February 6 -- Feast of the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki

The second of the great unifying daimyos of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, ordered the abuse and crucifixion of twenty-six Christians -- Franciscans, Jesuits, & lay people, a Mexican, five Europeans, and the others Japanese -- for preaching an outlawed religion or abetting those who preached it. They had been soldiers, sword-makers, physicians, and of course missionary priests. The youngest, Anthony Denian, was a thirteen-year-old altar boy. Poor Philip of Jesus, the Mexican priest, had been shipwrecked on the coast of Japan while on a merchant ship bound for his homeland, where he was to be ordained a bishop.

To be fair to the Daimyo Toyotomi, each Christian was given the opportunity to save his life by recanting. This was after being arrested, mutilated (the left ear of each was cut off to mark them as Christians in case they got away), and then paraded from city to city for a couple of weeks while their guard encouraged the citizens to abuse them. In the end, they were marched up the Hill of Wheat in Nagasaki, hung on crosses, and then pierced with spears.

Toyotomi himself had a frustrating career. He and his predecessor and patron Oda Nobunaga were working to bring all the rival clans and warlords of Japan under a single government. Neither of those men attained the rank of shogun, but their conquests laid the groundwork for the future shogunate. Toyotomi's grand plan to invade and conquer China failed twice as his troops bogged down en route in Korea. Upon the birth of a son, Toyotomi had ordered his nephew and heir to commit suicide in order to prevent a challenge to the succession. When the nephew's family did not follow suit, he had thirty-one of them killed, including the women and children. But his son was not old enough to capitalize on the position he inherited, a weakened position anyway since the Korea plan had wasted lives and treasure. Toyotomi's one-time rival and then ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu, rose up to seize the leadership role, becoming the first shogun of Japan.

Although Christianity had been permitted in some parts of Japan in 1549, some daimyos had become increasingly fearful of European imperialism. Hideyoshi banned Christianity in his provinces in 1587, but did not fully enforce it since he still enjoyed lucrative trade with Europeans. The executions ten years later may have been a response to the openness with which the Christians were flouting his order, or it may have been to excite nationalistic spirits in advance of his second invasion of Korea. Fear of imperialism eventually overpowered the impulse to trade and Japan banned all contact with foreigners (except for four outlets, including one Dutch trade mission on an island in Nagasaki Harbor). Under this sakoku law, no Japanese could leave Japan under penalty of death and no foreigner could set foot on Japanese soil. Foreign ideas (including Christianity) were systematically rooted out of the country, to the extent that ideas can be destroyed (See Orwell, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot). Japanese ships were restricted in size so that sailing within the archipelago was possible but sailing to other lands was not. This policy lasted two hundred and twenty years until an American fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry famously "invited" the Japanese to open their nation or it would be opened for them.

This was a bit off course, but I used to read Japanese history and I always thought the pre-shogunate era is pretty fascinating. Fun stuff on a Sunday.

February 5 -- St. Agatha of Sicily

This is one of those happy feasts that's celebrated on the same day in both the Eastern and Western calendars. Hooray for Agatha.

She's apparently one of the top few virgin martyrs celebrated in the west; the basic plotline is familiar. A girl of exceptional beauty, she was sought by a Roman governor named Quintian. She explained her vow of chastity, and in exchange he explained his understanding of Roman justice.

First, he tried to blackmail her by promising not to charge her with Christianity. Failure to communicate: he didn't understand that Christianity was not a crime to the Christians, and that in the third century, suffering and martyrdom were like beer and pizza (something devoutly to be wished).

Second, he committed her to a brothel, hoping to cure her persistent and pernicious virginity. At this point, I begin to question Quintian's intelligence. If she wasn't willing to sleep with a wealthy patrician who probably took regular baths, why would she sleep with the sort of men who need to pay women to have sex with them? You may well answer fear, to which I refer you to his first attempt.

Here's the part of the story that never failed to captivate the readers: the tortures. I must believe that polytheists and Christians alike enjoyed these stories because they are always recounted in such detail. The Greek Orthodox Online Chapel tells us that she was subjected "many harsh torments" but SQPN.com tells us that she was "beaten, imprisoned, tortured, [and] her breasts were crushed and cut off. In that version, which identifies her persecutor as Quinctianus, she says, “Cruel man, have you forgotten your mother and the breast that nourished you, that you dare to mutilate me this way?” Whether she was healed by St. Peter (as one version claims) or not, she was re-imprisoned and then rolled on hot coals. An earthquake interrupted all this, killing a friend of QuinctiANUS and causing him to flee for his life. Then she settled back, thanked God for the relief of her pains, and died.

There were a few post-mortem miracles worth reporting. An angel placed a headstone on her grave. When Mount Etna was erupting, the faithful carried her veil in a procession, saving Catania. When the Turks were massing to invade Malta, she intervened again to save it.

February 4 -- Feast of St. Theophilus

St. Theophilus was a priest in Cilicia (modern Turkey) in the sixth century. He was offered the bishop's post in Adana, but declined humbly. Naturally another guy was picked, and sensing that Theophilus might be a rival, Bishop New Guy busted Theo from the post of archdeacon.

Theo took umbrage, of course, and signed a deal with a demon to get revenge. Sounding Faustian? Theo's legend is the source of Goethe's story. Theo signed in his own blood and got the mitre in exchange.

Years later, buyer's regret. He begged Mary Theotokos to intervene for him with God. He fasted thirty days after which Mary assured him of absolution, but the Devil still held the contract. Three days more of prayer and he woke to find the contract on his chest. He took it to New Guy the Ex-Bishop and confessed, but New Guy burned the contract. What's done is done, right? Of course Theophilus, in absolute relief and a state of relative sinlessness, died on the spot.

The sources I checked don't indicate whether New Guy got the mitre and staff back or not. I'd like to think so.

February 3 -- Feast of St. Blaise

Blaise was a fourth century bishop in Sebastea, Armenia. He was a healer of some repute, having famously once used prayer to get a fish bone from a choking child's throat. The persecution of Diocletian got him, as they got so many people. In his case, I guess he was raked with steel combs as a torture before he was beheaded.

Blaise's is one of the first feasts (outside the calendar holidays) that I remember. We used to get out throats blessed for it. The ritual seemed absurd and I remember snickering my way through the blessing, prompting Father Carlson to whap me upside the head when he was done praying. He was right to do so, of course, and did me know harm.

February 2 -- Feast of the Ebstorf Martyrs...

and St. Columbanus of Ghen.

The first thing I want to say is that the Vikings were real bastards. They have a couple of things to their credit, like not wiping out the Indians when they invaded North America, and founding Dublin. Of course, I have no doubt they would have wiped out the Indians if they had sufficient numbers, and they probably dropped off some fairly nasty viruses and bacteria that inadvertently depleted the native population (read: killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people).

So on to the saints. The Vikings were raiding Ireland, doing all those Viking things like killing, pillaging, raping, burning, and praying to the gods named after the days of the week. They'd have been silly if they had not been so lethal. St. Columbanus, an Irish abbot, packed up his community and moved to Ghen, Belgium. After retiring as an abbot, Columbanus became a hermit in a cemetery. I suppose I might go a little nuts if I chose to live in Belgium for the rest of my life because giant, flea-infested, illiterate, blood-crusted, fish-stinkers were swarming over my country too. But his reputation was one of great holiness, and that's probably another year in purgatory I'll get for defaming him. He is one of the patron saints of Belgium.

The marytrs of Ebstorf, however, were not cut-and-runners. Stand-and-diers, maybe, but not cut-and-runners. In 880, the Vikings were raiding Saxony, doing all those rotten things that Vikings do (see above). Duke Bruno gathered up an army and marched out to kick their tick-scabbed butts back to Scandinavia. A snow storm caught them in the field, and then a Viking ambush caught them in the field. Tough luck for Bruno, Bishops Markward and Theodoric, and all the other Saxons slaughtered that day.

I know you're probably confused. When Christians won a battle back in the day, it showed that God was on their side. But just because they lost, and that as a result of a snow storm, we cannot conclude that God was against them, or that Wednes and Thur and the other Norse gods had a hand in it. It doesn't work that way, all right?