octrina Cristiana esplicado_.

Several authors, attempting to establish the priority of Quinones'
dictionary, question the existence of one by Plasencia at the Synod
of 1582 in the face of his own statement in 1585 that he "was then
making a dictionary." [85] To us there seems to be no inconsistency,
if Plasencia in 1585 was referring to a revision, unquestionably
made with his knowledge and help, by Juan de Oliver. In short, it
is reasonable to assume that Plasencia, burdened with administrative
duties from 1583 to 1586, during which time he was custodian of his
order, secured the aid of Oliver in reediting and continuing his
linguistic studies. Plasencia died in 1590.

The other two Franciscans listed by the anonymous historian of
1649 are elsewhere recorded as having written various works in
Tagalog. To both Diego de la Asuncion [86] and Geronimo Montes y
Escamillo [87] were attributed grammars and dictionaries, and the
latter also wrote a _Devotional tagalog_, said to have been printed
at Manila in 1610. In speaking of these early linguistic texts, it is
not necessary to believe that each was a completely original work,
but rather that they were based upon a recognized model, which was
at first the Talavera-Plasencia-Oliver text, and that the individual
missionaries used their experience in the field to produce, as it
were, new editions. That this was the case is borne out by the notes
of Pablo Rojo to his bibliography of Plasencia where speaking of the
grammar and dictionary he says that "perfected by other missionaries,
they have been the base for such grammars and dictionaries of Tagalog
as have been written, but in the form in which they came from the
hands of their author, they have not come down to us." [88] More
important still is Rojo's statement [89] that he found a portion of
Plasencia's Doctrina which had been believed lost, and from which he
quotes the Pater Noster. Since he does not say where the manuscript
was or how it was known to be Plasencia's text, we cannot put too
much reliance on the statement, but the text as there printed, while
similar to that of the present Doctrina, is not identical.

THE JESUITS

Before passing on to the Dominicans we shall mention briefly the
linguists of the Society of Jesus. In the early days there were not
many Jesuits in the Philippines. However, there were some linguists
among them, chiefly of the Visayan tongue, in which they are said to
have printed a D