Two strangers at the old temple
Some time in the early 1550s, two travellers came to the old temple of Daidōji in , where the Jesuit Father lived. They were Buddhist monks, and they had come a long way. Their home was Tōnomine, "a very famous monastery" in the province of Yamato, far to the east.One was named Kyōzen and the other Senyō.
They were not curious villagers. The Jesuit historian calls them men of great prudence and ability. One of them was deeply learned in the Buddhist schools of Japan and an excellent physician.They sat through the catechism sermons and listened closely. Then they began to ask questions, and kept asking them for days, "with liveliness, restraint and good manners."
Monks had been arguing with the foreigners at Yamaguchi for months. Most argued and went away. These two stayed. This page follows them, because the question their story answers is a big one: how did the Christian message, which had arrived at the western tip of Japan, first find a road toward the capital? Part of the answer begins with two monks who came to argue.
The city of debates
To see why Yamaguchi drew such visitors, go back to 1551. That spring Yamaguchi was the richest city in western Japan, the seat of the lord Ōuchi Yoshitaka. came back there in April 1551 after a disappointing trip to , bearing letters and gifts. Yoshitaka gave him leave to preach and an empty temple to live in, the Daidōji.
What followed was a season of argument. Townspeople, samurai and monks crowded the old temple day and night with questions. When Xavier moved on to Bungo in September 1551, Torres and Brother kept the debates going, and their letters of 29 September and 20 October 1551 are our best record of what was said.
The questions were sharp. Zen monks laughed at the idea of saints and said that what comes from nothing returns to nothing. Their first principle, they said, was neither good nor evil; it was a "not." Others asked what colour the soul was, and the Jesuits answered with the wind: you cannot see it, but you feel it. Some asked the old question of evil: if God is merciful, why did He make the devil, and why is the road to heaven so hard?
There was also a word problem. At first the Jesuits had used "Dainichi," the great sun Buddha of the Shingon school, as their word for God, and Shingon monks welcomed them as brothers. When Xavier realized the confusion, he had Fernández preach in the streets that Dainichi should not be worshipped, and the Shingon monks turned hostile. From then on the missionaries used the Latin "Deus."
Days of doubts
Fróis does not tell us what Kyōzen and Senyō asked. He tells us how it ended. Both asked for baptism. The more learned man took the name Paulo. The other became Barnabé.
Then they did something that impressed the missionaries. They would not live off the poor mission. Both were skilled with their hands, and they earned their own keep. Paulo, Fróis adds, was much given to contemplation, penance and mortification.
About a year after the baptisms, Torres began to talk with Paulo about the capital. That conversation is where the road begins.
Letters for the mountain
Paulo knew the capital region. His skill as a doctor was famous in the five home provinces around Kyoto and on Mount Hiei, the great monastery above the city that Fróis calls a university. So Torres decided to send someone to Hiei, and Paulo wrote letters of introduction for the road and for the monks on the mountain.
The messenger was the half-blind , the former street singer whom Xavier had baptized. Barnabé went with him. They carried nothing but their clothes and Paulo's letters.
It was a hard road. In Bingo they handed one letter to a local man, Shinsuke. Lourenço sold his summer robe and his sash to pay for the boat to Sakai. A robber held a sword to his throat; Shinsuke got his things back. On the way they stopped at Tōnomine, "where Paulo and Barnabé had once been bonzes."Barnabé was going home, in a strange way, as a Christian.
On Hiei they looked for two old monks, Shinkai, aged 83, and his pupil Daizenbō, aged 70. Daizenbō was sick in bed, but he received Lourenço because he carried a letter from Paulo.The old men listened politely. In the end Daizenbō said that if they came back with a letter from the lord of Yamaguchi, every door would open. The two travellers went home with nothing more.
It looked like failure. They came back to find Yamaguchi wrecked by war, and the mission moving to Bungo.But a door had been seen, and a name, Paulo's, had been heard on Hiei. Three years later, in 1559, Torres sent and Lourenço to Kyoto, and this time the Kyoto mission began.
Paulo the preacher
Paulo did not stay in the background. When Torres sent Father Baltasar Gago and Brother Juan Fernández to , where there were about 500 Christians, he sent "Paulo of Tōnomine" with them. Fróis calls him a great preacher of the Gospel, able to preach all day, who exposed the errors of the sects and had a special grace in speaking.The Imperial Academy chronology dates this trip to 1555.
He also helped with words on paper. A Jesuit letter of 1555 says Paulo was very sharp in speaking Japanese, and another mentions a former bonze who wrote a book.The Oita diocese says Gago compiled teaching books with the help of the "former Buddhist monk Paulo."The monk who had come to argue was now writing the arguments.
Paulo the doctor
When war burned Yamaguchi in 1556, the mission moved to in Bungo, today's Ōita. There the Portuguese merchant and surgeon opened a hospital. The Oita diocese names his helpers: "Paulo Kyōzen who came from Yamaguchi, Uchida Tomé, and Miguel."
Takada writes that at Funai, Torres received three men into the Society of Jesus, Lourenço, Kyōzen and Almeida, and that the visiting Provincial Melchior Nunes Barreto confirmed it in July 1556.: the Jesuit catalogue entry quoted by Takada dates Lourenço's own admission to 1563, so this date needs checking against the catalogues.
A quiet death
Fróis tells us how Paulo's place was filled. In 1556 Uchida Tomé, the first Christian of Yamaguchi, fled to Bungo with two altar pictures and a cross, and went to the hospital to serve the poor "in place of Paulo, whom the Lord had called." Paulo died with great constancy and joy, the names of Jesus and Mary on his lips.
So the two monks vanish from the record within a few years of their baptism. But the road they opened stayed open. Lourenço, who carried Paulo's letters, went on to preach at Nara, where the Takayama family was baptized, and before himself. (See our page on Lorenzo Ryōsai.)
Not to be confused
The sources keep the Tōnomine monks clearly apart from Lourenço. Lourenço was a blind biwa player from Hizen, baptized by Xavier himself at Yamaguchi in 1551.Paulo Kyōzen and Barnabé Senyō were monks of Tōnomine baptized under Torres.They knew each other well: Barnabé walked to Hiei with Lourenço, and Lourenço carried Paulo's letters.
Be careful with other men named Paulo in the same years. Paulo Yōhōken of Wakasa was another physician-convert, baptized later in Kyoto. A nobleman-doctor called Paulo Yesan met Vilela at Sakai in 1559. Neither is Paulo Kyōzen.
One small twist: , writing in in the 1620s, mixed up the names Bernardo, Xavier's Japanese companion, and Barnabé.The confusion is old.
