Protestant – Catholic rivalries heightened by the Arabic translation of the Bible
The scale of this Protestant endeavour caused considerable displeasure in a Catholic Church fearing the inroads of the Protestant mission within the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome that it sought to bolster. There was no want, in France and elsewhere, for Catholic publications attacking “reformed” operations, accusing their actors of breaking Christian unity back in the 16th century and to be behind the French Revolution. Across the Mediterranean, Catholic missionaries depict their Protestant counterparts as “propagators of lies” inculcating in the East their “anti-Catholic venom” in order to prompt the move of Eastern Catholics towards “heresy”. The Jesuits[1] spearheaded the rivalry between Christians. They opened their own schools as early as 1831 and established their printing house in 1854, publishing forthwith the Arabic translation of the devotional book most read by Catholics, The Imitation of Christ. And in 1876, following the opening of the Syrian Protestant College, they founded Saint Joseph University.
The Dutch born Father Joseph Van Ham SJ[2] accused the Protestants, sighting specific verses, of altering the original text. Other Jesuits joined in the fray claiming that the Protestants had falsified the Holy Scripture, some stiring outrage among the Muslims at such treatment of a book the Prophet of Islam had commended to them. At the same time the Jesuits took up the gauntlet and another Arabic version of the Bible came out of Beirut's Catholic Press between 1876 and 1880. It fitted into an overall project for a better education of the Catholic flock, be they church or lay people, an all embracing mission in French and Arabic and a response to the earlier English speaking inroads. The Ottoman authorities did not take a direct hand in this process content with the unspoken understanding that those missionaries' impact on the Muslim populations was negligible. Indeed they saw in an altogether favourable light the diverse faiths open establishments, which would ensure an improvement in the overall education level in the Empire energized by their competition.
