page_title: Doctrina Christiana
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Doctrina Christiana / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Extract from page 2-3 of "The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies, Part 1" by Piet Van der Loon (1966) who originally extracted the front page of "Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china" (1607). Van der Loon details that this is a blockprint page of Classical Chinese, mostly in dialogue form from the Hokkien Chinese used in Spanish colonial Philippines at the time. It is said to be about "Hsin-k'o seng-shih Kao-mu Hsien chuan Wu-chi t'ien-chu cheng-chiao chen-chuan shih-lu" [新刻僧師高母羡撰無極天主正教真傳實錄] (A printed edition of the Veritable record of the authentic tradition of the true faith in the Infinite God by the religious master Kao-mu Hsien.) Kao-mu Hsien in Hokkien is Ko-bo Suan, otherwise known as the Spanish Dominican Friar Juan Cobo. The full Spanish title is "Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China, compuesta por los padres ministros de los Sangleyes, de la Orden de Sancto Domingo. Con licencia, por Keng yong, China, en el parian de Manila" (Christian Doctrine in Chinese letter and language, composed by the Minister Fathers of the Sangleyes(Chinese), of the Order of Saint Dominic. Licensed by Keng yong, Chinese from the parian of Manila). The original copy of Cobo's book is preserved in Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, Spain.
context_page_description: The Doctrina Christiana
  was an early book on the Catholic Catechism, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines.
context_section_description: There is some controversy about which of the versions is the first printed book in Spanish Philippines, with some scholars believing that the Chinese-language version titled  Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China, compuesta por los padres ministros de los Sangleyes, de la Orden de Sancto Domingo. Con licencia, por Keng yong, China, en el parian de Manila (Chinese: 新刻僧師高母羡撰無極天主正教真傳實錄; pinyin: Xīnkè Sēngshī Gāomǔ Xiàn-zhuàn Wújí Tiānzhǔ Zhèngjiào Zhēnchuán Shílù; Wade–Giles: Hsin¹k'o⁴ Seng¹shih¹ Kao¹mu³ Hsien⁴-chuan⁴ Wu²chi² T'ien¹chu³ Cheng⁴chiao⁴ Chen¹ch'uan² Shih²lu⁴; lit.: 'A Printed Edition of The True Faith in The Infinite God, by Fr. Juan Cobo, O.P.') by Fray Miguel de Benavides, OP, was printed between 1590 and 1592 by the Chinese printer Keng Yong in Manila before the Spanish and Tagalog versions.
  One of the earliest references to both versions comes from Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, the seventh Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, who wrote a letter to Philip II of Spain on 20 June 1593, that read:
  “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.”
  Missionary fathers placed the Doctrina among the books necessary to have in print in foreign lands. As such, the Filipino book is similar to one printed in Mexico in 1539 in Spanish and local Mexican vernacular, followed by Saint Francis Xavier’s Doutrina Christão in Malay printed by the Jesuit press at Goa in 1557. Another Doctrina was printed in Spanish and the native languages at Lima in 1584.
caption: First page of Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china, by Juan Cobo, in Classical Chinese based on Hokkien used by Sangleys in Spanish Colonial Philippines
exif: {}