The Dominican Ecole biblique in Jeruzalem: Two Faces of the Church?s Policies in the French Republique in 1880-1922.

Abstract

The Biblical school of Jerusalem was founded by the Holy See as well as by the Order of Preachers in 1890 and with surprising support of the French Republic, anticlerical and socialist. While Catholic schools were unwelcome in France, they often served as in instrument of ?civilizing? the local population and ?europeanization? of the country.

But the Ecole biblique never received financial support comparable to similar schools in Athens and Rome. Its founder, J.M.

Lagrange, though respected and rewarded by the state and by public institutions, was in his lifetime never equally appreciated by the Church and received for his new scientific methods applied to the study of the Bible much criticism, even accusation and punishment.