Documentos del Japón, 1558-1562 by Juan Ruiz-de-Medina, S.J. (review)

156BOOK REVIEWS Far Eastern Documentos del Japón, 1558-1562. Edited and annotated by Juan Ruiz-deMedina , SJ. [Monumenta Histórica Societatis Jesu, Vol. 148; Monumenta Missionum Societatis Jesu, Vol. 61. Monumenta Histórica Japoniae III.] (Rome: Instituto Histórico de la Compañía deJesús. 1995. Pp. 743) The first volume in this series presented the documents about the initial steps that the Jesuits foUowed in their efforts toward the formation of the CathoUc Church in Japan. It covered the opening decade (1547-1557) as St. Francis Xavier and then others struggled to attain language competence for preaching and teaching as weU as the estabUshment of Christian communities and even a dispensary and a hospital for the sick. (Reviewed ante,LXXLX [April, 1993], 379-381.) This second volume, reflecting simUar outstanding scholarly expertise, portrays the expansion of the mission beyond those initial efforts. TheJesuit presence continued to develop during the final decades ofthe Sengoku (Warring States) period (1477-1573), but not without difficulties. The Christian community in Yamaguchi was not immune from the March, 1556, rebelUon and the subsequent disastrous fire that swept through the entire city in one hour. The victorious daimyo expropriated the church property while the inhabitants, including many of the 2,000 Christians, fled to another fief. Nonetheless, by 1561 the victor ofYamaguchi aUowed the Christians to rebufld the church, but forbade missionaries from entering the area. MeanwhUe, in Funai in 1556 there were 1,500 CathoUcs; yet Buddhist opposition was absent, due to the prestige of the mission hospital and the daimyo, who was quite supportive of the mission. However, in Hitado, where a smaU Christian community existed, the authorities forced the Jesuits to flee and were responsible for the deaths of the first two lay martyrs ofJapan in 1558. Such disturbances did not stop the spread of the mission into other parts of Japan. For examplejapanese Christian merchants in Hakata sent a letter to the Jesuits asking them to come to buüd a church there. A simUar petition from Kagoshima led to the opening of an oratory. The table (p. 41) indicates that by 1562 there were ten priests and brothers serving more than 6,000 Christians with the greater concentration in Bungo and Yamaguchi in western Japan, but also 200 in Kyoto, the capital city, and even in Nara, the ancient capital. Many of the letters in this volume explain that the mission could not have achieved its success to that point without the Japanese lay men and women who so generously gave their educational, medical, and other services to the Church. The editor has included four useful appendices. The first is a Ust of the ships and their captains who came to Japan during the two decades 1542-1562. The next item is an essay on the works of charity that the Jesuits practiced through the opening of a hospital for the sick and the lepers and the estabUshment of a lay Confraternity of Mercy. It was not until 1576, however, that, because of the BOOK REVIEWS157 needs on the missions, Gregory XIII dispensed those Jesuits skiUed in medicine from the ecclesiastical regulations prohibiting priests from being involved in medical and surgical procedures. Until then inJapan the brothers and the catechists directly cared for the sick. The last two appendices contain a Ust of the first Dominicans in Macao and a glossary of Asian terms. The reproduction of a fine colored map of that period is welcomed, but the inclusion of a sketch map of individual areas ofJapan mentioned in the text, similar to the one in the first volume, would have been helpful. The volume under review brings the reader to the eve ofthe first stages ofthe unification of Japan under Oda Nobunaga and the need for the missionaries to adapt to new poUtical and social circumstances. John WWitek, SJ. Georgetown University Missionnaires au quotidien à Tahiti. Les Picpusiens en Polynésie au XLX' siècle. By Pierre-Yves TouUelan. [Studies in Christian Mission, Volume 13·] (Leiden: E.J. BrUl. 1995. Pp. xU, 342. $91.50.) This handsomely produced work is not the history of the Church in Tahiti under a different title; in fact it makes no attempt to...