From Sicily to Japan
Jerónimo de Angelis was a Sicilian Jesuit, born at Enna in 1568, who became the first missionary to cross from Japan to Ezo (蝦夷) and died by fire at Edo (江戸) in 1623.He studied civil law at Palermo, made the Spiritual Exercises and entered the Society of Jesus at Messina at eighteen.Before finishing his studies he obtained leave from Father General Claudio Aquaviva to sail for the East Indies with Father Carlo Spinola.The two would share the long voyage, captivity, the mission in Japan and, in the end, martyrdom.
They left Lisbon for India on April 10, 1596, when the Sicilian was still a brother, not yet a priest.A storm near the Cape of Good Hope drove the ship to Brazil, and on the way back toward Portugal it put into Puerto Rico.There, during the general mission of 1597, Spinola left the teaching of the catechism to his young companion, who excelled at it and drew children and slaves to his lessons.Near Santa Maria in the Azores an English warship captured the Jesuits and carried them to England as prisoners.
On the way, de Angelis fell overboard at full sail; the crew would not stop, but he passed under the keel, came up on the other side and was pulled aboard by a rope.In England, searchers who heard him speak Italian took him for a Spaniard and jailed him for a night.Back in Lisbon, where he had hidden his learning so well that he was taken for a lay brother, his ability was at last recognized, and he was ordained priest in 1598.After sailing east again and a stay in China, he landed at Nagasaki (長崎) with Spinola and ten others in July 1602.
Fushimi, Sunpu and the exile of 1614
Jerónimo de Angelis spent his first year in Japan learning the language, of which he became one of the best masters, and was then made superior of the Jesuit residence at Fushimi (伏見), at that time the seat of the court.From the start he felt called to the unreached north and to the lands beyond Tsugaru (津軽), and he even offered to go there alone, on foot, living by begging, but the Provincial refused because the existing residences could barely be supported.
Instead he founded a residence at Sunpu (駿府), where Ieyasu (家康) held court, the first Jesuit house in those parts.He then tried to open another at Edo, but persecution broke out on the very day set for buying the house.When the missionaries were exiled in 1614, the Jesuit begged to remain and obtained leave to stay hidden in Japan.
He hid for a time in Nagasaki.At Osaka (大坂), where he lived in Japanese dress, he befriended two gentlemen of Ōshū (奥州), a great province in the north, and went with them to Sendai (仙台).
Apostle of Ōshū and Dewa
From 1615 to 1621 Jerónimo de Angelis worked in the northern provinces of Japan, and a fellow Jesuit called him their apostle.He lived mostly in Ōshū, in the lands of Date Masamune (伊達政宗), whose capital was Sendai.In 1619, after five years there, he wrote that he had found only two hundred Christians of humble condition, and that the daimyo was neither the most powerful lord in Japan nor king of the whole province.Yet at Sendai he baptized more than four thousand people in a short time, among them leading Buddhist monks and important laymen.He passed himself off there as an Italian traveller, and in times of persecution he heard confessions standing or walking, as if talking of other business.
With Father Diogo Carvalho, who joined him in the north, he divided the vast region so that no district went long without a visit.Once, called to hear the confessions of a sick man and his wife, he heard "two hundred, of Christians who were confessing for the first time" (translated).He was the first to visit the confessors exiled to Tsugaru from Kyoto (京都) and Osaka in 1614, and he organized them into confraternities with prefects.For seven years he slipped past border guards by night, dressed as the servant of his Japanese catechist, Blessed Simon Yempo, and carrying the catechist's baggage.
The Jesuit was the first to bring the Gospel to Mogami (最上) and Nambu (南部), and the Christian communities of Dewa (出羽), Echigo (越後) and Sado (佐渡) owed their beginnings to him.He also founded a large community at Aizu-Wakamatsu (会津若松).In all he baptized more than ten thousand people in the north.In 1621, at Masamune's court, he wished to go out openly to help the persecuted Christians, but they held him back with tears, saying they could not resist the wolves without a shepherd.
First missionary in Ezo
Jerónimo de Angelis was the first missionary to cross from Japan to Ezo, now Hokkaido (北海道), and the first European to visit it.Merchants were drawn there by newly found gold mines, and at Matsumae (松前) the ruler and most of the townsmen were Japanese, some of them Christians baptized in Ōshū.He made his first crossing in the second half of the 1610s and founded a church there.
On one journey, dressed wholly as a Japanese with a sword at his side, he had to reveal himself at Niigata (新潟) while the ship waited twenty-two days for wind.In 1621 he returned on his superiors' orders to confess the Christians there and to gather information about that little-known land.On that visit he questioned Japanese living at Matsumae and native people who spoke Japanese.Over his journeys he recorded what he saw of Ainu society, and his later report included a rough map and a list of Ainu words.
He had been told that the land joined the continent, but he remembered seeing it as an island on a map in Sicily.In his report of 1622, written at the request of Father Francisco Pacheco, the Jesuit rector at Nagasaki, he noted that currents ran on every side and that the land had no single ruler.His conclusion was plain: "Ezo, then, is an island girded by sea on all sides" (translated).A report of his on the northern kingdom appeared in Rome in 1624, and his mapping of the island informed European cartography.
Surrender at Edo
In 1621 his superiors assigned Jerónimo de Angelis to Edo, where he spent the last two years of his life.From there he made missions into Izu (伊豆) and Kai (甲斐), always returning with many conversions.The hardships made him so thin and aged that people no longer recognized him.Before his arrest he was heard to cry out, "When will it be that I die burned alive for love of God!" (translated).
After a new shogun renewed the edicts, officers acting on an apostate's information came to his lodging while he was out, and his host, Leo Takeya Gonshichi, was arrested and refused to talk.The priest resolved to give himself up, to spare the Christians a house-to-house search and torture, to save his host and to avoid scandal.He forbade the many Christians who wanted to come with him, telling them that not everyone need run to death and that their hour would come.Only his catechist went with him, surrendering although no one was looking for him.
Asked by the governor of Edo who had lodged him, the priest threw a purse of money at the official's feet, saying that a man with money has no need to beg, and the governor smiled and did not press the question.He explained that he had left everything for the Japanese, adopted their customs and made himself one of them.His host was condemned with him all the same.In prison he lived on black rice and water, preached to the guards and baptized eight criminals held in irons with him.He also made small cardboard boxes to help the Christians, holding up his leg irons with a cord round his neck.
Burned at Edo, December 4, 1623
Jerónimo de Angelis was burned alive at Edo on December 4, 1623, with about fifty Christians, just outside the city gate and in plain view of the Tōkaidō (東海道) road.In the procession, the Jesuit, the Franciscan Father Francisco Gálvez and the nobleman John Hara Mondo (原主水) rode on horseback while the others walked.Maria Takeya, the mother of his host, was tied on a horse at the head of the procession.The three on horseback watched the others burn, then were tied to their own stakes, encouraging one another.
De Angelis preached from the flames until he died, and at the end he was on his knees.Pagan onlookers said he was the bravest of all, as befitted a captain.His catechist, Simon Yempo, died in the same fire.On the third day Christians carried off many relics.
Pope Urban VIII, who had learned of his zeal from letters of the Japanese Christians, answered them with a brief of consolation in May 1624.A papal brief to the Christians of Ōshū and Dewa praised his labours.In 1867 the brief of Pope Pius IX beatifying 205 martyrs named him among the most eminent Jesuit martyrs.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- Age at death. Boero (1862, 1867 and 1869), Charlevoix, Bartoli and Solier give 56; Profillet gives 55; Pagès gives 53. Profillet, Cooper and Teather give his birth year as 1568.
- Years in the Society and in Japan. Boero (1867), Charlevoix, Bartoli and Solier give 38 years in the Society, Profillet and Pagès 37, Boero (1869) 33. For years in Japan, Profillet, Solier and Pagès give 22, Boero 25, and Bartoli both 23 and about 20, though most sources date his arrival to 1602.
- His solemn profession of four vows. Boero (1869) says he made it twelve days before his death, while Bartoli says twelve years before.
- The number who died with him. Caddell says fifty Christians; Teather says the three on horseback watched 47 burn first; Cooper gives a Franciscan and 48 Japanese Christians; Bartoli's index says forty-nine others; the Franciscan bibliographer Juan de San Antonio says 51 other faithful besides the two priests.
- The order of the last deaths. Teather has de Angelis die first, then Gálvez, then Hara Mondo, while Profillet has Gálvez die last. Profillet also says de Angelis died standing and his body sank to its knees, while Bartoli says he knelt when his rope burned through.
- The place of execution. Anesaki gives Shiba (芝) or Shinagawa (品川) in Edo; Cieslik places it outside the city gate near the Tōkaidō rather than at the earlier Asakusa (浅草) ground.
- The date of his first crossing to Ezo. Cooper gives 1618, Cieslik 1619 (Cattaneo also dates his mapping of Ezo to 1619), and Pagès 1615 (in a poorly printed passage); in 1622 he himself wrote that he had reported it five or six years earlier. Delplace says he followed Diogo Carvalho to Ezo, while Boero, Bartoli and Solier call de Angelis the first to cross.
- His route east. Profillet says he reached Macau in 1595, which does not fit his departure from Lisbon in 1596 and his ordination there in 1598; Solier says he stayed in China until 1602. Boero places the English capture near Terceira, Bartoli near Santa Maria.
- Boero writes that no missionary had yet been at Sendai when he arrived, but Cieslik notes a Franciscan mission begun in the north by Luis Sotelo in 1611.
- The northern mission of 1620. Jennes says it was organized that year with de Angelis as superior and counts 966 baptisms, while Profillet gives over 1,000. Jennes also dates the Sunpu (Shizuoka) residence to 1611, while another account gives 1612.
- His relics. Pagès reports Cardim's statement that his head and that of Simon Yempo were taken to Macao.
- The papal brief to Ōshū and Dewa. Bartoli and Delplace date the pope's reply to May 1624, while Pagès prints a brief to the Christians of Ōshū and Dewa dated October 14, 1626; these may be two different letters.