ABSTRACT
From the middle of the sixteenth century, missionaries from several European religious orders came to Japan to preach Christianity and gather new converts. The proscription against Christianity was still in effect, and the activities of the missionaries and the newly discovered Kirishitan communities alarmed officials, leading to the arrest and exile to other parts of Japan of thousands of Kirishitan in 1867-68. Though practicing Kirishitan were essentially invisible in Edo Japan after 1640, the idea of the Kirishitan and of Christianity endured in intellectual and popular discourse for over two centuries. The result of the constant repetition of this expulsion story and of scholars' engagement with Christianity was that, even though the missionaries were long gone and the hidden Kirishitan were deep underground, the idea of the Kirishitan was never actually expelled from the discursive space of Edo Japan.
