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Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豐臣 秀吉/豊臣 秀吉, 2 February 1536 – 18 September 1598) was a Japanese samurai and daimyo (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.
- Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign religieux have come into our realm, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they have even had the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our (native gods) Kami and Hotoke; although this outrage merits the severest punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will come to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our States, they shall be seized and punished as the greatest criminals.
- Edict in 1587, quoted in Will Durant, Our oriental heritage.
- Christianity had come to Japan in 1549 in the person of one of the first and noblest of Jesuits, St. Francis Xavier. The little community which he established grew so rapidly that within a generation after his coming there were seventy Jesuits and 150,000 converts in the empire. They were so numerous in Nagasaki that they made that trading port a Christian city, and persuaded its local ruler, Omura, to use direct action in spreading the new faith. “Within Nagasaki territory,” says Lafcadio Hearn, “Buddhism was totally suppressed—its priests being persecuted and driven away.” Alarmed at this spiritual invasion, and suspecting it of political designs, Hideyoshi sent a messenger to the Vice-Provincial of the Jesuits in Japan, armed with five peremptory questions:
1. Why, and by what authority, he (the Vice-Provincial) and his religieux (members of religious orders) constrained Hideyoshi’s subjects to become Christians?
2. Why they induced their disciples and their sectaries to overthrow temples?
3. Why they persecuted the Buddhist priests?
4. Why they and the other Portuguese ate animals useful to man, such as oxen and cows?
5. Why he allowed the merchants of his nation to buy Japanese and make slaves of them in the Indies?
Not satisfied with the replies, Hideyoshi issued, in 1587, the following edict:
Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign religieux have come into our realm, where they preach a law contrary to that of Japan, and that they have even had the audacity to destroy temples dedicated to our (native gods) Kami and Hotoke; although this outrage merits the severest punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that space no harm or hurt will come to them. But at the expiration of that term, we order that if any of them be found in our States, they shall be seized and punished as the greatest criminals.
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