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神を信ぜよ kami o shinzeyo Trust in God

神を信ぜよ (kami o shinzeyo), believe in God, is Jesus's command at Mark 11:22 in the Japanese New Testament of 1881. The King James English of the verse reads Have faith in God. This study follows it into Meiji commentary and argument, and sets it beside its sister, 神を信じる.

Japanese Scroll of Trust in God (kami o shinzeyo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Trust in God神を信ぜよkami o shinzeyo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

神を信ぜよ, kami o shinzeyo, believe in God, is scripture: the classical imperative of the verb 信ず, and the words of Jesus at Mark 11:22, Have faith in God, in the Japanese New Testament of 1881, the oldest of the 278 books the National Diet Library's full-text search finds with it. By one reading it is also the first half of John 14:1, believe in God, believe also in me. Meiji writers carry it into commentary and argument from 1888: a missionary's commentary on John that puts it in Jesus's mouth, an address for Buddhism that will believe neither the Buddha nor God against reason, a Christian apology that sets it against Christ's believe in me. Its sister 神を信じる is the same verb in the modern conjugation, a statement rather than a command.

Overview

The sense. Believe in God, as a command.

The words. 神 kami, God, the word the Japanese New Testament of 1881 uses for the God of the Bible [1]. 信ぜよ shinzeyo is the imperative of 信ず, the old conjugation of the verb that is 信じる today [2][3]. The old conjugation's imperative ends in せよ, voiced ぜよ in verbs like 信ず; the new conjugation's ends in よ or ろ, so its imperatives are 信じよ and 信じろ [4][5]. The sentence as brushed reads 神を信ぜよ, the Bible's form [6]. Word for word: believe in God.

The text in English. The King James Bible's English of the same verse is Have faith in God [7], and Believe in God renders 信ぜよ as well. Either way it is a command.

The historical record

1881, the Japanese New Testament, Mark 11:22. The Japanese New Testament published at Yokohama by the American Bible Society, 『新約全書』:

二二 イエス答て彼等に曰けるハ神を信ぜよ 二三 誠に我なんぢらに告ん誰にても其心に疑ふ事なく…

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall … not doubt in his heart…

That is the sentence, to the character, the print's を in an older printed form [1][7]. It is the oldest of the books the full-text search finds with it, 278 dated 1881 to 1964 [8].

1888 to 1889, three Meiji writers. A commentary on John by the missionary ラールネデ, at 8:28–29, puts the command in Jesus's mouth: 爾曹我を信せずとも唯神を信せよと宣たまへり, even if you do not believe me, only believe God, he said, the print leaving the dakuten off both せ [9]. An address by Colonel Olcott, translated in 1889, argues that Buddhism accords with reason; it gives the Buddha's rule, to believe only what one's own mind assents to, and goes on: 故に佛を信ぜよ神を信ぜよと云ふも其れが道理に合はざれば信ずるに足らず, so whether one says believe in the Buddha or believe in God, if it does not accord with reason it is not worth believing [10]. And a Christian apologist the same year sets it against Christ's own words, キリストも亦人に敎へて寧ろ神を信せよと云はずして我を信せよと云へり, Christ too, teaching, did not say believe rather in God but said believe in me, the print again leaving the dakuten off せ [11]. Two of the three have the Bible in view; Olcott takes the command as the type of what a religion asks.

John 14:1, the second verse. The King James English of John 14:1 is ye believe in God, believe also in me [12], and its first half can be read as a statement or as a command. A commentary on John translated in 1884 reads it as a command: 爾輩神ヲ信セヨ神ハ爾輩ノ爲ニ天ノ第宅ヲ備ヘリ爾輩我ヲ信セヨ, you, believe in God; God has prepared mansions in heaven for you; you, believe in me [13]. ラールネデ's commentary of 1888 says of the Japanese Bible's 神を信じ that the original may be 神を信ずる or 神を信ずべし, you believe in God or you are to believe in God, that scholars differ, and that he takes it with the translation as a command [14]. The 1889 apologist's two commands, 神を信せよ and 我を信せよ, are the two halves of this verse as the 1884 commentary renders it.

One verb, two conjugations. 信ず · 信じる shinzu · shinjiru is one verb in two conjugations: the dictionaries define it as 神仏を信仰する, to have faith in a god or buddha, with a citation from 1110, and give the modern form 信じる from 1902; 大辞泉's third sense, 信仰する, gives the example 「キリスト教を信ずる」 [2][3]. Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 already gives both, SHINJI, -dzru or -ru, -ta, that is shindzuru or shinjiru, To believe … Kami wo —, to believe in God, or to believe there is a God [15]. 神を信ぜよ, believe in God, is the old conjugation's imperative and the Bible's, in 278 books the full-text search reaches [8]; 神を信じる, I believe in God, is the new conjugation's plain form, in 100 [16]; and 神を信じよ, the new conjugation's imperative, in 32 [17]. The two sentences are one verb in two registers, and the older register is the Bible's. In kana, the modern conjugation is in print the same year as the New Testament, in a Christian primer, 總で神を信じる者は, all who believe in God [18].

What is not a source. The Meiji tracts are quotations, not sources; the source is Mark 11:22 in its 1881 Japanese [1].

A reading

神を信ぜよ is a verse, in the Japanese of the 1881 New Testament: a command, in the old conjugation, at Mark 11:22, and by one reading the first half of John 14:1 as well. The Meiji writers read here knew it as the Bible's, whether they were preaching it, arguing with it, or setting it beside Christ's believe in me; the one who argued for Buddhism took it as the type of what a religion asks, and would not grant it past reason.

References

  1. 『新約全書』, 米国聖書, Yokohama, 1881, 馬可傳第十一章, printed p. 129, scan 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992682/1/67
  2. 「信ずる」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典 (the sense of faith first cited from 法華修法一百座聞書抄, 1110), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/信ずる-538004
  3. 「信じる」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典 (初出 社会百面相, 1902), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/信じる-537902
  4. 「サ行変格活用」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典 (文語「せ・し・す・する・すれ・せよ」; ザ行に活用する「甘んずる」「応ずる」なども含む), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/さ行変格活用-3211268
  5. 「上一段活用」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典 (「る・れ・よ（ろ）」を添えた形; サ変動詞のうちザ行の「感ず」「信ず」なども「感じる」「信じる」のように上一段化した形が広まった), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/上一段活用-466340
  6. The design as brushed by Eri Takase, Takase Studios, scroll R0001. https://takase.com/japanese-scrolls/christian/trust-in-god-kami-o-shinzeyo
  7. Bible (King James), Mark 11:22, at en.wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Mark
  8. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信ぜよ, searched again 30 September 2026: 278 books, dated 1881 to 1964, 273 of them to 1946. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=神を信ぜよ
  9. ラールネデ 述, 速水琢厳 記, 約翰伝註釈, 1888, scan 158. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825699/1/158
  10. カーネル・オルコット 述, 佐久間信恭 訳, 雄氏演説筆記, 1889, scan 35. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/817471/1/35
  11. 伊勢時雄, 神の顕現, 1889, printed p. 184, scan 97. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824147/1/97
  12. Bible (King James), John 14:1, at en.wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/John
  13. ミハイル 著, 小野彼得 訳, 約翰福音註解, 1884, scan 127. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825704/1/127
  14. ラールネデ 述, 速水琢厳 記, 約翰伝註釈, 1888, scan 251. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825699/1/251
  15. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary, Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867, p. 408, Shinji. https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb/page/n425/mode/1up
  16. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信じる, searched again 30 September 2026: 100 books, dated 1881 to 1967, 87 of them to 1946. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=神を信じる
  17. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信じよ, searched again 30 September 2026: 32 books, dated 1889 to 1967. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=神を信じよ
  18. 原胤昭, 耶蘇教易知, 十字屋, 1881, printed p. 22, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824028/1/13

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations — the cited paragraphs checked at their addresses with web search on, after a first pass in two units; several not found at address, all one defect (NDL scan numbers taken from the Lab search's page field instead of derived from the OCR archive), corrected and re-verified by hand at the page API; a two-page spread read one page of by the checker; the rest confirmed. GPT-6 Astra refused the probe, HTTP 429 insufficient_quota

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 神を信ぜよ (kami o shinzeyo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kami-o-shinzeyo.