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Home › Library › Philology › Trust in God

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 as the Japanese New Testament of 1881 prints it, to the character, where the King James English reads Have faith in God.

Japanese Scroll of Trust in God (kami wo shinze yo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Trust in God (kami wo shinze yo)

神を信ぜよkami wo shinze yo

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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. The Meiji writers read here quote it in 1888 and 1889: a missionary's commentary, a Buddhist lecture, 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; 信じよ and 信じろ are the imperatives of the new one [2][3]. The sentence as brushed reads 神を信ぜよ, the Bible's form [4]. 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 [5], 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 of 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 [1][5]. It is the oldest of the books the full-text search finds with it, 278 dated 1881 to 1964 [6].

1888 to 1889, three Meiji citations of the verse. A commentary on John by a foreign missionary uses it as a formula, 唯神を信ぜよ, only believe in God [7]; a Buddhist lecturer's address turns it against the Christians, 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, say believe in the Buddha, believe in God as you will, if it does not accord with reason it is not worth believing [8]; 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 in God but believe in me, the print leaving the dakuten off せ [9]. The three Meiji writers read here are quoting the Bible, or answering 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]. 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 [6]; 神を信じる, I believe in God, is the new conjugation's plain form, in 100 [10]; and 神を信じよ, the new conjugation's imperative, in 32 [11]. The two sentences are one verb in two registers, and the older register is the Bible's. 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 [12].

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, that the Meiji writers read here knew as the Bible's, whether they were preaching it, arguing with it, or setting it beside Christ's believe in me.

References

  1. 『新約全書』, 米国聖書会社, 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. The design as brushed by Eri Takase, Takase Studios (not yet published).
  5. Bible (King James), Mark 11:22, at en.wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Mark
  6. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信ぜよ, searched again 26 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
  7. 約翰伝註釈, 1888, scan 158. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825699/1/158
  8. 雄氏演説筆記, 1889, scan 35. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/817471/1/35
  9. 伊勢時雄, 神の顕現, 1889, printed p. 184, scan 97. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824147/1/97
  10. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信じる, searched again 26 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
  11. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 神を信じよ, searched again 26 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
  12. 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