Note 52 — Chapter LXVII

[At this time the fathers who were laboring for the good of the natives of Japon had a joyful day in seeing the martyrdom of a person who had been brought to the faith, instructed, and baptized by their ministry; and in whom the faith had struck so deep roots that he yielded fruit an hundred fold, according to the gospel, by suffering martyrdom within four months after becoming a Christian. Having been baptized on July 22, 1608, he was decapitated for his confession of faith on the seventeenth of November in the same year, in the kingdom of Satzuma, his native country. There were laws of the emperor, and also of the actual king of that region, that no soldier or person of rank should be baptized, since it was believed that the strength of these persons would be weakened if they gave up their obligations to those deities from whom victory was expected. In spite of this law, many soldiers and persons of rank were baptized, among them Xichiyemon, a youth of high rank. He received baptism from the hands of father Fray Joseph de San Jacintho, who warned him of the tumult which his baptism would arouse, and of the destruction of his soul which would follow if he were to renounce his baptism. He was so determined and courageous that the father baptized him by the name of Leon. His devotion was such that his conversion could not long be hidden; and, when it was known, the valiant Leon was obliged to resist the supplications of his superior officers, his friends, and his relatives, who represented to him the shame which he would bring upon his family if he should die by the hands of the executioner. This is a thing above measure infamous in Japon, because all malefactors of rank who are condemned to death cut open their own abdomens, and wound their bowels with their own knives [catanas], and thus kill themselves, that they may not die at the hands of another.”52 His obligations to his wife and children, and his duties of obedience as a soldier, were insisted upon; but he remained resolved to die as a Christian, not taking his own life, but offering it. He was not imprisoned, and visited his spiritual father, Fray Juan Joseph de San Jacintho, in a little village a quarter of a legua from Firaça. At the appointed time he dressed himself in new white clothes, washed his head, and gird on two swords. He then went to the cross-roads where he was to suffer, and died with a rosary in his hand and a little picture of the descent from the cross on his bosom. His holy body was exhumed by the Christians, and was kept by the fathers of St. Dominic, who afterward, when they were driven from the country, took it with them to Manila and placed it in the chapel of the relics. The tyrant commanded that Leon’s wife and eldest son should suffer death, because they had been unable to persuade him to recant. Pablo, Leon’s friend, who was accused at the same time, was not so happy as he, but was merely banished from the kingdom of Satzuma.