One of 17th-century Japan's principal anti-Christian texts

Suzuki, Shosan. Hakirishitan [Smash the Christians / Refutation of Christianity].

€ 8,000.00

The first extant edition edition of this famous book, one of the most virulent early anti-Christianity books published in Japan. A previous edition appears to have been printed in 1642 in a very few copies, but no example is known to have survived.

Suzuki (1579-1655) came from a prominent Samurai family and fought bravely at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and the campaign for Osaka Castle in 1614/15. Attracted to Buddhist teachings, he became a Zen Buddhist monk in 1621 and developed a large following. With his brother Shigenari, the magistrate of Shimabara (Kyushu), they quelled a famous Christian rebellion in the area in 1637. Suzuki remained there for another eleven years, building 32 Buddhist temples and doing his best to remove all Christian influences. Suzuki wrote "Hakirishitan" around 1642 at the request of his brother. While an edition printed in that year is said to have been distributed to the 32 recently created Buddhist temples, the Catalogue of Early Japanese Books locates no copy.

This work is a powerful refutation of Christian doctrine, based on the author's profound knowledge of Buddhism. The "perception of the Zen school’s insistence on 'emptiness' or 'nothingness'' was insurmountable for the early Christian missionaries, whose entire worldview was founded on the concept of an eternally existent soul and creator deity. Zen and its teachings may have been a central target of Christian polemic, but it should also be noted that the most sustained attacks against Christianity were launched by Zen monks. During the 17th century, some of Christianity’s most vociferous opponents, such as Suzuki Shosan and Sesso Sosai (1589-1649), just to name a few, were from the Zen school. Suzuki’s anti-Christian campaign was a major part of his own missionary activities, situating him squarely within the Bakufu’s anti-Christian apparatus. His 'Hakirishitan' (Smash the Christians), written in Japanese, aggressively refutes Christianity while asserting that Buddhism helps instill the social order which reflects the cosmic one" (Baskind).

"One of the most important texts of this boom in anti-Christian discourse beginning in the 1660s" (Paramore)