Valignano has warned them about the dangers ahead: Japan is inhospitable to Christians, a new government official named Inoue has been torturing and killing Christians, and hostility from England and Dutch ships on the way to Japan will make their journey difficult. Against the admonitions of Father Valignano, the Rector of the Jesuit college in Macao, they decide to continue. When the three young missionaries reach Macao, Juan de Santa Marta is too ill to continue. Starting after the Prologue, the first chapter onwards is told from Rodrigues's perspective, in the form of his letters now stored in a Portuguese library. This is because Christians have undergone terrible tortures there. After a difficult months-long journey, they end up in Macao, where the priest Valigano warns them that there are to be no more missionaries going to Japan. Three of Ferreira's students - Francisco Garrpe, Juan de Santa Marta, and Sebastion Rodrigues - seek approval to go to Japan and investigate what happened to Ferreira and to carry on as missionaries. Ferreira has sent back letters to Europe detailing the gruesome tortures he has witnessed. By the year 1629, Christians were being persecuted in earnest and tortured to make them apostatize. For much of the 1500s, missionaries enjoyed favor in Japan, but in 1587 the new regent Hideyoshi changed the policy toward Christians. His fellow Portuguese priests are shocked and upset, since he was a pillar of Christianity in Japan and greatly revered in Rome. ![]() ![]() In the Prologue, the Jesuit missionary Christovao Ferreira, who has served 33 years in Japan, has recently apostatized.
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