Cosme de Torrès
Encyclopedia
Cosme de Torres a Spanish
Jesuit of the sixteenth century, was one of the first Christian
missionaries in Japan
. He was born in Valencia and died in Amakusa
, an island now in Kumamoto Prefecture
, Japan
.
to Mexico
. From there, he went to Asia
and met Francis Xavier
in the Moluccas in 1546. He entered the Society of Jesus
in Goa
in 1548, where he worked as a teacher of grammar
at the Jesuit college.
, the southernmost of the three main islands of Japan
on August 15, 1549. He was accompanied by Francis Xavier
, Brother Juan Fernandez, and several Indian servants, as well as by three Japanese Christians converts that had met Xavier in Malacca
in 1547. The missionaries began work in Kagoshima by preaching on the streets, reading from a catechism
written by Xavier that had been translated into Japanese
by their companion, Anjiro
.
In late 1549, Xavier decided to travel to Kyoto
where he intended to request an audience with the Japanese emperor, Emperor Go-Nara
. Both Torres and Fernandez went with him. En route, they stopped in Yamaguchi
, where they began working to convert the population of the city. When Xavier and Fernandez left Yamaguchi in December 1550 to continue the journey to the capital, Torres was left behind to continue the missionary work begun here. In mid-1551, Xavier returned to Yamaguchi after a disappointing trip to Kyoto, where he was denied his request for an imperial audience.
In September 1551, Torres wrote of the intellectual curiosity of the citizens of Yamaguchi, saying "Those [Jesuits] who come to these regions must be very learned in order to answer the very deep and difficult questions which they [the citizens] ask from morning till night. They are very insistent in their questions. From the day on which Padre Mestre Francisco came into this city, which is now some five months or more ago, there has never been a day on which there were not priests and laymen here from morning until late at night in order to ask all kinds of questions." Torres also wrote of his success in converting the Japanese in Yamaguchi: "When they [the Japanese Christian converts] once accepted the faith, there are, from what I have seen and heard, and from what I have experienced with them, no people in the world so tenacious. It seems to me that the majority of those who have become Christians, and of those there are many, are ready to endure any calamity for the love of God." Reportedly, Torres baptized more than two thousand people and built a church in the city. Here, he worked selflessly to help townspeople whose lives were devastated by the constant warfare of the Sengoku Period
in Japan, even giving up his life savings to buy food for starving people regardless of whether they were Christians or Buddhists.
, Torres succeeded him as the superior of the Japanese mission. Under his leadership, the number of Christians in Japan grew steadily, despite antagonism from Buddhist sects. During his time as mission superior, his success in converting large numbers of Japanese people aroused much animosity on the part of the Buddhist monks. Torres had several debates with learned members of the Buddhist community, which were recorded by Brother Fernandez. Torres based his arguments in these debates on reason, believing that it would be highly effective against the Japanese who were, as he said, "led by reason just as well as and even more willingly than Spaniards." He especially attacked the Buddhist belief that the foundation and origin of the world was pure nonbeing.
Torres stayed in Yamaguchi until the city was taken over by the Mori clan
in 1556, which was hostile towards Christianity. At this time, Torres was forced to move to Bungo Province
, where he was offered protection by the young daimyo
, Ōtomo Yoshishige. The destruction of the mission in Yamaguchi by the Mori clan was especially heart-breaking for Torres, who wrote to Padre Nuñez that his life in Yamaguchi had been filled with joy and satisfaction.
Ōtomo donated a piece of land and a house to the Jesuit mission from his own personal property. The house was used as a Jesuit residence and Torres established a Christian cemetery, as well as a hospital on the donated land. This cemetery was particularly important for the mission, since Buddhist temples refused to bury Japanese Christian converts.
The Jesuit Father Luis Frois
recorded many incidents that demonstrate the missionary zeal and self-sacrificing nature of Torres. Torres never failed to offer mass, even if he was so gravely ill that he was unable to stand and had to lean against the altar. He greeted all visitors warmly, with "tears of love from his eyes.". According to Frois, his "modesty and religious maturity suited the nature of the Japanese so much that he won profound love and respect from them." Torres was so adored by Japanese Christian converts that many of them kept locks of his hair or pieces of his old clothing as treasures.
Torres' primary concern was the education of the Christian community. He encouraged his congregation to become familiar with the Bible and promoted this by organizing pageants to educate the new converts. He was also especially concerned with the education of Christian children. He held daily catechism classes for forty to fifty children who were taught to recite prayers in Latin. Torres also organized Japanese classes for them, appointing a Japanese lay brother to teach them to read and write in their native language.
In 1562, Torres moved to Yokoseura, a port city that was recently opened to Portuguese traders by local daimyo Ōmura Sumitada
.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Jesuit of the sixteenth century, was one of the first Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
missionaries in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. He was born in Valencia and died in Amakusa
Amakusa
Amakusa is a series of islands belonging to Japan, off the west coast of Kyushu . The biggest of the Amakusa islands is Shimoshima Island, 26.5 miles long and 13.5 miles in extreme width...
, an island now in Kumamoto Prefecture
Prefecture
A prefecture is an administrative jurisdiction or subdivision in any of various countries and within some international church structures, and in antiquity a Roman district governed by an appointed prefect.-Antiquity:...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Early Life (1510-1549)
Born in Valencia in 1510, Torres was ordained into the priesthood in 1535. Soon after, he was sent as a missionaryMissionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. From there, he went to Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and met Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...
in the Moluccas in 1546. He entered the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
in Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
in 1548, where he worked as a teacher of grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
at the Jesuit college.
The Beginnings of the Japanese Mission (1549-1551)
Torres arrived in Kagoshima, a city located in KyushuKyushu
is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....
, the southernmost of the three main islands of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on August 15, 1549. He was accompanied by Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...
, Brother Juan Fernandez, and several Indian servants, as well as by three Japanese Christians converts that had met Xavier in Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
in 1547. The missionaries began work in Kagoshima by preaching on the streets, reading from a catechism
Catechism
A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
written by Xavier that had been translated into Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
by their companion, Anjiro
Anjiro
or , later known as Paulo de Santa Fé, was a well known Japanese interpreter from Satsuma Province. After committing a murder, he fled to the province of Goa, where he met Saint Francis Xavier and returned to Japan with him as an interpreter...
.
In late 1549, Xavier decided to travel to Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
where he intended to request an audience with the Japanese emperor, Emperor Go-Nara
Emperor Go-Nara
Emperor Go-Nara was the 105th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from June 9, 1526 until September 27, 1557, at the end of the Sengoku period. His personal name was Tomohito .-Genealogy:He was the second son of Emperor Go-Kashiwabara...
. Both Torres and Fernandez went with him. En route, they stopped in Yamaguchi
Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi
is the capital city of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.As of February 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population of 198,971 and a population density of 194.44 persons per km²...
, where they began working to convert the population of the city. When Xavier and Fernandez left Yamaguchi in December 1550 to continue the journey to the capital, Torres was left behind to continue the missionary work begun here. In mid-1551, Xavier returned to Yamaguchi after a disappointing trip to Kyoto, where he was denied his request for an imperial audience.
In September 1551, Torres wrote of the intellectual curiosity of the citizens of Yamaguchi, saying "Those [Jesuits] who come to these regions must be very learned in order to answer the very deep and difficult questions which they [the citizens] ask from morning till night. They are very insistent in their questions. From the day on which Padre Mestre Francisco came into this city, which is now some five months or more ago, there has never been a day on which there were not priests and laymen here from morning until late at night in order to ask all kinds of questions." Torres also wrote of his success in converting the Japanese in Yamaguchi: "When they [the Japanese Christian converts] once accepted the faith, there are, from what I have seen and heard, and from what I have experienced with them, no people in the world so tenacious. It seems to me that the majority of those who have become Christians, and of those there are many, are ready to endure any calamity for the love of God." Reportedly, Torres baptized more than two thousand people and built a church in the city. Here, he worked selflessly to help townspeople whose lives were devastated by the constant warfare of the Sengoku Period
Sengoku period
The or Warring States period in Japanese history was a time of social upheaval, political intrigue, and nearly constant military conflict that lasted roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century. The name "Sengoku" was adopted by Japanese historians in reference...
in Japan, even giving up his life savings to buy food for starving people regardless of whether they were Christians or Buddhists.
Torres as Mission Superior (1551-1570)
After Xavier departed from Japan in 1551 to begin a Jesuit mission in ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Torres succeeded him as the superior of the Japanese mission. Under his leadership, the number of Christians in Japan grew steadily, despite antagonism from Buddhist sects. During his time as mission superior, his success in converting large numbers of Japanese people aroused much animosity on the part of the Buddhist monks. Torres had several debates with learned members of the Buddhist community, which were recorded by Brother Fernandez. Torres based his arguments in these debates on reason, believing that it would be highly effective against the Japanese who were, as he said, "led by reason just as well as and even more willingly than Spaniards." He especially attacked the Buddhist belief that the foundation and origin of the world was pure nonbeing.
Torres stayed in Yamaguchi until the city was taken over by the Mori clan
Mori clan
The Mōri clan was a family of daimyō, descended from Ōe no Hiromoto and established themselves in Aki Province. Their name was derived from a shōen in Mōri, Aikō District, Sagami Province. The generation of Hiromoto began to name themselves Mōri.After the Jōkyū War, Mōri was appointed to the jitō...
in 1556, which was hostile towards Christianity. At this time, Torres was forced to move to Bungo Province
Bungo Province
was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces.-History:...
, where he was offered protection by the young daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
, Ōtomo Yoshishige. The destruction of the mission in Yamaguchi by the Mori clan was especially heart-breaking for Torres, who wrote to Padre Nuñez that his life in Yamaguchi had been filled with joy and satisfaction.
Ōtomo donated a piece of land and a house to the Jesuit mission from his own personal property. The house was used as a Jesuit residence and Torres established a Christian cemetery, as well as a hospital on the donated land. This cemetery was particularly important for the mission, since Buddhist temples refused to bury Japanese Christian converts.
The Jesuit Father Luis Frois
Luís Fróis
Luís Fróis was a Portuguese missionary.He was born in Lisbon and in 1548 joined the Society of Jesus . In 1563, he came to Japan to engage in missionary work, and in the following year arrived in Kyoto, meeting Ashikaga Yoshiteru who was then Shogun...
recorded many incidents that demonstrate the missionary zeal and self-sacrificing nature of Torres. Torres never failed to offer mass, even if he was so gravely ill that he was unable to stand and had to lean against the altar. He greeted all visitors warmly, with "tears of love from his eyes.". According to Frois, his "modesty and religious maturity suited the nature of the Japanese so much that he won profound love and respect from them." Torres was so adored by Japanese Christian converts that many of them kept locks of his hair or pieces of his old clothing as treasures.
Torres' primary concern was the education of the Christian community. He encouraged his congregation to become familiar with the Bible and promoted this by organizing pageants to educate the new converts. He was also especially concerned with the education of Christian children. He held daily catechism classes for forty to fifty children who were taught to recite prayers in Latin. Torres also organized Japanese classes for them, appointing a Japanese lay brother to teach them to read and write in their native language.
In 1562, Torres moved to Yokoseura, a port city that was recently opened to Portuguese traders by local daimyo Ōmura Sumitada
Omura Sumitada
Ōmura Sumitada Japanese daimyo lord of the Sengoku period. He achieved fame throughout the country for being the first of the daimyo to convert to Christianity following the arrival of the Jesuit missionaries in the mid-16th century. Following his baptism, he became known as "Dom Bartolomeu"...
.