Background
Barclay was born near Strabane in county Tyrone, Ireland, his family being of Scottish extraction.
Barclay was born near Strabane in county Tyrone, Ireland, his family being of Scottish extraction.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and proceeded Bachelor of Arts in 1854 and Master of Arts
In 1857, but showed no particular powers of application or study. The question of Jewish conversion was at that time agitating the religious world in England, and Barclay supported the cause in his own neighbourhood with great activity, till in 1858 he offered himself to the London Society as a missionary. He left Ireland, and after a few months" study in London, was appointed to Constantinople.
The mission there had been established in 1835, but no impression had been made on the 60,000 Jews calculated to inhabit the town.
Barclay stayed in Constantinople till 1861, making missionary journeys to the Danubian provinces, Rhodes, and other nearer districts. In 1861 he was nominated incumbent of Christ Church, Jerusalem, a position requiring energy and tact to avoid entanglement in the quarrels of the parties whose rivalries Barclay describes as a ‘fretting leprosy’ neutralising his best efforts.
On his return he found it impossible to continue in his post unless his salary was increased, and the refusal of the London Society to do this necessitated his resignation. This was in 1870; he returned again to England and filled for a time the curacies of Howe, Lincolnshire and Saint Margaret"s, Westminster, till in 1873 he was presented to the living of Stapleford in the Saint Albans diocese.
The comparative leisure thus afforded him enabled him to publish in 1877 translations of certain select treatises of the Talmud with his own prolegomena and notes.
Opinion has been much divided as to the value of this work, but Jewish critics are unanimous in asserting that it is marked by an unfair animus against their nation and literature. In 1880 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Dublin University. He was most enthusiastically welcomed to Jerusalem, and entered on his duties with his usual vigour, but his sudden death after a short illness in October 1881 put an end to the hopes of those who believed that at last some of the objects of the original founders of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric in Jerusalem were to be realised.
He preached in Spanish, French, and German.
He was intimately acquainted with Biblical, Mishnaic Hebrew and Judaeo-Spanish, the dialect spoken by the Sephardic Jews. He diligently prosecuted his studies in Hebrew and at his death was perfecting his knowledge of Arabic.
And he had acquired some knowledge of Turkish during his residence in Constantinople.
