Vol. IX, No. 4.] Earliest Jesuit Printing in India. 153 
[N.S] 
Alive to its advantages, the Superiors realized from the 
also in order the help the numerous Christian communities in 
formation in the East, by procuring books to the missionaries 
and to the new converts to our holy faith. 
A Spanish Coadjutor Brother, Juan de Bustamante, 
-brought from Europe the material of the first printing press 
with movable types which appeared in India. It started work 
in 1556, by printing the philosophical theses for a public dispu- 
tation of our students.! 
Though for some time it was of little use for want of a 
man who could manage skilfully the types an and the press,” 
Guttenberg’s invention proved most useful by printing books 
in several Indian languages. 
The Catechism, composed in Portuguese by St. Francis 
Xavier for the instruction of the faithful, specially of the 
children, had been in everybody’s hands in manuscript form. 
In 1577, 3 it came out of the Goa press type-printed: a piece of 
gh which one can fancy was no less useful than remark- 
able. 
Eas aside the Portuguese books printed in the College 
of Goa, whenever there is no special reason to mention them, 
we shall review those printed in other languages, after a brief 
mention of the services rendered to the Ethiopian Mission by 
the printing-presses of Goa 
GOA.—ETHIOoPIC. --The Mission of Abyssinia or Ethiopia, 
had long been wished for by the King of Portugal D. Joao III, 
by St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Sovereign Pontiffs Julius Ul 
and Paul [V, and when, after careful preparations and at the 
cost of no small sacrifices, it was at last established in spite of 
were far from corresponding, in the beginning especially, to 
the high hopes it had called forth and the care bestowed on it. 
of trustworthy documents relating to that 
| Fr. pe Sousa, 8.J., Oriente Conquistado a Jesu sr ons pei cong. 
V, div. 1, n. 22: Fr. Craupio Cremente, Tables chronoldgicas 
1642 .., anadidas hasta 1689 por el lic. age « Joseph Miguel, Pinos 
ig afio 1556, p. 244; Fr. Saconint, 8.J., Hist. Soc. Jesu, p. II, lib. i, 
52. 
Fr. Saconint, 8.J., Hist. Soc. Jesu, p. IV, lib. V, n. 180, ann. 
1577 (587 ? 
3 [The me should be 1557. Cf. Orient2 Conquistado, I, so 
4 Fevipzr Neri Xavier, Resumo historico «>» VIGO. : oo. 
Xavier, p. I, cap. 1X; a ae Op. cit., p. I, cona. I, ‘div. n. 23; 
Monumenta Xaveriana, t. Ip. 
