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 About the year 1801 Pedro Bello wrote an account, still in manuscript and unpublished, of the writings of the Augustinians.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.