A book the faithful made themselves
Tenchi Hajimari no Koto ("The Beginning of Heaven and Earth") is the only surviving doctrinal text that the hidden Christians compiled for themselves.It tells the story of creation, the angels, the fall, Mary, the life of Christ and the end of the world.It mixes Christian teaching with Japanese folk tales and Buddhist ideas.It opens by naming Deus as king of heaven and earth and noble father of men and of the ten thousand beings.
Kept by heart and by hand
Tenchi Hajimari no Koto was one of three books that the hidden Christians of Urakami named in 1865, along with the prayer of contrition and the Luzon prayers.Their leaders held these books and taught them by word of mouth.The copy known at Urakami had been written down from memory in 1822 or 1823.
Domingo, the baptizer of the Urakami Christians, gave the book to Fr Petitjean, and it was his only book of doctrine.The missionaries found that it told of creation, the fall and the promised Messiah with few errors.That copy is now lost, probably in the fire that destroyed the Catholic mission at Yokohama in 1874.
A copy of 1829 is written in mixed kanji and kana.In the 1930s a Japanese scholar found eight versions, the earliest dated 1827, five from the Nagasaki and Sotome area and three from the Gotō Islands.In 1931, it was said, a man of ninety-one still knew the whole text by heart.
What it says
The story keeps the main shape of the Bible, but much in it is changed.Herod, called Yorōtetsu, kills a great host of children: "the deaths number 44,444."The Holy One then dies to atone for those children, not for sin in general.Mary (Maruya) becomes the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity arises from God dividing himself.The Eucharist is missing.
Folk-tale motifs are woven in, such as lion-dogs whose eyes turn red, a butterfly entering Mary's mouth, and a comb and a needle.Buddhist ideas appear too, such as ranks of Deusu and tengu.
The text says Christ founded a shining church at Rome, the Santa Ecclesia, where the head disciple, Pappa, taught the way of salvation.
Why it matters
Tenchi Hajimari no Koto shows how the hidden Christians kept the Bible story alive by teaching it from memory, and how it changed as it was handed down.The passage on the Pope may help explain why the Christians of Urakami accepted Fr Petitjean so readily in 1865.
A mimeographed edition of 150 copies appeared in 1931.A German translation with the Japanese text was published in 1938.An English translation followed in 1996 as The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- When it was composed. Whelan tentatively dates it to the second half of the seventeenth century; Kasahara's history calls it a nineteenth-century text; the Urakami copy was written down in 1822 or 1823.
- Where it belongs. Laures and Bohner stress the versions copied by Tagita on Ikitsuki, while Kasahara ties it to Sotome, and Bernabé says the manuscripts came from Sotome, Gotō and Nagasaki, not Ikitsuki or Hirado.
- How many copies. Harrington says Tagita found eight versions; Bernabé says nine, three from Sotome, three from Gotō and three of unknown origin.Laures says Tagita copied three versions on Ikitsuki and later found four more.
- Who handed it over. Laures names Domingo Fukahori Zen'emon; Bernabé names Mataichi Domingo, and that attribution still needs checking; Fujita says it was given by the Urakami Christians and that the French missionaries eventually discarded it.
- Fujita gives the title as Tenchi no hajime no koto and reads its Trinity as Deus, Mary and Christ.
- Whelan documented the text even though her own informants did not know it.