Order of Saint Augustine

The Order of Saint Augustine, a mendicant Catholic religious order, was one of several missionary groups that participated in the evangelization of Japan during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period known as the 'Christian century.' The order's involvement in Japan is documented in the novel through the mention of its members who suffered persecution alongside Jesuits and Franciscans, reflecting the collaborative yet competitive nature of the Catholic missionary enterprise in East Asia.

Missionary Presence and Martyrdom

The Order of Saint Augustine is explicitly named in the context of the persecution that intensified after the 1614 Edict Expelling Missionaries. In a letter written by Christovao Ferreira in 1632, he lists five religious who were apprehended for their faith starting in 1629. Among them is Vicente de San Antonio of the Order of Saint Augustine, who was subjected to the boiling water torture at Unzen along with members of the Society of Jesus and the Franciscan Order. This torture, ordered by the magistrate of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, was designed to force apostasy rather than death, but the Augustinian friar, like his companions, endured the ordeal without renouncing his faith. The inclusion of an Augustinian in this group underscores that the persecution targeted all Catholic orders indiscriminately, and that the Augustinians shared in the heroic suffering that characterized the early Japanese Church.

Role in the Missionary Landscape

The Augustinians were part of a larger missionary wave that included the Jesuits, who had arrived first under Francis Xavier in 1549, and later the Franciscans and Dominicans. The novel's historical background notes that the missionaries held a privileged position at the court of the Bakufu from 1570 until 1614, but this favor was contingent on the political and trade interests of the Japanese rulers. The Augustinians, like other orders, benefited from this period of tolerance but were also caught in the subsequent xenophobic backlash. The interpreter who interrogates Sebastian Rodrigues mentions that he learned Portuguese in seminaries built by the Portuguese fathers in Arima, Amakusa, and Omura, institutions that were products of the collaborative missionary effort that included the Augustinians. However, the interpreter also criticizes the arrogance of some missionaries, specifically recalling Father Cabral, a Jesuit who despised Japanese customs, a sentiment that may have been shared by some Augustinians but is not directly attributed to them in the text.

Theological and Cultural Conflict

The Augustinians' mission, like that of all Catholic orders, was ultimately undermined by what the novel terms 'the swamp of Japan.' The interpreter argues that Christian doctrine is a foreign imposition that the Japanese do not want, and that the missionaries' 'selfish dream' has caused the suffering of countless peasants. The Augustinian friar Vicente de San Antonio, who endured the Unzen torture, represents the ideal of heroic martyrdom that the novel both celebrates and questions. His suffering, like that of Mokichi and Ichizo, is part of the 'terrible and merciless sacrifice' offered up to a God who remains silent. The Augustinian presence thus serves as a historical marker of the broader Catholic effort that failed to adapt to Japanese culture, a failure that the novel attributes to the incompatibility of Hellenistic Christianity with the Japanese spiritual landscape. The order's members, though not central to the narrative, are part of the collective tragedy of the Japanese mission, where even the strongest faith could be broken by the pit torture or the relentless pressure of the state.

Legacy and Significance

The Order of Saint Augustine's role in the novel is primarily historical and contextual, providing evidence of the multi-order nature of the Japanese mission. The mention of an Augustinian among the tortured at Unzen reinforces the theme of shared martyrdom across religious orders, while also highlighting the futility of the missionary endeavor in the face of state persecution and cultural resistance. The Augustinians, like the Jesuits and Franciscans, were ultimately expelled or killed, and their churches were destroyed. The novel's appendix, which records the death of Rodrigues under the Japanese name Okada San'emon, notes that he was the last priest in Japan, a fate that the Augustinians shared as their mission was extinguished. The order's brief appearance in the text thus contributes to the novel's overarching argument that Christianity, in its Western form, could not survive in the Japanese 'swamp,' and that the missionaries' sacrifices, however heroic, were ultimately in vain.