Anjiro

Francis Xavier writes that a Japanese named Anger came to him at Malacca with a Portuguese merchant, seeking a remedy for a troubled conscience; he spoke some Portuguese, wrote down the articles of the Creed as he heard them explained, and told Xavier what the Japanese would ask of a preacher (Xavier, Letters, letter 55, Cochin, 21 January 1548). A year later Xavier reports three Japanese students at the college of Santa Fe in Goa, and says of the one he calls Paul that he had learned to read, write and speak Portuguese in eight months and was making the Spiritual Exercises (Xavier, Letters, letter 63, to Ignatius, Cochin, 14 January 1549). Xavier’s English editor, H. J. Coleridge, identifies Anger with this Paul.

In 1549 Xavier landed at Kagoshima, which he calls the native place of Paul of the Holy Faith. Paul’s relations received them kindly; he went to see the lord of the place, and he wrote out in Japanese an account of the chief points of the Christian religion (Xavier, Letters, letter 79, Kagoshima, 5 November 1549, vol. 2, pp. 232, 250–251). See Francis Xavier in India and Japan.