The book Silence is about a group of young Jesuits who travel to Japan to do missionary work and find more information about a former missionary, and mentor, who was shamed for apostasy. It shares some key parts of their adventure, as well as enlightens the reader of the torture and persecution that they suffered in Japan. Many missionaries and Christians in Japan did end up apostatizing due to the torture they faced.
The story follows a missionary named Sebastion Rodrigues and his companions. He is asked many times throughout the his time in Japan to apostatize, and he has to watch a lot of people either be killed or fall away. He was betrayed by a guide and sent to prison, and this is just one way the Japanese tried to make him give up his faith. Through his time in
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Some people were left on stakes out in the ocean, left to succumb to exhaustion and die in the water. Garrpe, a missionary who began with Rodrigues, died trying to save some of the believers from drowning. Their mentor, Christovao Ferreira, who had renounced his faith, told of some torture he faced. They were brought to a boiling pool of water and they were told to abandon their faith, or they would have the water poured over them. The missionaries were not only tortured physically, but also had to see those around them being tortured.
The Japanese realized that the best way to get rid of Christianity was to make the missionaries apostatize, causing members to follow. With this idea, they would hang believers upside down in a pit and let them bleed out. The missionaries would be forced to watch this, but they were told they could save them if they would denounce their teachings. Rodrigues was put in a prison, and he could constantly hear the moans of the pit. He eventually had to give in, stepping on the fumie and apostatizing. He was let out of prison, but he was confined to a certain