著者

高瀬 弘一郎

出版者

慶應義塾大学

雑誌

史学 (ISSN:03869334)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.4, pp.433-466, 1972-04

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In the period of the Expansion of Europe, the Christian mission was not promoted only by the Vatican himself, but with the help of the Royal Patronage of Portugal and Spain. In addition, at that time they considered that it was their right to conquer, govern, trade with and evangelize the heathen countries, dividing them among these two Iberian countries. It may be said that the propagation of Christianity whose purpose should be a salvation of souls formed a link in the chain of the national policies. Consequently, in those days the evangelization had such a characteristic as going along with the military conquest in the territories newly discovered. It was not exceptional in Japan or in China. As a matter of fact, some missionaries had insisted that the arms should have been used in order to give swiftly a true religion to the heathen. To prove this fact, I chose the records of some missionaries such as Alonso Sanchez, Domingo de Salazar, Francisco Cabral, Gaspar Coelho, Alessandro Valignano, Pedro Ramon, Luis Frois, Pedro de la Cruz etc. preserved in the Archivum Romanum Societatis lesu at Rome and the Archive General de Indias at Seville. Some Catholic missionaries believed that the Edo Bakufu doubted if the evangelization was the preparation to invade Japan, and that these doubts would be the true cause of the Bakufu's prohibition of Christianity. It is true that the Dutch and the English who were the rivals in trade for the Portuguese managed to make the Japanese Government have these doubts, but it would be insufficient to consider the Edo Bakufu's prohibition of Christianity only as the undue suppression of faith and thought without paying regard to the characteristic of the evangelization in those days.