I had occasion some years ago to visit a considerable
part of Turkey, from Constantinople and Beirut to Mosul
and Bagdad, and everywhere I paid particular attention
to missionary conditions and the influence of mission
work upon the people. This is a land assigned almost
wholly to American Missionary Boards, and the influence
is everywhere marked and excellent. The late Premier
Stviloff told me in Sofia that but for young men educated
by American teachers in Constantinople, Bulgaria when it
became independent would have had to depend on Russians
for administrative officers. He was himself, like so many
other distinguished Bulgarians, a graduate of Robert
College. In Syria a native physician, graduated at the
Syrian Protestant College, said to me, “We say, ‘After
God, van Dyke.’” In the interior cities, such as Marash,
Aintab, Urfa, Mardin and Diarbekr, the American schools
and the large self-supporting churches were evidences
of the new evangelic spirit and culture which had put
new heart into those ancient seats of intellectual
decay. About Harpoot there were thousands who had
learned English, and hundreds have come from there to
this country believing it to be a very paradise. The
contrast was sad enough when I came into the towns south
from Mosul where American missionary influence had not
reached, and scarce any signs of intellectual or material
improvement were to be found. I am convinced that the work
of devoted, intelligent, broad-minded missionaries is
far more effective in lifting a people out of ignorance
and social decay into enlightened civilization, than
all the influences of commerce or mere governmental
policy. Our missionaries bring the motive of faith as the
example of unselfish service which nothing else can supply.
—WILLIAM HAYES WARD, LL. D.,
Editor “New York Independent.”
During the first generation of missionary operations in Turkey there
were few tangible results except among the Armenians. The Mohammedans
were by no means entirely hostile and revealed much friendliness and
often open sympathy. The Jews presented almost a solid wall of stolid
opposition to the effort for reform among them, while the Syrians and
Greeks, under the leadership of the Roman Catholics, were often violent
in their open attacks and secret plottings to thwart every attempt
of the missionaries to gain a foothold in the country. The people in
all the empire who seemed to have been especially prepared to receive
and profit by evangelical teaching were the Armenians, who were not
distinctly in mind when mission work in Turkey was first contemplated.
In fact, almost nothing was then known of these people in the world at
large and among the Christians of the United States who were supporting
the cause of foreign missions.
While the American Board contemplated extending its missions in the
Levant to the shores of the Black Sea and especially into Armenia, no
mention whatever seems to have been made of the Armenians in connection
with the beginning of the first “mission to Palestine.”
Not long after Rev. Levi Parsons arrived at Jerusalem in 1821 and
upon his first visit there, he came into contact with some Armenian
pilgrims with whom he had conversation upon the subject of missions to
their people and country. These expressed themselves as eager to have
missionaries sent to them. Mr. Fisk at about the same time, writing
to Boston from Smyrna, recommended the appointment of missionaries to
Armenia. From this time the idea of work among the Armenians enlarged
and deepened, although the “mission to the Jews” was kept persistently
at the front.
There had been a vast deal of preparation of the Armenian people for a
work of reform, emanating from sources quite outside of the Board and,
in fact, considerably anterior to its organization. Somewhere about
1760, an Armenian priest, who was burning with the desire to reform the
Armenian Church, appeared in Constantinople. He saw and deeply felt the
gross errors of the Gregorian Church, and wrote a book exposing them.
He was an educated man and seems to have been more or less familiar
with the work of Martin Luther, of whose Reformation he heartily
approved. He constantly referred to the Bible and to this high standard
he mercilessly brought his Church and its clergy. The inconsistent life
of the priests and bishops, and the gross superstitions of the people
at large, greatly troubled him. He lacked, however, true spiritual
enlightenment and power, and failed to see divine truth in its breadth
and purity. His book was never printed, but copies were kept in various
places which were brought to light and repeatedly referred to later.
This effort had wide influence in revealing the errors of the Armenian
Church, and did much to prepare the way for the genuine reformatory
movement.
In 1813, six years before the American Board appointed its first
missionary to Palestine, the British and Russian Bible Societies made
strenuous efforts to provide for the Armenian people a Bible in their
own tongue. An edition of an old fourth century Armenian version of
the entire Bible was commenced in that year at St. Petersburg by the
Russian Bible Society, and at about the same time another edition of
the same Bible was put on the press by the Calcutta Auxiliary of the
British and Foreign Bible Society. The Russian edition of five thousand
copies was out in 1815, and the British edition of two thousand copies
appeared two years later. The Russian Society issued a separate edition
of two thousand copies of the Ancient Armenian New Testament.
In their report of 1814 the British and Foreign Bible Society said
that the printing of the Armenian Testament had aroused much interest
among the Armenians, especially those in Russia. Emperor Alexander at
that time took a keen interest in the work of the Russian Bible Society
and therefore the cause itself became popular among all classes. The
Armenian Catholicos, the spiritual head of that Church, with residence
at Etchmiadzin, now in Russia, bordering upon Armenia, was elected
one of the vice-presidents of the society. He wrote a letter to its
president commending the work of the society, and approving of the plan
to supply his own people with the Word of God. The Armenian archbishop
of Tiflis contributed six hundred roubles for that purpose.
In 1818 the British and Foreign Bible Society purchased one thousand
five hundred copies of the Armenian New Testament from the Armenian
Catholic College located on the Island of St. Lazarus, Venice, for
distribution among the Armenians. Later, a still larger number was
purchased and distributed in the same way. In 1823 the same Bible
Society published at Constantinople an edition of five thousand copies
of the Armenian New Testament and three thousand copies of the four
Gospels alone. These books were rapidly distributed by agents of the
British and Foreign Bible Society and by Mr. Connor of the Church
Missionary Society, at that time in Constantinople, among the Armenians
of the Trans-Caucasian provinces in Russia and in Turkey.
These facts have an important bearing upon the preparation of the
Armenians for a reform movement. Hitherto, while they had the Bible in
its entirety, it was mostly in manuscript form, and inaccessible to the
people. These valuable copies of the Holy Scriptures were kept in the
monasteries or in the larger churches, carefully guarded by the priests
or other custodians, who usually were themselves unable to read or
understand the writing. All the Armenians everywhere accepted the Bible
as the divine and inspired Word of God.
The name of the Bible is Astvadsashoonch, or “_The breath of God_.”
With joy they welcomed the printed word that could be kept in their
houses, handled with their own hands, and perused at their leisure.
Hitherto they had been permitted only to kiss its silver adorned covers
at the close of the formal services of their churches.
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.