From Lisbon to Japan
Mateo de Couros was born at Lisbon in about 1568, the son of Rui de Couros and Luísa da Costa.He entered the Society of Jesus on December 22, 1583, under the novice master Vasco Pires, and was destined for the East Indies.In 1586 the young Jesuit left for India, sailing with the four Japanese envoys of the Tenshō embassy (天正遣欧使節) on their voyage home from Rome.
He finished his studies at the college of Macao and went on to the college at Nagasaki (長崎) in 1590.After only a very short study of Japanese he began to preach to the people, to general surprise, even before he was ordained.In a letter to his old novice master he described travelling alone through mountains and forests, mostly barefoot, his feet swollen, in Japanese clothes.In March 1596 he returned to Macao to be ordained by Bishop Pedro Martins, and that August he came back to Japan with the bishop as a new priest.The Visitor Valignano (ヴァリニャーノ) judged him a man of good wit, judgement, prudence and maturity, fit to govern.
Teacher, superior and rector
In 1598 Couros served as ecclesiastical notary of the diocese of Japan when Bishop Cerqueira consulted on the question of slaves.He made his solemn profession in 1602.The catalogue of 1603 lists him as a professor of moral cases in the bishop's seminary, noting that he knew Japanese very well.
In 1604 he became superior of the newly founded mission at Hiroshima (広島), and in 1609 rector of the seminary at Arima (有馬).He held that post until 1614.On June 13, 1612, the daimyō Arima Naozumi (有馬直純) sent two gentlemen to tell the Jesuits to leave.After consulting the bishop and the Provincial at Nagasaki, the rector left two or three Jesuits hidden near the town and withdrew.The daimyō also sent his uncle, or great-uncle, to him with three pieces of silver and sworn promises to recall the Jesuits.
Return in secret
In 1614 Couros was exiled to Macao, but he returned secretly to Japan in 1615.
From 1617 to 1621 he was Provincial and Vicar General of the Japan mission, and at the same time administrator of the diocese.He was remembered as wise, brave and loved by the Japanese as a father.He governed from hiding and often changed his refuge.Once in Nagasaki, betrayed by a maidservant while he was vesting for Mass, he escaped in a closed palanquin of the kind used by noblewomen, with a maid walking behind, since his white face would have given him away by day.
To carry his letters and orders by night he relied on a catechist from Arima named Mathias, his companion from 1615 to 1620.One night in 1620 the catechist was caught carrying one of the priest's habits, and under torture he refused to reveal where the Father lived.Blessed Mathias died on May 22, 1620, and his body, thrown into the sea, was recovered and sent to the Provincial.
Couros wrote that he had asked two Nagasaki headmen, Takagi Pedro and Machida João, to join Heizō's complaint against Tōan (等安) and to swear that the Society had nothing to do with it.His letter of February 23, 1619, to the procurator in Madrid described the headmen's certificates clearing the Jesuits.In 1621 he drew up the rules of a Marian sodality, which survive in a manuscript found in 1907 in the Biblioteca Casanatense.
In the pit
After Francisco Pacheco, his successor as Provincial, was taken, Couros again became head of the Jesuits and administrator of the diocese.On the day Zola was seized in December 1625, the Provincial was within twenty paces of him, and musketeers surrounded his lodging.He put a rosary round his neck to give himself up and save his host, but Christians hid him, and on Christmas Eve they moved him to an abandoned straw-roofed stable in a wood.
His letter of September 30, 1626, described what came next.Searchers lifted the floor mats of every house, and the governors had the inner walls pulled down within two leagues so that every room could be seen from the door.His host dug a pit only twelve palms long and four wide, where he lay in darkness with his catechist and a servant.Food came through a hidden opening from a neighbouring hut, and he lit a candle only for the Office, his letters and meals.
He stayed thirty-five days in the first pit, coming out only for the Masses of Easter, and then moved to a second one under a tool shed."I go out at night, arrange my altar, and say mass. Before daybreak I return to the pit with the vestments," he wrote.Each week his servant carried his letters to Nagasaki at midnight.
Hunted to the end
The Provincial's hiding place was at Fukae (深江), a league and a half from Shimabara (島原).In 1627 a Christian named Thomas Sochin, who hid him in his house, made his confession to him before being taken back for torture.Once he spent fifty days in a hiding hole without being able to come out even to say Mass, yet he directed the missions by letter.The lord Bungodono heard from his governors that thousands he had forced to apostatize had returned to penance through the Provincial and Fr Giannone.
He often escaped by dressing as a Chinese, with a hairnet and a thin false beard, used only at night.In 1629 he fell gravely ill in an unhealthy hiding place.In 1630 he hurried to the Christians of Arie (有家), holding meetings day and night and giving the sacraments, until they made him leave for fear of betrayal.Three headmen (shōya) of the town were then arrested on the pretext that they must have known of his movements.
At sixty-one, ill, he fled Sashinotsu in Amakusa (天草), and Christians carried him in a cane basket to a thick wood in the June rains.He suffered apoplexy and lost the use of his arms for five or six months.Christians who carried the old man in a bamboo chair helped him escape for the twentieth time, and paid for it with their lives.
Hunted and infirm, hiding in bushes and deserted huts, he accepted the shelter of a leper's cabin off the high road.He died there in 1632 or 1633, on October 29 in most accounts.He had spent over forty years in Japan and had preached for nearly twenty-four.The General had asked him to write the history of the Japanese Church, continuing the work of Luís Fróis (フロイス), but the persecution kept him from finishing it.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- The year of his death. Bartoli gives October 29, 1632, and corrects others who wrote 1633; Profillet, Delplace (as cited by Anesaki) and Pagès give October 29, 1633, Anesaki adding that he died "in misery" at Hasami; Delplace's martyrology entry as quoted gives July 12, 1632.
- His age at death. Profillet says 63, Bartoli 64, Charlevoix 65.
- Birth year and age at entry. Roggendorf and Morris give 1568; Hesselink gives 1567; Profillet says he entered at sixteen, Roggendorf and Bartoli at fifteen.
- Years in Japan. Profillet says 43, a figure that does not fit Profillet's own date for his arrival after 1602; Bartoli says 42.
- His first stay in Japan. Roggendorf has him at the Nagasaki college from 1590; Profillet says he took the fourth vow in 1602 and soon went to Japan.
- His terms of office. Morris gives Vice-Provincial in 1617 to 1621 and 1626 to 1632; Roggendorf says he took the office again after Pacheco's death in 1626 and held it seven years until his death in 1633; Bartoli says he governed for nine years.
- The pits. in one passage Bartoli says he lay in the first pit from Christmas Eve 1625 to February 10, 1626, and then over seven months in a second; in another, following the letter, Bartoli gives thirty-five days in the first pit and January to the end of September for the second.
- The Tōan affair. Hesselink reads Couros's letter as showing that the Nagasaki mayors plotted with the hidden Jesuit Provincial to bring Tōan down.
- How often he administered the diocese. Profillet says once, while Bartoli and Charlevoix call him administrator during both terms.