The Reconception of Religion in Early Modern Europe and the Japanese Christian Mission

Research Project

Project/Area Number	19F19301
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	外国
Review Section	Basic Section 01030:Religious studies-related
Research Institution	Tohoku University
Host Researcher	KLAUTAU Orion 東北大学, 国際文化研究科, 准教授 (10634967)
Foreign Research Fellow	CABRAL BERNABE RENATA 東北大学, 国際文化研究科, 外国人特別研究員
Project Period (FY)	2019-11-08 – 2022-03-31
Project Status	Granted (Fiscal Year 2021)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000) Fiscal Year 2021: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000) Fiscal Year 2019: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Keywords	Global History / concept of religion / Society of Jesus / Catholic Church / グローバルヒストリー / 宗教概念 / イエズス会 / カトリック教会
Outline of Research at the Start	In light of new studies on the term religion and its reconceptualization in modern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, our research will clarify the following points: 1) how the experience of the Japanese Christian mission and its debates of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries impacted the reformulation of the idea of religio in Europe; 2) the distinctive features of the Japanese mission in this reformulation process; and 3) how the Jesuit tradition influenced contemporary Buddhist ideas and the type of adaptation observed in kirishitan practices throughout the Edo Period.
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	Following the research plan, this year I gathered a range of primary sources, primarily letters and treaties written by Jesuits active in Japan. These documents were important for my task of mapping out the terms these missionaries used to refer to what we now understand in the framework of "shukyo 宗教," and also in order to comprehend the relationship between these terms and Christianity as experienced by the missionaries at the time. The Latin word "religio" which, according to extensive scholarship on the topic had been in use since the 4th century and throughout the middle ages was used solely in the context of Christianity, began in the 16th century to be employed in missionary descriptions in relation to systems of belief of non-European peoples, though in that context the terms "law" and "sect" were indeed more frequently used. Based on this I was able to formulate a hypothesis connecting the Japanese missionary experience to the early modern reframing of the concept of "religion," as a signifier that would now both encompass Christianity's "others" and be opposed to the "secular." In the development of the Japanese mission, two elements played an important role in this process: 1) the fact that Japan never became a colony proper, which compelled the missionaries to develop strategies that did not rely on coercive power; 2) Japan, except for the fact that it was not Christian, met the European missionary standard of "civilization." I am further developing this hypothesis by comparing the Japanese Jesuit experience to other missionary fields, such as South America.
Current Status of Research Progress	Current Status of Research Progress 2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned. Reason In the first year of my fellowship, my original plan was to conduct most of the archival work. The main aim was to concentrate on the understudied idea of the "pre-evangelization" of the Japanese, so that I could analyze, at a conceptual level, the relationship between Christianity and "Japanese religions." Thus far, I was able to collect sources in archives and libraries in Tokyo (mainly at Sophia University). I have also conducted and in-depth reading of Alessandro Valignano's "Catechismus Christianae Fidei" (Nihon no Katekizumo), the most important work in terms of "pre-evangelization" strategies in Japan. I have collected a wide range of works on the early Modern Catholic missions worldwide, as well as on the history of religions, which look promising in providing a framework for interpreting my sources in the terms outlined in the original research project.
Strategy for Future Research Activity	The inability to use coercive power, as well as the need to preach to a society whose customs and manners fit the European standard of "civilization," were two challenges also confronted elsewhere. In the Americas, both the Portuguese and the Spanish had to deal with one of these two factors in particular situations. Yet, in Japan and likewise in China (which was part of the same province as the former in the Jesuit's global organizational structure), these challenges were confronted simultaneously. Therefore, it is important, on the one hand, to emphasize the mutual interaction of these two elements in the process of reframing the concept of religion, and, on the other, to identify further peculiarities of the Japanese mission -- such as the negotiations with policymakers that allowed for continued missionary presence in the archipelago, or the interactions between Jesuits and the Buddhist clergy -- in order to consider whether they played any significant role in this process. Papers based on our investigation results have been accepted for the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies and the meeting of the European Association for Japanese Studies, both of which have been unfortunately postponed due to the still ongoing situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.