Chapter 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Doctrina Christiana This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Doctrina Christiana Editor: Edwin Wolf Release date: June 23, 2005 [eBook #16119] Most recently updated: January 1, 2021 Language: English, Spanish, Tagalog Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16119 Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman, Tamiko I. Camacho, and the PG Distributed Proofreaders Team *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA *** Produced by Jeroen Hellingman, Tamiko I. Camacho, and the PG Distributed Proofreaders Team [Transcriber's note: The Old-Tagalog characters used in this book are represented by capital letters.] DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA The First Book Printed in the Philippines. Manila, 1593. A Facsimile of the Copy in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection. Library of Congress, Washington. With an Introductory Essay By Edwin Wolf 2nd ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want here to express my thanks and appreciation to Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald, through whose kindness this unique Doctrina was presented to the Library of Congress and with whom the idea of this publication originated. His interest and enthusiasm made possible my work, and his friendly advice and encouragement have been both valuable and heart-warming. I also wish to thank others who have given me great assistance. They are Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach to whom I continually turned for advice, Dr. Lawrence C. Wroth of the John Carter Brown Library and Dr. Leslie W. Dunlap of the Library of Congress who very kindly read over my manuscript and gave me the benefit of their suggestions and criticisms, Mr. David C. Mearns and Miss Elsie Rackstraw of the Library of Congress and Mrs. Ruth Lapham Butler of the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library who so freely and generously made available to me the great collections of works on the Philippines in their libraries, Dr. John H. Powell of the Free Library of Philadelphia who helped me find reference books of the utmost importance, and the many librarians who courteously answered written queries about early Philippine material. EDWIN WOLF 2ND. DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA The first book printed in the Philippines has been the object of a hunt which has extended from Manila to Berlin, and from Italy to Chile, for four hundred and fifty years. The patient research of scholars, the scraps of evidence found in books and archives, the amazingly accurate hypotheses of bibliographers who have sifted the material so painstakingly gathered together, combine to make its history a bookish detective story par excellence. It is easy when a prisoner has been arrested and brought to the dock to give details of his complexion, height, characteristics and identifying marks, to fingerprint him and to photograph him, but how inadequate was the description before his capture, how frequently did false scents draw the pursuer off the right track! It is with this in mind that we examine the subject of this investigation, remembering that it has not been done before in detail. And, to complete the case, the book has been photographed in its entirety and its facsimile herewith published. In studying the Doctrina Christiana of 1593 there are four general problems which we shall discuss. First, we shall give a physical description of the book. Secondly, we shall trace chronologically the bibliographical history of the Doctrina, that is, we shall record the available evidence which shows that it was the first book printed in the Philippines, and weigh the testimonies which state or imply to the contrary. Thirdly, we shall try to establish the authorship of the text, and lastly, we shall discuss the actual printing. It hardly needs be told why so few of the incunabula of the Philippines have survived. The paper on which they were printed was one of the most destructible papers ever used in book production. The native worms and insects thrived on it, and the heat and dampness took their slower but equally certain toll. Add to these enemies the acts of providence of which the Philippines have received more than their share--earthquake, fire and flood--and the man-made devastations of war, combined with the fact that there was no systematic attempt made in the Philippines to preserve in archives and libraries the records of the past, and it can well be understood why a scant handful of cradle-books have been preserved. The two fires of 1603 alone, which burned the Dominican convent in Manila to the ground and consumed the whole of Binondo just outside the walls, must have played untold havoc upon the records of the early missionaries. Perhaps the only copies of early Philippine books which exist today, unchronided and forgotten, are those which were sent to Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and may now be lying uncatalogued in some library there. One copy of this Doctrina was sent to Philip II by the Governor of the Philippines in 1593; and in 1785 a Jesuit philologist, Hervas y Panduro, printed Tagalog texts from a then extant copy. Yet, since that time no example is recorded as having been seen by bibliographer or historian. The provenance of the present one is but imperfectly known. In the spring of 1946 William H. Schab, a New York dealer, was in Paris, and heard through a friend of the existence of a 1593 Manila book. He expressed such incredulity at this information that his friend, feeling his integrity impugned, telephoned the owner then and there, and confirmed the unbelievable "1593." Delighted and enthused, Schab arranged to meet him, found that he was a Paris bookseller and collector who specialized in Pacific imprints and was fully aware of the importance of the volume, and induced him to sell the precious Doctrina. He brought it back with him to the United States and offered it to Lessing J. Rosenwald, who promptly purchased it and presented it to the Library of Congress. Where the book had been before it reached Paris we do not know. Perhaps it is the very copy sent to Philip II, perhaps the copy from which Hervas got his text. Indeed, it may have been churned to the surface by the late Civil War in Spain, and sent from there to France. In the course of years from similar sources may come other books to throw more light upon the only too poorly documented history of the establishment of printing in the Philippine Islands. THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Let us first examine the book as it appears before us. The title-page reads: Doctrina Christiana, en lengua española ytagala, cor regida por los Religiosos de las ordenes Impressa con licencia, en S. gabriel. de la orden de. S. Domigo En Manila. 1593 The book, printed in Gothic letters and Tagalog [1] characters on paper made from the paper mulberry, now browned and brittle with age, consists of thirty-eight leaves, comprising a title-page as above, under a woodcut [2] of St. Dominic, with the verso originally blank, but in this copy bearing the contemporary manuscript inscription, _Tassada en dos rreales_, signed _Juan de Cuellar_; and seventy-four pages of text in Spanish, Tagalog transliterated into roman letters, and Tagalog in Tagalog characters. The size of the volume, which is unbound, is 9 1/8 by 7 inches, although individual leaves vary somewhat due to chipping. Some of the leaves have become separated from their complements, but enough remain in the original stitching to indicate that the book was originally made up in four gatherings, the first of twelve leaves, the second of ten, the third of ten, and the fourth of six. Although the book is of the size called quarto, the method of printing must have been page by page, so it is doubtful that each sheet was folded twice in the usual quarto manner, but more probable that it was printed four pages to a sheet of paper approximately 9 1/8 by 14 inches, which was folded once. The volume is printed throughout by the xylographic method, that is to say, each page of text is printed from one wood-block which was carved by hand. Along the inner margins of some pages are vertical lines which were made by the inked edge of the block, and the grain of the wood has caused striations to appear in the printed portions throughout. The unevenness of the impression indicates that the pages were printed in some primitive manner without the help of a conventional press. The paper, which is one of the distinctive features of most old Oriental books, has been discussed at length by Pardo de Tavera in his study of early Philippine printing, and we can do no better than translate the relevant passage in full: "I have said before that the material composition of our books is inferior. The imprints before 1830 were made on a paper called by some rice paper, by others silk paper, and by still others China paper, according to their taste. It is detestable, brittle, without consistency or resistance, and was called rice paper because it was supposed to be made from that grain. It was the only kind then used in the Philippines, not only for printing, but for all manner of writing, letters, etc., and it is even recorded that in 1874 when tobacco was a state monopoly, cigarettes were made with this paper, and that the Indians and Chinese preferred it (and perhaps they still do) to rag paper or other kinds, because of the horrible taste it gives the tobacco. "In China they commonly made paper of bamboo, but more principally from cotton and a plant which travellers have cited only by its common name, which they transcribe in various ways, calling it _kochu_, _kotsu_, or _kotzu_. Today it is known that this plant is an ulmacea (_Broussonetia papyrifera_) from a mash of which they still make cloth in Japan. Cotton paper is superior to it, and naturally more expensive; but the paper of inferior quality which was received in Manila, where nothing was imported regularly but common articles of low price, was of _kotsu._ As all Chinese-made paper it was coated with alum, the finer [the paper] the thicker [the coating], for the purpose of whitening it and making the surface smooth, a deplorable business, for it made the paper very moisture absorbent, a condition fatal in such a humid climate as in these islands. Moreover, as the alum used is impure and contains a large proportion of iron salts, the humidity and weather oxidize it which finally darkens the paper, so that Philippine books present a coloration which runs the gamut of tones from the color of bone to that of dark cinnamon." [3] Because the Doctrina Christiana, which may well be translated "The Teachings of Christianity," contains the basic elements of the religion which the missionaries were trying to spread among the unbaptized in the remote regions of the world, it was the most useful handbook they had. A summary of the contents of the present edition shows the fundamental character of the work. After a syllabary comes the Pater Noster, the primary and most popular prayer of Christianity. Then follow the Ave Maria, Credo, Salve Regina, Articles of Faith, Ten Commandments, Commandments of the Holy Church, Sacraments of the Holy Church, Seven Mortal Sins, Fourteen Works of Charity, Confession and Catechism. Here in a small compass is presented the simplest, most easily learned and most essential tenets of the Catholic Church. So useful was the Doctrina considered as a guide for those who had just been, or were about to be, converted that the missionary fathers placed it in most cases foremost among the books necessary to have in print in a strange land. It is generally accepted today, although no extant copy is known, that the first book printed in Mexico [4] in 1539 was a Doctrina in Mexican and Spanish. Recent research has shown that the second book printed by the pioneer Jesuit press at Goa, in India, in 1557 was St. Francis Xavier's _Doutrina Christão_ [5] in the Malay language, of which also no copy has yet been located. But there are copies of the first book to come from a South American press, another Doctrina [6] printed in the native and Spanish languages at Lima in 1584. So the choice of this book as the first to be printed at Manila follows a widespread precedent. We have then a book, the Doctrina Christiana, in Spanish and Tagalog, corrected by priests of more than one order--and this is important in tracing the authorship of the work--and printed by the xylographic method with license at Manila at the Dominican Church of San Gabriel in 1593. So much we get from the title, and in itself it is a fairly complete story, but from the date of its issue until the present time that very fundamental information has not been completely recorded. THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY In tracing our clues down through the years, we find at the very beginning the most valuable evidence which has been uncovered, short of the book itself. From Manila on June 20, 1593, the Governor of the Philippines, Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, wrote a letter to Philip II of Spain in which he said: "Sire, in the name of Your Majesty, I have for this once, because of the existing great need, granted a license for the printing of the Doctrinas Christianas, herewith enclosed--one in the Tagalog language, which is the native and best of these islands, and the other in Chinese--from which I hope great benefits will result in the conversion and instruction of the peoples of both nations; and because the lands of the Indies are on a larger scale in everything and things more expensive, I have set the price of them at four reales a piece, until Your Majesty is pleased to decree in full what is to be done." [7] This states unequivocally that two books were printed at Manila some time before June 20, 1593, one of which was the Doctrina in Tagalog, and the other the same work in Chinese. Although we are chiefly concerned here with the former, the fact that they were produced at about the same time and probably at the same place makes it necessary to trace the history of both in order to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the production of the one. Of the Chinese Doctrina no copy has yet come to light, and except for two 1593 references, there are no records of its existence. Another document [8] of 1593 verifies the information given in the letter of Dasmariñas, differing from it only in one detail. In the Archives of the Indies was found a manuscript account of 1593 listing books written in the Philippines, which says: "There have been printed primers and catechisms of the faith, one in Spanish and Tagalog, which is the native language, and the other in Chinese, which are being sent to Your Majesty, the Tagalog priced at two reales and the Chinese at four, which is hoped will be of great benefit." The accounts of the printing of two Doctrinas contained in these documents confirm some of the information of the title and add a bit more. First, the letter says that the book was printed by permission given by the Governor, which agrees with the "with license" of the title, "for this once because of the existing great need." By a royal cedula [9] of September 21, 1556, which was promulgated again on August 14, 1560, it had been ordered that Justices "not consent to or permit to be printed or sold any book containing material concerning the Indies without having special license sent by our Royal Council of the Indies," and on May 8, 1584 this was implemented by the further order "that when any grammar or dictionary of the language of the Indies be made it shall not be published, or printed or used unless it has first been examined by the Bishop and seen by the Royal Audiencia." This latter portion was applied specifically to the Philippines in a letter [10] from Philip II to the Audiencia of Manila, also dated May 8, 1584, to which further reference will be made. It can be gathered from Dasmariñas' implied apology that he had never before given such a license, and, since he had arrived in the Philippines in 1590, that no books had been printed between that time and the licensing of the Doctrinas. It is, moreover, likely that if any similar books had been printed during the administrations of his predecessors he would have mentioned the fact as a precedent for acting contrary to the cedulas. According to Dasmariñas he had priced the books at four reales a piece, which followed the regular Spanish procedure, under which books were subject to price control. The Governor, it will be noted, also apologized for the high price he was forced to set, giving general high prices [11] as his excuse. Yet, while the appraisal of four reales for this book was high compared to the prevailing scale in Spain, it was not high compared to prices allowed in Mexico. On June 6, 1542 the Emperor had given the Casa de Cromberger, the first printing-house in Mexico, permission [12] to sell books printed there at seventeen maravedís a sheet, or exactly one half a real. If we assume that, although the Doctrina had been printed page by page, it was quarto in size and so appraised on the basis of eight pages to a sheet, we find that the price per sheet comes to about fourteen maravedís, or less than half a real. However, a contradiction occurs between the letter of Dasmariñas and this copy of the Doctrina, supported by the other 1593 document. On the verso of the title, Juan de Cuellar, [13] the Governor's secretary and the logical person to sign the official valuation, gives the price as two reales, and the 1593 account, while agreeing with the letter as far as the Chinese Doctrina is concerned, also lists the price of the Tagalog Doctrina as two reales. It is impossible to say what caused the discrepancy; perhaps it was a decision on Dasmariñas' part to lower the cost, notwithstanding inflationary values, in order to make the book more readily available for the natives who were not economically as well off as the Chinese, or it could be that after the letter had been written it was noticed that the Chinese volume was larger than the Tagalog one, and some adjustment made. In any event, the price of this Doctrina was finally set at two reales, making it less than half the price allowed in Mexico fifty years before. The evidence of the two 1593 documents would seem conclusive with regard to printing in 1593, but witnesses were not long in appearing who stated something quite different. The earliest of these was Pedro Chirino, [14] a Jesuit priest, who came to the Philippines with Dasmariñas in 1590. He went back to Europe in 1602, and while there had a history of the Philippines printed at Rome in 1604. In 1606 he returned to the islands, where he died in 1635. He left unpublished the manuscript of another and more detailed history, dated 1610, which contains a most significant passage, where, after speaking of various early writers in native languages, he continues: "Those who printed first were; P. Fr. Juan de Villanueva of the Order of St. Augustine [who printed] certain little tracts, and P. Fr. Francisco de San Joseph of the Order of St. Dominic [who printed] larger things of more bulk." [15] Concerning this Juan de Villanueva [16] very little indeed is known. From what has been recorded it would seem that there were two Augustinians of the same name who were in the Philippines before