Cristóvão Ferreira

Cristóvão Ferreira (c. 1580–1650) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary who famously committed apostasy after being tortured in the anti-Christian purges of Japan. Born around 1580 in Portugal, Ferreira was sent to Asia, where he was a missionary in Japan from 1609 to 1633, becoming the head Jesuit under the oppression of the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1633, Ferreira was captured and committed apostasy after being tortured for five hours. He became the most famous of the "fallen priests", converting to Shintoism and changing his name to Sawano Chūan (Japanese: 沢野忠庵), went on to write a book entitled The Deception Revealed in 1636, and participated in government trials of other captured Jesuits.^[1] He died in Nagasaki in 1650.^[2]

In The Deception Revealed, he asserted that God did not create the world and that moreover the world had never been created. Neither hell, paradise, nor predestination existed; stillborn children were innocent of original sin (which in any case did not exist); Christianity was an invention. Payment for masses and indulgencies, excommunication, dietary laws, Mary's virginity, the Three Kings, were so much twaddle. The Resurrection of Jesus was a tale bereft of reason, ludicrous, scandalous, a hoax; sacraments and confessions were nonsense; the Eucharist a metaphor; the Last Judgement an unbelievable delusion.

See also

• Shusaku Endo
• List of former Christians

References

1. ^ The making of an enterprise: the Society of Jesus in Portugal, its empire, and beyond, 1540-1750, Dauril Alden, Stanford University Press, 1996, p. 136
2. ^ Henrique Leitão (2000). "Reseña de 'La Supercherie Dévoilée. Une Réfutation du Catholocisme au Japon au XVIIe Siécle' de Jacques Proust," Bulletin of Portuguese / Japanese Studies, December, Año/Vol 1, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Lisboa, Portugal, 131-134

Further reading

• Cieslik, Hubert (1973). "The Case of Christovão Ferreira". Monumenta Nipponica 29
• (Japanese) Miyanaga Takashi (2004). Nihon Yōgakushi: Po, Ra, Ran, Ei, Doku, Futsu, Rogo no juyō. Tokyo: Sanshūsha, p.50. ISBN 4384040113

Persondata
Name	Ferreira, Cristovao
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Short description
Date of birth	1580
Place of birth
Date of death	1650
Place of death