Cosme de Torrès
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Cosme de Torres (1510 – October 2, 1570) was a Spanish Jesuit from Valencia and one of the first Christian missionaries in Japan. He was born in
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
and died in
Amakusa , which means "Heaven's Grass," is a series of islands off the west coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Geography The largest island of the Amakusa group is Shimoshima, which is 26.5 miles long and 13.5 mi ...
, an island now in
Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a population of 1,461,000, ...
Prefecture, Japan.


Early life (1510–1549)

Born in
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
in 1510, Torres was ordained into the priesthood in 1535. In 1536 he was a teacher of grammar at Mons Rrendinus university, Mallorca. After a stay in Valencia and
Ulldecona Ulldecona is a town in the South of Catalonia, in Montsià ( Terres de l'Ebre), near the Senia River. Ulldecona is part of the Taula del Sénia free association of municipalities. It has got town privileges since 1273. The nearest towns are: Al ...
, he was sent as a
missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
to
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. From there, he went to Asia and met
Francis Xavier Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December ...
in the
Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...
in 1546. He entered the
Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...
in Goa in 1548, where he worked as a teacher of
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
at the Jesuit college.


Beginnings of the Japanese mission (1549–1551)

Torres arrived in
Kagoshima , abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...
, a city located in Kyushu, the southernmost of the three main islands of Japan on August 15, 1549. He was accompanied by
Francis Xavier Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December ...
, Brother Juan Fernandez, and several Indian servants, as well as by three Japanese Christians converts that had met Xavier in Malacca in 1547. The missionaries began work in
Kagoshima , abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...
by preaching on the streets, reading from a catechism written by Xavier that had been translated into Japanese by their companion, Anjirō. In late 1549, Xavier decided to travel to
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...
where he intended to request an audience with the Japanese emperor, Emperor Go-Nara. Both Torres and Fernandez went with him. En route, they stopped in Yamaguchi, where they began working to convert the population of the city. When Xavier and Fernandez left Yamaguchi in December 1550 to continue the journey to the capital, Torres was left behind to continue the missionary work begun there. In mid-1551, Xavier returned to Yamaguchi after a disappointing trip to Kyoto, where he was denied his request for an imperial audience. In September 1551, Torres wrote of the intellectual curiosity of the citizens of Yamaguchi, saying "Those esuitswho come to these regions must be very learned in order to answer the very deep and difficult questions which they he citizensask from morning till night. They are very insistent in their questions. From the day on which Padre Mestre Francisco came into this city, which is now some five months or more ago, there has never been a day on which there were not priests and laymen here from morning until late at night in order to ask all kinds of questions." Torres also wrote of his success in converting the Japanese in Yamaguchi: "When they he Japanese Christian convertsonce accepted the faith, there are, from what I have seen and heard, and from what I have experienced with them, no people in the world so tenacious. It seems to me that the majority of those who have become Christians, and of those there are many, are ready to endure any calamity for the love of God." Reportedly, Torres baptized more than two thousand people and built a church in the city. Here, he worked selflessly to help townspeople whose lives were devastated by the constant warfare of the
Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...
in Japan, even giving up his life savings to buy food for starving people regardless of whether they were Christians or Buddhists.


Torres as mission superior (1551–1570)

After Xavier departed from Japan in 1551 to begin a Jesuit mission in China, Torrès succeeded him as the superior of the Japanese mission. Under his leadership, the number of Christians in Japan grew steadily, despite antagonism from Buddhist sects. During his time as mission superior, his success in converting large numbers of Japanese people aroused much animosity on the part of the Buddhist monks. Torres had several debates with learned members of the Buddhist community, which were recorded by Brother Fernandez. Torres based his arguments in these debates on reason, believing that it would be highly effective against the Japanese who were, as he said, "led by reason just as well as and even more willingly than Spaniards." He especially attacked the Buddhist belief that the foundation and origin of the world was pure nonbeing. Torres stayed in Yamaguchi until the city was taken over by the Mori clan in 1556, which was hostile towards Christianity. At this time, Torres was forced to move to
Bungo Province was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces. History At the end of the 7th century, Toyo ...
, where he was offered protection by the young ''
daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominal ...
'', Ōtomo Yoshishige. The destruction of the mission in Yamaguchi by the Mori clan was especially heart-breaking for Torres, who wrote to Núñez that his life in Yamaguchi had been filled with joy and satisfaction. In 1562, Torrès moved to
Yokoseura Yokoseura (横瀬浦) is a port located at the northern tip of the Nishisonogi Peninsula on the Japanese island of Kyushu, administratively under Saikai city, Nagasaki Prefecture. It was developed as an entrepot by the Portuguese in 1562 with th ...
, a port city that was recently opened to Portuguese traders by local daimyo
Ōmura Sumitada Ōmura Sumitada (大村 純忠, 1533 – June 23, 1587) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' lord of the Sengoku period. He achieved fame throughout the country for being the first of the daimyo to convert to Christianity following the arrival of the ...
. Torres directed the negotiations with Ōmura Sumitada concerning the establishment of a port in Nagasaki for the foreign trade, as the Jesuit historian Luis de Guzmán specially remarks. Ōmura donated a piece of land and a house to the Jesuit mission from his own personal property. The house was used as a Jesuit residence and Torres established a Christian cemetery, as well as a hospital on the donated land. This cemetery was particularly important for the mission, since Buddhist temples refused to bury Japanese Christian converts. The Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis recorded many incidents that demonstrate the missionary zeal and self-sacrificing nature of Torres. Torres never failed to offer mass, even if he was so gravely ill that he was unable to stand and had to lean against the altar. He greeted all visitors warmly, with "tears of love from his eyes". According to Frois, his "modesty and religious maturity suited the nature of the Japanese so much that he won profound love and respect from them".Fujita 49 Torres was so adored by Japanese Christian converts that many of them kept locks of his hair or pieces of his old clothing as treasures. Torrès's primary concern was the education of the Christian community. He encouraged his congregation to become familiar with the Bible and promoted this by organizing pageants to educate the new converts. He was also especially concerned with the education of Christian children. He held daily catechism classes for forty to fifty children who were taught to recite prayers in Latin. Torres also organized Japanese classes for them, appointing a Japanese lay brother to teach them to read and write in their native language.


See also

*
Francis Xavier Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December ...
*
Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...
*
Exploration of Asia This is a chronology of the early European exploration of Asia. First wave of exploration (mainly by land) Antiquity * 515 BC: Scylax explores the Indus and the sea route across the Indian Ocean to Egypt. * 330 BC: Alexander the Great conquers ...
*
Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...


References


Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Torres, Cosme De 1510 births 1570 deaths People from Valencia History of Catholicism in Asia 16th-century Spanish Jesuits Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Japan Jesuit missionaries Spanish expatriates in Japan