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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Francisco Cepeda

B. in the province of La Mancha, 1532; d. at Guatemala, 1602

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Cepeda, FRANCISCO (also called ZEPEDA and ZEPEDAS), b. in the province of La Mancha, 1532; d. at Guatemala, 1602. He became a Dominican at the convent of Ocana, and was sent to Chiapas in Mexico. He was a very active missionary among the Indians, and when the differing modes of instructing them became an obstacle to their conversion, Cepeda was sent to Mexico to simplify the Indian grammars printed there, and obtain a standard for the guidance of the missionaries. In consequence of that journey, the “Antes de los idiomas Chiapanecos, Zoque, Tzendal y Chinanteco” (probably the work of several authors) was published in 1560 under his name. The book has disappeared, but its former existence is well established, by Remesal at first, and by subsequent authors. It is the first book printed in America in four languages (five with the Spanish). The title is given variously, but the above is the correct one. Cepeda became Provincial of the Dominicans in Guatemala, 1593, and Commissary of the Inquisition.

AD. F. BANDELIER


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