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This is a historical novel about the early years of Christianity in Japan. It is a fictionalized account based on real historical characters.

It’s set in the late 17th century. Two Portuguese priests get into Japan by ship from Macao at a time when Japanese officials had banned Christianity and were killing priests and torturing suspected Christians to apostatize (give up their faith). They are forced to verbally renounce their faith and to stomp and spit on religious figures.



The main character is a young priest who fears capture and torture but assumes his faith is so strong that he can withstand it, as Christ did. But he’s not prepared to be left alone watching while his parishioners are killed and tortured. “You came to this country to lay down your life for them. But in fact they are laying down their lives for you.�� Will he apostatize and agree to be held under “house arrest�� as an example of how priests willingly give up their religion? One of his predecessors, his former professor whom he greatly admired, is rumored to live in a mansion with his wife.

Arriving with religious fervor, the young priest quickly worries about losing his faith. He worries that Christianizing some Japanese has offered them nothing but suffering and death. As he is appalled by their suffering, at times they seem more at ease than he does, while they wait “wait for heavenly bliss�� following their deaths. The priest’s interrogators carry on intellectual arguments with him that it is impossible for the Japanese culture to understand or accept his western God even though they “convert.��

In letters that he writes back to church officials, the phrase “met with a glorious martyrdom�� is a euphemism for the death of priests. While these atrocities go on, the priest asks “Why is God so silent?�� �� thus the title.

The book is allegorical in several ways, not only in the priest comparing his suffering to Christ’s, but in his having his own Judas who sells him out to the authorities for a handful of silver coins.



All the Europeans in Japan at the time (Portuguese, English, Dutch, Spanish) are trying to convert Japanese to Christianity and they undercut each other’s efforts and cause confusion about what brand is the “true religion.��

Certainly not a pretty read, and a very slow starter, but a good read if you like historical fiction. Obviously it has a strong religious emphasis. All of Endo’s work has Catholicism as its theme and Endo (1923-1996) has been called “the Japanese Graham Greene.��

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