This study examines the historical relationships between rulership and religion in Japan from the viewpoint of Max Weber's sociology. Weber emphasizes the cultural importance of the relationship between secular and religious power. He states:
For the development of culture the decisive question was whether or not the military charisma of the warlord and the pacifist charisma of the (usually meteorological) magician were united in the same hand. In the case that they were united (the case of caesaro-papism), the question was: which charisma was predominant for the development of ruling power? (1951, 30). 1
This study attempts to answer the above two questions in the case of Japan. As for the first question of whether or not the ruler united secular and magico-religious power, the Japanese rulers united both authorities. Sociologically speaking, the united rulership with the primacy on secular power is called "caesaro-papism" (priestly king) such as in ancient Rome, Greece, China and Japan. The united rulership with the primacy on religious authority is called "theocracy" such as in the New Kingdom of Egypt, Israel under the Persian Empire, Lamaist Tibet and Calvin's Geneva. 2 On the other hand, when secular and religious power are not united into a ruling body but exercised independently, such dual rulerships are called "hierocracy" such as in the Medieval West.
Weber contrasts Occidental dual culture to Oriental unified cultures:
At least from a sociological viewpoint, the Occidental Middle Ages were much less of a unified culture than the Egyptian, Tibetan and Jewish cultures after the theocracy's victory, or than China since the triumph of Confucianism, Japan --if we disregard Buddhism-- since the victory of feudalism.... Occidental hierocracy lived in a state of tension with the political power and constituted its major restraint; this contrasted with the purely caesaro-papist or purely theocratic structures of Antiquity and the Orient. In the Occident authority was set against authority, legitimacy against legitimacy, one office charisma against the other (1968, 1193).
Unlike Western hierocracy, Japanese rulership demonstrated caesaro-papism throughout its history. In the early era, the emperor embodied both the military warlord and the magico-pacifist chieftain. In the medieval era, the Shogun, the warrior lord, subjugated the magico-religious authority of Buddhist priests under his military power. In the modern era, the military ruling class governed the subjects by uniting religion and polity. Each type of Japanese caesaro-papist rulership controlled religious authority as a means of their secular interests and restricted the independent and autonomous development of religion.
Japanese religions have taken a quite different course of development from Western hierocratic religion. Weber contrasts Occidental to Oriental religions:
Occidental Catholicism offered (in comparison with these Oriental religions) ... the rationalization of hierocratic rulership... The Oriental religions preserved the unrationalized charismatic character of religiosity more than did the Occidental church; in part at least, this was a consequence of the purely historical fact that not they but the secular powers, whose paths they crossed, were the carriers of spiritual and social culture, and that they always remained subject to caesaro-papist control (1968, 1192).
From the above viewpoint, this study focuses on how the caesaro-papist rulership controlled the religious and spiritual life of the Japanese, or how the caesaro-papist restricted the development of religion.
As for the second question of which charisma,3 military or economic charisma, was predominant in the caesaro-papist regime, Japanese rulership demonstrated the predominance of military charisma throughout its history. In early Japan up until the 5th century, the emperors were always warriors and led expeditions of conquest. In medieval Japan, the military charisma of the Shogun became predominant. In modern Japan, the military charisma of the bureaucratically disciplined army and navy led to the road of expansionism until the end of World War II. The centrality of military charisma of Japanese rulership can be contrasted to the pacifist charisma of Chinese caesaro-papism. Due to this difference, Japanese culture took a different shape from Chinese culture, even though the former was overwhelmingly influenced by the latter. In the beginning of the Yamato state, the Imperial House established itself as the descendant of the Sun deity. The Imperial House's claim to its divine origin remained unchallenged as long as its hereditary charisma legitimized the existing secular rulership. In contrast, the Chinese emperor emerged from the economic and magical charisma of the pacifist chieftain, demonstrated the predominance of magico-pacifist authority. Weber writes:
In China, as discussed above, some fundamental prehistoric events ... caused Imperial authority to emerge from magical charisma. Secular and spiritual authority were combined in the one hand, the spiritual strongly predominating... The Chinese monarch remained primarily a pontifex; he was the old rainmaker of magical religion (1951, 31).
Unlike the hereditarily guaranteed rulership of the Japanese emperor, the Chinese emperor had to prove himself as the Mandate of Heaven by his ever renewed magical charisma. If the emperor failed to prove this, his rulership became endangered. Weber describes the immediacy of the charisma of the Chinese emperor:
If the rivers broke the dikes, or if rain did not fall despite the sacrifices made, it was evidence --such was expressly taught-- that the emperor did not have the charismatic qualities demanded by Heaven. In such cases the emperor did public penitence for his sins... If this was of no avail the emperor had to expect abdication (1951, 31).
Thus, the difference between the predominant types of charisma affected the courses of cultural development between Japan and China, although the cultural difference between Japan and China was far less distinctive than that between Japan and the Occident. This study, therefore, also focuses on distinctive military charisma of Japanese caesaro-papism. (See the Chart 1.) Let us first look into the sociological principle of caesaro-papism, the theme of this study.
The term caesaro-papism, as mentioned above, means secular power's unification of magical-religious authority, or, "the complete subordination of priestly to secular power" (Weber 1968, 1161). A caesaro-papist ruler, "by his charisma, also owns the highest power in religious matter" (Weber 1968, 1160). Caesaro-papism is the opposite concept of theocracy in which the religious authority subordinates the secular authority and "forestall(s) the rise of secular powers" (Weber 1968, 1160). 4 The point of the distinction between caesaro-papism and theocracy lies in the difference of initiative power. If secular power dominates and subjugates religious power, the rulership is called caesaro-papism. In contrast, if religious authority dominates and subjugates secular power, the rulership is called theocracy. Caesaro-papism uses magico-religious authority as a means of its secular end, whereas theocracy uses secular power as a means of its religious end.
The caesaro-papist ruler becomes the chief priest (pontifex). Or the ruling body attaches the highest priestly function to claim the supreme authority over magical-religious matters. For example, the Chinese emperor, "as supreme pontifex, had ritual privileges which entitled him alone to offer the highest sacrifices" (Weber 1951, 39).
Based on the extent that a secular ruler subordinates magico-religious authority, Weber measures typical caesaro-papist states:
Magical-ritual forces were controlled most thoroughly in the ancient polis, rather well by the feudal powers in Japan and the patrimonial ones in China, and at least reasonably well by the bureaucratic state in Byzantium and Russia (1968, 1161).
In ancient times, caesaro-papist rulership prevailed because of magical and unrationalized religiosity. Weber describes a condition of caesaro-papist rulership:
The subjugation of religious to royal authority was most successful when religious qualification still functioned as a magical charisma of its bearers and had not yet been rationalized into a bureaucratic apparatus with its own doctrinal system (1968, 1161).
Weber takes the example of the ancient Greek priesthood:
The priestly order there was not organized, ranked, and unified. Hence many consequences: there was no special training for the priesthood, nor was there religious instruction for laymen, nor were priests bound by a special code of ascetic and ritual rules (though the were steps - relatively minor ones - in that direction). Above all, laymen were not summoned to a sectarian ideal of ascetic purity as in Judaism (1968, 186).
The subjugation of religion means that religion becomes a tool of secular power, and that thereby genuine religious concerns such as salvational doctrine and ethical prophecy are eliminated. Caesaro-papist ruling presupposes non-ethical and non-salvational religiosity. Weber continues to discuss:
Subjugation was feasible especially when ethics or salvation were not yet dominant in religious thought or had been abandoned again (1968, 1161).
Thus, caesaro-papism subjugates religious authority and utilizes it as a means of a secular end.
Caesaro-papist rulership treats religion as a ritualistic affair, and suppresses independent movements of ethical and salvational religion. Weber describes the following characteristics of caesaro-papist policy of religion. First, the caesaro-papist state establishes and supervises state religion. Weber says:
Caesaro-papist government treats ecclesiastic affairs simply as a branch of political administration.... All official priestly acts are supervised by the state (1968, 1162).
Second, by establishing official religion, the state prevents independence and autonomy of the priesthood, especially in religious conduct and education. Weber writes:
The state-maintained priesthood lacks economic autonomy, property and an independent administrative apparatus.... There is no specifically clerical way of life, apart from some technical training for ritual functions, and hence also no specifically priestly education (1968, 1162).
Third, as a consequence, the state prevents the development of theology and religious ethics. The emergence of theology and religious- ethical education is almost impossible under the complete subjugation of priestly authority. 5 Weber continues:
Theology proper does not develop under these [Caesaro-papist] conditions, and this in turn prevents an autonomous hierarchal regulation of the laymen's way of life (1968, 1163).
Finally, in this way, secular power stereotypes religion, and impedes salvational and prophetic religion. Weber concludes:
Whenever caesaro-papism predominates in this fashion it is inevitable that the substance of religion is stereotyped in terms of the purely technical, ritualist manipulation of supernatural powers, and any development toward a religion of salvation is impeded (1968, 1163).
Such caesaro-papist policies of religion, in fact, had dominated in Japan from the foundation of the Japanese nation until the end of World War II, and determined the course of religious development.
In Japanese language, the sociological term caesaro-papism is parallel to saisei itchi ("the unity of religion and polity"). 6 Pre-modern Japanese has no distinction between religious ritual (sai in Chinese character) and polity (sei in Chinese character); both are called matsuri. 7 Religious ritual and polity were united (itchi in Chinese character) in the power of the emperor. Throughout its history, the word saisei itchi had always meant caesaro-papist rulership, that is, the subjugation of magico-religious to secular-political power. 8
While the rulership always demonstrated caesaro-papism, the actual secular ruler changed from time to time. In the period between the 2nd and 12th centuries, the actual secular power had been the emperor, although aristocrats often involved themselves in the power politics. During the feudal period between the 12th and the late 19th centuries, the feudal lords had usurped the actual political power from the emperor, although they sustained the hereditary charisma status of the emperor. In the modern bureaucratic period (1868-1945), the actual secular power was passed to military leaders and bureaucrats. Even though the military leaders restored the Imperial sovereignty and declared the supremacy of the emperor, actual political decisions were not in the hands of the emperor, but of the military elite.
Thus, in contrast to China, Japanese caesaro-papism was always the predominance of military power of war leaders. The military ruling class treated religion a strictly traditional and ritualistic matter, and suppresses charismatic and emotional religiosity because it creates a dangerous competing authority. Weber writes:
Military or commercial notables resort to religion only in a strictly traditionalist fashion, since it creates a dangerous competing power based on the emotional needs of the masses; at any rate, they divest religion of any charismatic-emotional character (1968, 1176).
The Japanese caesaro-papist rulers, indeed, had employed such policy, time and again. The central issue of this study is how the predominancy of military charisma affected the religious life of the Japanese.
To make our analysis objective, we use the method of "ideal type." Our viewpoint presupposes that social actions are determined by ideas and interests which are veiled in the unconscious sphere. To unveil the unconscious motivation, we analyzes ethos, a combined force of ideas and interests. Let us examine them one by one.
This study employs the ideal typical concept of reality. 9 First, an ideal type is a conceptual tool to analyze historical reality. Second, it sometimes represents an idea of the reality; it however is not empirical reality itself. We use an ideal type as a measurement of how close the reality is to the ideal type, or on what points the reality departs from the ideal type. Yet we are interested in the peculiar feature of reality, not necessarily in the commonality. The goal of an ideal typical analysis is to understand the cultural uniqueness of reality, not to classify its general features.
To fulfill the above task, the ideal typical analysis takes the liberty of being unhistorical in the sense that the features are presented systematically and in greater unity than the chaotic flux of their actual development. In other words, rich diversities and varieties which have been developed in historical reality are left aside; only important features, from the viewpoint of cultural uniqueness, are presented in greater logical consistency and less historical development than that were actually the case. If it were done arbitrarily, this simplification would be a historical fallacy. To avoid false simplification, an ideal typical analysis has to take into consideration frames of reference, or the total picture of reality (cf. Weber 1946, 292-4).
Take the example of the concept of caesaro-papism. This study uses the term caesaro-papism as "the complete subjugation of religious to secular power." There is, however, no pure empirical reality that secular power completely subjugates religious authority. The use of the ideal typical concept of caesaro-papism is first of all a logical and typological tool to measure reality. It never reflect the reality as such. Yet the ideal typical concept of caesaro-papism is more than a tool, it is an idea within reality. The complete subjugation of religious authority was a guiding principle of Japanese rulers, time and again. Look, for instance, at the cases of Nobunaga Oda, Ieyasu Tokugawa and the modern military bureaucrats, as we will discuss later. They unceasingly pursued the complete subjugation of religious authority, whether or not they were successful. The ideal typical concept of caesaro-papism gives insight into what the secular ruler really wanted to do toward religion and thereby into the direction of religious development.
Yet an idea of reality rarely works as it is; it involves the interests of the actor. The relationship between ideas and interests is therefore our next focal point. Historical forces of social action are directly motivated by material and nonmaterial interests. On the other hand, an idea as the subjective meaning of social action have often navigated the historical dynamic of interests. Weber describes the relationship between ideas and interests:
Not ideas, but material and nonmaterial interests, directly govern one's conduct. Yet very frequently the world images that have been created by ideas, like a switch-person, have determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest (1946, 280).
Interests of rulership are diagramed in the Chart 2. For the caesaro-papist rulers, the decisive material interests are power and economics. Power interests endeavor to monopolize the means of enforcement, while economic interests endeavor to possess the means to a privileged style of life. Decisive nonmaterial interests, on the other hand, are legitimacy and prestige. The interest in legitimacy, that is, the justification of order and possession, is the most fundamental force of every rulership, as we will discuss later. The interest in prestige is the second important force which determines the administrative structure and the form of education.
Ideas, then, set the dynamic course of these interests. A guiding idea of Japanese caesaro-papism is the idea of the nation which involves the associated notions of the unity of religion and polity, the chosen nation of the gods, and the mission of military conquest. We attempt to analyze how these ideas determined the course of the historical dynamic of interests.
To grasp the relation between ideas and interests, let us take the example of the kamikaze pilot, a suicide bomber, in modern military Japan. 10 The action of suicide bombing was due not just to the enforcement of the military bureaucrats for their power interest, but also to the actor's willingness to take such an action. The kamikaze pilot had an idea of a mission, which made his death meaningful. He knew the subjective meaning of his action; he was going to die for the glory of the divine nation of the emperor. 11 He was subjectively the defender of the value and worldview of the Japanese nation at the cost of his life. Objectively, however, he was a means of the interests of the power holders, whose prime reason was to prevent surrender of power by all means. Thus, the worldview of the divine nation gave the subjective meaning of the action, set the course of the military bureaucrats' interests, and led to peculiar action of the suicide bombing.
In general, the relationship between ideas and interests, however, is more or less unconscious. Since ideas and interests which determine one's social action are often fundamental presuppositions of a society, the actors are not aware of them. Ideas and interests are deep-seated in the sphere of unconscious of the majority of individuals; few are aware of them. The individuals often act without knowing the meaning and goal of an action, or with veiling half-consciously their material and nonmaterial interests. Therefore, one of the tasks for the student of sociology is to unveil actual ideas and interests behind social actions. Weber states:
The task of the sociologist is to be aware of this motivational situation and to describe and analyze it, even though it has not actually been concretely part of the conscious intention of the actor (1968, 10).
For example, again in modern Japan, young military officers killed ministers and statesmen of the parliament whenever the interests of the military bureaucrats met the resistance of the parliament. The claims of the young officers' committing assassination were always the same, that is, to purge the corruptions and injustice of the parliament and to realize the idea of the Imperial nation. But, in the finally analysis, the young officer's decisive motivation falls into the power interest of the military bureaucracy. Young officers simply represented the deep-seated interest of power without being conscious of them. Thus, this study attempts to disclose unaware presuppositions and deep-rooted ideas and interests behind social actions.
Lastly, our approach focuses on "ethos," or the ethical conduct of life. 12 Ethos, a combined force of idea and interest, is quite different from ethic. Ethos is the religio- ethical conduct of what actually exists, whereas ethic is normative directive of what should be. To illustrate this difference, let us take the example of Confucianism.
Confucianism in patrimonial China was an ethos, whereas that in Tokugawa Japan was an ethic. Confucianism in China was directly connected with material and nonmaterial interests of the emperor and the Literati ruling class. The knowledge and appreciation of orthodox Confucianism determined the posts, promotion and prestige of officials. The Confucian ideology of the "Mandate of Heaven" was the legitimating ground of the rulership of the Chinese emperor. Confucian sanctity of tradition and of filial piety were at the center of their ethos and consisted of fundamentals of the patrimonial rulership of China. In contrast, Neo-Confucianism in the Tokugawa Shogunate had little to do with material and nonmaterial interests of the samurai ruling class. It was not the study of Confucianism, but personal fealty and the military style of life (Bushido) that determined samurai's material privilege and status prestige. 13 The legitimacy of the Shogunate was guaranteed by vassals' fealty, status consciousness and the emperor's hereditary charisma, not Neo-Confucian philosophy and ethic. 14 The Shogun never claimed the "Mandate of Heaven" 15 "as did Confucians for the Chinese emperor in establishing him as world monarch and supreme pontifex" (Weber 1958, 282). The ethos of feudalism is personal fealty (chusei) of contractual obligation and status prestige (meiyo). In medieval Japan, feudal ethos overshadowed the patrimonial Confucian ethos of filial piety (ko) and obedience to the supreme ruler (jyujun). 16 Feudal education focused on the Bushido style of life not on the Confucian conduct of life. 17 After all, "Confucianism in Japan was rather a literary hobby of individual circles" (Weber 1958, 282). 18 This study, therefore, does not deal with the mere ethic and philosophy of Neo-Confucianism.
To summarize our approaches, we attempt to describe and analyze the peculiarity of Japanese caesaro-papism, (1) employing the ideal typical concept, (2) tracing the relationship between ideas and interests, (3) unveiling the unconscious motivation, and (4) focusing on ethos. Yet, to establish the objective possibility of our analysis, we further need to discuss frames of reference.
Frames of reference are like the compass and map in the navigation of a ship. The compass of this study is the concept of legitimacy, the decisive interest of caesaro-papism, and the map is the principle of rulership. The principles of legitimacy and rulership navigate our voyage in the chaotic ocean of historical reality, avoiding the shipwrecked in false simplification.
The most fundamental concept of this study is legitimacy, the validity of an order which is considered as binding authoritatively, and by which social action actually is governed (Weber 1968, 31). Legitimacy is based on "the belief in prestige of the authority," by which the actor regards "the order as obligatory or exemplary" (Weber 1968, 263). In other words, legitimacy rests on the belief in the justification of the order.
The belief in legitimacy occupies the cornerstone of every rulership. 19 Obedience to an order may be based on various motives such as simple habituation, affectional ties, value-ideal and rational calculation of interests. But such bases are not sufficient to sustain a stable rulership; it further requires the subjects' willingness to obey the order, which can be attained only by their belief in its legitimacy. Therefore, "every such rulership attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in its legitimacy" (Weber 1968, 213). Here, magico-religious authority is involved in political rulership in two contradicting ways.
On the one hand, magico- religious authority can cultivate the subject's obedience to secular power as it does to own authority. Magico-religious authority has often justified the legitimacy of secular power and domesticated the subjects to obey the command of the secular ruler. For this reason, magico- religious authority is an indispensable tool for secular power. Cultivation of the belief in its legitimacy was a major reason why Emperor Shomu built official Buddhist monasteries in the 8th century, why the Tokugawa Shogunate established the state Buddhist church in the 17th century, and why the Meiji regime instituted State Shinto and the compulsory worship of the emperor in the 19th century.
On the other hand, autonomous magico- religious authority, in its consistent form, claims the supremacy of religious authority over secular power and attempts to establish theocracy or complete independency from secular power. It objects to the command of political ruler and destroys the belief in the legitimacy of secular rulership. For secular power, therefore, such autonomous religious authority, especially, hierocratic authority with a sectarian lay community, is always the most dangerous enemy which can potentially destroy the belief in its legitimacy. To sustain the subjects' obedience, the political power has to destroy, by all means, anything which endangers the belief in its legitimacy. "The instinct of self-preservation" of the ruling class persecutes any sectarian movement to maintain the belief in the legitimacy of their form of income and the positions of power and social status (Weber 1951, 213). 20 For this reason, Japanese rulers have persecuted autonomous religious movements such as the wandering Buddhist ascetics (hijiri) in the 8th century, the Ikko and the Nichiren Buddhist sects in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic church in the 17th century, the Tenri and the Omoto Shinto sects in the 19th century, and the Protestant Christian sects in the 20th century.
Thus, "this is one of the reasons why legitimacy, which is often so much neglected in analyzing such phenomena, plays a crucially important role" in the historical dynamic of rulership and religion (Weber 1968, 265).
On the basis of the belief in legitimacy, there are three ideal types of rulership: traditional, charismatic and legal rulership.
Traditional rulership is a ruling structure in which the governed submits to the ruling authority because of their belief in traditional routine as an inviolable norm of conduct. The legitimacy of traditional authority rests on the "piety for what actually, allegedly, or presumably has always existed" (Weber 1946, 296). Patriarchalism is "by far the most important type" of traditional rulership (Weber 1946, 296). Patriarchalism means the authority of seniority such as the father and the elder over the members of the household and clan. When the patriarchal ruler attaches administrative staff to enforce his will, it is called "patrimonial" rulership.
Charismatic rulership is a ruling structure in which the governed submits to the authority of the ruler "because of their belief in the extraordinary quality of the specific person" (Weber 1946, 295). The legitimacy of charismatic rulership rests on the "belief in magical powers, revelations and hero worship" of the charismatic person. "The source of these beliefs is the proving of the charismatic quality through miracles, through victories and other successes, that is, through the welfare of the governed." (Weber 1946, 296). Charismatic rulership, however, exists only temporarily because of the unstable nature of charisma. "It cannot remain stable, but becomes either traditionalized or rationalized or a combination of both" (Weber 1968, 246). When charisma is traditionalized through heredity, it is called "hereditary charisma." When charisma is rationalized through methodical and codified means, it is called "virtuoso charisma." Or when charisma is depersonalized through a combination of traditionalization and rationalization, it is called "office charisma." 21
Legal rulership is a ruling structure in which command and rule "are rationally established by enactment, by agreement, or by imposition. The legitimation for establishing these rules rests, in turn, upon a rationally enacted or interpreted constitution" (Weber 1946, 294). The belief in legal legitimacy is based on expediency or value-rationality or both. The body of law consists essentially in a consistent system of abstract rules. A person obeys only the impersonal law, not the person in authority. In this regard, legal rulership is most favorably confined to bureaucracy.
In reality, however, such pure types of rulership have rarely taken place. Actual cases are more or less a combination of the three pure types. In the case of Japan, the combination appeared in following ways: a combination of tradition and charisma (hereditary rulership), a combination of tradition and status prestige (feudal rulership), and a combination of tradition, charisma, and legal-rationality (bureaucratic rulership).
Hereditary rulership, which had taken place in early Japan, is a traditionalization of charisma based on "the belief in its transferability through blood ties" (Weber 1968, 1136). For the ruling class, this traditionalization means radical transformation of legitimacy from charisma to tradition. Yet, to the subjects, this depersonalized charisma still remains an extraordinary quality which is not accessible to them. "It is for this very reason that charisma can fulfill its social function" (Weber 1968, 1136). When in this manner charisma becomes a component of rulership, it is called "hereditary rulership." Weber takes account of Japan before feudalism, a pure type of "the hereditary state" (Weber 1958, 271).22
Feudal rulership, which was constituted in medieval Japan, is an extreme type of traditional rulership; more specifically, it is "a marginal case that contrasts with patriarchal patrimonialism" (Weber 1968, 1086). Feudalism is distinguished from patriarchalism by attaching administrative staff, i.e., vassals, and also from patrimonialism by guaranteeing "the ruler's position through the vassal's knightly honor" (Weber 1968, 1079). Feudal rulership is legitimized by personal fealty between a lord and a vassal. The fealty, in turn, is guaranteed by a grant of property and status prestige, not by the heredity of vassal's houses. In this regard, feudal rulership should be clearly distinguished from hereditary rulership. In addition to the belief in traditional legitimacy, the concepts of "status prestige" had played a significant role in feudal rulership. Weber explains:
The specific element that determines the vassal's behavior under fully developed feudalism is the appeal not only to his obligations of fealty, but to his sense of high status which derives from an exalted conception of honor. The warrior's sense of honor and the servant's faithfulness are both inseparably connected with the dignity and conventions of a ruling stratum and buttressed by them (1968, 1078).
On this account only the Occident and Japan had fully developed "free feudalism," a combined ethos of fealty and status prestige (Weber 1968, 1072).
Bureaucratic rulership, which was constituted in modern Japan, is a ruling structure based on a combination of legal, charismatic, and traditional legitimacy. The legitimacy of bureaucratic rulership cannot be based on pure legal-rationality; it is also based on the belief in routinized "office" authority (Weber 1968, 1140). The belief in office authority is strengthened by the power of knowledge and, especially, of discipline. 23 The stability of the Japanese bureaucracy was guaranteed by the hereditary charisma of the emperor. 24
Japanese types of rulership are summarized in the Table 2. All the rulerships are based on the traditional and charismatic legitimacy of the Imperial House. "The essence of feudalism is status consciousness" (Weber 1968, 1081). Bureaucratic rulership has the most stable and flexible structure since it combines three pure types of legitimacy.
Power Struggle between Ruler and Staff
In the final frame of reference, we take the nature of the power struggle between a ruler and his staff. A ruler is definitely powerful before a dependent staff. However, the ruler is powerless before the total interest of his administrative staff since the ruler has to depend on the staff to enforce his will, especially to maintain the obedience of the subjects. Weber points out:
For all types of authority, the fact of the existence and continual functioning of an administrative staff is vital. For the habit of obedience cannot be maintained without organized activity directed to the application and enforcement of the order (1968, 264).
The administrative staff, of course, depend on the authority of the ruler for their status and economic provisions. Thus, the ruler and his administrative staff are bound with the solidarity of interest in each other. In historical reality, however, this solidarity of interest was full of continuous conflict between them. To see the historical dynamic of caesaro-papism, we have to realize the importance of the power struggle between a chief and his staff. Weber describes:
It is most important, finally, to realize that historical reality involves a continuous, thorough for the most part latent, conflict between chief and their administrative staffs for appropriation and expropriation in relation to one another. For almost all of cultural development, it has been crucial in what way this struggle is worked out and what has been the character of the stratum of officials dependent upon the chief which has helped him win out in his struggle against the feudal classes or other groups enjoying appropriated powers (1968, 264).
In Japan, the power struggle occurred between the emperor and the nobles in early hereditary rulership, between the Shogun and the vassals in medieval feudal rulership, and between the military leaders and the officials in modern bureaucratic rulership. (See the Table 3.)
In the hereditary state of early Japan, the power of the emperor was stereotyped by the hereditary right of the nobles. The hereditary staff exercised their own right of heredity disregarding the will of the emperor. Therefore the emperor attempted to abandon the hereditary structure and establish a patrimonial rulership time and again. Yet such attempts always failed since the emperor lacked an alternative staff to replace the hereditary nobles. Emperor's attempt finally succeeded when the warrior class became powerful enough to replace the nobles in the 12th century. However the warrior staff was a more formidable opponent of the emperor than the nobles since the warrior could depend on their own military power. In the ensuing power struggle, the warrior lord totally usurped secular power of the emperor and placed himself into the actual power-holder.
As rulership shifted from hereditary to feudal, the power struggle shifted from between the emperor and the nobles to between the feudal lord (Shogun) and his vassals. Yet feudal rulership meant the minimization of Shogun's power since vassals could exercise their own military power. To restrict the vassal's power, Ieyasu Tokugawa, the most powerful feudal lord, took various means including taking hostages, periodical visitations to the capital, the prohibition of subinfeudation, and the destructions of castles except for one in each domain. Nevertheless, even such a powerful Shogun was unable to became a patrimonial ruler; he had to depend on the fealty and status prestige of his vassals. Thus the vassals exercised their own power of jurisdiction and administration in their domain being independent from the Shogun.
The shift from feudal to bureaucratic rulership happened when foreign powers exposed the powerlessness of the Shogunate in the 19th century. Disciplined local armies usurped the actual power from the Shogunate and established bureaucratic rulership. As a result, the power struggle shifted to between the military leaders and the bureaucrats. This power struggle between the military elites and their staff led to the road of military expansionism and the strict control of religious movements.
The importance of power struggles lies in their determination of the type of education and thereby culture in general. Weber writes:
One of the reasons why the character of these struggles and of their outcome has been so important, not only to the history of administration as such, but to that of culture generally, is that the type of education has been determined by them and with it the modes of status group formation (1968, 264-5).
Education involves nonmaterial interests of the ruling class. The primary goal of education is the cultivation of prestige for the ruling class and the indoctrination of the belief in the legitimacy for the subjects. In the hereditary rulership, education aimed to cultivate the prestige of their origin by memorizing the tradition; in the feudal rulership, education put the primacy in status honor by cultivating the warrior's distinguished style of life; in the bureaucratic rulership, education aimed to cultivate the prestige of office duty through disciplining unquestionable obedience to the duty and training for the technical knowledge of the office. (See the Table 4.)
Cultivation of prestige enable the ruling class to keep distance from their subjects, impressing upon them the prestigious style of life inaccessible to them. Indoctrination of the legitimacy for the subjects, on the other hand, is a little complicated. In both the hereditary and the feudal rulership, the subjects were not the direct object of education, but of the obedient taxpayer; cultivation of the belief in legitimacy was rather carried by the religious authority, especially for the domestication of temperament. In contrast, the governed in the bureaucratic rulership is the direct object of education both for its prestige and obedience. To cultivate the belief in formal-rationality, discipline in rational thought and habit was necessary. This was one of the reasons why the bureaucratic rulership introduced a compulsory education for the governed.
In summary, it may be helpful to review the comparison of frames of reference in order to understand the whole structure of rulership. Basic types of rulership are schemed in the Table 5.
Our study deals with three types of traditional rulership: patriarchal, patrimonial, and feudal. Feudal rulership often preceded to a bureaucratic type based on the elective affinities of the contractual nature of obedience and the conventionally codified division of power. Hereditary rulership should be understood as a routinization of charisma.
Here we also review the characteristic of Japanese types of rulership: hereditary, feudal and bureaucratic rulership. The characteristics and differences are summarized in the Table 6.
In early Japan, the emperor established hereditary rulership with the help of the charismatic nobles. The legitimacy was based on the belief in traditionalized charisma of heredity. To guarantee the legitimacy of heredity, the ruling class cultivated the nobleness of the hereditary origin by deifying and memorizing their charismatic traditions. In medieval Japan, the Shogun established feudal rulership with alliances with his vassals. The personal but contractual fealty between the Shogun and his vassals was the basis of the legitimacy, which, in turn, was guaranteed by the status prestige of the vassals. To exalt the status prestige, the vassals cultivated Bushido, the warrior's distinguished style of life. In modern Japan, military leaders established bureaucratic rulership by institutionalizing the office of bureaucrats, introducing the constitution as legal legitimacy and guaranteeing the stability by the super-personal quality of the emperor. The officials were recruited and promoted by the merit of office knowledge and discipline, not by hereditary origin nor status condition.
Keeping in mind these frames of reference as a compass and maps, let us voyage to the historical dynamic of caesaro-papism in Japan.
Judging from the types of the actual power-holder and of rulership, Japanese caesaro-papism is divided into three periods: (1) Tenno ("the emperor") caesaro-papism in the hereditary rulership of early Japan, (2) Shogun ("the Generalissimo") caesaro-papism in the feudal rulership of medieval Japan, and (3) Gunbu ("the Military elite") caesaro-papism in the bureaucratic rulership of modern Japan.
Establishment of Political Community
Caesaro-papist rulership began with the warlord Jimmu's foundation of Japan (Yamato) around the 2nd century AD. 25
He and his followers invaded the land of Yamato but met strong resistance and hostility. 26 Even after the success of the foundation, the group had to fight against enemies for 70 to 80 years until the establishment of undisputed authority in the land of Yamato (Tsunoda et al. 1958, 5). Eventually, this struggle occasioned to create a tight organization of the state and enduring sentiments and memories of the community of the same destiny. Weber writes:
The individual is expected ultimately to face death in the group interests. This gives to the political community its particular pathos and raises its enduring emotional foundation (1968, 903).
It was a new creation of political community that shared join memories and consciousness as well as solidarity of interests. Weber describes the characteristics of political community:
The community of political destiny, i.e., above all, of common political struggles of life and death has given rise to groups with joint memories which often have had a deeper impact than the ties of merely cultural, linguistic, or ethnic community. It is this "community of memories" which as we shall see, constitutes the ultimately decisive element of "national consciousness" (1968, 903). 27
Jimmu's expedition and his foundation of Japan are compared to Moses' Exodus and the foundation of Israel or Mao's Long March and the foundation of Communist China.
The second epoch of the political community of Japan came with Queen Himiko, a prophetess of the Sun deity, 28 in the early 3rd century. 29 By revelation, she proclaimed the command of the god, that is, the idea and mission of the Yamato nation to pacify and unify all countries of Japan. 30 Himiko (Amaterasu) commanded to Prince Generals: 31
This Reed plain 1500-autumns-fair rice-ear Land is the region which my descendants shall be lords of. Do you, my August Grandchild, proceed thither and govern it. Go! And may prosperity attend thy dynasty, and may it, like Heaven and Earth, endure for ever" (Aston I, 77).
The mission organized the feuding fractions of the ruling class into the expeditions of unification. 32 The result was remarkable. They conquered and unified most countries from Kyushu to Kanto. 33 Thus she was called the unifier of the nation. 34
Sociologically speaking, the idea and mission of the nation come into historical force when it was combined with the interest of prestige. Weber explains:
The idea of the nation for its advocates stands in very intimate relation to prestige interests. The earliest and most energetic manifestations of ideas, on some form, even though it may have been veiled, have contained the legend of a providential mission. Those to whom the representatives of the idea zealously turned were expected to shoulder this mission (1968, 920).
The providential mission of the nation was infused with the conqueror's sense of superiority to the indigenous people. 35 This idea and mission of the nation was again to carry out by the military bureaucrats in the modern era, as we shall see later.
By the end of the 4th century, the mission of conquest reached the Korean Peninsula, southern Kyushu and southern Tohoku. In 478, the king of Japan, Wu (Emperor Yuryaku), presented the following memorial of the achievement of the mission to the Chinese emperor:
From of old our forebears have clad themselves in armor and helmet and gone across the hills and waters, sparing no time for rest. In the east, they conquered fifty-five countries of hairy people; and in the west, they brought to their knees sixty-six countries of various barbarians. Crossing the sea to the north, they subjugated ninety-five countries (Tsunoda et al. 1958, 8).
As a consequence, the Imperial House established the unchallengeable hereditary authority of both political and magical-religious power. The Imperial House unified the political and religious authority (matsuri-goto), and created the military charisma predominating type of caesaro-papism. The Prince and Princess, as the chief priest (pontifex), offered the highest sacrifice to the deities of Heaven and Earth. There was no competing autonomous religious authority against the Imperial House, as Indian, Irish and Israelite priesthood had competed against the charisma of the warlord.
The state that Jimmu founded was a strict type of "the hereditary state." The title of the emperor was hereditary to the Imperial House, not the first house among equal houses. 36 The nobles, the side lines of the Imperial House and the clans of Jimmu's original followers, also gained political privileges according to their own hereditary right. 37 Likewise, the whole Japanese society was occupied by the principle of heredity. Hereditary origin was "the key to human relationship" and an "essential instrument in the hand of the nation" ("Preface" of the Shinsen shojiroku in Tsunoda et al. 1958, 79). 38 Weber describes the characteristic of "the hereditary state":
Wherever the principle of charismatic blood relationship has been fully applied, all occupational staffs, down to the lowest craft, rests, at lest theoretically, upon the tie between a specific charisma and a specific lineage group and between the prerogative of leadership within such a group and this charismatically qualified Great House. The political organization of the state depends upon the hereditary nobles, their retainers and territorial holding (1968, 1136).
The rulership of hereditary charisma, however, meant the minimization of secular power of the emperor. The emperor had to struggle against the nobles, which exercised their own hereditary rights disregarding the will of the emperor. The able nobles often took the actual political power from the powerless Imperial successor.
Introduction of Monastic Buddhism
To restore its actual political power from the nobles, the Imperial House attempted to introduce a patrimonial administration time and again, though they were not successful. Among such attempts, the introduction of monastic Buddhism made a lasting influence. Prince Shotoku (574-622) introduced Buddhist literary administrators as a counter-weight to the noble clans. The monks were more reliable and the less dangerous staff than nobles and warriors. 39 With the administrative power of monk literates, the court could found an enduring capital (Nara) and a tax administration (Kubunden). Then, the emperor Shomu (701-756) established the state monastery (Kokubun-ji) to domesticate the temperament of the subjects and thereby nourish the obedience to the authority. The monks could domesticate the temper and attitude of the subject by their conduct of life. 40 The monks' prestige and authority among the people, however, goes beyond the control of secular power when itinerant monks established the spiritual authority among the people. Therefore, the court strictly regulated the order and ordination of Buddhist monks within the hands of secular power. In particular, the court had to prohibit wandering monks (hijiri and ubasoku) to prevent them from the establishment of their magico-religious authority. 41 The court issued the edict of the prohibition of wandering monks in 701, 717, 729, 764, and 807. To maintain its control, like the Catholic church, the Imperial court took the same alternative measures: either to incorporate the itinerant monk into the office, or to banish (or execute) the monk. The former measure was taken for Gyogi (670-749) who was given the highest post in the monk hierarchy. 42 The latter measure was take for En-no-Shokaku who was banished to the Izu island in the early 8th century.
The growing authority and influence of Buddhism, however, did not provide the legitimacy of the ruling class. Only the emperor's charisma as the descendant of the Sun Goddess could legitimized the possession of the ruling class. To solidify the connection with the deities, the court institutionalized the state sacrificial rite and the sanctuaries of the deities, i.e., Shinto, in the early 8th century. By the coronation ceremony, the new emperor magically succeeded the throne 43 and, as the highest priest (pontifex), offered the great sacrifice. 44
Institutionalized priesthood constituted the hereditary clan of the state cult. It functioned as a ritual and oracle department of the rulership. Weber writes:
In a manner similar to that found elsewhere, the ordeal and oracle functioned in political decision-making. Among the mass of deities, the majority, even today, are apotheosized heroes and benefactors (1958, 301).
They were a magical and non-orgiastic cult of the state. Weber describes the characteristics of Shinto
The official cult bore the typical stamp of the refined ritualism of a stratum of knights. The essential elements consisted in the recitation of hymns and food propitiations.... Ritual impurity meant blood guilt and incest as well as bodily defects. Very strict prescriptions for ritual purity compensated for the lack of a religious "ethic." Any sort of compensation in the beyond was lacking (1958, 275).
But the Shinto priesthood did not have own doctrine, religious ethic, priestly way of life, and priestly education. It was controlled by secular authority and had no independent authority of religion. 45
Since its foundation, the Buddhist monastery gained ever increasing prestige and influence and accumulated donations of lands. By the end of the 11th century, the monasteries accumulated considerable landholdings. The temple land served as the protection of private landholdings because secular powers could not seize such temple land without committing sacrilege (Weber 1968, 1182-3). 46 By the donation of their land to the monastery, the aristocratic families could secure the revenue of the land. 47 Weber explains:
Not only the secular administration of the monastery is reserved to the [temple] founder's family, but also --and this is far more important-- the surplus of the increasing revenues over the fixed expenditures (1968, 1183).
The more the monastery accumulated lands, the more the aristocratization of the monastery advanced. At the end of the 12 century, the Imperial House and the nobles monopolized almost all higher position of the prominent monasteries (Inoue 1986). Weber writes:
Monasteries and other foundations were always exposed to aristocratic attempt at utilizing them for the maintenance of the younger nobles (1968, 1181). 48
With the growing aristocratization of the monastery and the accumulation of the temple land, the monastery became autonomous and independent from the emperor. It went beyond the control of the court.
The transition from a hereditary state to a feudal state had taken place between the 10th and 12th centuries since the emperors ruled from their cloister office with the aid of the warriors. The decisive motivation of this transition is the emperor's restoration of his secular power. Weber describes:
The transition from this condition [the hereditary state] to the feudal state is regularly motivated by the ruler's interest in destroying the autonomous legitimacy of hereditary clans and in replacing it with a feudal legitimacy derived from his own person" (1968, 1137). 49
Due to the frequent civil wars among warrior lords, however, the emperor lost almost its actual power to control over warrior lords and monasteries.
To summarize the early period from the foundation of the Yamato state to the end of Heian era (200 AD -1184), the Tenno had reigned over the caesaro-papist state under the united authority of religion and polity (matsuri-goto). At the beginning the warlord Jimmu invaded the land of Yamato and established a strict hereditary state. His descendants, the Imperial House, monopolized the position of Tenno, the title of the king and the highest priest. Tenno rulership established the official cult of the state deities (Shinto) and the state monastery. It controlled the Shinto priesthood and the Buddhist monks. 50 However, the rulership of hereditary charisma meant the minimization of the emperor's power since any functionary of the state had claimed their own right of heredity. To break the stereotype of heredity, the emperor initiated feudal rulership based on a warrior staff. But this too did not restore secular power of the emperor. Soon the warrior lords totally usurped secular power of the emperor.
Shogun caesaro-papism began when Yoritomo Minamoto defeated the Taira warrior clan, the former power-holder, in 1185. He established feudal rulership under the title Shogun ("the Generalissimo") and took secular power from the emperor. The Minamoto Shogunate, however, kept the emperor's religious authority (pontifex) as the descendant of the deity. 51 The charismatic quality of the Imperial House was essential for the legitimacy of the Shogunate. Weber writes:
Here too, the formal ruler must be retained because only his specific charisma can guarantee the proper relation to the deities, which is indispensable for the legitimacy of the whole political structure, including the position of the actual ruler (1968, 1158).
The power struggle, then, shifted to between the Shogun and his vassals. Since both the Shogun and his vassals could depend on their own military power, frequent usurpation of power took place and thereby weakened secular authority over the religious authority. This transition was followed by the decline of the Imperial authority and opened an opportunity for the autonomous and independent development of religion.
Rise of Salvational and Prophetic Buddhism
When the caesaro-papist ruling becomes weakened, salvational and prophetic religion rises. Being free from the caesaro-papist and hierocratic control, religious thinkers and reformers attempt to rationalize and internalize religiosity.
On the one hand, Japanese monks transformed the religiosity of self-achievement (enlightenment) of Nara Buddhism into salvation by faith for Pure Land Buddhism. 52 In the 10th century, at the time of the increasingly weakened Imperial authority and thereby becoming autonomous but secularizing monastery, Ryogen (912-85) and Genshin (942-1017) developed a pietistic-salvational religiosity in the monastery. In particular, Genshin wrote Essentials of Salvation (Ojo yoshu) in 985, "one of the most widely read works of Japanese Buddhist literature" (Andrews 1983). Then Honen (1133-1212) opened the way of salvation to the lay people and established the Pure Land sect outside the monastery. Shinran (1173-1262), a disciple of Honen, finally came to the conclusion of salvation by faith alone, the most consistent doctrine of salvational religion. As a rationalist thinker, Shinran abandoned monastic life, celibacy, and other means of self-achievement. With this transformation, Pure Land Buddhism rapidly spread over every strata of lay people including warriors, nobles, merchants and peasants.
On the other hand, prophetic Buddhism also emerged. Nichiren (1222-82), a son of a fisherman, declared that the Law of the Lotus Sutra was supreme and its authority surpassed that of the family, the lord, the Shogun, the emperor and even the gods and the Bodhisattva. 53 He called himself a messenger of the Law of the Lotus Sutra and the Buddha. He was an emissary prophet, an unprecedented type for Buddhists. 54 He accused false Buddhist sects, admonished the Shogunate, and thereby was persecuted and exiled several times. Since his prophecy of a foreign invasion was fulfilled during his life, his prophetic Buddhism has imprinted an enduring impact among the Japanese people.
Both salvational Pure Land and prophetic Nichiren Buddhism formed the voluntary community of lay people which was once prohibited by the previous Yamato state. Their beliefs spread over the land of Japan. In particular, the Ikko sect, a sect of Pure Land Buddhism, developed a powerful hierocratic authority over the lay people.
Militarization of Buddhist Communities
Economic autonomy of monastery led not just to the independence of its religious authority but also to claim its supremacy over secular power. Weber states an unavoidable tension between the religious charisma of the monk and the religious authority of the caesaro-papist ruler:
Their [monks] charismatic religiosity rejects all caesaro-papist intervention in religious affairs much more vigorously than does any regular priesthood, and their strict ascetic discipline permits them to establish a very strong power position. Once monasticism has gained strength, it will clash sooner or later with caesaro-papist claims (1968, 1171).
During the frequent wars and power struggles, the monastery became militarized. Weber describes:
Given the thoroughly feudal character of the country, this competition [feudal lords and Buddhist orders] often gave the monastic communities of Japan the character of military communities of crusaders, of monastic orders of knights, especially as long as the monks, or at least the abbots, were recruited from noble strata. They fought at the same time for their own position of power in the population (1958, 280).
In addition to the monastery, sectarian and independent community of the laypeople also became militarized. The militarized followers of the Ikko (Jodo Shin) sect even overthrew the Togashi House, the military lord of Kaga domain, in 1468 and established a hierocratic rule for a century. Thus, the monastery and the sectarian community of the lay people became formidable religio-political authorities against the secular power of the warrior lords.
Oda's Destruction of Buddhist Communities
The death-struggle between the caesaro-papist authority and the hierocratic authority was unavoidable, and it came to climax with Nobunaga Oda (1534-82), a rationalist feudal lord. His introduction of disciplined warfare and gun powder changed the power-position between the secular lords and the Buddhist communities. Oda destroyed the Enryakuji, the most militarized and prestigious monastery, in 1571, 55 the Ikko sect, the most powerful Buddhist sect, in 1580 56 and other strongholds of the militarized Buddhist community. 57 Furthermore, he supported the spread of the Catholic Christianity in order to weaken the traditional and spiritual authority of the Buddhist monk and priest. Weber writes:
Oda Nobunaga, restored political sovereignty and restricted this power of the ecclesia militants [militarized Buddhist communities]. An enormous massacre broke the politico-military power of the Buddhistic monk orders forever, and the victors had no scruples about making use of the assistance of Christianity, above all, of Jesuit missionaries, for this purpose (1958, 280).
Thus, the power-struggle between Oda and the Buddhist community was the watershed of Japanese caesaro-papism. And the Buddhist hierocracy was rooted out.
Once the Shogunate destroyed the military power of the Buddhist communities, the spread of Christianity was also unfavorable for the caesaro-papist interest. To the Tokugawa Shogunate, the demilitarized Buddhist sects were easier to control than hierarchical Catholic Church. The Shogunate banned, persecuted, and finally terminated Christianity by the 1660, 58 which once counted over 300,000 believers. 59 Weber writes:
The religious edict of 1614 and the subsequent persecution of Christians finished the Christian mission in Japan and its establishment. Therewith, all clericalism in Japan was broken (1958, 280).
The persecution was targeted not just to Christianity but also to non-conformist Buddhist sects, especially, the Fuju-fuse ("No receiving and no giving") group of the Nichiren sect. The edict of 1614 denounced Christianity and the Fuju-fuse who were alike in insisting on having their own rites and temples and in refusing to support the worship of the parishes where they might reside. The Shogunate called them "enemies of the Empire and the objects of the people's hostility" (quoted in Eliot, 282). The Shogunate banned the Fuju-fuse and banished the leaders such as Nichio (1565-1630) and Nikko (1626-98). 60 Shogun's caesaro-papist interest had taken any opportunity to break the prestige and authority of the Buddhist sects. 61 To weaken the strong hierarchical organization of the Ikko (Jodo Shin) sect, the Shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa (1542-1616), interfered with the succession of the chief priest in 1602, and caused the division of the sect. 62
Finally, the Shogunate instituted the state Buddhist church. 63 Every household was ordered to become affiliated with a parish temple (danka-dera). Every denomination of the Buddhist church was organized into hierarchy (hon-matsu ji). The parish temple issued a certificate (tera-uke) to prove that an individual was not a member of a forbidden sect. Those temples which had no hierarchical affiliation were demolished. Weber writes:
The Buddhist church was restored and for the first time systematically organized. But this occurred entirely under the auspices of the state.... Since the Tokugawa Iemitsu, no priest was allowed to officiate without having passed an examination in the Chinese manner (1958, 281).
The head of Buddhist church was the Shogun, and the department of temple and shrine (jisha-bugyo) controlled religious matters. Compared with other caesaro-papist regimes, however, the Shogunate could not control Buddhism completely like in China nor destroy like in Korea because Buddhism had established social prestige and intellectual authority, and formed the communities of the lay people.
The number of Buddhist temples increased more than 30 times before the institutionalization at the cost of the autonomy and prestigious authority. 64 Weber writes:
The number of Buddhist monasteries and temples increased tremendously, but the social power of the monks declined. The purchase of priestly offices seems to have been widely practiced (1958, 281).
"Buddhism became nothing more than a department of the feudal regime" (Kitagawa 1966, 175). State Buddhism became ritualized and democratized, and thereby lost prestige and religious authority. Weber continues:
In the monastic schools in general, they acquired only what was necessary for the practical management of the cult. Therewith the prestige of monasticism and Buddhism decreased; socially to a considerable extent (1958, 281).
Thus, the Tokugawa Shogunate successfully turned salvational and prophetical Buddhist sects into ritualistic and magical cult of the Buddhist church. 65
Under the pacification of the land, however, the feudal rulership was stereotyped. The Shogun could not demonstrate its military charisma against the threat of foreign power in the later 19th century. On this occasion, the disciplined local army destroyed Shogun's feudal rulership in 1868.
To summarize the medieval period (1185-1867), the Shogun became the actual power holder based on feudal rulership. The transition of secular power gave an opportunity for salvation and prophetic Buddhism to emerge. Under the warring states, most Buddhist communities became militarized and endangered Shogun caesaro-papism. The Shogun destroyed the militarized communities of the monastery and the Buddhist sects and the Roman Catholic churches and controlled religious affairs in the form of the state Buddhist church.
Gunbu ("the military elite") caesaro-papism of Japan is characterized by a new type of the ruler (the military bureaucrats) and the ruled (the unorganized mass). 66 The rise of this new type was hampered by the bureaucratization of society. The Meiji government introduced the conscription system and constitutional legitimacy. The legitimacy of bureaucratic rulership depends on the impersonal rule and the prestige of the office. 67 The bureaucratic office cultivated the sentiment of prestige appealing to the belief in the cultural mission and the racial superiority of the Japanese. The rise of the unorganized mass, on the other hand, is attributed not just to the abolishment of class segregation and the bureaucratization of society, but also to the vacuum of religious authority, which was a result of Tokugawa caesaro-papist policy. The vacuum of religious authority enabled secular power to dictate the people's belief in the legitimacy and prestige of the secular authority. Let us discuss this in detail.
Foundation of Bureaucratic Rulership
The bureaucratized and leveled society of Japan was founded by the Meiji government in 1868. The Choshu-Satsuma allied army, local samurai and commoners trained and equipped with Western weapons, overthrew the Tokugawa feudal rulership. 68 To legitimize the new order, the Choshu-Satsuma army restored the emperor to the head of the new government and declared the unity of religion and polity (saisei itchi). 69 The emperor, however, was neither the actual power holder nor the person responsible for actual policy. The emperor could not be the actual power exerciser who held responsibility for the failure of policy. 70 The actual power and the responsibility were passed to the hand of the leaders of the Choshu-Satsuma allied army. This, however, made the authority of the army leaders unstable; their unpopular policy caused revolts here and there. 71 They needed a stable structure of the rulership. After examining Western governments, they founded their rulership also on legal legitimacy in 1889 72 and introduced the parliamentary cabinet, the responsible body for national policy, in 1890 to safeguard their power position. 73 Thus, the military leaders completed the shift from feudal to legal rulership.
Actual bureaucratization of Japan began with the introduction of conscription in 1870. Bureaucratically disciplined army demonstrated its superior power during the Seinan War in 1877. "Military discipline gives birth to all discipline" of social life and thereby to democracy (Weber 1968, 1155). 74 Bureaucratization and social leveling had revolutionized the Japanese society "from without"; the feudal class segregation was abolished in 1877, the compulsory educational system was introduced in 1886; the man's suffrage was introduced in 1890; and the examination system for the appointment of the officials was introduced in 1893. 75 Thus full bureaucratic rulership was established. 76 Bureaucratization dissolved feudal status consciousness and brought national consciousness to the widely-leveled social strata. 77
The democracy that bureaucratization brought into Japan was "passive democracy," that is, social leveling by the initiative of the ruler (Weber 1968, 986). 78 Passive democracy should be distinguished from "positive democracy," the restriction of ruler's power by the initiative of the mass.
The Japanese mass were a "passive mass" who wer not the ruler of the administrative servant, but the governed of the bureaucrats. The ruling bureaucrats manipulated the public opinion through mass education of the belief in their legitimacy and by the prestige of their power and mission and through discipline to unquestionable obedience to the superiors. The authoritarian nature of passive democracy, such as in Japan, Germany and Italy, is contrasted to the anti-authoritarian nature of positive democracy in the United States and England. Relative immunity to authoritarian rulership in the Untied States and England was due to voluntary organized masses into sects, associations and clubs rooted in the Puritan sects. The authoritarian government or the charismatic leader can easily dictate unorganized masses to the belief in its sacredness, i.e., idolatry, whereas an anti-authoritarianism organized mass can reject the idolatry of the popular leaders. This passive democratic structure led to the autocracy of military bureaucrats.
Ideas and Interests behind Militarism
The superiority of bureaucratic discipline and its success in war resulted in the military bureaucrats' rise to be the actual power-holder. As the army and navy demonstrated victory time and again (the Seinan War in 1877, the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, and the Russo-Japanese War in 1905), the military bureaucrats increasingly gained the prestige among the mass. 79 They climbed to the political power-holder pushing aside the legally elected parliamentary statesmen. To monopolize political power, they finally boycotted the parliamentary cabinet of statesmen, assassinated ministers, and established the military cabinet in 1932. This military bureaucrats' interest in power-prestige drove Japan to the road of territorial expansionism, which was also corresponded to the governed's interests in prestige and economic life. And these interests were sanctified by the idea of the divine Imperial nation. The political community of the nation "possesses value-ideas, systems of order, and serving missions other than the directly economic disposition of goods and services" (Weber 1968, 902).
The military bureaucrats' expansionism was rooted in their desire for power-prestige. Weber writes:
Modern officers or bureaucrats are the natural and primary exponents of this desire for power-oriented prestige for one's own political structure.... The bureaucrat and the officer, an expansion of power means more office positions, more sinecures, and better opportunities for promotion (1968, 911).
To justify their power-prestige interests, the military bureaucrats revived the legendary idea of the divine nation and its military mission (See the section of Tenno Caesaro-papism). 80 The power holders "most strongly instill themselves with this idealist pathos of power prestige. They remain the specific and most reliable bearers of the idea of the nation, to which the unconditional devotion demanded by an imperialist power structure" (Weber 1968, 922). The military bureaucrats systematically cultivated the pathos and mission-prestige of militarism among "all unorganized masses" by appealing to their emotion 81 and by showing some beneficial opportunity from war (Weber 1968, 921). Weber describes:
This mission [of the nation] was facilitated solely through the very cultivation of the peculiarity of the groups set off as a nation... This mission can consistently be thought of only as a specific culture mission (1968, 925).
The military bureaucrats indoctrinated the beliefs that the Japanese were the chosen people of the god (komin) and their mission was to realize the idea of "the One Roof of the World" (hakko-itchu) by military conquest. This "pretension to political prestige" appealed to the people's sentiment in the superiority and peculiarity of their race. Weber continues to discuss:
The significance of the nation is usually anchored in the superiority, or at least the irreplaceability, of the culture values that are to be preserve and developed only through the cultivation of the peculiarity of the group (1968, 925).
Thus, the military bureaucrats arrogated "all the possible values toward which social action might be oriented," (Weber 1968, 902) and demanded the unconditional devotion to the idea of the divine nation. Here the idea directed the dynamic of the interests.
Now let us turn to the religious policy of Gunbu caesaro-papism. As soon as the Meiji allied army took secular power in 1868, it disestablished the state Buddhist church of Tokugawa caesaro-papism. The government confiscated all temple land, disavowed the Buddhist priests, monks and nuns. As a result, the masses destroyed, spoiled and burnt many temples. The easy disestablishment of Buddhism was due to the lack of the prestige of the Buddhist authority as we discussed already. Weber describes:
Buddhism, on the other hand, lacked the very strong support of the charismatic guru as a magical redeemer.... In Japan there was no stratum carrying the prestige of magical-soteriological redeemers such as was enjoyed by the literati in China and the gurus of the sects in India (1958, 282).
Instead, the government declared the revival of the national cult of Shinto in 1868 82 and instituted State Shinto in 1870. The reason for this policy was of course the ruling body's interest in legitimacy. Only Shinto could provide the connection to the highest deities of the nation and sanctified the hereditary charisma of the Imperial House; Buddhism and other religious authorities lacked such a basis. Weber discusses:
It was decisive that once Shintoism was considered the national form of cult as over against Buddhism, it then guaranteed the legitimacy of the emperor (1958, 281).
The Meiji regime was legitimized by the traditional belief in the super-personal quality of the emperor. The belief in the divinity of the emperor was the fundamental presupposition of the Japanese whether or not they were conscious of it. Weber writes:
Also, in the constitutional state of Japan, the descendant of the legitimate dynasty from the heaven and the superhuman quality of the emperor belong to those basic presuppositions which the Japanese, at least the correct Japanese, must not overtly doubt (1958, 281). 83
Indoctrination and Persecution
Caesaro-papist rulership takes two basic polices to maintain the belief in its legitimacy: indoctrination of the belief and persecution of non-conformist beliefs. Weber explains the religious policy of Chinese caesaro-papism:
The Chinese state fought heresies, which in its view were hostile to the state, partly through indoctrination (as late as the nineteenth century by an officially distributed educational poem of a monarch). Partly it did so by fire and sword, like the Catholic Church fighting the denial of sacramental grace and the Roman Empire fighting the rejection of the cult of the emperor (1951, 214).
Gunbu caesaro-papism of Japan followed suit. For indoctrination, the government introduced compulsory mass education concerning the divinity of the emperor and the cult of the emperor worship ("The Imperial Rescript of Education") in 1890 84 and the doctrine and mission of the Imperial nation ("The Cardinal of the Japanese Nation") in 1930. For persecution, on the other hand, the government first oppressed sectarian Shinto, then sectarian Buddhism and Christianity, and finally any non-conformists including Liberalists and Communists.
At first, the caesaro-papist government persecuted the Shinto sect such as the Tenri 85 and the Konko 86 since the 1870s and the Omoto 87 and the Hommichi 88 since the 1920s. These Shinto sects did not sharply oppose the divinity of the emperor and the legitimacy of secular power as convicted Christians and Marxists did.. Rather the rapid growth of sectarian structure itself motivated the instinctive persecution by the caesaro-papist power-holders. The suppression was executed when the Shinto sects adopted distinguished signs in life style and dress for initiation ceremonies by way of ordering the novices according to religious value and the rank of the ministries to which they were admitted. Weber describes the decisive element of sectarian religiosity that endangers the legitimacy of compulsory state-institution:
The value and worth of the personality were guaranteed and legitimated not by blood ties, status group, or publicly authorized degree, but by being a member of and by proving oneself in a circle of specifically qualified associates. This basic function of all sect religiosity is far more odious to any compulsory institution of grace, to the Catholic Church as well as to the caesaro-papist state, than is the easily controlled monastery (1951, 218).
Next the government persecuted non-conformist Christianity such as Mukyokai ("Non Church"), 89 Jehovah's Witness, Salvation Army, and Seventh Day Adventist. 90 Some Buddhists (Soka Gakkai) were also persecuted. 91 During the Pacific war (1941-45), the government created the Order Maintenance Law and the Special Police Force to control thought and religion. A considerable number of non-conformists including Individualists and Communists was put into jail until the end of the war. 92 Here the Japanese militarist rulership typically demonstrated the following sociological principle of caesaro-papism:
Caesaro-papist regimes can not tolerate those groups who deny the divinity of the emperor on which their legitimacy depend (1968, 1208).
Quasi-Religious Community of War
The more the Gunbu caesaro-papist ruler advanced in the road of military expansionism, the severer the persecution and control of religious community became. A motivation behind the ever increasing severeness lies in the quasi-religious nature of military community. War creates the quasi-religious orientation of the community. Weber explains:
War creates a pathos and a sentiment of community. War thereby makes for an unconditionally devoted and sacrificial community among the combatants and releases an active mass compassion.... Moreover, war does something to the warrior which, in its concrete meaning, is unique: it make him experience a consecrated meaning of death (1946, 335). 93
Such creation of the quasi-religious community of war means a challenge to genuine religious community and created more persecutions. Weber continues to describe:
The brotherliness of a groups of men bound together in war must appear devalued in such brotherly religions.... The very extraordinary quality of brotherliness of war, and of death in war, is shared with sacred charisma and the experience of the communion with God, and this fact raises the competition between the brotherliness of religion and of the warrior community to its extreme height (1946, 336).
For a genuine religious person, however, the quasi-religious brotherhood of war is the deception of brutality and fratricide and the manipulation of psychic condition of human beings. 94 Weber further discusses:
It [the brotherhood of war] must be seen as a mere reflection of the technically sophisticated brutality of the struggle. And the inner-worldly consecration of death in war must appear as a glorification of fratricide (1946, 336).
The religious authority in the Japanese society was too small to resist the reason and power of secular authority. The pathos of the military community cannibalized the Japanese, but ended in the devastation of defeat. 95
To summarize the modern period (1868-1945), bureaucratic rulership was established on the basis of the legal legitimacy of the constitution and of the hereditary charismatic legitimacy of the deified Emperor. With the superior power of discipline and the victories of war, the military bureaucrats held the actual political power and controlled the religious authority. To complete the subjugation of religious authority, the military power disestablished Buddhism, institutionalized State Shinto, enforced the cult of the emperor worship, and persecuted sectarian religious movements. Bureaucratization, on the other hand, meant the leveling of social strata and thereby created the political sentiment among the masses who were awakened of the political right through conscription and suffrage. This newly formed national consciousness was sanctioned by the belief in the divinity of the emperor. The national consciousness was connected to the prestige-pretension of the cultural mission and the racial superiority and led to the road of military expansionism. It, however, came to an end by the forces of the United States.
Now we come to characterizing Japanese caesaro-papism. First, Japanese caesaro-papism had been a rulership of military charisma which predominated from the foundation of the Japanese nation (the 2nd century AD) to the end of World War II (1945). The emperor's hereditary state, Shogun's feudal state, and Gunbu's bureaucratic state were all initiated and dominated by the military leader's secular power. The characteristic of Japanese caesaro-papism can be contrasted to China. The military charismatic nature of Japanese rulership gave birth to national consciousness of its political mission, whereas the Chinese people did not have national consciousness until the invasion of the Japanese army in World War II. The task of the Japanese ruler was to lead the governed to the mission of military conquest, whereas the Chinese was to give the social welfare to the people. The belief in the charismatic foundation of the nation had been kept for 1800 years, and its mission revived in modern bureaucratic caesaro-papism. In contrast, the Chinese belief in the magical charisma of the ruler faded away whenever the ruler failed to proof its charisma of welfare.
Second, the hereditary charisma of the emperor has guaranteed the legitimacy of the ruling body's possession of power and privileges. The military charisma of the Imperial House established the tradition of the descendant of the deity. The emperor monopolized the highest sacrifice to the national deities. Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism could not substitute for the pontifical role of the emperor. Therefore, the Shoguns and the military bureaucrats carefully preserved the charismatic quality of the emperor. They attached to the Imperial House the highest priestly functionary to claim their supremacy over any religious authorities.
Third, corresponding to the principle of caesaro-papism, Japanese rulers established state religion and controlled the religiosity of their subjects. The state monastery established by the emperor Shomu, the state Buddhist church of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and State Shinto of the Meiji regime, were all instituted to maintain the belief in their legitimacy. 96 State religion stereotyped the religiosity of the people into ritualism and traditionalism and thereby restricted rational-ethical development of religion. The caesaro-papist ruling oppressed, by all means, independent and autonomous movements of religious communities since such movements endangered the legitimacy of their rulership. Japanese caesaro-papism prohibited the wandering ascetics, destroyed monastery landlords and the Ikko and the Nichiren sects, terminated the Roman Catholic church, and persecuted the Tenri and the Omoto Shinto sects and the Protestant Christian sects.
Last, Japanese caesaro-papism was guided by the peculiar idea of the divine nation. The idea held the notion of the unity of polity and religion, the chosen nation of the gods and the mission of military conquest. Such peculiar ideas of the nation awakened the national consciousness and the prestige as the chosen people of the gods, and drove the Japanese to territorial expansionism.
In August 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Powers. The defeat brought far-reaching consequences in Japanese caesaro-papism; the 1800-year unbroken caesaro-papist rulership came to an end. Let us first observe Joseph Kitagawa's statement:
Japan's surrender to the Allied Powers had far-reaching effects on the religious foundation of the Japanese nation. The authorities of the Allied occupation forces realized ... that the basic issues involved in the definition of the nature of the nation were religious in character. Thus, each of the measures enforced by the occupation forces was designed to alter religious-and-political principles established by the ancient, the Tokugawa, and the Meiji regimes. First, the newly enforced principle of religious freedom undercut the principle that every Japanese must pledge his or her ultimate (religious) loyalty to the throne, and affirmed the individual's freedom to exercise his or her religious beliefs and practices. Second, the directive that disestablished State Shinto repudiated the special prerogatives accorded to Shinto by the government in the seventh century and reinforced by the Meiji regime. Third, the principle of the separation of religion and state disavowed the age-old dogma of the unity of religion and government (saisei-itchi). Equally significant was the Imperial Rescript issued in 1946, which renounced the divinity of the emperor (1987, 81).
The Allied Powers of the Occupation completely demilitarized the nation and thereby wiped out the seed-bed of military caesaro-papism. Next, the Allied Powers rooted out the legitimate and legal grounds of caesaro-papism by making the emperor renounce his divinity and by guaranteeing the constitutional separation of polity and religion. Third, the Allied Powers opened the road of autonomous and independent religious development by guaranteeing freedom of religion and by prohibiting to institute state religion. If religious development were fully ethicalized and internalized, it would be almost impossible to subjugated religious authority under the control of secular power.
Yet, the Allied Forces did not abolish the Imperial House. As long as the people were accustomed to believe in the traditional charisma of the Imperial House, the emperor was an indispensable tool for social stability even if he were charged as a war criminal. 97 Weber writes:
Even under the worst conditions, therefore, such a removal is anxiously avoided by all groups which benefit from the existing order; it remains to be seen whether such a dethronement is permanently feasible (1968, 1158).
If they disposed the Imperial House, it would caused serious disorder and confusion in Japanese society. 98 Weber says:
If there is genuinely charismatic authority as an incarnated deity or a descendant of deity like the Mikado, any attempt to overthrow the charismatic house will endanger the legitimacy of every powers, and shaken all traditional attitude toward the obedient submission to the power holder (1968, 1158)
The existence of the emperor has functioned to avoid the bloody power-struggle and legitimacy-battle, especially a communist revolution, which had often taken place around the world at that time. 99 Weber calls this function of the symbolic emperor in practice "the most important one." He states:
He [symbolic king] formally limits the power struggle of the politicians by definitively occupying the highest position in the state. From a purely political viewpoint, this essentially negative function, which depends on the mere existence of a legitimate king, is perhaps in practice the most important one" (1968, 1148).
Thus, the Allied Powers' policy of the demilitarization of the nation and the preservation of the Imperial House can be compared to classical Persia's Jewish and medieval Mongol's Tibetan policy that destroyed local military powers and preserved local religious authority. Yet, in contrast to Persian and Mongolian empires, the Allied Powers did not allow the religious authority to control secular power because they advocated the idea of the separation of religion and politics.
As a consequence, Japanese rulership is now neither caesaro-papism nor theocracy. The new constitution bars both, although the tension between secular and religious authority is one that never ceases. Who controls education is the central issue of the tension. And now secular power, i.e., politicians and bureaucrats, are strengthening their hands over the indoctrination of the belief in its legitimacy, although the effect is not as strong as it was in the prewar period. Japan has lacked spiritual leaders, ethical sectarian movement and religious education since Tokugawa caesaro-papism. Religious authorities are not developed to take over the control of education, even if newly emerged religious organizations such as Soka-Gakkai and Tenri-kyo may become a counter-balance to secular power. Yet the rationalization and internalization of religiosity by charismatic, emotional and sectarian developments is due course as long as actual freedom of religious activity is guaranteed. 100
Another important outcome of the Allied Power's policy is the birth of a pacifist constitution. The constitution revealed a new idea of the nation, i.e., the absolute pacifist nation. The Constitution of Japan, Article 9, declares:
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
This is a complete reverse of the prewar idea of the nation. It is a utopia. Yet a pacifist nation is also of interest of demilitarized citizens in capitalist economy. The future of Japan depends on where and to what goals the idea of the nation is directed. Only a prophet and a demagogue can give and direct the meaning and mission of the nation. Let us conclude our study with the prophet Yanaihara's idea of the nation:
One who loves one's own nation most has to seek the idea of the nation for justice and peace. One who uses nationalism for the interest of the nation, oppresses freedom of individuals, and brings international disputes destroys the nation. The idea of the nation is a product of the historical and social development. Therefore it must be educated, cultivated and purified.... Purify the idea of the nation to justice, develop it for freedom, and realize it into peace (1993, 59).