ABSTRACT
Translations of stories of early church female martyrs in the Jesuit mission challenged Buddhist and Catholic views on women’s sanctity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan. European-born and Japanese-born Jesuits, and female and male translators, working in teams created a new genre of Kirishitan (Christian) literature. Going beyond sociocultural and religious-theological accommodation of missionary Christianity to the context of Japan, they rewrote the stories as though they were contemporary accounts of their own persecution. They rendered these female saints as symbolic Kirishitan women, who contested Japanese authorities’ imposition of state Buddhism. They also addressed the subjugation of women in Catholicism by presenting literary images of these Kirishitan female saints, who defy the barring of women from the Catholic priesthood and take up leadership of Kirishitan communities. These texts empowered actual Kirishitan women to cultivate venues of vocation including martyrdom, in defiance of the authorities and in tandem with the Jesuits.
