Chapter 2

Blancas de San José, [21] as we have noted, came to the Philippines in 1595. He was at Abucay in Bataan from 1598 until 1602, and then spent several years in and about Manila, preaching to the Indians and the Chinese, whose language he also mastered. In 1614 he set out for Spain, but died on the voyage before reaching Mexico. Of the books which he is said to have had printed, only two are known to be extant, the _Arte y Reglas de la Lengva Tagala_ [22] and the _Librong Pagaaralan nang manga Tagalog nang uicang Castilla_ [23] (or _Libro en qve aprendan los Tagalos, la lengua Castellana_), both printed at Bataan in 1610, and until the discovery of the present Doctrina and the _Ordinationes_ of 1604 the earliest surviving Philippine imprints known.

We have not cited here in detail the account of Juan Lopez [24] in the fifth part of his history of the Dominicans, because, although it was printed nineteen years before the appearance of Aduarte's work, the information therein contained regarding the Philippines was acknowledgedly obtained from the unfinished manuscript which Aduarte had with him in Spain. The pertinent passages add nothing to Aduarte's information, and even the wording is reminiscent of his.

The first suggestion that early Philippine books may have been printed from wood-blocks occurred in Quétif and Echard's bibliography of Dominican writers printed at Paris in 1719. There, after listing eight works by Blancas de San José, they add:

"He published all these in the Philippines with the help of a Chinese Christian using Chinese blocks, for in his day European typographers had not yet arrived in those islands, nor did they have types for their language." [25]

This was an amazing suggestion, for as far as we know the bibliographers who made it had not actually seen the books; nor is it entirely true. The first two works listed are two books we know were printed typographically in 1610. The sixth is _De los mysterios del Rosario de nuestra Señora Tagalice_, the book referred to by Fernández as having been printed in 1602, and generally accepted as being from movable type, although no copy has been discovered to prove it. And yet, it is not at all impossible that some time before 1602 Blancas de San José had some of his writings printed from blocks. In any event, the idea, later developed by Medina and Retana, that xylography was used before a real printing-press was established, may have come from this not wholly accurate note.

For almost a hundred and fifty years no historian or bibliographer wrote anything to challenge the basic affirmations of Chirino, Fernández and Aduarte. In the middle of the 18th century, Lorenzo Hervas y Panduro, [26] a Jesuit, was forced by the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain to seek refuge in the Papal States, and took up residence at Cesena. There he began work on a tremendous universal history of the spiritual development of man, into which he wove the results of his philosophical, social and linguistic studies. These last were of particular importance, and Hervas is regarded as the true founder of the science of linguistics and comparative philology. In 1785 he published the eighteenth volume of his massive work, the _Origine, formazione, meccanismo, ed armonia degl' idiomi_, in which he printed a Tagalog Ave Maria as written in 1593, with the note:

"The Ave Maria in the Tagalog of 1593 is to be read in the Tagalog-Spanish Doctrina Christiana which was printed in Tagalog and roman characters by the Dominican fathers in their printing-house at Manila in the year 1593." [27]

In 1787 he finished his twenty-first volume, _Saggio pratico_, [28] which was another philological study, including the Pater Noster in over three hundred languages and dialects, among them Tagalog, again from the 1593 Doctrina. Here, then, is ample proof that a copy of this book was known to Hervas in 1785, and the only information which his loose transcription of the title failed to give was that the volume was "corrected by members of the orders," that it was printed with license, and that it was printed at San Gabriel.

At the beginning of the following century two German scholars, familiar with Hervas' writings, noted the 1593 Doctrina. Franz Carl Alter, [29] in his monograph on the Tagalog language, printed the Ave Maria from the text which had appeared in 1785, and Johann Christoph Adelung, [30] in his _Mithridates_, a comprehensive study of languages, included the Tagalog Pater Noster from the _Saggio pratico_ of 1787. The latter also listed in a short bibliography of the Tagalog language the Doctrina of 1593, giving exactly the same information about it that Hervas had. Neither of these men apparently saw a copy of the book, limiting themselves to extracts from Hervas, but they perpetuated an earlier reference of the utmost importance.

Shortly after the two Germans published their notices of the 1593 Doctrina an entry appeared of a book printed at Manila in 1581. José Mariano Beristain y Sousa, a learned Mexican writer, issued in 1819-21 a bibliography of Spanish-American books, in which he listed alphabetically the authors, giving a short biography of each and adding a list of his works. Under Juan de Quiñones we find:

"'Arte y Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala,' Imp. en Manila, 1581." [31]

No specific authority is given for this entry, but in his sketch of the life of Quiñones Beristain cited as sources, Juan de Grijalva, Nicolás Antonio, Gaspar de San Agustin, and José Sicardo. It would seem logical that one of these must have mentioned such a work as printed in Manila in 1581, but in tracing down the sources no such precise notice is found.

Grijalva simply said that Quiñones "concerned himself with Tagalog and made a vocabulary and grammar of it." [32] Antonio [33] referred to Grijalva, and carried the matter no further. San Agustin, describing the Franciscan chapter of 1578, wrote:

"It was determined moreover in this chapter that P. Fr. Juan de Quiñones, prior of the Convent of Taal in Tagalos, and Fr. Diego de Ochoa, prior of Bacolor in Pampanga, should compose and fashion grammars, dictionaries, and confessionaries in the two languages [respectively Tagalog and Pampanga] in which they had ventured; which they executed very promptly and well, and these were of great use to those who came to these islands, for they had these by which they could study the languages." [34]

Later, San Agustin, again mentioning Quiñones, referred to Grijalva, and added as an additional source for his information Tómas de Herrera. Sicardo [35] added nothing new. Herrera, not cited directly by Beristain, may however have been the source from which the "Imp." of his entry came. Herrera wrote:

"He [Quiñones] was the first to have learned the Tagalog language of which he published a grammar and dictionary as an aid to the ministers of the gospel."

If Beristain read this, he may have been misled by the Latin of "published," [36] _in lucem edidit_, which may indeed mean printed and published, but also means quite properly published in the sense of written in manuscript and copied and circulated. We agree with Schilling [37] that this latter meaning was the one intended. One other statement that Quiñones' works were printed may derive from the same misunderstanding. About the year 1801 Pedro Bello wrote an account, still in manuscript and unpublished, of the writings of the Augustinians. His remarks on Quiñones, first printed by Santiago Vela [38], we believe are only an extension of Herrera's _in lucem edidit_.

This same confusion in terminology has been used [39] to support Beristain's claim by introducing as evidence the letter of Philip II of May 8, 1584. Salazar, the Bishop of Manila, probably shortly after the Synod of 1582, had written the King a letter, now unfortunately lost, in which he spoke of a decision to standardize linguistic works. In answer to the Bishop, the following letter in the form of a royal cedula was sent:

"To the President and Judges of my Royal Audiencia situated in the city of Manila in the Philippine Islands.--It has been told me on behalf of Don Fray Domingo de Salazar, Bishop of that place, that it was agreed that no priest might make a grammar or vocabulary, and that if it were made it might not be published before being examined and approved by the said Bishop, because otherwise there would result great differences and disagreements in the doctrine; and this having been seen by my Council of the Indies, it was agreed that I should order this my cedula which decrees that when any grammar or vocabulary be made it shall not be published or used unless it has first been examined by the said Bishop and seen by this Audencia." [40]

Here again the word _publicado_ is brought forth to prove that the letter referred to printed works, but here again the term is equally applicable to manuscript works in common use and generally available.

Further evidence that there was no printing as early as 1581 is to be found in a letter [41] from Juan de Plasencia, a Tagalist of great renown, to the King, dated from Manila, June 18, 1585, in which he reported on the state of missionary work in China and Japan, and added that he had written a grammar and a declaration of the whole Doctrina in the most common language of the Philippines, and that he was then making a dictionary, concluding by asking the King to send decrees ordering those works to be printed in Mexico at the expense of the Exchequer. Is it likely that Plasencia would have so written if an _Arte y Vocabulario_ had been printed four years earlier? Furthermore, San Antonio, recording the book on the customs and rites of the Indians written by Plasencia at the request of the Governor Santiago de Vera, and dated October 24, 1589, said that it was not printed "because printing houses had not yet come to this country." [42]

We then conclude with regard to Beristain's entry, that although there existed in manuscript an _Arte y Vocabuldrio Tagalo_ by Juan de Quiñones, there is no evidence of the existence of any book printed for him from wood-blocks or in type. Santiago de Vela [43] suggests the possibility that there might have been a xylographic _Arte_ of 1581, but Schilling [44] questions this in the face of the complete lack of reference to such a printed work by any 17th or 18th century writer, and the tenuous notices of Bello and Beristain; yet to say categorically that no such work was printed would be foolhardy in the face of the scanty early records and the appearance of this Doctrina, a single copy of which has just been discovered.

The first important work devoted solely to the early history of the Philippine press was by T.H. Pardo de Tavera, who in 1893 published his study of printing and engraving in the Philippines. He there recorded a 1593 Doctrina, but adamantly refused to accept it on the hearsay evidence of others. His account is valuable because it shows that there may have been a copy of the Doctrina in Java in 1885, and so we quote from it at some length:

"A learned Dutch orientalist, Dr. J. Brandes, wrote me in 1885 from Bali-Boeleleng (Java) telling me that in 1593 at Manila there was printed a Doctrina Christiana in Spanish-Tagalog, with the proper characters for the latter language. Other orientalists, at the last Congress in London in 1891, gave me the same information. Nonetheless, no one told me where he had read such a thing, nor much less that he had managed to see such a book, although inspecting a rare book which I acquired in Paris (Alter, _Ueber die tagalische sprache_, Vienna, 1803), I saw that the author cited such a Doctrina Christiana and said that he knew of its existence through Abbé Hervas. This is an error, and without doubt such a Doctrina was in manuscript, because in 1591 [he should have said 1593] there was no press in Manila nor in any part of the archipelago, and today we know for certain and positively that the first book issued there appeared in 1610." [45]

Pardo de Tavera was the first to call attention to Alter, and through him to Hervas, and in all probability the orientalists at the London Congress had seen the Doctrina cited by one of these or Adelung. But he rejects that evidence in no uncertain terms. Mitigating somewhat his assurance, he speaks following the above-quoted passage of printing in China, and differentiates between xylographic and typographic printing, and since he was obviously thinking in terms of printing on a press with movable type his conclusions are not too extreme.

In 1896 appeared José Toribio Medina's _La Imprenta en Manila_, which was up to then the best, most complete and most scholarly work on early Philippine printing, and is today with its subsequent additions and corrections the standard bibliography of the subject. There Medina cited most of the authorities we have already quoted, the letter of Dasmariñas, Fernández' _Historia eclesiastica_, Aduarte, Adelung, Beristain and Pardo de Tavera. Then, basing his conclusions strongly on the Dasmariñas letter and the note of Adelung, he listed [46] as number one in his bibliography the Doctrina of 1593 in Spanish and Tagalog, and as number two the Doctrina in Spanish and Chinese of the same year. This is a verdict which has stood the test of time, and one that is just now confirmed by the discovery of the book itself. Two points, however, in his survey should be noted. In his discussion of the printing and the authorship Medina does not emphasize the Dominican origin of the book, although he does say that "it does not appear bold to us to suppose that the imprint of these Doctrinas ought to be the Hospital of San Gabriel in this village [Binondo]," [47] and faithfully copies Adelung's imprint notice, "in the Dominican printing-house," in his listing of the book. The other point is that he says in his introduction and repeats in his entry that the Doctrina had a Latin as well as Spanish and Tagalog texts, an erroneous translation of Adelung's "mit lateinische und tagalische Schrift." He was hesitant as are all bibliographers, who must perforce record the probable existence of a book a copy of which they have never seen, in committing himself as to whether it was printed from blocks or from type or by a combination of the two methods.

More positive and more succinct than Medina was T.E. Retana whose earlier researches [48] into the history of the Philippines Medina acknowledgedly made use of, and who in 1897 published his _La Imprenta en Filipinas, Adiciones y Observaciones a La Imprenta en Manila_. He took the material of Medina, added the evidence of Chirino and Plasencia, and resummarized the problem. The letter of Dasmariñas showed conclusively that a Doctrina was printed in 1593. Chirino said that the first two whose works were printed were Juan de Villanueva and Blancas de San José. Fernández stated positively that the first book printed in the Philippines was the book of Our Lady of the Rosary by Blancas de San José printed at Bataan in 1602. Aduarte supported this without mentioning a title, place or date of printing. If we are to accept all these statements as incontrovertible, how can the apparent contradictions be reconciled? The answer had already been hinted at, but Retana solved the problem with amazing acumen, and arrived at four conclusions, which are here printed in his own words:

"A--That the Doctrinas of 1593, though printed at Manila, were not executed in type, but by the so-called xylographic method;

B--That the initiative for the establishment of _typography_ is owed to P. Fr. Francisco Blancas de San José;

C--That the first _typographer_ was the Chinese Christian Juan de Vera at the instigation of the said Father San José;

D--That the first _typographical_ printing of this Dominican author is of the year 1602." [49]

It is not difficult to say with the book itself in front of us, that it is an example of xylographic printing, but it was a great feat on the part of Retana, who had never seen a copy, to resolve apparently irreconcilable differences of opinion on the part of several unquestioned authorities by deducing that it was all a matter of semantics--what did _printing_ mean? As for the sprite of 1581 introduced by Beristain, Retana dismissed it on the grounds of insufficient evidence. In a word, he concluded that the first book issued in the Philippines was a Doctrina printed from wood-blocks in 1593.

All subsequent writers on the subject have derived their information from the sources we have already mentioned, and to a great degree have been influenced by the findings of Medina and Retana. The Rev. Thomas Cooke Middleton [50] in 1900 confessed that he did not know what the first book printed was. Pardo de Tavera maintained his old intransigence, when in the introduction to his bibliography for the Library of Congress in 1903 he wrote that Medina's affirmation that printing took place in 1593 "loses all validity in the face of the categorical statement of F. Alonso Fernández." [51] Medina did not comment further in his _Adiciones y Ampliaciones_ [52] of 1904, yet when the same year Pérez and Güemes [53] published their additions to and continuation of Medina, bringing his bibliography down to 1850, they resurrected the 1581 _Arte_, but added no new evidence to prove their case. Blair and Robertson, in their tremendous, collective history of the Philippines, did not include a list of Philippine imprints in their bibliography, [54] but referred readers to Medina and Retana with whom they agreed. To celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of typographical printing in the Philippines Artigas y Cuerva [55] wrote a study which emphasized the part played by Blancas de San José, but did not deny the existence of the 1593 Doctrina. Retana [56] in 1911 brought his work on the subject up to date, but retained all his major conclusions. In Palau's standard bibliography of Spanish books we find the Doctrinas called "the two earliest books known to have been printed in Manila." [57] Finally, the most thorough recent work on the subject is to be found in Schilling's [58] survey of the early history of the Philippine press published in 1937. There is little that can be added to the evidence uncovered by these modern writers, but the appearance of the book itself enables us to say with certainty some things which they were able only to surmise. However, as regards the authorship and the circumstances and place of printing we are able, from the information given on the title, to carry the investigation somewhat further.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE TEXT

The title tells us that the book was "corrected" by the priests of more than one order, and since it was printed by the Dominicans, we can assume that the ultimate responsibility for the preparation of the text in consultation with friars of other orders also lay in their hands. Our problem then is to discover what texts were available to them in 1593 and who were the priests who formed the editorial board. We have included in this study also the origins of the Chinese text, for the two Doctrinas appeared at the same time, and as we shall see the same Dominicans were probably responsible for the production and preparation of both the Tagalog and the Chinese texts. During the period under discussion there were priests of four orders active in the islands, and so we shall speak in turn of the Augustinian, Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican fathers who might have written or worked on the Doctrinas printed in 1593.

THE AUGUSTINIANS

The first priests to come to the Philippines were six Augustinians who accompanied Legazpi on the expedition which in 1565 established the first permanent European settlement in the islands. Among them was Martin de Rada, who was one of the most important and influential priests during the early days of the Spanish colony, and who was the first linguist of note to work in the Philippines. The first language he learned was Visayan, [59] native to the island of Cebú where the Spaniards first landed, but he also learned Chinese. In May 1572 he was elected provincial of his order, and in June 1575 he went with Jerónimo Marín, as ambassador to China, being "the first Spaniard who entered into that said kingdom." [60] In preparation for the voyage, we are told by González de Mendoza, whose famous and popular history of China first printed in 1585 derives in a great measure from information brought back by Rada, that Rada "began with great care & studie to learne that language [Chinese], the which he learned in few daies: & did make thereof a dictionarie." [61] Rada was then not only the first to write in Visayan, but also the first to compile a Chinese dictionary, and more important still brought back with him to Manila from China many books of which Mendoza gives a list. [62] These books, printed in the usual Chinese method from wood-blocks, could have provided models for the Spaniards in the Philippines who lacked European facilities for printing, and they may have given birth to the idea which resulted in the xylographic Doctrinas.

Within the first few years several more Augustinian fathers [63] arrived whose linguistic accomplishments are briefly noted by the historians, but while these men were certainly pioneers in the speaking of Tagalog and Chinese, they are not recorded as having written in the language. According to Cano, [64] the first Tagalog grammar was written by Agustin de Alburquerque, and Retana [65] considered him one of the possible authors of the present Doctrina. This friar reached the Philippines in 1571, accompanied Rada on his second expedition to China in 1576, was elected provincial in 1578, and died in 1580. However, there is no early record saying that Alburquerque wrote any linguistic work. The statement was not made until the 19th century, and in contradiction Juan de Medina, who wrote in 1630, said that Juan de Quiñones "made a grammar and lexicon of the Tagal language, which was the first to make a start in the rules of its mode of speech." [66] Furthermore, in the official acts [67] of the Augustinian province we find that on August 20, 1578 Alburquerque as provincial of the order commissioned Quiñones to write a grammar, dictionary and confessionary in the Tagalog language. The conclusions of Santiago de Vela [68] are that it is doubtful that Alburquerque wrote any linguistic works, and if he did they were liable to have been rough preliminary studies [69] upon which the texts of Quiñones were based. In view of the lack of positive contemporary evidence [70] we believe that Alburquerque may be eliminated except as the instigator of such works, and we return again to Juan de Quiñones.

In so far as Quiñones [71] was the author of a grammar and dictionary claimed to have been printed at Manila in 1581, we have shown what various writers have said, and though we must conclude that the work was probably not printed, it is certain that he wrote in the Tagalog language. Agustin Maria de Castro [72] said, although no earlier writers support it, that Quiñones actually presented a grammar, dictionary and Doctrina in Tagalog at the Synod of 1582 for its approval. Our total information about this Augustinian linguist boils down to these essentials: that he did write a grammar and dictionary of Tagalog about 1578-81, which may have been the earliest written in the Philippines; that he may have presented these and a Doctrina at the Synod of 1582 which approved Juan de Plasencia's works; that there is no concrete evidence that any of these works were printed; and that Quiñones' works which were extant in manuscript in 1593 might have been consulted in the preparation of the present Doctrina.