. This speech addressed all the Emperor's passions at once; it took no more than this to bring about an edict of persecution. The Jesuits were ordered to leave Japan within six months. They, who desired only the victory of the martyrs, were careful not to desert the battlefield in such a way. But the persecution did not break out all at once. For ten years the storm gathered rather than broke; moreover, the number of Christians had never increased in such proportions; from 1591 to 1592, more than twelve thousand adults received baptism. The nobility, above all, enlisted under the banner of Jesus Christ. In the month of May 1593, four Franciscan religious arrived in Japan under the title of ambassadors, which allowed them to circumvent the bull of Gregory XIII, which reserved the evangelization of Japan exclusively to the Society of Jesus, and to stay in the empire. They built two monasteries: Saint Mary of the Portiuncula and Bethlehem, and having received a reinforcement of three professed religious, they preached, despite the prohibition that had been made to them, shaking, converting, and baptizing the masses. The Emperor flew into a great rage upon learning that his orders were being flouted in this way; a Spaniard topped it off with his bravado, boasting to a Japanese courtier that his nation, already master of half the world, would soon be master of Japan; and this, as always, by means of the missionaries. Taicosama ordered the arres Talcosama Emperor of Japan and instigator of the persecution against Christians. t and execution of all the Fathers; but he restricted this condemnation to the Franciscans. They learned this news with the liveliest joy and gave thanks to God. This was the sentiment of all that holy and brilliant Christendom: a crowd of families flocked from various regions to Meaco, to be arrested with the Missionaries and to confess the faith in their company.

The list of the first Martyrs of Japan includes twenty-six, who are usually divided into three groups: six Franciscan religious, three Jesuit religious, and seventeen Japanese laypeople of the Third Order of Saint Francis. Here are a few words about each of them:

Born in Spain, in San-Estevan, Saint Peter Baptist r saint Pierre-Baptiste Leader of the Franciscans in Japan and one of the principal martyrs. enounced the world as soon as he could know it, embraced the institute of the seraphic Saint Francis, and, sent to the mission of the Indies, he fulfilled in Manila the office of guardian or superior of a convent of his Order, then that of commissary. He was the leader of the Franciscans, apostles of Japan. He had the gift of miracles: one Pentecost day, he publicly healed a young girl severely afflicted with leprosy.

Saint Martin of the Ascension or of Aguirre, a Franciscan priest, was from the city of Vergara, in the province of Guipuzcoa, in Spain. He had already fulfilled the functions of preacher and professor of theology, although he was only thirty years old. He knew the Japanese language quite well and preached with great zeal and much fruit. We have from him a beautiful exhortation that he gave to his companions when they were being led to martyrdom.

Saint Francis Blanco, priest and religious of Saint Francis, was also Spanish. Monte-Rey, in Galicia, has the honor of being his homeland. One can see, in the Bollandists, the beautiful things he wrote to one of his friends while awaiting martyrdom. He says, speaking of the new Christians who were vying for the happiness of dying for Jesus Christ: "I am ashamed of myself when I see men who have so recently entered the bosom of the Church show such courage in the face of death."

Saint Philip of Las Casas or of Jesus, cleric and Franciscan religious, was born in Mexico to Spanish parents. From his youth, he gave himself over to pleasures: his disorders were such that his family was reduced to banishing him from their midst as an object of disgust and dishonor. This severe treatment struck him down, so to speak, and opened his eyes: he saw his misfortune, wept over it, converted, and took the habit of Saint Francis. But his passions followed him into the cloister; he struggled at first; then, defeated by these terrible enemies, he left his religious habit and plunged again into his disorders. His parents, to distance him from them, sent him to China to engage in trade. There, the memory of the convent took complete hold of this soul and tore it definitively from the pleasures of the earth. He enrolled again in the holy militia of Saint Francis, at the monastery of the Angels, in Manila. His parents, at the news of his conversion, having desired to see him again, he embarked for New Spain; but the ship obeyed the breath of Providence; a cross was seen on the side of Japan, a presage of martyrdom for the young Philip. A storm forced the ship to put in at the Japanese port of Firando; Philip retired to the monastery of his Order, in Meaco. This was the moment when the arrests were being made: he was on the list of prisoners. On the day of triumph, he tenderly embraced the cross where he was to die; as it was poorly constructed, he suffered more than the others and was content to say: "Jesus! Jesus!" He was then pierced with three lance thrusts; so that, having arrived last in Japan, he entered first into the heavenly homeland, at the age of twenty-three.

Saint Gonsalo Garcia, lay brother of the Franciscan Order, was born in Bazain in the East Indies, to a Portuguese father and an Indian mother. He gave himself to trade: struck, during a trip he made to the Philippines, by the poverty of the Franciscans, who followed the austere reform of Peter of Alcantara, he renounced his immense wealth to put on the coarse habit. The Blessed Peter Baptist took him with him to Japan, because he knew the language of that country. On the day of his martyrdom, he exhorted the Japanese from the top of his cross to recognize the truth of the religion of Jesus Christ. He was of rare humility. Before expiring, he did not dare to use any words other than those of the good thief: "Lord, remember me."

Saint Francis of Saint Michael, lay brother, Franciscan religious, was born in Padilha, not far from Valladolid, in the diocese of Palencia. He left the Order of the Cordeliers for that of the Franciscans, because he hoped to find more austerities there. Sent to the Philippine Islands, he was favored with the gift of miracles. He restored speech to an Indian woman who was about to breathe her last, and administered baptism to her. With a sign of the cross, he healed an Indian mortally bitten by a snake. His memory was so prodigious that it was regarded as a supernatural gift. Taken to Japan by the Blessed Peter Baptist, it was he who made the most conversions there. One day, to better make his listeners understand the passion of Jesus Christ, he stripped off his clothes to the waist, had his hands tied behind his back, and was struck with ropes, without pity, for a long time, until he bled.

Here now are the names of the seventeen Japanese laypeople who assisted the Franciscan Fathers, lived with them, according to the terms of the bull of Urban VIII, of September 14, 1627, and shared their prison and their martyrdom: Saint Cosmas Takeya, from the kingdom of Owari. — Saint Michael Kozaki, from the kingdom of Ise, the father of Thomas Kozaki, one of the three children of whom we are about to speak. — Saint Paul Ibaraki, from the kingdom of Owari. — Saint Leo Karasumaru, younger brother of the blessed Paul Ibaraki; he was a catechist, interpreter for the Fathers, full of zeal for works of chari ty, and esp Saint Louis An eleven-year-old child, one of the youngest martyrs of the group. ecially good to the incurably ill. — Saint Louis, a child of eleven years; he, Anthony, and Thomas served at the altar for the Franciscan Fathers; they could have avoided being put on the list of martyrs, but these admirable children demanded this favor with tears and prayers. A pagan, proposing to Louis that he renounce the Christian faith to escape death, he replied: "It is on the contrary you who must become a Christian, since there is no other way to be saved." Arriving at the place of execution, he asked which was his cross; when he saw it, he ran to it with a holy joy that moved all the spectators. When he was attached to it, his eyes, his smiling lips, the movement of his little fingers, everything about him indicated the heavenly contentment that radiated from his face. — Saint Anthony, a child of thirteen years, born in Nagasaki. At the moment he approached the execution, his parents, good Christians otherwise, but overcome by the feelings of nature, implored him not to die so young and to wait, to confess the faith, until a more advanced age. The heroic child, receiving from God a manly firmness, did not let himself be softened by these groans and tears: "God will give me the necessary courage for this struggle," he replied to his parents: "cease your advice, do not expose our holy faith to the contempt and mockery of the pagans in this way." The magistrate, moved by this spectacle, joined his urgings to those of the parents; he promised Anthony riches, honors; he used everything to seduce him: "I despise your promises and life itself," replied the young martyr; "death does not frighten me; the cross where I am to be attached does not trouble me at all; it is, on the contrary, what I desire solely, out of love for Jesus, who also wished to expire on a cross to save us." Then, addressing his father and mother, he said goodbye to them, promising to pray for them in heaven. When he was attached and raised on his cross, he invited Father Peter Baptist to sing the psalm Laudate, pueri, Dominum, and as this Father, absorbed and enraptured in ecstasy, did not respond, the holy child intoned the psalm all alone, and sang it with an angelic voice: he was arriving at the Gloria Patri when the iron of the lance piercing his heart sent his soul to continue its songs in heaven. Saint Thomas Kozaki, a child of fourteen years, son of Michael Kozaki, had the glory and the happiness of suffering for Jesus Christ with his father, with the same constancy as the other two children. — Saint Matthias: when they came to the Franciscan convent of Miyako to draw up a list of twelve Christians, from those who lived with the Fathers, to crucify them with them, one of these Christians, who was named Matthias, the provider for the convent, was absent; the executioners were demanding him everywhere, saying: "Where is Matthias? Let Matthias present himself." A Christian from the neighborhood, who bore the same name, hearing it pronounced, presented himself and said: "Here is a Matthias; it is not the one you are asking for; but I too am a Christian and a friend of these Fathers." They arrested him, and he thus owed to this circumstance the happiness of martyrdom. Saint Ventura or Bonaventure, who, baptized in his early childhood, then raised in paganism, was later enlightened interiorly by a divine light, had himself instructed in the faith of his baptism and abjured his errors. — Saint Joachim Sakakibara, physician to the Franciscan Fathers. — Saint Francis of Meaco, another physician; he had composed some treatises to defend the Christian religion against the prejudices of his nation. — Saint Thomas Dangi, who served as an interpreter for the Fathers. — Saint John Kinuya. — Saint Gabriel de Duisco, native of the kingdom of Ise, nineteen years old, a student of the Franciscan Fathers. — Saint Paul Suzuki, from the kingdom of Owari, catechist and interpreter, author of some writings for the instruction of neophytes. There are two other Japanese who are called the two Supernumeraries, and who were like the supernumeraries of martyrdom. When the twenty-four martyrs were being led to execution, these two Christians, Saint Francis and Saint Peter Sukegiro, followed this glorious troop to lavish upon it the most tender care, and to provide for all its necessities. The mistreatment by the guards could not stop their zeal. It was necessary to arrest them and join them to the twenty-four martyrs: which crowned their happiness.

It remains for us to say a few words about the three Japanese Jesuits. They were arrested and imprisoned on December 9, 1596: although later the death sentence did not reach the Jesuits, but was restricted to the Franciscan Fathers, when, on December 31, 1596, Taicosama gave the order to have the Franciscan Father and his companions leave their prison in Ozaca, the three Japanese Jesuits being among that number, the governor did not dare to release them. He sent them to their execution with the other prisoners. They were Pau Paul Miki Japanese Jesuit, famous preacher and martyr. l Miki, John of Goto, and James Kizai.

Paul Miki, from a noble and Christian family, a student of the Jesuits from the age of eleven, was, from his youth, a model of fervor. At twenty-two, he embraced religious life, and, through his knowledge, his modesty, and his eloquence, he became the most famous of the Company's missionaries in Japan, and the one who made the most conversions. When he was put in prison, some Christians having taken steps to obtain his release, he reproached them: "Is this, then," he said to them, "how you love me? What! You wanted to deprive me of this immense favor from God, for which you should, on the contrary, have rejoiced and praised His infinite goodness." During the journey, while going to his execution, Paul Miki could not contain his joy; he did not cease to exhort his companions to constancy, and his guards and the pagans to embrace the Christian religion. People crowded around him to kiss his clothes; but his humility could not bear it. When he was on his cross, he preached Jesus Christ once more: from the height of this glorious pulpit, he said: "Arrived at the end where you see me, I do not think that any of you believe me capable of betraying the truth. Well! I declare to you, there is no other means of salvation than the Christian religion. And as this religion commands us to forgive our enemies and all those who have offended us, I forgive, for my part, very willingly the Emperor and the authors of my death. I conjure them to receive baptism."

Saint John of Goto, born to Christian parents in 1578, on the island of Goto, entered the Jesuit Order shortly before his arrest. When he was about to be attached to his cross, his father came to bid him farewell; John, then nineteen years old, spoke to him first: "You see it well, my father," he said to him, "eternal salvation must be preferred to everything! Take care to neglect nothing to ensure it for yourself." — "My son," replied this heroic father, "I thank you for your excellent exhortation, and you too, at this moment, be firm and endure death with joy, since you are undergoing it for the cause of our holy faith. As for me and your mother, we are ready, if necessary, to die for the same cause." He had the courage to witness the death of his dear child; he withdrew stained with his blood, which he kissed with respect as that of a martyr.

Saint James Kizai was an old man of sixty-four, a catechist for the Jesuits, and charged above all with exercising hospitality. His most habitual practice of piety was to meditate on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. As he was given great testimonies of veneration in his capacity as a martyr, he was content to reply: "I am a great sinner." It was necessary to use violence to snatch from him some objects belonging to him, which people wished to keep as relics.

On January 2, 1597, the twenty-four prisoners of Meaco, led to the main square, had the tips of their left ears cut off. What was thus cut from the martyrs was collected and venerated: Father Augustin, into whose hands the Christians placed the twenty-four precious relics, raised them toward heaven, saying: "I offer you, my God, these flowers of the Church of Japan." Then, a disgrace reserved for the greatest criminals of Japan, our holy martyrs were paraded on carts through the city. But, wherever they were to pass, the inhabitants had sanded the streets, an honor exclusively reserved for kings: people crowded at doors, windows, and on rooftops to see this sorrowful triumph, and everywhere testimonies of sympathy and admiration broke out. The three children especially drew the gaze and brought tears to eyes, by their angelic air and the sweet joy that heaven seemed already to spread upon their faces. Many Christians tried to climb onto the carts to share in the martyrdom: it was with great difficulty that they were pushed away with heavy blows of whips and sticks; one of them, François Fahélenté, whom we have mentioned, remained clinging to one.

When the saints returned to the prison, one of the three Jesuits, Paul Miki, embraced the Franciscan fathers and vividly expressed his gratitude for the sufferings for which he was indebted to them, for they alone, and not the Jesuits, were condemned to death in the emperor's edict, and that he was to be a martyr in their shadow. The saints were then led to Ozaca, then to Sacaïa, then to Nangazaki. The journey was long and arduous, because of the co Nangazaki City in Japan, center of anti-Christian persecution. ld, the snow, and the ice; moreover, they did not wish to receive the comforts that everyone, even the pagans, hastened to bring to their ailments; but they had a great consolation when their glorious troop was increased by two fervent Christians, Pierre Sukégiro and François Fahélenté, as we have recounted above. Along their way, they excited universal admiration: even the pagans murmured against the emperor and said: "It is madness, it is a crying injustice." Many were converted; the exasperated bonzes said that the emperor could not have chosen a better way to strengthen and propagate the Christian religion. The martyrs traveled thus for a month. On February 4, they met the two Jesuit Fathers Pasio and Rodriguez, who had come to offer them the help of the sacraments. But the governor of Nangazaki did not give them the time. They could only confess. The place of the execution was a hill in the vicinity of Nangazaki, since named the Mount of the Martyrs, or the Holy Hill. The executioners and the crosses awaited them. The crosses of Japan have, toward the bottom, a piece of wood across, upon which the patients have their feet placed, and in the middle a kind of block, intended to support the weight of the body. They are tied with ropes, by the arms, by the thighs, and by the feet, which are slightly spread. For these, they added (I do not know why, perhaps it is a local custom) an iron collar that held their necks very stiff. When they are thus bound, the cross is raised and placed in its hole. Then the executioner takes a lance and pierces the crucified one in such a way that he makes it enter through the side and exit through the shoulder. Sometimes this is done at the same time from both sides; and if the patient is still breathing, they strike again immediately. We will not recount here with what constancy some of the martyrs triumphed over the most perilous temptations: we have done so above in the life of each of them; all went toward their crosses with an eagerness that struck the pagans with stupor. Each of these valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ is at his post: at a given signal, they are attached to their crosses placed four paces apart from one another, in a single line, from East to West: the crosses are raised and fixed: the martyrs have their faces turned to the South, toward the city. The leader of this holy militia, Saint Peter Baptist, intones the Benedictus which the others continue. As for him, he falls into an ecstasy in which he remains until his last breath. Paul Miki preaches to the crowd; little Antoine sings the psalm: Children, praise the Lord; Fr. Gonzalès repeats while dying the words of the good thief: "Lord, remember me"; and all pray and await the mortal blow with a supernatural joy. Finally, a lance blow sends their blessed souls into heaven.

The Bishop of Japan, who had not obtained permission to witness the death of the Martyrs, helped them at least with his prayers, and in the evening, he came to prostrate himself at the foot of the crosses to venerate the holy victims. All the faithful crowded there: in vain the governor of Nagasaki threatened to burn all the houses in the city if this gathering continued. But the Bishop, because of this threat, forbade, under pain of excommunication, crossing the barriers that the soldiers had erected around the crosses, and his voice alone was obeyed.

Such was the first phase of the persecution which only ended with the extinction of Christianity. It is difficult to estimate how much blood was shed, for the number of Christians rose to two million, and, when some apostatized, they were often replaced by pagans. The greater part of this blood will mark with eternal ignominy the brow of Holland, for it is she who sold it. It is Holland that, in its hatred of Catholicism and in its vilest spirit of mercantilism, explained to the Emperor that the missionaries were the refuse of Europe; that no civilized country could suffer them; that Spain alone sent them as spies into foreign continents to seize them. This was the cause of a universal proscription: all of Japan soon became nothing more than a pool of blood. And, to close it to all civilization, entry was permitted only to the Dutch. All other foreigners were excluded, even the Chinese, even the Koreans, neighbors. No one could live or land in Japan without trampling the crucifix underfoot. The Dutch trampled it to have a monopoly on trade. Oh! it is not like that that noble France has relations with foreign peoples. God permitted that it could finally treat with Japan, on October 9, 1848; it is not said in this treaty: "It will be permitted for the French to trade in Japan, on condition that they walk on the image of the redemption of the world." But "French subjects, in Japan, will have the right to practice their religion freely, and, for this purpose, they may erect there, on the land intended for their residence, buildings suitable for their worship, such as churches, chapels, cemeteries."

Pope Urban VIII declared the twenty-six victims of Nagasaki blessed by a decree of July 10, 1627. On September 11 of the same year, the twenty-three members of the Order of Saint Francis were declared blessed. In 1629, the same status was extended to the three members of the Society of Jesus. Finally, these twenty-six Martyrs were canonized on June 8, 1862, the day of Pentecost, with a solemnity without example in such a case. Upon a simple desire of the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX, bishops from almost all points of the Catholic world flocked to console the head of the Chur ch, de Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. prived of the greater part of the States that his temporal power comprised. Most of the prelates who could not attend and adhere orally to this great act did so afterwards in writing.

These blessed Martyrs are usually represented in two different groups: one composed of the five Franciscan Fathers and the seventeen Japanese to whom the habit of Friars Minor is often given because they were aggregated to the Third Order of Saint Francis; the other of the three religious of the Society of Jesus.

We have used, for the history of these Martyrs, the works of Messrs. Bontz and Villefranche.