JAPAN
strictly interdicted any attempt at religious propagandism on the part of the Franciscans, whose presence in the capital he had sanctioned in an ambassadorial capacity only. The Franciscans paid not the smallest heed to his veto. Possibly they justified their disobedience by some casuistry as convincing as their retort to the Jesuits. If so, they failed to make the point clear to Hideyoshi. He ordered their arrest, and sent them, with three Jesuit fathers and seventeen—some records say twenty-four—native Christians to Nagasaki, where they were executed. The scene was transferred to canvas by a nameless European artist of great ability. Crucifixion was the method of execution, but not crucifixion as practised in the Occident. The victims were tied to a cross and pierced from left and right simultaneously by sharp spears inserted below the ribs and thrust diagonally towards the shoulders. Death was generally instantaneous, but sometimes the stabs had to be repeated. The painting is true in every detail. It portrays, without exaggerating, the racial types of the victims and their slayers, the vinous swagger of the semi-brutalised executioner, the ecstatic calm of the Fathers, and the awful perspective of the long line of crosses with their bleeding burdens.
This was Hideyoshi's protest, first, against the risk of Japan's becoming a battle-field for rival creeds from abroad; secondly, against the defiant attitude assumed by the strangers towards secular
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