Brother Juan as Linguist/Interpreter

The language is not very difficult to understand, for although I am not at all clever I know a great deal of it, at least as far as understanding it goes. Gaspar Vilela, SJ

     In a letter to Rome dated January 20, 1548, Xavier outlines his plans for Anjiro. The Samurai will serve as his interpreter and to prepare him for that role, he will study at the College of St. Paul in Goa.  The letter explained that by attending the Jesuit College, “Anjiro will become acquainted with the Portuguese manner of living and improve his ability to speak the language.  Christian doctrine will be taught with the goal of him translating it into Japanese the articles of faith.” This letter demonstrates the importance of Anjiro’s participation because it clearly shows the extent that Xavier anticipated depending on him in Japan.  

     By all accounts, Anjiro thrived in Goa. In a letter written to Ignatius, Xavier wrote “Anjiro learned to speak Portuguese perfectly; he memorized the Gospel of Matthew and there is no better interpreter for Japan.”   In 1548 he was baptized and given the name Paul of the Holy Faith.   When the missionaries arrived in Kagoshima, as anticipated, the language barrier was indeed the missionaries chief obstacle. Xavier writes of his early frustration “Now we are like so many statues amongst them, for they speak and talk to us about many things, whilst we, not understanding the language, hold our peace.” Early on they could not function without an interpreter, and Anjiro was a invaluable asset to them.  However, within that first year in Kagoshima, for some reason, Anjiro’s status within the missionary group changed, and he ceased being its interpreter. Brother Juan took up that role instead.

The local Daimyo of Kagoshima had tolerated the Jesuits in his fiefdom in the hope that the Portuguese would adopt his city as their main trading port.  Unfortunately, Kagoshima was a small isolated and the Portuguese by passed it in favor of the port at Hirado.  Eventually for the Daimyo, the novelty of the missionaries wore off and they were encouraged to move on.  spent During the time in Kagoshima, Anjiro was credited with the conversion of 100 converts including members of his own family.  As a result, Xavier left him behind to care for the small Kagoshima Christian community.

Ignorance of the language would have been an impossible hindrance to their evangelical work.  However, while it was true that Father Cosme de Torres and Xavier both struggled, Brother Juan demonstrated an amazing aptitude for language learning.  Amazingly he was able to quickly grasp both speaking and writing Japanese. As a result, he served as Xavier's interpreter and with the exception of the final few months of Xavier’s stay in Japan, he and Brother Juan were constantly in each other’s company.  During that time, the young Jesuit brother s preached to ordinary people, debated Buddhist monks, and witnessed the Christian Faith in the courts of powerful Japanese war lords.  As a result, whatever success that Xavier accomplished in Japan, Brother Juan was a significant contributor to that success.  Xavier mindful of Brother Juan's contribution wrote of him  in a letter written on March 22, 1552: “They have a good knowledge of the language and therefore produce very great fruit.”

Throughout the sixteenth century fellow Jesuits missionaries and others would also struggle with  the language.  Of all the factors taken into consideration, most important was to learn the language at a relatively young age.  For example, in 1596, Fray Jeronimo de Jesus, a Spanish Franciscan priest in Japan, wrote “The language is for young men only; old men can’t take it in.”  Upon Brother Juan’s arrival, he was barely twenty-three years old while Xavier and Torres were nearly twice his age.  This might help explain why the young brother excelled and the older and more accomplished priests did not even though all three were multi-lingual – each being fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and, since Latin was the language of the Church, at least rudimentary Latin.  

Santiago de Compostella by way of the "Camino"

A very enjoyable portion of my research involved the history of Muslim Spain or al-Andalusia.  The Muslim Conquest dominated most of the Iberian peninsula for more than seven hundred years.  The Muslims in 711 over ran the country then ruled by a Visigothic Christian monarchy.  

During my research I came across the story of the ‘discovery’ in about 830 of the tomb of St. James the Apostle at the site later known as Santiago de Compostella, which provided the small kingdom with a powerful patron saint and important focus of Christian belief.  This discovery was proof enough that the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal combined) was meant by God to be a Christian country.

Listening to a Boston College podcast on contemporary Catholic issues, a husband and wife team who were also professors discussing their "pilgrimage" in Spain along the "Camino."  As it turns out, thousands of Catholics in Europe make this trek on foot along the Camino to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella (which is over the grave of the apostle) and is by all accounts a beautiful and wonderful experience. The trek which can begin in France and into northwestern Spain can be as long as 1000 miles or as short as a 100 miles.  The point is that it is a awesome established tradition in Europe and I would never have known what they were talking about had I not done hours and hours of research and by luck come across Santiago de Compostella. 

Now I must walk the Camino myself someday and will be sorely disappointed if I don't!  An interesting bit of the history of the town is that the "Moors" sacked the city in 997 and paraded the catheral's huge bells through Cordoba, then the capital of al-Andalusia.  

As it turns out, learning Japanese is not that hard

One of my main arguments is that thanks to Brother Juan's linguistic ability, St. Francis Xavier was able to be much more effective than he might otherwise had been.

A brief background on Xavier's Plan A for Japan was that a native Japanese convert to Christianity was act as his interpreter.  Anjiro was of the Samurai class and on the run for murder in his home town of Kagoshima on the southern tip of Japan. Over come with guilt for his crimes, he sought out Xavier in the port city of Malacca in what is now Malaysia.  It didn't work out once back in Japan but fortunately Brother Juan had amazing language skills.

There are several reasons for this: first he was young, barely 23 years old by the time he arrived in India and by that time he was already fluent in three languages, his native Spanish, Portuguese while living in Lisbon, and Latin which was the language of the Church which he undoubtedly learned in the seminary.

As for the Japanese language, I quote the Japanese teacher and interpreter Namiko Abe where she says, "If looked at from a linguistic point of view, Japanese is considered one of the easier languages for a beginner to learn.  It has a simple pronunciation scheme and with few exceptions a straight forward set of grammatical rules.  Limitations on sentence structure are also quite minimal.  The most difficult aspect of learning Japanese is the mastery of reading and writing of Kanji."  Thus it is doable especially if one has linguistic talent.

In a relatively short period of time in Europe, Brother Juan had to learn Portuguese and get up to speed on Latin.  Clearly, whether he was aware of it or not, he must have had a personal strategy for learning new languages.  Obviously he was successful at it, so he must have possessed incredible talent as well.

What Brother Juan was able to accomplish speaking Japanese is amazing; street preaching in 16th century Japanese cities where he gave commentary on Gospel readings; acting as Xavier's interpreter in disputations with Buddhist priests, and in the courts of Japanese warlords, also interpreting for Xavier, giving the latest European scientific knowledge on geography, astronomy and climatology. The Japanese were amazed with Xavier's wisdom and knowledge all possible thanks to Brother Juan's language skills.

Bright ideas from Dr. Kidd

Who would have thought that a master's thesis would become the proverbial dough/yeast combination that grows exponentially.

Of course, early on the vast majority of my time was spent on research.  I just assumed I would reach a point where my interest would be satiated and then the writing would flow.  For the most part that is true, however, new questions constantly seemed to come to mind leading me one direction or the other.  With regards to Brother Juan I seemed to work backwards from Japan; why Japan? Why Xavier? Why India? Why the Jesuits? Why Portugal? How did this young Spaniard end up in all these places? As a Jesuit? With Xavier?

I had many concerns but one was to be intellectually honest.  I was for some reason mindful that someday a history professor would read my paper and I dreaded the thought that it would be perceived as amateurish.

But one day Dr. Kidd gave me two bits of good advice; right when I needed them most.  The first was that yes, I needed to know all this background information, but my readers don't! In my writing, I'd been explaining details that no one really needed to know.  If my readers are the graduate committee, I should just assume that they are familiar with the topic and merely mentioning, even hinting at details or aspects of historical record is enough.  Indeed, for all my concern for being perceived as amateurish, writing at such as detailed level is something an amateur would do!

The second bit of advice that Dr. Kidd gave me was to read other student's M.A. papers.  I knew that this was something I should be doing, but put off thinking that I needed to concentrate of other (more important) things.  Up until recently I have been reading reading only academic research articles thinking that this is the standard I need to measure up to.  A couple of weeks ago I read a paper written by a Stanford professor.  This woman has been a professor for over twenty-five years. The topic she wrote on is very sophisticated, her analysis is tremendous, even her vocabulary is breathtaking.

A USC reference librarian showed me how to access M.A. thesis papers online.  When I finally starting reading I realized that there was a tremendous difference between graduate school level thesis papers and published research articles.  This graduate students were very much like me!  The   writing is good, but not supreme.  The level of analysis is also good, but not necessarily superior.  The vocabulary is good as well, but I am not constantly reaching for my pocket dictionary like I might with published works; books, articles, and essays.

This realization took a lot of pressure off me.  My thesis really only needs to be 50-60 pages to be sufficient.  To be honest, right now I've got about 150 written pages, although most of it will never be used.  More than ever, I have this real appreciation for a well-written 50 page paper that is logical, organized, concise, well researched, where my arguments are well supported.  I think everyone would be happy with just that.

The one thing that I can bring to the paper that is uniquely me is a real enthusiasm for the subject matter.  A paper written by Sarah Lawrence College grad student Christa De'Angelica entitled Beyond Bikini Kill: A History of riot grrrl, from grrrls to ladies, is a good example.  The paper is about an aspect of girls in the punk rock movement.  It is an interesting paper, but, more than anything, I just admire her enthusiasm for her topic.  I wonder if in the end, that is all that one brings with their paper; their love, fascination, and enthusiasm for the topic.  

My China trip

In 2011, our Mount St. Mary's College MBA cohort did a travel study to China.  The tour ended in Hong Kong and on the last day of the trip nothing was planned and we had a free day.   I chose to visit nearby Macau, specifically I wished to visit the old Portuguese colonial section of the island.  Strolling through the the historic colonial area I came across a small, weathered, blue and white chapel that easily could have been built by the Portuguese during the colonial era.  Inside I discovered a small statue (probably five feet in height) of St. Francis Xavier.  The wall behind the saint was painted so that it looked like a blazing ball of fire.  Xavier was posed in a manner that made him seem to be walking with his right arm outstretched before him holding a crucifix.  The entire scene was simple yet effective and it made an impression on me.  Later, I thought how odd it was to find a chapel dedicated to Francis Xavier out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the South China Sea.  I wondered how that chapel came to be and why it had been dedicated to the great saint. On the plane flight back to Los Angeles I resolved to research Xavier.  That was the beginning of what is now my master's thesis in Humanities, also from Mount St. Mary's College.

I was already somewhat familiar with Xavier.  For example, I knew that he was one of the original seven founding members of the Society of Jesus. (Jesuit is the common name for a member of the Society of Jesus.)  I vaguely knew that he was the room mate of Ignatius Loyola while at the University of Paris.  However, I never have paid much attention to that fact.  My research though, once started, led to one question after another.  As it turned out, I discovered, Xavier is considered one of the Catholic Church's greatest saints; and the greatest missionary since St. Paul.

Much has been written on Xavier: numerous articles and books exist; some books are the size of treatises.  Xavier's missionary activity took him from India to Malaysia to to Japan before finally dying on a small island off the coast of China.  Most scholars agree that Xavier's mission to Japan was his greatest accomplishment.  He and two other Spanish Jesuits were the first Christian missionaries to visit the island.  And while a few Portuguese merchants and traders had visited a  several Japan's port cities, the Jesuits were the first to penetrate the interior of the country traveling hundreds of miles in an attempt to convert the Japanese emperor to Christianity.

As I've already mentioned, all this is well known and documented.  However, one aspect of the Jesuit's mission seems to me to have been neglected and that is the important role that the young Jesuit Brother Juan Fernandez played in the success of the mission.

What my master's thesis and this blog are attempts to do is to examine, analyze, and discuss Brother Juan's role and his many contributions, not only the mission but later after Xavier returned to Indian, to the nascent Japanese Christian community.  This is important because not only was the young brother an eyewitness to history, but he participated to a major extent and thus he himself is a historical figure.  My own research has shown that much of Xavier's success depended on Brother Juan and the role he played.  Finally, Xavier as the papal nuncio to India had numerous other duties to attend to and ultimately he left Japan never to return, while Brother Juan never left dying there having exhausted his life in service to the small Japanese Christian community.

This blog will in the end show that Brother Juan, while only lightly regarded by historians, lived a life of heroic proportions in Japan dying beloved by his early Japanese Christians.