From Portugal to Japan
Sebastião Vieira was born about 1571 at Castro Daire, in the diocese of Lamego in Portugal, the son of André Vieira and Filipa Lopes.He entered the Society of Jesus at Coimbra on February 3, 1591.Already a priest, he sailed for India in 1602 in Fr Alberto Laerzio's large company.In the East he served as master of novices and then for three years as procurator of the province at Macao.
He then went on to Japan.In October 1611 he had to be sent back to Macao, and Carlo Spinola replaced him as procurator of the Japan Province.The priest also wrote the annual letter of Japan for 1613, telling of that year's persecution and martyrs; it was printed at Rome in 1617.
In 1614 he was superior of the Jesuits at Hiroshima (広島) when Fukushima Masanori (福島正則) ordered him, courteously and with great sorrow, to withdraw with his men to Nagasaki (長崎).That year Vieira was exiled to Manila, but he later came back to Japan in disguise.
Superior in hiding
By 1617 Sebastião Vieira was the Jesuit superior in Japan, living secretly at Nagasaki.He had succeeded Valentim Carvalho in governing the Japan church.
On December 17, 1617, the superior wrote that the persecution was becoming crueller, with mutilations taking the place of executions.Even so, he added, "our 33 Fathers and brothers have still gained 1,600 new faithful" (translated).In October 1618 he reported about fifty martyrs, but also 1,200 baptisms of adults.On February 20, 1620, Carlo Spinola wrote to him from his dungeon that Christ's presence in the Mass had turned it into a paradise.
Procurator in Rome
In December 1623 the Jesuit provincial congregation at Macao chose Sebastião Vieira as its procurator to Rome.He handed the government of the Japan church to Couros and set out for Europe.His task was to present the needs of the Japanese Church, to plead the cause of the Jesuits against their accusers, and to raise interest in the mission.The voyage was hard: on entering Lisbon on October 28, 1625, his ship nearly wrecked, while its companion ship was lost on the rocks in sight of the city.
He reached Rome in 1626 and was heard there as an eyewitness of many martyrdoms.At his audience with Pope Urban VIII, the procurator wept so much that he could not speak for a long time, and he moved the pontiff to tears.He described the persecution and showed a bloodstained sword that had been used to behead martyrs, and the Pope, weeping, called it a great relic.
On October 13 and 14, 1626, Urban VIII answered with five briefs to the faithful of the most persecuted provinces, comparing them to the Roman martyrs of the catacombs.Sending him back, the Pope made a promise: "Go, and if you suffer death, I promise to declare you a martyr of the Church of God" (translated).
Back in disguise
Sebastião Vieira left Lisbon in 1629 with a band of new missionaries of several nations and sailed by way of India.At Macao, which he reached after eight years away, he could find no passage to Japan, and the city's leaders begged him to stay.He went on to Manila, where he lived in lay clothes and went out only to say Mass at the college.There he found two Japanese Jesuits, Paulo Saitō and Mancio Konishi (小西マンショ), who had been seeking a passage for nearly a year, and he arranged it for them.
He returned to Japan as vice-provincial of the Jesuits and administrator of the diocese.At the end of July 1632 he left Manila disguised as a Chinese sailor, on a junk whose captain he had paid a huge sum.For ten days he was hidden in the dark hold among a stinking cargo of deerskins.Against the agreement, the junk also carried two Franciscans, a Dominican, and eleven Japanese from Arima (有馬) with a stake in the cargo.
The crew and the Japanese merchants wanted to put the missionaries ashore, until Vieira recognised the most hostile of them as a man whose confession he had often heard.All eleven were apostate Christians, and they now greeted the priest with respect.When a storm drove the junk past Formosa, everyone on board confessed in fear, and the Japanese and Chinese aboard signed a written pledge not to betray the missionaries.During inspections the Jesuit was hidden in a water store, and he was drawn out almost dead.
On August 12, 1632, he landed in Japan for the fourth time.His Chinese pilot had robbed him and left him at midnight at the foot of a rock in a single linen garment.There he kissed the ground and called it his rest.
A boat for a church
For sixteen months after his landing, Sebastião Vieira lived on the move, mostly in the open and often on the water.Old friends hid him and gave him a small boat, and with five catechists he toured the coastal towns, helping Christians and reconciling those who had given up the faith.He wrote that the boat served as his house, a church for God, a pulpit for the faithful and a hospital for the sick.He also wrote: "in a short time I heard 600 confessions" (translated).Some of these penitents had not confessed for twenty or forty years, or ever.
The Jesuit known as "the Roman" was hunted, and the shogun ordered every effort to seize him.In 1632 he also asked why so many missionaries came who knew nothing of Japan's language and customs and sought martyrdom at the risk of causing many apostasies.
At Christmas 1632, refused shelter near Arima, he was led into the mountains by a Christian named Paul and celebrated the feast with twenty Christians.His guide later reported that he saw the silver chalice fill with what looked like blood, which was taken as a sign of persecution and of the priest's coming martyrdom.
In a note from his boat, Vieira listed Jesuits recently dead or taken, among them Julian Nakaura (中浦ジュリアン), though his report that Cristóvão Ferreira had died with them was false.His own freedom ended off Osaka (大坂), where an armed vessel that had long been hunting him overtook his boat.He was bound and taken with his five catechists to Nagasaki, and then to the prison at Ōmura (大村).There he found the Franciscan Fr Luis Gómez with a Japanese servant.
Prisoner in Edo
The shogun ordered Sebastião Vieira brought to his court at Edo (江戸).Before the order came, the Jesuit packed his habit and told his mocking guards where he was going, and after it arrived they honoured him as a saint.He and the Franciscan were carried there in closed litters and in fetters, with their Mass vestments.
In the city's prison the two priests and Vieira's five companions were mixed with sixteen criminals, to whom they preached.He received the five catechists into the Society as novices there.Their daily food, he wrote, was "a measure of black rice with a little salt and hot water" (translated).Having no pen, he wrote with a stick sharpened with his nails, and said he would not change his state for the happiest in the world.
At his first examination, with his thumbs tied to his belt, he preached for hours, and his hearers admitted that only fear of the court kept them from baptism.Two judges later asked him by night whether he had come to seize the kingdom, and what law he preached.They concluded that the law was excellent, but said the shogun abhorred its followers more than thieves, arsonists and murderers.
Later, new judges showed the prisoner instruments of torture and ordered him, in the shogun's name, to give up the faith and name other priests.He answered in writing that he was 63 years old and would not leave the King of Kings for the mortal ruler of Japan.When questioned, he also said that the faith would survive the killing of Christians and would die out only if the priests gave it up.
Ordered to set down his teaching, Vieira wrote in about fourteen hours a treatise on the mysteries of the faith, from the creation to Judgement Day, in Japanese script and also in Portuguese.It was sent to the shogun Iemitsu (家光), who read it closely.In his last letter, of April 7, 1634, the prisoner wrote that he had preached the faith in Edo to the shogun, his bonzes and all the people, walking the streets in Jesuit cassock and mantle.Enemies of Christianity at court feared his influence on the shogun, and the shogun's uncle urged his execution.
The pit at Edo
On June 6, 1634, Sebastião Vieira was taken to the pit at Edo with his five Japanese novices, the Franciscan Luis Gómez, a man in his eighties, and Gómez's Japanese servant Francisco, whom the friar had received as a brother.The two priests rode on horseback under banners that bore their sentence.All were hung in the pit, and the companions died first.
The old Jesuit was still alive after several days.The guards piled up wood and burned him alive in the pit.His ashes were scattered in the sea.He was 63 years old.
Martyrologies list the group together among the martyrs of Edo in 1634.At Macao, the governor, Manoel de Camara e Noronha, held thirteen days of celebrations.
What is uncertain
Where the sources disagree
- Birth year. Profillet and Pagès give 1571, which fits his age of 63 at death, while Fujita, in a poorly scanned text, gives 1574.
- Arrival in Rome. most sources, and the dates of the papal briefs, put it in 1626, but Charlevoix says he arrived in 1627.
- Visitor in 1617 to 1619. Delplace says he arrived in Japan as Visitor in 1617, and Profillet says he returned in 1618 and in 1619 visited the whole country, reaching 23 of his fellow Jesuits. Bartoli's Visitor of August 1617 to November 1618 is named "Francesco Viera" and is said to have died at Macao about a month after leaving Japan, so his account seems to concern a different man, and the two may be confused. Letters of May and December 1617 already show Sebastião as superior in Japan, against Profillet's 1618 return.
- Vice-provincial. Pagès and Cary say he was appointed vice-provincial before he sailed in 1632, while Bartoli says he succeeded Ferreira as head of the province under Visitor Palmeiro's order of succession.
- The crossing. Profillet says land was sighted on July 31, the feast of St Ignatius, which sits awkwardly with Bartoli and Delplace, who have the junk leave Manila at the end of July 1632.
- The chalice. Profillet says Paul saw the chalice become clear as crystal and full of shining blood on January 1, 1633; Bartoli says he saw it boil with foam the colour of blood. Both rest on this one witness.
- Date of capture. Profillet says the end of July 1633, Murdoch the summer of 1633, Bartoli December 20, 1633, and Delplace early 1634; Caddell says twelve months after he landed.
- Companions at the arrest. most sources say five catechists, but Caddell says four other Jesuits.
- The journey to Edo. one Bartoli passage appears to name Ferreira with Vieira and a Franciscan as being taken to Edo, leaving Nagasaki on January 28, 1634, while other sources place Vieira at Ōmura before the journey.
- Days in the pit. Profillet, Cary and Murdoch say three days; Caddell says four days, head down.
- Date of death. Profillet, Murdoch and Pagès say he was burned on June 9, 1634, after three days in the pit; Charlevoix and Boero give June 6, and the martyrology entry covers June 6 to 9.
- The Pope's promise. Profillet and Pagès say Urban VIII promised to declare him a martyr; Charlevoix says the Pope promised to canonize him solemnly.