BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Clermont‑Gannesu, ArAmoloyical Re
searches in Palestine ii. 257, London, 1881; idem, Recueil
d'arch&logie orientate, i. 351‑391, Paris, 1885; PEF,
Quarterly Statements, 1903‑date, particularly that for
July, 1907, giving latest results; R. A. S. Macalister,
Bible Side Lights from the Mound of Gezer, London, 190';
H. Vincent, Canaan d'aprls l'exploration rtcente, pp. 109
sqq., Paris, 1907
GFROERER, gfrol'rer, AUGUST FRIEDRICH:
German historian; b. at Calm (20 m. w.s.w. of
Stuttgart) Mar. 5, 1803; d. at Carlsbad July 6,
1861. He studied theology at TGbingen, where he
became repetent in 1828, after he had spent three
years in Switzerland and Italy. In 1829 he became
Stadtvicar at Stuttgart, and in 1830 librarian at
the royal library there. He then definitely aban
doned the ministry and devoted himself to his
torical studies. In 1846 he was appointed pro
fessor of history at Freiburg, and in 1848 was
elected to the German parliament, in which he dis
tinguished himself as an adherent of the " Gross
deutsche " party and an opponent of Prussia.
After failing in an attempt at Frankfort to unite
Protestants and Catholics he joined the Roman
Catholic Church in 1853. He had already been long
recognized as one of the leaders of the Ultramontane
party in Germany. His principal works are, Philo
and die judisch‑Alezandrinische Theosophie (2 vols.,
Stuttgart, 1831); Gustav Adolf and seine Zeit
(2 vols:, 1835‑‑37); Geschichte des Urchristentums
(3 vols.,1838); Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte (4 vols.,
1841‑46); Gesehichte der ost‑ and westfrdnkischen
Karolinger (2 vols., Freiburg, 1848); Urgeschichte
des menschlichen Geschlechts (2 vols., Schaffhausen,
1855); and Papst Gregorius VII. and sein Zeitalter
(7 vols., Schaffhausen, 1859‑61; index vol., 1864).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Alberdingk Thijm, A. F. Gfrvrer en zifne
werken, Haarlem, 1870; KL, v. 579‑580.
GIANTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: The pas
sages in the Old Testament where the word giant
or its equivalents occur may be differentiated into
two classes: (1) those which adduce sporadic cases
of exceptional stature or strength, against which
no a priori historical objection can lie (such as
I Sam. xvii.); (2) those in which a mythological or
early legendary character is clearly in evidence.
The first class requires no discussion here. In con
sidering the second class preliminary notes of im
portance are (1) that in the canonical writings
there are but fugitive references to what was
probably a much larger body of current folk‑lore,
which entered literature extensively only in the
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (H. Gunkel, Gene
sis, Gottingen, 1901, p. 52); and (2) that illumina
tion is received from comparison with like myths of
other peoples.
In the Old Testament two words convey the idea
of giants Nephilim (Gen. vi. 4, J; Num. xiii. 33,
JE), and Repha'im (Gen. xiv. 5, from a special
source; Deut. ii. 10‑12, 20, 21, iii. 11; II Sam. xxi.
16‑21). The passage Gen. vi. 1‑4 stands alone in
the canonical writings in speaking of a race of
giants which sprang from a union of angels (" sons
of God," the " watchers " of the Pseudepigrapha) and women ("daughters of men"). This‑ narrative is an etiological myth accounting to the Hebrew mind for the giants ah‑eady known to common folk‑lore. Its motif is taken up in the pseudepigraphic literature, especially that which gathered about the name of Enoch. In the other passages the terms Nephilim and Repha'im, used as inclusive of Emim, Zuzim, . 'Ana*im, and Horim, signify the autochthonous inhabitants of Palestine (in its larger sense of the region both east and west of the Jordan), the predecessors of the Canaanites from whom the Hebrews took the land. The philological notion underlying Nephilim is not satisfactorily determined. Repha'im is connected with the word meaning " shade " or " ghost," and thus fits absolutely with the mythological references to the extinct races supposed to have inhabited the land. Other particulars agree with this interpretation. Thus the reference in Deut. iii. 11 to the bed (better " sarcophagus," so Schaff, Bible Dictionary, New York, 1880) of Og, king of Bashan, probably a coffin‑shaped block of basalt (" iron "), is to be put alongside similar objects elsewhere, such as the Giant's Causeway, a name embodying a primitive explanation of a strange feature of the Irish landscape.
In ethnic myths the earlier inhabitants of earth are pictured as of more than human stature and strength, and often as living beyond the usual span of human life. Thus in India the first Jina is said to have been 3,000 feet in height and to have lived eight millions of years. Another characteristic of these myths is that the giants come into conflict with the gods and are destroyed. Examples of this are the Marduk‑Tiamat myth of Babylonia and the Gigantomachia and Titanomachia of Greece. In Hebrew legend these characteristics are separated; the lengthened span of life is assigned to antediluvians in general, abnormal stature is attributed to the prehistoric race in canonical literature, the contest of the giants with God appears first in the Apocrypha (Ecclus, xvi. 7) and develops enormously in the Pseudepigrapha. Wisd. of Sol. xiv. 6 has a curious explanation of the survival of the flood by the giants, and rabbinic literature explains in equally grotesque fashion the survival of Og. In such passages as Baruch iii. 26‑28, III Macc. ii. 4, Enoch vii. 2‑4, and Jubilees vii. these varied characteristics appear. The " sons of God " were angels of high estate who fell, and the idea was perpetuated and finds its extreme expression in Christian literature in Milton's Paradise Lost.
It may be noted that among the Repha'im were
the Horim, generally explained as " troglodytes,"
and that excavations in Palestine as elsewhere shows
the cave‑dwellers to have been of low stature (see
GEZER). GEO. W. GILMORE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. L. Porter, Giant Cities of Bashan, New
York, 1871; F. Lenormant, Lee Origines de 1'histaire, 2 vols., Paris, 1880‑84, Eng. transl. of vol. i., London, 1883; E. Meyer, in ZATW i (1881), 139, and Schwally in the same, xviii (1898), 127 sqq.; K. Budde, Die biblisehe Urgeschichte, pp. 30 sqq., Giessen, 1883; H. E. Ryle, Early Narratives of Genesis, London, 1892; S. R. Driver, Commentary on Deuteronomy, on Deut. iii. 11, New York, 1895; ' C. R. Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture, pp. 333‑334, lb.
1899; DB, i. 90 (" Anakim "), ii. 166‑168, iii. 512 ("Nephi•
483 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA oer°r
lim "); EB, i. 161‑162, iii. 3391 sqq.; JE, v. 658‑868; the literature on Enoch and Baruch under PBEODEYI(iBAPHA.
GIBB, JOHN: English Presbyterian; b. at Aberdeen, Scotland, Dec. 14, 1835. He studied in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Heidelberg, and after being assistant minister at the Presbyterian church at Malta 1863‑67, was theological tutor in the College of the Presbyterian Church in England, London, 1868‑77. Since 1877 he has been professor of New Testament theology and ecclesiastical history in Westminster College, Cambridge. He has written Biblical Studies and their Influence upon. the Church (London, 1877) and Gudrun, Beolvolf, and the Song of Roland (1884), and has translated selections from Luther's " Table Talk " (London, 1883) and St. Augustine's " Homilies on the Gospel of John " (Edinburgh, 1873), in addition to editing the " Confessions " of St. Augustine in collaboration with W. Montgomery (Cambridge, 1906).
GIBBON, EDWARD: The historian of the Roman Empire; b. at Putney (7 m. w.s.w. of St. Paul's, London), Surrey, Apr. 27, 1737; d. in London Jan. 16, 1794. For his early training he was indebted chiefly to his aunt, Catherine Porten, from whom he received that taste for books which, he says, was the pleasure and glory of his life. In Jan., 1749, he entered Westminster School, but had to leave it in Dec., 1750, on account of ill health. A glance into Eachard's Roman History in 1751 started him on a wide course of historical reading. In Apr., 1752, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he spent what he considered the fourteen most unprofitable months of his life. His brief career at Oxford was terminated by his temporary conversion to Roman Catholicism, which was accomplished by Middleton's Free Enquiry (London, 1749) and works of Bossuet and the Jesuit Robert Parsons (q.v.). On June 8, 1753, he was received into the Roman fold by a Jesuit priest in London. He at once acquainted his father with this fact, who placed him first in the home of David Mallet, at Putney, but sent him to Lausanne, Switzerland, almost immediately to the care of M. Pavillard, a Calvinistic minister, under whose tutelage Gibbon quickly renounced Roman Catholicism. He returned to England in August, 1758, and took up his abode at Buriton, near Petersfield, Hampshire, whither his father had removed in 1747. An attachment which he had formed at Lausanne for Susanne Curchod, afterward Madame Necker and mother of Madame de Staal, was now broken off, owing to his father's objection to the match. Gibbon's subsequent behavior toward Rifle. Curchod was condemned by Rousseau. On June 12, 1759, he became captain in the Hampshire militia. From May, 1760, to Dec., 1762, he was quartered in various towns in the southern counties. He retained his commission till 1770, becoming major and colonel commandant. This experience gave him robust health and a knowledge of military affairs that stood him in good stead when he came to write of the phalanx and legion. He had now published his Essai sur l'Etude de la lWA. uture (London, 1761;
Eng. transl.,1764). From Jan., 1763, to June, 1765,
he traveled and studied on the Continent. " It
was at Rome," he says, " on Oct. 15, 1764, as I sat
musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the
barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple
of Jupiter that the idea of writing the decline and
fall of the city first started into my mind." Hav
ing come into the possession of ample means on the
death of his father in 1770, he settled in London in
1772 and began to write The Decline and Fall o f the
Roman Empire. In 1774 he became a member of
Dr. Johnson's famous literary club, and on Oct. 11
of that year he was returned to Parliament for
Liskeard, Cornwall. In Feb., 1776, he published the
first volume of the Decline and Fall. Its success was
as rapid as it has been lasting. To a number of
attacks provoked by the theological chapters Gib
bon replied in a Vindication (1779). Early in 1779
he was employed by the ministry to write a M&
moire Justificatif (1779) in answer to a French
manifesto; and in the summer of 1779 he was given
the lucrative sinecure of commissioner of trades
and plantations, which he held till the office was
abolished in 1782. In Apr., 1781, he published the
second and third volumes of his history. On June
25, 1781, he was returned to Parliament for Lym
ington, that body having been dissolved Sept. 1,
1780. In Sept., 1783, he settled at Lausanne.
Near midnight of the 27th of June, 1787, sitting in
the summer‑house in his garden, he wrote the last
sentence of his monumental work. The last three
volumes were published on his fifty‑first birthday,
thus completing The History o f the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire (6 vols., London, 1776‑,88‑ best
ed. by J. B. Bury, 7 vols.,1896‑1900). Gibbon came
to London to see the work through the press, but
returned to Lausanne in July, 1788. He resided
there till Apr., 1793, when he returned to England
to visit his friend, Lord Sheffield, whose wife had
just died. His own death came unexpectedly,
following upon a series of operations for hydrocele.
$e was laid in the burial‑place of the Sheffield
family, Fletching, Sussex. Lord Sheffield published
his Miscellaneous Works (2 vols., London, 1796; 5
vols., 1814), which include his excellent autobiog
raphy, Memoirs of my Life and Writings (ed. O. F.
Emerson, Boston, 1898; ed. G. B. Hill, London,
1900; ed., with introduction, J. B. Bury, London,
1907). Sheffield's grandson, Earl of Sheffield, has
published the six different manuscripts from which
the Memoirs were compiled (London, 1896), and
also prefixed an introduction to Gibbon's Private
Letters (ed. R. E. Prothero, 2 vols., 1896).
The Decline and Fall, which covers the period extending from about the middle of the second century to the year 1453, has, by unanimous consent, been placed in the very front rank of historical works. For accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, it bas never been surpassed. While later researches have corrected Gibbon in a few details, they have not materially changed the picture drawn by him. His work is perhaps the one history in English that may be regarded as definitive. The only'charge that has ever been successfully brought against it is that it betrays an unfriendly animus to Christianity; but Gibbon had so little sympathy with the aims of
Gibbons THE NEW BCHAFF‑HERZ()G 484
Glahtel
the Church that it was not to be expected that he would throw the mantle of charity over the foibles and failings of churchmen. In regard to the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, which relate to the rise and, spread of Christianity, wherein its suocase is explained by reference to secondary causes, and the severity of its early trials declared to have been overestimated, it may be remarked that Gibbon himself admitted that his array of secondary muses left the question of the divine origin of Christianity untouched; and, now that the smoke of the battle against this portion of the history has cleared away, church historians allow the substantial justnes of no main positions. In Gibbon's lifetime the work was translated into German, French, and Italian. It has also been translated, in part, into Magyar, modern Greek, Polish, and Russian.
BmuOQBAmr: Bids the Manwire and Private Leam*, at sup.. consult the biography by J. C. Morison, in Enpliah Men of Ldters, London, 1878; that by S. Walpole, Studies in Biography, Now York, 1907; and DNB, zri. 26o‑‑2568.
GIBBONS, JAMES: Cardinal; b. at Baltimore, Md., July 23, 1834. He received his early education in Ireland, but returned to the United States in 1851, and lived for several years in New Orleans. He studied at St. Charles' College, Ellicott City, Md. (1855‑57), and at $t. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore (1857‑81). He was ordained priest in 1861, and after being assistant at St. Patrick's, Baltimore, for a few months, was appointed rector of $t. Bridget's, Canton (a suburb of Baltimore), where he remained until 1865. He was private secretary to Archbishop Spalding 1865‑68, and was also chancellor of the archdiocese 1866‑88. He was assistant chancellor of the Second Plenary Council of the American Roman Catholic Church held at Baltimore in 1866, and in 1868 was consecrated titular bishop of Adramytum and appointed vices apostolic of North Carolina. In 1872 he was translated to the see of Richmond, Va., and after five years became archbishop coadjutor with, right of succession to Archbishop Bailey of Baltimore. Five months later he succeeded to the see, thus becoming the primate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. He presided over the Third Plenary Council at Baltimore in 1884, and two yews later was created cardinal On account of his advancing yes‑, Bishop Curbs, formerly of Wilmington, Del., was appointed to assist him in 1M. He has written The Faith of our Fathers (New York, 1871); Our Christian Heritage (Baltimore, Md., 1889); and The Ambassador of Christ (1,898).
GIBERTI, ji‑Ar't~ GIOVANNI MATTED: A reforming prelate of the sixteenth century; b. at Paleermo 1495; d. at Verona Dee. 30, 1543. Being appointed by Clement VII. apostolic datary, he became a member of the Oratory of Divine Love at Rome. In 1524 he was made bishop of Verona, but he did not enter upon his episcopal duties until 1528. He endeavored to raise the educational and mural standard of the clergy and to enforce the discipline of the religious orders. In the work Condituttbnes eoelesiadicw and in various treatises, ordinances, and letters, he proposed far‑reaching
messunes of reform. But he was obstinately opposed by both the secular clergy and the religious orders; and the famous Concilium de emendanda eccleaia (1537), in whose authorship, besides Contarini and Ceraffa, Giberti was also concerned, produoed no result. After entering upon his episcopal duties, Giberti had one more important commission outside his diocese, going to the Colloquy of Worms (1540) as papal legate. It was intended that he should act in a similar capacity at the Council of Trent, but his sudden death prevented this. His works were published in Verona 1733, 1740; his official correspondence in Guiociaandim, Opere inedile, iv., v (Florence, 1863). B. BEx$ATH.
Bu8LI0aHAPHl: A. von Reumont, Geehinkte der Stadt San, vol. iii., part 2, passim, Berlin, 1870; Dittrich, in Historiadhes Jahaburh der aorrerGesdUahog vi (1888), 1‑50; Creighton, Papam, vi. 278‑291. 808‑M.
GIli80A, EDGAR CHARLES SUMNER: Bishop of Gloucester; b. at Southampton Jan. 23, i848. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford (B‑A., 1870), and Wells Theological College (1871 72), and was ordained priest in 1872. He was chaplain of Wells Theological College 1871 74, vice‑principal of the same institution and curate of Dinder 1874‑76, lecturer at Leeds Clergy School 1876‑80, principal of Wells Theological College 1880‑95, and vicar and rural dean of Leeds 1895‑1905. In 1905 he was consecrated bishop of Gloucester: He was also prebendary of Wells Cathedral 1880‑1905, lecturer on pastoral theology at Cambridge 189394, select preacher at Oxford 189395, examining chaplain to the bishop of Bath and Wells 1894‑1904, honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria 1901, chaplain in ordinary to King Edward VII. 1901‑05, Warburton Lecturer of Lincoln's Inn 1903, and a member of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline and commissary to the bishops of North China and $han‑tong 1904. In theology he is a liberal Highchurchman. He has written Northumbrian Saints (London, 1884); Commentary on St. James in The Pulpit Commentary (1886); Self‑Discipline (1894); The Thirty‑Nine Articles Explained (2 vols., 18961897); Commentary on the Book of Job (1898;) John Howard (1901); old Messages from the Old Testament (1904). He also translated the works of Casnaams for the Nicene and Post‑Nicene Library (Edinburgh, 1894) and edited George Herbert's Temple (London, 1899).
GEISOIf, EDMUND: Bishop of London; b. at Bampton (24 m. as.e. of Csrliale), Westmoreland, Der‑, 1669; d. at Bath Sept. 6, 1748. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford (B.A., 1891; M.A., 1694), where be was given a fellowship. His early interest in Anglo‑Saxon and British antiquities led to a friendship with Archbishop Tenisoa, who made him his domestic chaplain and got him the librarianship at Lambeth. Through Tenison's influence Gibson became lecturer at 8t. Martin's‑in‑the‑Fields, rector of Stisted in Essex (1700), and rector of Lambeth (1703). He sided with Tenison in the controversy between the two houses of convocation and within three years publiabed ten tracts in support of the upper louse. He became archdeacon of Surrey in 1710, bishop of
485 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Gibbons
Giohtel
Lincoln in 1716, and bishop of London in 1723. For
years he was the intimate friend and chief adviser
of Sir Robert Walpole in ecclesiastical matters.
His crusade against court masquerades and his
opposition to Walpole's Quakers' Relief Bill cost
him the appointment to the archbishopric of Can
terbury in 1737. Ten years later the arcLbishopric
was offered him, but he declined on account of age
and infirmity. Besides tracts, sermons, and pas
toral letters, some of which were directed against
deists, freethinkers, and Methodists, his principal
publications were, Synodus Anglicani, or the Con
stitution and Proceedings of an English Convocation
(London, 1702: ed. E. Cardwell, Oxford, 1854),
which now forms the text‑book for all proceedings
in convocation; Codex juris ecclesiastici Anglicani;
or the Statutes, Constitutions, Canons, Rubrics, and
Articles of the Church of England (2 vols., 1713), a
monument of research and still the highest au
thority on church law; and A Preservative against
Popery (3 vols., 1734; ed. J. Cumming, 18 vols.,
1848‑49; Supplement, 8 vols., 1849), a collection
of treatises on the subject by various eminent
English divines.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Some Account of . . . Dr. B. Gibson, Lon
don, 1749 (by R. Smalbroke7); W. Co", Memoirs of
Horatio Lord Walpole, vol. ii.. London, 1808; A. b. Wood,
Atheno Oxoniensea, ed. P. Bliss, iv. 540, London, 1820
DNB, xxi. 274‑275; J. H. Overton and F. Reltn, The
English Church, . . . 1714‑1800, pp. 99‑120 et passim,
London, 1906.
GIBSON, JOHN MONRO: English Presbyterian; b. at Whithorn (9 m. s. of Wigtown), Gallowayshire, Scotland, Apr. 24, 1838. He studied at the University of Toronto (B.A., 1862) and Knox College, Toronto, from which he was graduated in 1864. He was classical tutor in Knox College 1864 and pastor of Erskine Church, Montreal, 1864‑74, as well as lecturer in Old and New Testament exegesis in the Presbyterian College, Montreal, 1868‑74. He was then pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 1874‑‑80, and since 1880 has been pastor of St. John's Wood Presbyterian Church, London. He was moderator of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of England in 1891 and president of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches in England and Wales in 1898, of which he was also honorary secretary 1898‑1905. He is an honorary secretary of the Religious Tract Society, and in theology is a liberal Evangelical, although he holds firmly to the cardinal truths of Christianity. He has written Ages before Moses (New York, 1879); The Foundations (lectures on the evidences of Christianity; Chicago, 1880); The Mosaic Era (London, 1881); Rock versus Sand (1883); Pomegranates from an English Garden (New York, 1885); Christianity according to Christ (London, 1888); The Gospel according to St. Matthew in The Expositor's Bible (1890); Acts in People's Bible History (1895); Unity and Symmetry of the Bible (1896); From Fact to Faith (1898); A Strong City and Other Sermons (1899); The Glory of Life (1900); Apocalyptic Sketches (1901); Protestant Principles (1901); and The Devotional Study of Holy Scripture (1905).
Share with your friends: |