Many late sixteenth/early seventeenth century Japanese Christian texts worked directly within arguments that could be found concurrently in Confucian, syncretist, and other traditions in at this time. Japanese Christian has often been characterized as an example of non-Japanese other, or as playing a primary role of importing Western thought during this period. This article argues, on contrary, that importance of many of major currents of Japanese Christian actually lies precisely in way they interacted with and within arguments which were not particular to, Christian tradition. KEYWORDS: Habian/Fabian - Myotei mondo - Hadaius - Early-modern - Tokugawa rule - Confucianism - Christianity - Scholasticism - Matteo Ricci - Tianzhu Shiyi (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) I also saw [Jesuit] text Myotei mondo by Fukan [Habian]... It discusses Buddhism (the ten sects as well as Ikko and Nichiren, so twelve sects), Confucianism and Shinto. It is not worth looking at. It is all verbose ranting strung together in vulgar Japanese. Hayashi Razan, Secretary to Tokugawa Shogunate and Anti-Christian Polemicist (1606 or 1650s) (HRB, 673)1 The extent of Habian's understanding of Christianity [as seen in Myotei mondo] ends with concept of a sentient creator God. His shallowness of faith meant that he was not able to grasp core doctrine of salvation through crucifixion. I think this was determining reason that he became an apostate. Ebisawa Arimichi, Christian historian (1991) (KKRS EA, 512) Habian ... (1565-1621), also known as Fabian, Fukansai Habian ..., Hapian ..., Habiyan ..., and Fukan ..., was a prominent apologist, public speaker, and author of famous Japanese text Myotei mondo ... Through these activities he came to be identified as most influential of all Japanese Christian thinkers of so-called first period of Christianity in of late sixteenth/early seventeenth centuries.2 As most competent Japanese rhetoricist of his time, Habian was dispatched in 1603 to Jesuit Temple in Japanese capital, Kyoto. While in this prime position in Kyoto Habian not only authored Myotei mondo, but moreover became widely known in city as a charismatic orator and representative of Jesuits in debates against notable Buddhist and Confucian figures. By 1608, however, Habian seems to have left Jesuits. Notably, this was before active persecution of Christians by Tokugawa shogunate began in 1613-1614. By 1620, seven years into active suppression of Christians by Tokugawa government, Habian was back in Nagasaki, but seemingly not on Christian side. He is ascribed as having participated in suppression of Christianity, most notably through his authorship of Hadaius, a text which went on to become most famous anti-Christian text of this period.3 After Habian's death, this dramatic story of his life, in particular his so-called apostasy, appeared as a theme in a range of different literary works.4 Thenceforth, Habian's and post-Jesuit period ideas, together with story of his life, came to be presented through a virile anti-Christian discourse as an example of intellectual and political clash between Japan and the West. In other words, his ideas and actions came to be understood in terms of an imagined conflict constructed between images of Japaneseness and non-Japaneseness.5 Interestingly, this same framework, constructed by anti-Christian polemicists in Tokugawa period, has also been one through which most historians of twentieth century have analyzed not just Habian's works, but indeed Japanese Christian of this period in general. In nearly all of twentieth-century research on this period, although Japanese Christian writing like Habian's period work Myotei mondo has been highly valued as a source of Japanese intellectual history, that value has been discussed in terms of its role in challenging traditional Japanese thought by introducing Western thought to (Ebisawsa 1964, 117-18; Ide 1995, 258-59). …