In March 1638, the Joseon governor Jeong Yang Pil (정양필, 鄭良弼) (1593-1661) reported to the king that, "When Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) was the top-ranked governor (관백, 關白) of Japan, some Portuguese (남만인, 南蠻人), calling themselves 'Christian' (길리시단, 吉利施端), came to live in Japan. They were only interested in praying to God, not in human affairs. They did not like living. They rejoiced over death. They deluded the world and they deceived the people. Tokugawa chased them all and killed them to the last man. One or two people from a small town in Shimabara (島原) started spreading the movement again, deceiving and luring rural residents, and the movement finally broke into a rebellion and they killed a governor. This provoked all the governors of Edo to kill them all.”

-- From “Joseon Wangjo Silok,” or the “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty,” during King Injo’s reign, March 13, 1638.

This is the first record of Christianity in the “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.” As written, a Christian-led revolt broke out in Shimabara, a city on Kyushu, resulting in a massacre of 38,000 people. The event was so serious that it was even reported in the Joseon Dynasty.



The movie “Silence,” directed by Martin Scorsese, is based on the Japanese suppression of Christianity. It's a film adaptation of the book “Silence” (침묵, 沈默) by Endo Shusaku (遠藤周作) (1923-1996). The director first read the book when Archbishop Paul Moore sent a copy to him after a screening of “The Last Temptation of Christ” in New York in 1988. It took him 15 years to build the screen play.

In 2007, Scorsese wrote a foreword for the English version of the book, saying, “Christianity is based on faith, but if you study its history, you see that it’s had to adapt itself over and over again, always with great difficulty, in order so that faith might flourish. That’s a paradox, and it can be an extremely painful. On the face of it, believing and questioning are antithetical. Yet, I believe that they go hand in hand. One nourishes the other. Questioning may lead to great loneliness, but if it coexists with faith -- true faith, abiding faith -- it can end in the most joyful sense of communion. It’s this painful, paradoxical passage -- from certainty to doubt to loneliness to communion -- that Endo understands so well.”



The film is based on a true story. It's set in 1637, just after the Shimabara Rebellion was defeated. It's staged in Nagasaki in southern Japan. Earlier, Christianity has spread across the nation, and the number of believers had reached into the hundreds of thousands. However, in 1600 the Tokugawa government decided to close its door to the Europeans, and persecuted Christians.

Father Cristóvão Ferreira, played by Liam Neeson, is a Portuguese Jesuit who went to Japan to spread Christianity. When Fathers Sebastião Rodrigues, played by Andrew Garfield, and Francisco Garupe, played by Adam Driver, hear the news that Ferreira has renounced his faith, they travel to Japan, through Manila, to verify the truth.



The intense regulation and suppression of Christianity continued across Japan. At an execution grounds at Mount Unzen, a volcano, tens of Christians were tortured to death each day by having boiling spring water poured over their bodies. Also, they were forced to step on carvings of Jesus or Mary or to spit on or curse their images to prove that they were not Christians.

Those caught hiding Christians were hung on the cross by the beach so they drowned when the tide came in. The pain slowly increased until it took their lives, which usually took three days. The death of Ichizo, played by Yoshi Oida, and of Mokichi, played by Shinya Tsukamoto, and the survival of Kichijiro, played by Yosuke Kubozuka, who rejects his faith, form clear juxtapositions.

The priests are soon captured by court officials and required to commit apostasy. Unless they give up their faith, not only their lives, but also the lives of other imprisoned Christians, are to be taken in a brutal way. Whichever choice they make causes indescribable psychological pain.

The movie is the true story of Cristóvão Ferreira (1580-1650) and Giuseppe Chiara (1602-1685), two Jesuit priests from Portugal and Italy, respectively. In the end, they choose to renounce their faith and live by the names Sawano Chuan and Okamoto Sanuemon. They live in Japan until they die.

The desire for more land by English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese imperialists that came along with Christianity to Japan, and the Tokugawa government’s isolationist policies to draw them out, created tragedy that led many people to be martyred. Even when they were tortured to death or submitted to the pain and became apostates, God remained silent. This film does not make judgment as to what is right or wrong. It just calmly delivers a story that can happen in the world of human beings.

By Wi Tack-whan, Kim Young Shin
Korea.net Staff Writers
Photos: Seoul Cinema
whan23@korea.kr