The Testing of Faith

I feel great love for that face. I am always fascinated by the face of Christ just like a man fascinated by the face of his beloved.

At the beginning of the novel, before Rodrigues has landed on the shores of Japan, Rodrigues’s faith in his religion is secure. In his letter that forms Chapter 1, he tells how at night on the ship to Japan he ponders Christ’s face. He says that since the face has never been depicted in books, his imagination is left free to come up with an image himself. The image he comes up with is one of great valor and strength as well as beauty. Rodrigues tells the reader that he has “great love” for Christ’s face and is fascinated by it, as one would be fascinated by the face of someone they love. Rodrigues’s faith is shown to be a bold and almost sensuous one, reminiscent of the kind of courtly love where a knight fights for the hand of his beloved. In this way, Rodrigues’s faith is a kind of heroic honor, which he is ready to fight for and defend.

I cannot bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. Behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God . . . the feeling that while men raise their voice in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent.

Throughout the novel, Rodrigues battles with what he perceives as God’s silence in the face of human suffering. In Chapter 4, the Christian Japanese peasants Mokichi and Ichizo have been martyred at the hands of the samurai. They have suffered the notorious water torture, where captives are attached to crucifixes at the edge of the ocean and left to die of exhaustion as the water moves in and out over them. Here, as Rodrigues watches helplessly from afar, powerless to do anything for them, the sound of the ocean becomes painful to listen to. He waits for God to do something, anything, to help the men, but nothing happens. This becomes the first test of Rodrigues’s faith. His image of God becomes a man with “folded arms,” watching over the scene, doing nothing. This image reveals how Rodrigues feels himself starting to feel at odds with God, as if God were a cold, stoic overseer with little compassion for men.

‘No, no . . .’ Unconsciously the priest raised his voice as he spoke. ‘My struggle was with Christianity in my own heart.’

In Chapter 10, Rodrigues admits to himself that he “fell,” or faltered in his beliefs, speaking to the Lord that “you alone know that I did not renounce my faith.” Rodrigues has come to understand for himself that the struggle with faith he had was within his own heart and his understanding of Christ’s mission. He no longer feels that trampling on the fumie was a sacrilegious act, but one done out of love for the other prisoners, to save them from suffering. In this quote, he speaks the same sentiment to Inoue, with whom he is meeting for the last time. Inoue has come to give Rodrigues a new Japanese identity—the name of Okada San’emon—and a Japanese wife. With this, Inoue tells Rodrigues he has been defeated by the “swamps of Japan.” But Rodrigues persists, repeating the idea that his struggle was never with Japan but with himself. Rodrigues’s test of faith is complete, and he has come to a deeper understanding of the truths he holds in his heart.

Suffering

They were martyred. But what a martyrdom! I had long read about martyrdom in the lives of the saints—how the souls of martyrs had . . . been filled with glory in Paradise . . . But the martyrdom of the Japanese Christians I now describe to you was no such glorious thing. What a miserable and painful business it was!

Here, in Chapter 4, along with his struggle with faith, Rodrigues also struggles with his preconceived notions of suffering. Before he travels to Japan, Rodrigues’s only experience with suffering is what he’s read in the scriptures and heard about in the stories of martyrs throughout history who suffered and died in the name of Christ. He imagines their martyrdom as a glorious act, inspiring valor and strength. But when Rodrigues watches Michiko and Ichizo die at the edge of the ocean, fixed to makeshift wooden stakes, his illusions about martyrdom are shattered. They die moaning, while hardly anyone watches. Mokichi tries to utter the words of a hymn, but even that seems out of tune and without inspiration. Here, Rodrigues realizes that the act of sacrifice can be a very mundane affair, full of pity and absolute despair. His perceptions of suffering are evolving as he spends more time in Japan, and he begins to feel that suffering is a very high price to pay for the glory of God.

That’s not snoring. That is the moaning of Christians hanging in the pit.

In these lines found in Chapter 8, Father Ferreira reveals to Rodrigues a horrible truth: The snoring that Rodrigues thinks he hears while being held captive in Inoue’s home is actually the sound of Christians being hung upside down in the pit and being slowly bled out to die. Before this, Rodrigues grows irritated and angry with the sounds. He can’t believe he has to listen to someone idly snoring nearby while he is hours away from a painful death. This irritation shows Rodrigues’s sense of self-importance. But when Ferreira reveals the true source of the sound, Rodrigues is shaken. This will be the last blow to his faith and the reason he decides to step on the fumie. Rodrigues can no longer endure the sight and sound of other people suffering on his behalf. He learns that the suffering of others, not his own, is what will finally break his “faith” in God.

And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest: ‘Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.’

Throughout the novel, Rodrigues is plagued by the idea of trampling on the fumie, a small metal box with the image of Christ depicted on it. This public act of renunciation is considered a sacrilegious act and one that will banish him from the Church forever. But here, in Chapter 8, the narrator explains that Rodrigues is ready to trample on the image. He knows that Christians are hanging in the pit suffering on his behalf until he apostatizes by stepping on the fumie, and he can no longer endure it. With his foot hovering over the image of Christ, Christ appears to speak to Rodrigues, telling him to go ahead. Christ tells Rodrigues that the reason he incarnated was to be trampled on so that he could suffer on humankind’s behalf. This completely transforms Rodrigues’s conception of suffering, making him realize that stepping on the fumie is only a symbolic act, not a sacrilegious one. The more sinful act would be knowingly letting others suffer without doing anything.

East versus West

What sweat and toil it had taken to plunge the spade into this barren soil, then to fertilize it, to cultivate it until it reached this present stage. Yes, the seed had been sown; it sprouted forth with vigor; and now it was the great mission of Garrpe and myself to tend it lest it wither and die.

In these lines in Chapter 2, Rodrigues describes in his letter how he and Garrpe are heading to Japan to continue the Jesuit mission of spreading Christianity in the East. He refers to the priests who ventured before him, spreading the college’s mission, comparing their work to a gardener tending the soil. Continuing this metaphor, Rodrigues comments on the “sweat and toil” it had taken to “plunge the spade” into the “barren soil” of Japan and how he and Garrpe must continue this work. Without their help, Rodrigues suggests, the seed of Christianity will die. This attitude reveals the underlying paternalistic and patronizing view of the Christian missionaries of the seventeenth century. To missionaries like Rodrigues, Japan needs their work because the country is spiritually barren without their help. This somewhat arrogant attitude will shape Rodrigues’s first interactions with the Japanese Christian peasants he meets in Tomogi and cause issues for him.

A tree which flourishes in one kind of soil may wither if the soil is changed. As for the tree of Christianity, in a foreign country its leaves may grow thick and the buds may be rich, while in Japan the leaves wither and no bud appears. Father, have you never thought of the difference in the soil, the difference in the water?

In this quote found in Chapter 6, Inoue uses a metaphor involving nature to explain Japan’s predicament with the Christian missionaries. In the scene, Rodrigues is being cross-examined by Inoue and other government officials after his capture and has argued that truth is universal and that Christianity, wherever it goes, would be understood by those true of heart. He is there to help Japan understand this. Inoue calmly listens to Rodrigues’s arguments and nods as if he is considering them carefully. Here, Inoue responds that Rodrigues’s logic may be flawed. He tells Rodrigues that he hasn’t considered the type of “soil” the “tree” of Christianity needs to survive. In other words, he tells Rodrigues that he hasn’t considered the context in which this universal truth needs to be understood. This philosophical argument cuts to the core of the East versus West problem explored in the novel. Inoue’s statements suggest that the West’s version of truth might not be as universal as it seems to those living there.

The Japanese are not able to think of God completely divorced from man; the Japanese cannot think of an existence that transcends the human.

In these lines found in Chapter 7, Father Ferreira tells Rodrigues about a central dilemma plaguing their mission in the East: The Japanese have taken their form of Christianity and made it into something else. The idea that the Japanese have taken Christianity and morphed it into something different from its original form horrifies Rodrigues because it not only is considered blasphemy but also means their work was all for nothing. Ferreira explains that the Japanese are not able to think of God as a person walking the earth as they can only worship what exists in nature. Rather, they think of transcendence as something to be accessed by the body, not wholly embodied in the human form. These complex philosophical ideas are touched upon throughout the novel, as Ferreira and Rodrigues struggle to comprehend their mission in the East. Their arguments with the samurai suggest that there may be an inherent incompatibility between the West and East and that, indeed, their work in Japan may be for naught.

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