4   Concerning the bonzes1 and their customs

1. Among us, men enter religious life in order to do penance and to save their souls; the bonzes enter religious life to live in pleasure and ease and to escape hardships.

Frois’ own life choices and identity as a Jesuit, not to mention the fact that superiors saw everything he wrote,² made it seemingly impossible for him to acknowledge the worth of another religion, never mind the shortcomings that accrued to his own Catholicism.³ Of course, by 1585 Protestant reformers had compiled a long list of Church shortcomings. Frois was not about to repeat such complaints.

Frois was well aware that some men in Europe became clerics or joined religious orders to enjoy a life of relative leisure and to, in effect, escape hardship.⁴ What was true of Christianity was true of Buddhism. For instance, various Zen sects (not unlike the Jesuit order) attracted large numbers of novices from wealthy and powerful families. Like Jesuit novices, many or most of these would-be monks were animated by a desire for enlightenment or “salvation.” Still, others became bonzes to escape (at least in part) difficult family situations or to enjoy a life free from manual labor.

2. Among us, one subsequently professes vows to be pure of soul and chaste of body; the bonzes profess vows to all manner of inner filth and all the nefarious sins of the flesh.

In his eleventh century treatise on sodomy, The Book of Gomorrah, St. Peter Damian acknowledged that sodomy was commonly seen as “the vice of the clergy.”⁵ At the time Frois wrote, pecado nefando (unspeakable sin) remained widespread among Catholic clerics, monks and religious, even if the Church and inquisition railed against it.⁶ Sodomy certainly seems to have been less controversial among Buddhist monks and the Japanese as a whole,⁷ but it is hardly true that Buddhist monks took vows to “all inner filth.”

3. Among us, a vow of poverty is made to God and worldly riches are shunned; the bonzes fleece their followers and seek countless ways to increase their wealth.

Frois’ contemporary, the Florentine voyager and merchant, Francesco Carletti (1573–1636), offered a perfect foil to this unfair contrast of the best Christians and the worst Buddhists. In an aside he commented on an austere sect of Buddhism that rivaled the asceticism of an Antony and other Christian ascetics:

They all lead a sterile life, in imitation of the founder, who introduced it [to Japan]. They say of him that he never ate anything but cooked rice, and sometimes raw rice, and that to do greater penitence he always wore an iron chain tight against his flesh, where it had made such a sore that it became putrid, generating and nourishing a quantity of worms. And if one of these worms happened to fall to the ground, he would pick it up lovingly and with charity and put it back in the sore, saying: ‘Why are you fleeing? Are you perhaps lacking something to eat?’⁸

4. Among us, one professes and vows obedience to his superior; the bonzes each do as they please and obey their prelate only by happenstance, as they see fit.

Most Buddhism in Japan was hardly that anarchistic. Some Zen sects, however, made a point of free thinking and independence, even going so far as to abuse the Buddha and the Patriarchs. The way they flaunted disobedience must have horrified the Jesuits. Frois’ generalized contrast between Western religion, with its strict order, and a more individualistic Eastern religion, is a welcome counterpoint to the orientalist depiction of the obedient oriental, even if Frois did not intend it as a compliment.

5. Among us, the temporal possessions of religious are held in common; the bonzes all have their own property and earn [money] in order to acquire [property].

It is perhaps true as a generalization that Japanese religious enjoyed more personal effects than their Western counterparts. For instance, most Japanese had their own bowls, chopsticks, tea cups, writing equipment, bedding, clothing, and, within limits, spending money.

By now the reader should suspect that Frois is not about to say anything nice about Buddhist priests or monks. The Jesuits believed they were on a mission from God, and as noted in the critical introduction, they were delighted when Japanese converts, particularly daimyo, seized or destroyed Buddhist temples, causing the bonzes to flee or apostatize.

6. Among us, the faithful belong to a parish and not to a particular clergyman; the bonzes divide the people amongst themselves so that each is fed by those under his charge.

You would never know from Frois that being a parish priest or cathedral canon in Europe was a desirable position, often because parishioners gave generously or paid handsomely for a funeral mass or a special petition to the Virgin Mary.⁹ The territoriality of the bonzes (at least young bonzes and begging bonzes, who went door to door) was recorded as late as the Meiji period (1868–1912). A haiku by Shiki, known as the father of modern haiku, jokes of an alms-gathering monk walking into a dead end: another alms-gathering monk.

7. Among us, religious condemn their congregations’ sins without regard for social niceties; the bonzes court their followers and praise their sins so that they will not strip them of their income.

Frois again speaks of the ideal situation with respect to Europe and the sordid reality of Japan. During his lifetime many of his fellow Jesuits became advisors and confessors to Europe’s rich and powerful. Jesuits as a whole were advised to seek out the powerful, since one devout Catholic noble could provide enormous help funding Jesuit schools, residences, or missionary activities. It is hard to believe that Jesuit confessors did not, on occasion, refrain from condemning the sins of the kings, dukes, and other elites whom they served as spiritual advisors.

8. Among us, religious do not wear silk clothing out of contempt for the world; all the bonzes who can, wear silk to better display their pride and vanity before the world.

This contrast beautifully reverses the Orientalist idea of Far Eastern religion as other-worldly nihilism. Japanese Buddhists were one of the most proselytizing groups in Asia. Buddhist or Christian, attractive clothing (and for that matter, good looks) never hurt a preacher man. Writing toward the end of the tenth century, Sei Shonagon commented:

A preacher ought to be good-looking. For, if we are properly to understand his worthy sentiments, we must keep our eyes on him while he speaks; should we look away, we may forget to listen. Accordingly an ugly preacher may well be the source of sin …¹⁰

9. Among us, good religious abhor and have great fear of honors and being promoted to positions as dignitaries; the bonzes in Japan spend great sums of money on these things and all of them avidly pursue these promotions.

Frois, to his credit, finally qualifies the European side of this distich, implicitly acknowledging that some Catholic religious were not observant of their vows. As usual, however, he makes no such distinction for the bonzes, saying they were all bankrupt. Qualifications aside, the Jesuits in particular made it a rule not to accept titles and honors. However, not all Christian religious were so humble; many Franciscans and Dominicans, and even the Jesuits, on rare occasions, accepted privileges that went with titles and ranks.¹¹ The question then becomes whether the bonzes differed greatly from Christian religious; arguably the difference was one of degree not kind.

10. Our religious always desire peace and war causes them great sorrow; the Nengoros¹² profess warfare and are hired by lords to go and fight in battles.

While Jesuits did not fight or carry weapons, clerics who brandished knives or swords apparently were a significant problem in Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century.¹³ Moreover, in places like Mexico or Brazil, the Jesuits and other religious (i.e. Franciscans, Dominicans) often accompanied and lent moral support to Spanish and Portuguese forces. In the 1580s, Frois’ superior, Valignano, actually contributed gunpowder and other logistical help to Japanese daimyo who favored the Jesuits. After Hideyoshi’s crackdown on Christians in Nagasaki (1587), Valignano realized that providing material support to particular daimyo was a losing game. In his obediencias of 1592, Valignano “laid down that on no account were the Jesuits to encourage or foment any fighting among the Japanese even if it was in support of a Christian daimyo against a heathen, or Christian vassals oppressed by a heathen overlord.…”¹⁴

Martial arts were introduced to Japan from China along with Buddhism beginning in the sixth century. It was not uncommon for Buddhist monks to know and use martial arts. When Nobunaga razed the Enryakuji temple in 1571, he wiped out a tradition that had lasted for almost eight centuries. Founded on Mt. Hiei in 807, Enryaku-ji was one of a number of temples of the Tendai sect whose fighting bonzes (sohei) opposed the excesses of the powerful warrior clans.¹⁵

The bonzes of the True Word (Shingon) sect on Mount Negoro, who were actually called Negoro-houshi or Negoroshu, had a tradition of fighting that predated the Sengoku or “warring states era” (ca. 1350–1650). At their peak, the Negoro-houshi had a coalition of two thousand temples. Quick to adopt and make firearms, they played an important role in the major battles of the warring era.

11. Among us, an effort is made to fully keep whatever promises are made to God; the bonzes publicly profess not to eat meat or fish, but almost all of them do so in secret, unless they fear being seen or are unable to.

About thirty years earlier, in 1552, Xavier wrote that “formerly the bonzes or bonzesses who had broken one of their five precepts [sex, theft or lying, homicide, killing any creature or eating the same, or drinking wine] were punished with death by the princes and nobles of the place where they lived.… But at present, this discipline is entirely relaxed and corrupted; the greater number drink wine, eat meat secretly. …”¹⁶ So even when bonzes observed their vows the Jesuits attributed it to fear of physical punishment rather than piety.

12. Our religious never serve as diplomats for princes or lords; feudal lords¹⁷ in Japan use the bonzes as diplomats as well as military strategists.¹⁸

Valignano’s order to his fellow Jesuits forbidding them to act as intelligence agents, even if it was in the interests of a Christian daimyo,¹⁹ clearly suggests that the Jesuits were not entirely outside the intelligence business. In fact, the Jesuits undertook numerous diplomatic missions on behalf of the Crown of Portugal.²⁰ Perhaps what Frois meant to say was that some bonzes essentially were employed as envoys, whereas the Jesuits mostly dabbled in the information business (for instance, conveying information or correspondence from a secular ruler while travelling on religious “business”). Okada²¹ points out that each Shogun had a respected bonze-envoy or diplomat (shizo, meaning messenger bonze).

13. Among us, a religious who gets married becomes an apostate; when the bonzes get tired of religion, they either marry or become soldiers.

For the Jesuits and other Catholic religious and clerics the decision to embrace a religious life essentially was irrevocable. To quit the order or Church was to go back on your word; as Frois phrased it, to apostatize. While celibacy was a serious vow, it was not uncommon for secular priests, bishops, cardinals, or even the Pope to have a mistress and children.²² Indeed, Martin Luther, who quit the priesthood and married a former nun in 1525, argued that enforced celibacy was one reason why so many Catholic clerics had hidden concubines and tolerated prostitution.

A few Buddhist sects did permit marriage, but the majority did not. During the disordered or dynamic period when Frois wrote, one suspects that even bonzes who were not supposed to marry, sometimes did. In fact, Frois and his Jesuit mentor, Organtino, devoted almost a year to studying The Lotus Sutra of the Tendai and Nichiren sects under the tutelage of an erudite and highly cultured former bonze who was married. Whatever “slack” existed in Frois’ day would tighten up in the Tokugawa era, when new national sartorial regulations forced Buddhist religious to comply with their own rules.

14. Among our religious, there is no succession by means of inheritance, only by vote and virtue; among the bonzes, succession is inherited by the disciple whom the superior chooses as a child and rears.

When an individual enters the Jesuit order he undergoes a two-year novitiate, during which time superiors make a decision about the novice’s potential as a religious, particularly whether the individual should receive advanced training in theology, which would enable that Jesuit later to be admitted to the rank of the “professed.” Only professed Jesuits can fill the highest positions within the Society of Jesus and participate in convocations to amend the constitution and set policy. Lesser Jesuits, spiritual coadjutors (educated priests) and temporal coadjutors (non-ordained “brothers” who serve as cooks, artisans, nurses, etc.) follow, rather than make the rules. During the century following the founding of the Jesuit order (1540–1640), the ranks of the professed were dominated by Spaniards and Italians from aristocratic families who discriminated against Jesuits born elsewhere. Frois is disingenuous when he implies that succession within the Jesuit order was strictly a matter of virtue and common assent. Frois’ own superior, Valignano, came from a respected Italian family with close ties not only to the Jesuit Father General but also the Pope, and despite having once done jail time for purportedly slashing a woman’s face,²³ Valignano shot up like a rocket within the Jesuit order, becoming at age thirty-seven Visitador in charge of all the East Indies (churches from India eastward). Granted, Valignano was brilliant, but his brilliance became more apparent after, rather than before his appointment as a Jesuit superior. Frois, by contrast, despite many years of experience and unparalleled knowledge of Japan, never was promoted to the rank of Professed.

In Japan, as Okada notes, a disciple might be chosen from a large number of young bonzes (or bonzes-to-be) on the basis of intelligence and ability. He was indeed groomed for succession, but it was hardly so arbitrary a process as this contrast implies. This is not to deny that some Zen monasteries accepted the younger brothers of samurai families who gave up their inheritance and expected, in exchange, promising opportunities. In this case, Frois may be correct.

15. Among us, one becomes a religious out of devotion and an inner calling to virtue; the bonzes do so to inherit one another’s wealth and gain worldly glory.

This contrast essentially is a repeat of #1 above. To reiterate our own caution—individuals in both Europe and Japan became religious for various reasons, including an “inner calling to virtue.”

16. Our religious focus their principal efforts on interior purity and cleanliness; the bonzes keep their dwellings, gardens and temples extremely clean, but keep their souls abominable.

Christianity has a long tradition of ascetics who sacrificed their bodies and cleanliness to get close to God. Indeed, lice were said to be the inseparable companions of monks and soldiers. In Japan, the Jesuit superior, Valignano, restricted all novices and ordained Jesuits (except the sick or aged) to no more than one bath every eight days.

In drafting this contrast on cleanliness, Frois again alludes to sodomy (“keep their souls abominable”), suggesting that it was central to the lives of Buddhist monks. As noted, sodomy was indeed common and widely accepted, but it is unfair to suggest that it was central to the religious lives of many bonzes (just as it would be unfair to dismiss the religious lives of Catholic monks because of the prevalence of sodomy in European monasteries).

In Japan, cleanliness and godliness were inseparable. Frois could not accept that cleansing and (self) reflection were one and the same and that Japanese Buddhism and Shinto aimed for “inward purity of heart.” The mirror is one of Shinto’s main symbols, and keeping it clean was identified with keeping a pure soul. When Buddhism was introduced to Japan it had no choice but to emphasize cleanliness, both material and metaphorical, to take root in the land of Shinto. The Buddhists cherished the moon, which was identified with the “wheel of the Law” (the teachings of the Buddha), likening it unto a mirror that had to be kept free of dust. In Japanese, kirei means “clean,” “pretty,” and “right,” as in “doing it right” (kirei-ni-shite).

17. Among us, we are keen to avoid deceit, hypocrisy and adulation; the bonzes of Japan live off these and consider them an extremely powerful means of making a livelihood.

The Jesuits clearly saw Buddhism as a sham, inspired by the devil, but profitable to the bonzes. In his letter of January, 1552, Francis Xavier was quite explicit:

… our greatest enemies are the bonzes, because we expose their false hoods.… they used to make the people believe that it is impossible for persons in general to keep those five commandments … and that, therefore, they would observe them for the people, on the condition of the people giving them maintenance and honour. They give their word that if anyone goes down into hell he will be delivered by their intervention and labour. We, on the contrary, proved to the people that in hell there is no redemption, and that no one can be rescued from it by the bonzes and bonzesses.²⁴

Xavier’s argument against the bonzes is like the kettle calling the pot black. Throughout the history of Christianity, religious have functioned much like the bonzes described by Xavier, observing vows and commandments that ordinary people struggle with in order to draw close to God, in part to present petitions from ordinary folk concerned with their own souls and the souls of the departed. Like the bonzes, priests and nuns are quick to point out that they have no power to rescue a soul from purgatory or hell, yet they rely on money from masses, rosaries, and prayers offered to God in the hopes of winning his mercy.

In one sense, Frois and Xavier were correct. Most Japanese, including the bonzes, were not supremely confident and absolutely sure of their faith and the existence of God and Heaven. This seems to be a Christian luxury. Arguably, many bonzes were emotionally and intellectually mature and humble enough to know they did not know everything. And yet clearly they knew quite a bit, as on numerous occasions the Jesuits themselves admitted to being bowled over by the bonzes’ philosophical disputations.

18. Our religious wear no beard and have tonsured heads; the bonzes shave their heads and beard every four days.²⁵

The Jesuits did not tonsure, presumably to emphasize that they were neither monks nor secular priests, attached to a monastery or parish, respectively. While tonsure is uncommon today, in Frois’ time members of monastic orders and many secular clergy shaved all or part of the head to signal their religious calling. Apparently not all clergy were as attentive to their hair as Frois suggests, for Marques notes that the Archbishop of Lisbon found it necessary in the early fifteenth century to mandate regular hair cuts for priests and monks.²⁶

The bonze turned his whole head into a round object, which, in Japan was a similitude for the soul itself (as noted, tama means “soul,” “gem” or any round smooth object; atama means “head”).

19. Among us, religious wear cowls or caps; most of the time the bonzes do not wear anything. When it is cold they wear sack-like caps, orvataboxis, and some of them wear a cowl-like article that looks like the neck and head of a horse with ears.

When outdoors or traveling, bonzes usually wore large umbrella-like hats, which provided relief from the sun. These hats were never worn indoors. Here Frois appears to be referring to wataboshi, a cotton hat of sorts, which sometimes had a neck-piece that protected the neck and presumably suggested to Frois the horse simile. One can imagine “ears” appearing if the weight of the neck piece caused the top of the cap to become slightly concave, leaving the corners sticking up a bit. Frankly, Frois seems to be trying too hard for a contrast that hardly exists.

20. Our religious place great value on decency and setting a good example; the bonzes always walk around with their legs exposed, and during the summer they wear robes that are so thin that they show everything, which they do not find the least bit embarrassing or shameful.

In Japan and China, where bodies were less likely to be mortified, or alternatively, celebrated as in Renaissance art, no one was bothered by thin clothing in hot muggy weather. And when the penis itself was involved, the Japanese were not the least bit offended by God’s handiwork. Even today, Shinto parades feature large straw or wooden phalluses.

21. Our religious show great sobriety and temperance in what they drink, especially wine; despite its being prohibited, the bonzes often are encountered on the road drunk.

Water drawn from wells or cisterns in sixteenth-century Europe often was contaminated (the “sewer system” is many towns and cities often amounted to throwing human waste and garbage into the street at night). Beer, ale, and wine were for sixteenth-century Europeans what bottled water is for people today. Although as Frois suggests, priests and religious ideally were supposed to avoid over-consumption of alcohol, many apparently were not successful in doing so. In his fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, the archbishop of Hita, Juan Ruiz, implied that quite a few clerics were intemperate.²⁷ Marques cites records from one monastery in Portugal where the daily ration of wine was at least a quart and a half per person.²⁸

In Japan, Frois may well have encountered a good number of “fake” bonzes, in part because superficially speaking, being a bonze (essentially wearing a robe, carrying a string of beads, and shaving one’s head) was a good way for professional poets (e.g. Matsuo Basho²⁹) to move about the countryside and more easily get through fief checkpoints. We cannot know how many of the drunk bonzes seen by Frois were the “real” thing (and not that it matters). The prohibition in Japanese Buddhism on drinking had more to do with sartorial restrictions than morality. Taking rice out of circulation to make sake was, on the whole, at odds with feeding a large population. Like meat, alcoholic beverages are a relatively inefficient food source. The Japanese saw, and still see nothing wrong with being drunk per se, particularly as there never have been as many mean and violent drunks in Japan as in the West.

22. Our religious do not usually sing, nor do they perform in profane plays or farces; the bonzes consider these a delight and take regular recreation in them.

Most bonzes were no more performers than they were warriors (as per #10 above), but part of the Pure Land (Jodo) school, called the Ji-shu, was particularly noted for its rousing performances of the Nembutsu or Buddhist prayer acknowledging Amida Buddha and his saving grace. The founder of Ji-Shu, Ippen (1239–1289), pioneered the use of dancing while preaching. Not only were the Jesuits in Japan opposed to performing themselves, but worse, they could be “wet blankets” for those who embraced dramatic dance. In a letter written in 1565, the Spanish doctor turned Jesuit, Luis de Almeida, recounted how a group of Japanese Christians who had been visited by some dancing gentiles returned the favor, creatively making up a dance lauding the Virgin Mary. On their way home, the Christians dropped by the church to show off the dance to Father Cosme de Torres. Torres was dismayed and laid into his neophytes for disgraceful behavior. A Japanese nobleman took full responsibility for the dance, disciplining himself so strongly “that he was left bathed in blood.” This sense of personal responsibility greatly impressed Almeida, although he said nothing about whether Cosme de Torres may have overreacted.³⁰

23. We take on faith [the existence of a] future heaven and hell and the immortality of the soul; the Jenxu³¹ bonzes deny all this and believe there is nothing more than being born and dying.

Frois in his Historia³² described a debate between a Father Lourenço and a Zen bonze named Shozaemon that began with Lourenço describing the “great differences” between the Japanese kami (gods) and hotoke (Buddhas) and the Christian Deus (God). Shozaemon smiled and then commented that “… all that is a laughable illusion, which wise and knowledgeable men value not a whit.” That was a fair representation of the Zen position. The idea that “getting born means you die, and that is it” was standard Zen teaching.

Zen or Ch’an Buddhism bears a resemblance to Christian asceticism in its rigorous discipline of meditation and silence, its aim of unity with the all and nothing, and in the free behavior of the enlightened. Frois, of course, acknowledged none of this, but not so his fellow Jesuit João Rodrigues:

Their vocation is not to philosophize with the help of books and sermons written by illustrious masters and philosophers…. Instead, they give themselves up to contemplating the things of nature … Thus, from what they see in things themselves, they attain by their own efforts to a knowledge of the first cause, and putting aside what is evil and imperfect in the mind and reasoning, they reach the natural perfection and being of the first cause…. the monks of this sect are of a resolute and determined character, without any indolence, laxity or effeminacy…. they do without a great number of things which they consider superfluous and unnecessary. They maintain that a hermitage should first of all be frugal and moderate, with much quietness, peace of soul and exterior modesty.³³

24. We profess only one God, one faith, one baptism and one Catholic Church; in Japan there are thirteen sects and almost all of them disagree on worship and veneration.

During Frois’ lifetime (1532–1597) the Catholic Church was torn apart by disagreements over what Frois casts as “one faith.” Catholics and former Catholics, now known as Protestants, were killing each other in the streets over grace, predestination, baptism, the Eucharist, and a host of other Christian beliefs and practices.³⁴

Buddhists certainly disagreed, sometimes violently. Thus, there were numerous Buddhist sects offering different approaches to the divine.³⁵ Members of the same family might belong to different sects, and in one sense, they all embraced more than one religion (if Shinto is included).

25. Above all things we abhor and abominate the devil; the bonzes venerate and worship him, building temples and making great sacrifices to him.

As noted, Frois and other Jesuits believed that the devil was the architect of Shinto and Buddhism. In Buddhist temples from India to Japan one does often find the closest thing the Buddhists have to the devil, known as Jemma O, Yama, or Emma. This devil, however, is quite unlike the Christian version, who actively pursues souls and makes trouble. Kaempfer,³⁶ writing in 1690, aptly described Jemma O as a severe judge and sovereign commander of a place of horror and heinousness who observed all through a large looking-glass, placed before him and called Sofarino Kagami, or the looking-glass of knowledge. Kaempfer went on to explain that unhappy souls in hell may receive great relief (lighter punishment, early release, etc.) by the virtuous life and good deeds of family, friends, and relatives, and through prayers and offerings to the great and good Amida. (Amitabha Buddha was as central to the Pure Land faith as the Virgin Mary was/is to Catholicism.) It was also possible to appeal for mercy directly to the Judge, and doing so had none of the nefarious connotations of making a deal with the devil. In a long letter from 1565, Frois himself described a temple dedicated to the god and judge of hell where people sought mercy:

On the walls are painted the many kinds of torments in hell, with many figures of men and women suffering these pains, and of the demons inflicting them. Many people visit this temple to pray and give alms, and they usually repair there to beg the king of hell to deliver them from these torments.³⁷

Note that the reason the Japanese could pray to Emma is simple: Emma was not evil. He did not pursue people and try to lure them into sin. He did not delight in bad behavior nor seek to increase it. He only judged people for their sins.³⁸ Thus, if the Japanese Buddhist hell was equally full of demons, fire, poking and cutting, and so forth, how you got there and how long you stayed was another matter. With Christianity, anyone who is not saved ends up in hell forever. (As Xavier noted in his letter of 1552, this did not go over well with the Japanese, who were told by the Jesuits that their pagan relatives and ancestors would burn forever.)

26. Among us, the temples and the facilities of a monastery belong to the universal Religion; in Japan, if a bonze becomes tired [of a religious life], he sells off the temple and its facilities and [everything else?].

When Buddhist temples lost their backing, or the prelate retired, it was declared a haidera, or derelict temple, and might even be bought for use by a different sect. This is apparently what Frois is alluding to.³⁹

27. Our priests wear a stole to administer the sacraments; the bonzes wear one as a refinement when they go out to make their visits.

Catholic priests wear a stole or scarf-like garment whenever they are fulfilling their priestly duties; the stole is a symbol of the priest’s authority. Bonzes generally wore a surplice over their robe when they went out on official religious duties such as conferencing with other bonzes. Frois, rather unfairly, seems to be saying, “We adorn ourselves to do God’s work; they do so to impress people.”

28. Our priests wear the stole draped across the nape of the neck; the bonzes wear theirs crosswise, over one shoulder and under the other, and it is broader and sewn in a different manner.

The fact that priests and bonzes wore something similar enough to warrant Frois using the same term is perhaps more remarkable than any difference or similarity in the stoles themselves. The Buddhist equivalent of a stole is called a kesa.

29. Our religious, if they know how, administer medical treatment for free, out of a love for God; most physicians in Japan are bonzes who live off their fees.

The Jesuits did indeed distinguish themselves as tireless caretakers of the sick; Jesuit novices often were required to spend time each week working in hospitals.⁴⁰ Okada⁴¹ writes that while there were bonzes who attended to medical matters in the large temples in Kyoto and Nara, most doctors in Japan shaved their heads and otherwise looked like bonzes. Frois perhaps assumed (wrongly) that many doctors were also priests.

30. If our religious were to go about carrying a gilded fan in their hand, they would be considered mad; the bonzes, as a refinement, must carry a golden fan in their hand whenever they preach or go out.

These fans belong to a class of fans called suebiro or “end-wide/open” and were called chukei (“mid-open”), with the Chinese character for “open” not the usual one, but one that means “enlightened.” But even without this apparent symbolism, the elegant appearance of these fans in the closed position (unique in the way that the ends remain partially spread open) more than justifies their being carried as a symbol of authority. These gilded fans were only carried by elders and by Buddhist clergy with that authority, not by those whom the Japanese would call bonzo. The fans often were used to emphasize points in conversation.

31. We preach standing up, and we gesture by moving our hands; the bonzes preach sitting down gesturing with their heads, without moving their hands.

The Japanese move their heads a lot more than their hands, in comparison to Southern Europeans, who might be said to talk with their hands. Professional storytellers in Japan whack their closed fans smartly upon their thighs to emphasize points, but this was apparently beneath the dignity of bonzes.

It is interesting that the Japanese should be more liable to sit, given that Westerners use chairs. Frois never does contrast our respective positions for meditation (kneeling versus cross-legged).

32. In Europe we preach wearing a white surplice and no stole; the bonzes preach wearing a black koromo⁴² and a stole, with a gilded fan in their hand.

A surplice is a loose-fitting, full-sleeved white vestment worn by Christian clergy over their cassocks (the latter is a black vestment that has the appearance of a combination of a shirt and skirt, extending as it does to the top of the shoes). The bonze’s stole is a short surplice; the Chinese characters for stole (“shoulder” and “added + clothing”) make the meaning transparent to those unfamiliar with the item. The koromo is a black robe of fine hemp with wide sleeves that almost reaches to the ground. It was worn over a very clean white robe. Until recently, koromo was the traditional generic term in Japanese for clothing; today yofuku or “Western-dress” is the generic term.

The religious use of white in Japan was pretty much reserved by Shinto. Not only priests and shrine maidens, but also people on pilgrimages stick to white. It is part of their orientation toward purity and provides a powerful visual contrast, not so much with Buddhists, but with all the corporate soldiers in dark suits.

33. We preach from pulpits; the bonzes do so from chairs, like our lecturers.

It is somewhat surprising, given that the Japanese are generally a chair-less culture, to learn that Frois is correct in noting the bonzes’ use of a chair for preaching. The chair, called a kyokuroku, apparently was a Chinese design. It was tall, with a finish of vermillion or black lacquer and X-shaped legs, suggesting that the chair could be folded. The chair also had parallel runners extending between the front and rear legs, as well as a foot rest.

34. Free of charge, we give others rosaries that have been blessed as well as relics from saints; the bonzes sell for a very good sum of money a great number and variety of amulets in the form of a written piece of paper.

It is true that the Jesuits never charged their neophytes for relics, medals, and rosaries. Still, relics and indulgences were big business in Europe and a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants (Luther and other Church critics railed against the “magical thinking” and profiteering behind the sale of relics and indulgences). When Phillip II lay mortally ill, he asked for and received the entire knee of Saint Sebastian (skin as well as bone) in addition to the rib of Saint Alban and the arm of Saint Vincent Ferrer.⁴³ Today visitors to Lourdes, Fatima, Tours, and many other shrines purchase rosaries, ashes, holy water, and similar items that are thought to facilitate recovery from illness and other of life’s setbacks.

The bonzes did sell charms to deal with illness, heartbreak, etc., and some apparently went overboard, offering what amounted to “tickets to paradise,” which are perhaps analogous to the plenary indulgences that Christians can obtain during Jubilees and other special occasions.

35. The Franciscan friars bestow their order’s habit on some deceased [non-members] at no charge; the bonzes compel men and women, while they are living, to acquire some paper catabiras with foqeqio⁴⁴ written on them, so that they can be worn when they die, in order for the bonzes to thereby profit.

The Franciscan order of friars, founded by St. Francis at the outset of the thirteenth century, actually was part of a much broader religious movement that encompassed lay people who came to form a “third order” of the Franciscans. Within a decade of St. Francis’ death in 1226, wealthy knights and ladies, and in Frois’ time, explorers such as Columbus, embraced the “rule” of the third order and were honored with burial in the simple sackcloth habit of St. Francis. Theologically speaking, the robes were nothing more than a statement that the individual had endeavored to live a good life, following the example of Christ and Saint Francis. Implicitly it was understood (based on medieval traditions) that the robes provided a protection of sorts from damnation or the fires of hell (perhaps experienced en route to the pearly gates).

In his Historia, Frois recounts Nobunaga’s brutal execution of everyone related to a political rival, Araki, including 120 women who went to their death wearing sutra-embossed paper undergarments. These paper catabira or robes, which were sold by the bonzes, were painted with Chinese characters denoting “The Sutra on the Lotus of the Wonderful Law” (Myohorenge-kyo or Saddharma Pundarika Sutra).⁴⁵ Because written language in the Sino-cultural world need not be evoked to be invoked, it was enough to skip the sutra itself and just say or write its name. The writing could be burnt or exploded to float up into heaven; vibrated into heaven by being written around the bonze’s hand-drum or upon a temple bell that is struck; “read” to the universe by rotation using human, hydraulic or wind power; cast upon the wind, each flutter of a sutra-lettered flag comprising a reading; dissolved and drunk; or simply worn, like the robes mentioned here by Frois.

36. Our priests conduct funeral rites for the deceased in churches; the bonzes quite often hold them in the home of the deceased, in order to eat and drink there.

While it is true that the most solemn part of a Catholic funeral, the funeral mass, takes place in church, it is not uncommon for the participants, including the priest, to adjourn to a banquet. The picaresque classic, [The life of] Lazarillo de Tormes (1554),⁴⁶ pokes fun at what was obviously a tendency in sixteenth-century Iberia for priests to overindulge at funerals. Hired by a priest as an assistant, the perpetually hungry Lazarillo found that “… at the meetings of religious societies and funerals where we prayed, if someone else was paying, he [the priest] used to eat like a wolf and drink more than a faith healer.”

With respect to Japan, while important people often had memorials said at Buddhist temples, Frois is essentially correct in emphasizing the central role of the home in Japanese funerals. Prior to burial or cremation, the Japanese hold long wakes or vigils at their homes.⁴⁷ Relatives gather and help with the cooking, cleaning, reception of people, recording of gifts received, and so forth. People sit around and reminisce about, and occasionally view, the deceased. The bonzes may have played a greater role in these affairs in Frois’ time than today and, naturally, enjoyed the repast. Still, to claim the whole affair was for the sake of the bonze’s bellies is ridiculous. There is a fine story in Eliza Scidmore’s Jinrikisha Days in Japan that suggests something other than selfish Buddhists:

When the American man-o-war Oneida was run down and sank with her officers and crew by the P. and O. steamer Bombay, near the mouth of Yeddo Bay, January 23, 1870, our Government made no effort to raise the wreck or search for it, and finally sold it to a Japanese wrecking company for fifteen hundred dollars. The wreckers found many bones of the lost men among the ship’s timbers, and when the work was entirely completed, with their voluntary contributions they erected a tablet in the Ikegami [temple] grounds to the memory of the dead, and celebrated there the impressive Buddhist segaki (feast of hungry souls), in May, 1889. The great temple was in ceremonial array; seventy-five priests in their richest robes assisted at the mass … The scriptures were read, a service was chanted, the Sutra repeated, incense burned, the symbolic lotus-leaves cast before the altar…. No other country, no other religion, offers a parallel to this experience …⁴⁸

Here, pace Shakespeare, we see it is not birth but death that makes all men kin. “No other country” is overdoing it, but Scidmore’s point is that the Buddhists very often were kind. They lived, and still live, for the repose of souls.

37. Among our religious yellow is a garish and indecent color; the bonzes consider it a virtuous color and enjoy wearing yellow or green.

Christians divide the year into liturgical seasons such as Advent and Easter, which have different theological emphases that are conveyed, in part, through the different colored vestments worn by priests (e.g. purple during Lent). Although ecclesiastical vestments of yellow (and blue) were known during the Middle Ages in Portugal, by Frois’ time green and yellow were deemed inappropriate colors for clergy.⁴⁹ Buddhist sects wore different colors depending on the season, and the yellow and green robes mentioned by Frois probably were closer to moss and manilla. Today, at least, only esoteric Buddhist high-priests, hari-krishna evangelists, and members of marginal cults go in for truly bright colors.

38. Among us, there is no hatred between one religious order and another; the bonzes of one sect abhor those of other sects, for the good of their own authority⁵⁰ and advantage.

Maybe not hatred, but Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans—not to mention secular clergy—frequently fought with each other over matters of faith, power, and influence. Indeed, the Mendicants and Jesuits fought with each other for Papal and Crown support of missions to China and Japan as well as in the Americas. Franciscans and Dominicans who returned to Europe from China in the 1630s accused the Jesuits of allowing the Chinese to retain many of their “superstitions.”⁵¹

Okada points out that the precepts of the egalitarian Pure Land sect (written about 100 years before the Tratado) include an admonition from its founder, Rennyo (1415–1499), against badmouthing other sects. Yet it is clear that Rennyo’s advice largely was ignored during the sixteenth century by both his own sect (known by its detractors as Ikko-shu, or One-way-cult!) and others. Apparently the recent political upheavals and the effect of centuries of civil war (driving out those in the middle and encouraging fanatics) was reflected in the behavior of some Buddhists, who took their differences of interest and in catechism into the streets. In 1536, for instance, an army of militant monks of the Tendai school from Mt. Hiei attacked and destroyed Nicheren temples in Kyoto.

39. Among us, sorcerers are punished and castigated; the bonzes of the Ikkoshu and Yamabushi sects enjoy their company because they [themselves] are sorcerers.

During Frois’ lifetime, Europe witnessed the great witch craze that cost the lives of tens of thousands of women, in particular. While Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy accounted for a small percentage of witch trials and executions⁵² (eastern France, Germany, and Switzerland had the majority), the Church in Iberia, and more precisely, the Inquisition, was quick to investigate accusations of sorcery or witchcraft. While the accused got off with a warning and mild penance most of the time, there were occasions when the punishment was severe: In 1507, thirty women accused of sorcery were burned to death in Calabarra, Spain.

Sorcery was not an issue in sixteenth-century Japan. The Yamabushi, literally meaning “mountain warriors,” actually look wizard-like in their unique clothing. They combine elements of esoteric Buddhism and shamanism and can hardly be considered a sect. After undergoing terrifying ordeals and inhuman austerities in their mountain headquarters, they wander around the country, to put it crudely, exchanging magic for money. In 1583 Frois devoted almost an entire letter to a discussion of the Yamabushi, explaining how the “monks” with curled and straying hair made a profession out of selling curses as well as blessings and finding things that were either lost or stolen.⁵³

The large Ikko “sect” practiced a form of “sorcery” that is more like Pentecostal Christianity, where, in a spiritually charged atmosphere, a charismatic leader heals the sick and works other “miracles.” The head was venerated as a reincarnation of Amida (Amithaba Buddha) himself. Frois’ fellow Jesuit, Vilela, offered this telling description of the Ikko:

They give this bonze so much money in alms that he controls a large part of the country’s wealth. Every year a great festival is held in his [i.e., Amidabutsu’s] honour, and so many people wait at the gate of the temple to enter that many die in the stampede which results when they open the gates. Such people, however, are considered very lucky to have died in that way and some at their own request are dropped into the crowd around the gates and are thus killed. At night he preaches them a sermon during which they shed many tears.⁵⁴

40. The tabi [socks] worn by laymen are black or mastic⁵⁵ colored; the bonzes and noblewomen wear white tabi made of cotton.

It is not clear what Frois intended with this contrast, except perhaps to suggest that the bonzes in Japan enjoyed wearing tabi of cotton, whereas religious in Europe wore poor-quality socks. Today in Japan white cotton is cheap, as it is in the West, but in Frois’ day most tabi were leather and those of white cotton were a luxury.

41. In Europe when a master dies, his servants weep as they accompany his corpse to the gravesite; in Japan, some cut their stomachs and many others cut off the tips of their fingers and place them on the fire to burn.

Committing suicide by hara-kiri or “belly cutting” seems to have been uniquely Japanese. Finger joint cutting (today seen only in films and practiced mostly by apologetic yakuza) is found among many Pacific Island peoples. While the practice of self-injury and “retainer sacrifice” is found in many cultures,⁵⁶ in Japan’s case it continued much longer than elsewhere. There were, nevertheless, many types of funerals in sixteenth-century Japan, and Frois here focuses on the more outlandish. Indeed, elsewhere Frois describes a sumptuous funeral with no split bellies or chopped fingers.⁵⁷

42. In Europe, we Christians beat our chests while asking God for forgiveness; in Japan the non-Christians vigorously rub their beads in the palms of their hands.

One of the prayers (confiteor) of the Latin mass has participants utter “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa (I am at fault; I am at fault; I am entirely at fault),” while striking the chest. Perhaps because of the absence of an icon such as the crucifix (to which Christians direct their guilty pleas), Japanese Buddhists rub their prayer beads as they contemplate their shortcomings and request mercy. Note that Frois wrote gentiles rather than bonzes because Japanese Buddhist laymen also had beads. Frois does not exaggerate when he says “vigorously.” A group of Buddhists who pray in this way can sound like a tree filled with cicada. Rubbing and prayer or supplication went hand in hand. One of Issa’s most famous haiku (yare utsu-na) features a fly rubbing his hands and feet for mercy. Another of his haiku, less famous, has them copying the people in the temple, rubbing their prayer beads (dô no hae juzu suru hito no te o mane suru).⁵⁸

1  With bonze/s we follow the customary Anglicization of the Iberian bonzo/s. Like all Japanese words, bonso or bonzo has no number. Bonzo is properly a low-ranking Buddhist monk, while Frois uses it to refer to all Buddhist monks. Japanese editions of the Tratado change Frois’ references to bonzos to the common general term bozu, which includes higher ranking monks, or the Chinese characters for a rare word for the same, butsuso, with the pronunciation indicated as bonzo. Frois’ denigrative tone is captured by affixing a rude plural suffix ~ra to these terms.

2  It is hard to overstate the extent to which Jesuit authors were “governed” by superiors; the latter saw most everything and edited or otherwise approved any and all texts that circulated within the order or that were published. See Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 67–68.

3  As regards Portugal in particular, see A.H. de Oliveira Marques, Daily Life in Portugal in the Late Middle Ages (Madsion: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971), 224–225.

4  This seems to have been particularly true of parish priests and more senior members of the ecclesiastical Church. Marcelin Defourneaux, Daily Life in Spain In the Golden Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), 109; A.R. Disney, A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 158–160.

5  Luiz Mott, “My Pretty Boy: Love Letters from a Sodomite Friar, Lisbon (1690).” In Pelo Vaso Traseiro, eds. Harold Johnson and Francis Dutra, pp. 231–262 (Tucson: Fenestra Press, 2008); John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 187.

6  Federico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003).

7  Tsuneo Watanabe, The Love of the Samurai: a Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, trans. D.R. Roberts (London: Gay Men’s Press, 1989).

8  Francesco Carletti, My Voyage Around the World, trans. Herbert Weinstock (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964[1610]), 173.

9  See, for example, Natalie Zeamon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 25.

10  Sei Shônagon, The Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon, trans. Ivan Morris (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991[1000]), 53.

11  Ignatius Loyola understood this problem and thus the Jesuit “formula” (founding rules of the order) mandated that Jesuits not accept ecclesiastical appointments. The rule, however, at times was broken, inasmuch as the Jesuits found it difficult to deny requests from kings and other powerful leaders who asked them to accept ecclesiastical positions that came with titles and honors.

12  The word Negoro (not Nengoro) might have sometimes been used by the Japanese to refer to the monks of said place, but it is not, strictly speaking, correct.

13  Marques, Daily Life in Portugal, 223.

14  C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951); see also Josef Franz Schütte, Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan 1573–1582. Vol. I, Part II, trans. J. Coyne (St. Louis: Institute for Jesuit Sources, 1985), 168, 304.

15  Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 70–71.

16  Henry James Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. 2 vols. (London: Burns and Oates, 1881), II, 340.

17  Tonos.

18  Buriaqos, or strategists, derived from buryaku, or strategy.

19  Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan.

20  Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond 1540–1750 (Stanford University Press, 1996).

21  Akio Okada, trans. and ed., Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka [European Culture and Japanese Culture] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965).

22  Marques, Daily Life in Portugal, 176–177.

23  Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), 33.

24  Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, II, 339–340.

25  The frequency of shaving actually depended on the particular sect of Buddhism.

26  Marques, Daily Life in Portugal, 223.

27  Olivia Remie Constable, Medieval Iberia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 288–292; see also distich 36.

28  Marques, Daily Life in Portugal, 28.

29  Matsuo Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Other Travel Sketches, trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa (New York: Penguin Books, 1966[1684–94]), 54.

30  Cartas que os Padres e Irmãos da Companhia de Iesus Escreuerão dos Reynos de Iapão & China aos da Mesma Companhia da India & Europa, des do Anno de 1549 Até o de 1580. 2 Vols. Facsimile edition by José Manuel Garcia (Maia: Castoliva Editora, 1997), I, 171v.

31  Zen-shu, or the Zen school was one of the three main schools of Buddhism in Japan. Perhaps the most salient difference among the three schools centers around how to realize enlightenment. Whereas Zen held fast to the traditional Buddhist emphasis on meditation, the Pure Land and Nicheren schools argued that this path (and others more esoteric) were unrealistic. The only real hope for salvation rested with Amida Buddha and his promise of saving any and all who placed their trust in Him. Yoshiro Tamura, Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 2001); Kazuo Kasahara, A History of Japanese Religion (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 2002).

32  Luís Fróis, Historia de Japam, ed. José Wicki, S.J. 5 vols. (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, 1976–1984[1597].

33  Cooper, They Came to Japan, 23. Rodrigues went on to say that Zen was so much “hypocrisy,” but one wonders, given his frequently expressed cultural relativism, whether he wrote this to please superiors.

34  For instance, thousands of Protestants and Catholics died during the “Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre” in August of 1572. Luc Racaut, Hatred in Print (Burlington: Ashgate, 2002).

35  A contemporary dictionary indicates that there were traditionally thirteen sects in China and eight in Japan. However, the number eight suggests “many” in Japanese.

36  Englebert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, Together With a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–92. 3 Vols. (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1906[1690–92]), II, 60–62.

37  Cooper, They Came to Japan, 340.

38  In addition to Emma, there also were horrifying demons that served to ward off evil spirits or guard this or that Buddhist treasure. Perhaps the closest Christian equivalent is the cynocephali St. Christopher, whose beastly powers were enlisted on behalf of his new religion. Most sects did not make a big deal of these demons; only the Konpira sect centered on images of the powerful tengu goblin. Like St. Christopher, he was the patron “saint” of travelers and, most of all, seafarers.

39  Okada, Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka, 76.

40  One of the first Jesuits to be canonized as a saint was Luis Gonzaga, who gave his life in 1594 caring for the sick during an epidemic in Spain.

41  Okada, Yoroppa-Bunka to Nihon-Bunka, 77.

42  Koromo = robe, in this case, a religious habit or priestly garment.

43  Carlos M.N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

44  Hokekyo is the short title of the Lotus Sutra.

45  As noted, Frois devoted almost a year to studying The Lotus Sutra of the Pure Land and Nichiren sects.

46  Anonymous, Lazarillo de Tormes, trans. Stanley Applebaum (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2001 [1554]), 33.

47  See Hikaru Suzuki, ed., Death and Dying in Contemporary Japan (London: Routledge, 2013).

48  New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897, 139.

49  Marques, Daily Life in Portugal, 222–223.

50  Isei = authority.

51  J.S. Cummins, Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish Expansion to the East (London: Variorum, 1986).

52  Italian and Iberian theologians and inquisitors attributed most acts of sorcery or witchcraft to ignorance or superstition, rather than a rational, conscious decision to enter into a pact with Satan.

53  Cartas de Japáo & China, II, 85v–88v; See also Cooper, They Came to Japan, 324

54  Ibid., 319.

55  Mastic here refers to a transparent resin that is pale yellow to green in color.

56  Bruce Trigger, Understanding Early Civilizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 88–89.

57  See Cooper, They Came to Japan, 363–366.

58  Robin D. Gill, Fly-ku! (Key Biscayne, FL: Paraverse Press, 2004), 41.