THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE

GOAR, SAINT: Reputed missionary on the Mid- die Rhine. According to his biography in the Ada Sanctorum, be came from Aquitaine to the Rhine in the reign of the Frankish King Childebert I. (511-55St. and built a cell and a chapel on the site of the later town of St. Goar (on the left bank of the Rhine. 15 m. s. of Coblenz), where he passed his life in spiritual exercises and the entertainment of travelers, and converted not a few pagans. His very hospitality was made a ground of complaint by two clerics from Treves; but he defended him- self so impressively before Rusticus, the bishop of that see, that King Sigebert (561-576) desired to make him bishop instead of Rusticus. Goar de- clined, returned to his cell, and died there seven years later. The legend, which goes back only to the ninth century, has not the slightest historical value. According to a dociunent of Louis the Pious, dated 820, Pepin and his queen Bertha built a cell over the saint's gra\-e, and Pepin is said to have assigned it to the jurisdiction of Abbot Asuer of Prum, while Charlemagne, in 788, assigned the cell Bs a residence for Tassilo of Bavaria. In the elev- enth century it was changed into a house of canons, and it continued so till the Reformation.

(A. Hauck.) Bibliographt: The early anonymous life, with oommen- tary, a second life and Miraeula are in ASB, July. ii. 327-346; the later life and Miraeula are also in MOH, Script., XV (1887). 361-373. Consult: A. Grebel. Ge- •chidUe der Stadt St. Goar, St. Goar. 1848; P. Heber. Die Tcrkarolingiuhen chriaUidien Glaubenahelden am Rhein, pp. 130-140; Rfittberg, KD, i. 465, 481; Friedrich, KD, ii. 175; DCB, ii. 687-688.

GOATS. See Pastoral Life, Hebrew.

GOBAT, go"ba', SAMUEL: Second Anglican- German bishop in Jerusalem; b. at Cr^mine (23 m. 8.S.W. of Basel), Switzerland, Jan. 26, 1799; d. at Jerusalem May 11, 1879. Desiring to become a missionary, he went to the Missionshaus at Basel (1821), where he received his theological training, after which he studied in Paris. After having been ordained in the state church of Baden, ho was sent to England to seek employment from the Church Missionary Society. He was destined for Abyssinia, but was compelled to wait three years in Egypt before he was admitted. In 1829, with his companion Christian Kugler, he entered the country. King Saba Gadis received them with kindness, and a time of zealous and successful work followed. After three years Saba Gadis was killed in war and Gobat had to flee from the country. When peace

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was restored he went back, but sickness of himself and wife made a return to Europe necessary.

In 1846 King Frederick WiUiam IV. of Prussia appointed him to the bishopric of Jerusalem (see Jerusalem, Anoucan-German Bishopric in). I>espite the peculiar and difficult conditions, and notwithstanding the opposition of the Oriental bishops and the mistrust of many Anglicans, Gobat labored faithfully imtil his death. His Journal of a Three Years* Residence in Abyssinia was pub- lished in Ix)ndon, 1834. (Theodor SchAfbr.)

Bibuography: Mme. L. Roehrich. Samuel Gobat . . . hrique anolican de JerueaUm, Paris, 1880, Germ, tranal., Basel. 1884; Eng. traiul. (from the G«rm.) with preface by the Earl of Shaftesbury. London. 1884; T. Sohoelly, S. Gobat, Evanoeliecher Biackof in Jeruealem, Basel, 1900.

GOBELmUS PERSONA. See Persona.

GOCH, gOH, JOHAim VON (Johann Pupper or Capupper): One of the ''Reformers before the Reformation "; b. at Goch (43 m. n.w. of DUssel- dorO early in the fifteenth century; d. near Mech- lin Mar. 28, 1475, or later. He probably received his first education in a school of the Brethren of the Common Life, perhaps in Zwolle. He studied at the University of Cologne, and possibly also in Paris. In 1459 he founded the priory of Thabor for canonesses of St. Augustine, and governed it till his death.

Goch stood on the threshold of the Reformation in so far as he minimized the traditions of the Church and acknowledged as the only authorities the Bible and the Fathers. But in the central point of reformatory dogmatics, in the doctrine of justification, he still stood on the ground of the Middle Ages. He attacked monasticism on the ground that it could not be justified from the Bible, and that it lowered the value of grace, since the monastic vow was considered to lead to true Chris- tian perfection. Against the doctrine of a two- fold morality Goch argued that the so-called ** coimsels " belong to Evangelical law as well as the " precepts," and are to be observed by both the clergy and the laity. By giving due regard to the secular professions, he rose above the one-sided asceticism of the Middle Ages. As an extreme nominalist, Goch rejected all speculation in the sphere of religion, and strongly emphasized the authority of the Chureh. As a mystic he aimed at a closer and more intimate union with God through love of him and our fellow men. His importance