This article aims to analyze the characters of Jesuit Christian mission and the acceptance of the concept of deity in Japanese middle age. In particular, the history of Japanese Kirisitan indicates how to accept the concept of Christian God to Japanese in Kirisitan community and how to accommodate Christian God and Japanese religious gods.
At first, we analyzed the process of introducing the concept of Christian God to Japanese people in order to understand characters of Japanese acceptance of Christianity by the relationship with Japanese traditional religions. At the latter, we revealed the characters of practice and belief in Kirisitan communities of Ikitsuki and Urakami which had molded two different characters under long religious persecution by Japanese Shogunates. After 400 years persecution, Ikitsuki community was not recognized as Christian community even if Urakami community was permitted as Christian community by Roman Catholic Church at 18 century.
The first Jesuit missionaries had taken thousands of Christians in a short time through conversion of Samurais due to admiration of Japanese traditional and life cultures. Unfortunately, the their accommodative method could not adjust to the biblical education as core contents of Jesuit mission. Jesuit missionaries had to make Japanese understand the concept of monotheistic God in Christianity against their syncretic tradition of religious pluralism and polytheism.
Japanese scholars insisted that God of Jesuit Christianity was appeared as a temporary appearance of Buddha by Bonjisujuk theory which means Buddha’s accommodation to local gods in various religions. However, Kirisitan members believed God in Christianity as the Creator or the Governor over the other things. Therefore, they thought to suffer martyrdom as possible as sacrifice for God. To willingly suffer martyrdom of Kirisitan members might be from the attitudes of Samurais in Japanese traditional ethic.
Todays, we could seek the two different characters from the cases of Ikitsuki community and Urakami community in Nagasaki prefecture. The two communities had to pretend to be Japanese religious communities by usage of the symbols of Buddhist or the rites of Shinto shrine so that the concept of God might make an amendment to the concept of Japanese traditional gods. They pretended worship to Tea ceremony and work for district leader of members to the head of village residents. Ikitsuki community members thought those kinds of amendment as a method to keep their belief of Christianity. They handed down Geredo(Creed) very well even though they did not take Conchirisan (confession) as a condition of redemption in Christianity, which might be from Japanese traditional religions without confession.
At least, the symbols and images to express the belief in Ikitsuki community as a statue of St. Mary had been amended as traditional fetishism which could be seek from holy things as possession of Anima(Spirit) during long persecution period. However, Urakami community members handed down the monotheism of Christian belief according to rituals as the baptism and the confession even to pretend traditional religious rituals in the villages. Recently, Ikitsuki community members handed down their amended Christian calendar according to lunar calendar of agricultural villages or see villages in Japan so that scholars might take argument on an indigenous theme from the cases of two different Kirisitan communities.