Background
ZAI FABIAN FUKAN was born in the province of Wakasa in 1565. He was a son of a Buddhist priest.
ZAI FABIAN FUKAN was born in the province of Wakasa in 1565. He was a son of a Buddhist priest.
In youth was trained for the Buddhist priesthood, later he embraced the Christian faith and received instruction at the Takatsuki seminary, in 1586 entering the Society of Jesus.
He resided for a time in Bungo in Kyushu, but because of fighting in the area later moved about to Yamaguchi, Shimabara, and Amakusa.
He taught Japanese literature at the Collegio in Nagasaki and at other Christian schools.
In 1605 he wrote a devotional work entitled Myotei mondo, which was cast in the form of a dialogue between two Japanese women, and the following year engaged in a debate with Hayashi Razan, the leading Confucian advisor to the Tokugawa shogunate, concerning the earth and the nature of the universe.
In 1608 feelings of dissatisfaction and involvements with a woman led him to renounce Christianity.
In 1586 he produced a condensation of the Ileike monogatari in colloquial language and also was connected with the printing of the Esopu monogatari (a Japanese translation from Latin of Aesop’s Fables) and Kinkushu, a collection of proverbs.
In 1620 he wrote a work entitled Ha Daiusu, attacking the Christian religion.