Bonifacio’s classmates call him a “voracious” reader even as a boy. It is a habit he retained. The books he read greatly influenced his leadership and aspiration for liberty.
La Sagrada Biblia
The Holy Bible, in 5 volumes [possibly La Sagrada Biblia, nuevamente traducida por Don Felix Torres Amat, 5 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta de D. Miguel de Burgos, 1832)]; and Rogelio H. de Ibarreta’s anticlerical La religión al alcance de todos, 2 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta de M. Romero, 1884). The Bible was then rarely found in Filipino homes – it is said there were only a thousand or so copies in the whole country. The Catholic Church did not encourage the laity to possess or read the scriptures without supervision through fear that “false interpretations” and “freethinking” would
Jim Richardson, Andres Bonifacio: Biographical Notes, Part I: 1863-1891
proliferate.