The Oriental Library and the Catholic Press at Saint-Joseph University in Beirut

Abstract

This article traces the origins of the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, the creation of the Oriental Library, and the beginnings of the Catholic press in Syria. The focus of this article is the importance of the Bibliothèque Orientale: its financing, its development, its publications, and its cultural significance throughout the entire Middle East. I examine the opening of the Oriental Faculty, its program of study, and its teaching staff, and describe the inauguration of the main journal of the faculty, Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale. The article concludes with a discussion of the creation of the Catholic press, along with its staff and various publications in Arabic and French, with attention to the influential periodicals al-Bashir and al-Mashriq.

Jesuit Libraries

“…Such an early foundation was unique in the region: most Jesuit foundations in the territory once known as the Ottoman Empire were not established before the 1930s, though the Society had made initial contact with Syriac Christians in the region in 1610 and attempted to found a college in Aleppo shortly thereafter.154 These Middle Eastern Jesuit institutions tended to focus on what were once called "Oriental studies" (Arabic languages and literature, regional history and geography, etc.). 155 The Oriental Faculty at the Université Saint-Joseph published a journal, starting in 1906, initially called Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale, renamed in 1922 to Mélanges de l'Université SaintJoseph. 156 The library at that institution also had an "Orientalist" bent, highlighting a superficial and patronizing Western understanding of Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African cultures, often based on little experience in those regions.…”