It was soon found, however, that the ancient Armenian, the language of all the manuscripts of the Bible and rituals of the Old Church and also of the Bibles and Testaments recently printed, was not understood by the common, uneducated people. As the educated were few, the number of intelligent readers was greatly limited. This number was confined practically to the higher clergy, a few priests and vartabeds, and the teachers in the schools. In order to reach the common people, the Russian Bible Society issued in 1822 and 1823 a New Testament translated into Turkish and printed with the Armenian character. As a large proportion of the Armenians understood Turkish this version brought to them the Word of God.
Hitherto the Armenian ecclesiastics had made little or no opposition to the circulation of the Bible among the people, while some of the most prominent seemed to favor the work. In 1823 the agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society at Constantinople endeavored to secure the sanction of the Armenian patriarch for the printing and circulation of the New Testament in the modern, spoken Armenian tongue, the home language of most of the Armenians in Turkey. They were met with the severest opposition, and with threats of prohibiting the reading of the book if it should be issued.
Without attempting to follow the course of Bible publication, upon which depended the plan of reform for both the Armenian and Greek churches as well as for all the other races dwelling in the empire, suffice it to say that the hostility of the Armenian clergy, called forth by the publication of the modern Armenian version of the Scriptures, started a conflict, which waged throughout the country for more than a generation, as to whether that version was the true Word of God. The ancient Armenian Scriptures were translated from the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate while the modern versions were made from the Hebrew and Greek. For this reason there were many discrepancies between the two versions which were discussed everywhere. This drove the people to a careful study of the Bible. If it could be once established that the modern version was also the “Word of God,” there could be no hesitation upon the part of the Armenians in accepting it as such. This phase of the controversy passed fully forty years ago, and throughout the country this version is now accepted as Astvadsashoonch or the veritable Word of God. It was, however, for many years a vital question which commanded the attention and energy of the strongest men of the race.
The work of Bible translation and publication has continued under the patronage of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society until the entire Bible is now available for all Turkish, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek speaking peoples, and parts of the same are available for the Koords and Albanians. Nothing in the line of reform in Turkey has been more potent than the Word of God in the spoken languages of its many-tongued people, put up in cheap form and in convenient sizes and widely distributed in all parts of the empire. The Bible is not only welcomed by nearly all classes, but it is eagerly sought by many who are remotely informed of its contents but who are eager to investigate for themselves. It is an interesting fact that wherever the Bible, and especially the New Testament, has been most widely read, there the people have been the more determined to have modern educational facilities for their children and better prepared to welcome the better forms of Western civilization.
XV. LEADERS, METHODS,
AND ANATHEMAS
I must frankly confess that when I first went to Turkey I was somewhat prejudiced against the missionaries there and missionary work, to this extent: As what, I suppose, you might call a high Anglican, I looked with a certain esteem and regard upon the old churches of the East and it seemed to me theoretically that the proper method of missionary enterprise was to try to cooperate with those churches, helping them to educate and evangelize themselves. As a result of contact first with the Congregational missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M., this prejudice very speedily vanished. I found those men not only most earnest and devout Christians, but, so to speak, thoroughly Catholic and non-partisan, and I found that they had profoundly influenced for good the ancient Christian churches where they had come in contact with them and, in fact, regenerated (I think the term is not too strong) the Armenian Church. They themselves were men not only of culture and refinement and earnest religious devotion, but of broad, statesmanlike views, an unusual group.
At Constantinople I was also brought into close contact with the men and women conducting the two great colleges, Robert College at Roumelia Hissar and the Woman’s College at Scutari, and had some opportunity to estimate the value of that work and its profound influence as a civilizing agent on the community at large. Later I was brought into contact with the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and with the Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries through Syria, and the favorable impressions made at Constantinople were confirmed and strengthened. My travels into regions touched by American missionaries, and beyond the confines of those regions, enabled me to form an estimate of the real influence of the missionaries on the country at large. It has been enormous. One thing, especially, the missionaries have given honor everywhere to the American name, so that to be known as an American almost anywhere in Turkey, is to ensure the confidence of the people. That name is the synonym of honest and disinterested service of one’s fellow men. I wish that the name American carried in every country the meaning which American missionaries have caused it to bear in Turkey, and I may add in Bulgaria.
But I must not be too lengthy. I am apt to wax enthusiastic when I speak on this subject, and am sometimes afraid my language may seem extravagant. It is difficult to comprehend how such a relatively small body of men, with such a relatively small expenditure of money, has made so profound an impression on the life of the people of the empire as has been made by the American missionaries and the American schools and colleges. They have been the great means of uplift, both directly and also indirectly, in causing the establishment by other nations and by the Turks themselves, of schools and the like, thus diffusing still further education.