Part 13

GERBIL, or GERBILLE, the name of a group of small, elegant, large-eyed, jumping rodents typified by the North African _Gerbillus aegyptiacus_ (or _gerbillus_), and forming a special subfamily, _Gerbillinae_, of the rat tribe or _Muridae_. They are found over the desert districts of both Asia and Africa, and are classed in the genera _Gerbillus_ (or _Tatera_), _Pachyuromys_, _Meriones_, _Psammomys_ and _Rhombomys_, with further divisions into subgenera. They have elongated hind-limbs and long hairy tails; and progress by leaps, in the same manner as jerboas, from which they differ in having five hind-toes. The cheek-teeth have transverse plates of enamel on the crowns; the number of such plates diminishing from three in the first tooth to one or one and a half in the third. The upper incisor teeth are generally marked by grooves. Gerbils are inhabitants of open sandy plains, where they dwell in burrows furnished with numerous exits, and containing large grass-lined chambers. The Indian _G. indicus_ produces at least a dozen young at a birth. All are more or less completely nocturnal.

GERENUK, the Somali name of a long-necked aberrant gazelle, commonly known as Waller's gazelle (_Lithocranius walleri_), and ranging from Somaliland to Kilimanjaro. The long neck and limbs, coupled with peculiarities in the structure of the skull, entitle the gerenuk, which is a large species, to represent a genus. The horns of the bucks are heavy, and have a peculiar forward curvature at the tips; the colour of the coat is red-fawn, with a broad brown band down the back. Gerenuk are browsing ruminants, and, in Somaliland, are found in small family-parties, and feed more by browsing on the branches and leaves of trees and shrubs than by grazing. Frequently they raise themselves by standing on their hind-legs with the fore-feet resting against the trunk of the tree on which they are feeding. Their usual pace is an awkward trot, not unlike that of a camel; and they seldom break into a gallop. The Somali form has been separated as _L. sclateri_, but is not more than a local race. (See ANTELOPE.)

GERGOVIA (mod. _Gergovie_), in ancient geography, the chief town of the Arverni, situated on a hill in the Auvergne, about 8 m. from the Puy de Dome, France. Julius Caesar attacked it in 52 B.C., but was beaten off; some walls and earthworks seem still to survive from this period. Later, when Gaul had been subdued, the place was dismantled and its Gaulish inhabitants resettled 4 m. away in the plain at the new Roman city of Augustonemetum (mod. _Clermont-Ferrand_).

GERHARD, FRIEDRICH WILHELM EDUARD (1795-1867), German archaeologist, was born at Posen on the 29th of November 1795, and was educated at Breslau and Berlin. The reputation he acquired by his _Lectiones Apollonianae_ (1816) led soon afterwards to his being appointed professor at the gymnasium of Posen. On resigning that office in 1819, on account of weakness of the eyes, he went in 1822 to Rome, where he remained for fifteen years. He contributed to Platner's _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom_, then under the direction of Bunsen, and was one of the principal originators and during his residence in Italy director of the _Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica_, founded at Rome in 1828. Returning to Germany in 1837 he was appointed archaeologist at the Royal Museum of Berlin, and in 1844 was chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences, and a professor in the university. He died at Berlin on the 12th of May 1867.

Besides a large number of archaeological papers in periodicals, in the _Annali_ of the Institute of Rome, and in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy, and several illustrated catalogues of Greek, Roman and other antiquities in the Berlin, Naples and Vatican Museums, Gerhard was the author of the following works: _Antike Bildwerke_ (Stuttgart, 1827-1844); _Auserlesene griech. Vasenbilder_ (1839-1858); _Etruskische Spiegel_ (1839-1865); _Hyperboreisch-rom. Studien_ (vol. i., 1833; vol. ii., 1852); _Prodromus mytholog. Kunsterklarung_ (Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1828); and _Griech. Mythologie_ (1854-1855). His _Gesammelte akademische Abhandlungen und kleine Schriften_ were published posthumously in 2 vols., Berlin, 1867.

GERHARD, JOHANN (1582-1637), Lutheran divine, was born in Quedlinburg on the 17th of October 1582. In his fifteenth year, during a dangerous illness, he came under the personal influence of Johann Arndt, author of _Das wahre Christenthum_, and resolved to study for the church. He entered the university of Wittenberg in 1599, and first studied philosophy. He also attended lectures in theology, but, a relative having persuaded him to change his subject, he studied medicine for two years. In 1603, however, he resumed his theological reading at Jena, and in the following year received a new impulse from J.W. Winckelmann (1551-1626) and Balthasar Mentzer (1565-1627) at Marburg. Having graduated and begun to give lectures at Jena in 1605, he in 1606 accepted the invitation of John Casimir, duke of Coburg, to the superintendency of Heldburg and mastership of the gymnasium; soon afterwards he became general superintendent of the duchy, in which capacity he was engaged in the practical work of ecclesiastical organization until 1616, when he became theological professor at Jena, where the remainder of his life was spent. Here, with Johann Major and Johann Himmel, he formed the "Trias Johannea." Though still comparatively young, Gerhard had already come to be regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany; in the numerous "disputations" of the period he was always protagonist, while on all public and domestic questions touching on religion or morals his advice was widely sought. It is recorded that during the course of his lifetime he had received repeated calls to almost every university in Germany (e.g. Giessen, Altdorf, Helmstadt, Jena, Wittenberg), as well as to Upsala in Sweden. He died in Jena on the 20th of August 1637.

His writings are numerous, alike in exegetical, polemical, dogmatic and practical theology. To the first category belong the _Commentarius in harmoniam historiae evangelicae de passione Christi_ (1617), the _Comment, super priorem D. Petri epistolam_ (1641), and also his commentaries on Genesis (1637) and on Deuteronomy (1658). Of a controversial character are the _Confessio Catholica_ (1633-1637), an extensive work which seeks to prove the evangelical and catholic character of the doctrine of the Augsburg Confession from the writings of approved Roman Catholic authors; and the _Loci communes theologici_ (1610-1622), his principal contribution to science, in which Lutheranism is expounded "nervose, solide, et copiose," in fact with a fulness of learning, a force of logic and a minuteness of detail that had never before been approached. _The Meditationes sacrae_ (1606), a work expressly devoted to the uses of Christian edification, has been frequently reprinted in Latin and has been translated into most of the European languages, including Greek. The English translation by R. Winterton (1631) has passed through at least nineteen editions. There is also an edition by W. Papillon in English blank verse (1801). His life, _Vita Joh. Gerhardi_, was published by E.R. Fischer in 1723, and by C.J. Bottcher, _Das Leben Dr Johann Gerhards_, in 1858. See also W. Gass, _Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik_ (1854-1867), and the article in the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_.

GERHARDT, CHARLES FREDERIC (1816-1856), French chemist, was born at Strassburg on the 21st of August 1816. After attending the gymnasium at Strassburg and the polytechnic at Karlsruhe, he was sent to the school of commerce at Leipzig, where he studied chemistry under Otto Erdmann. Returning home in 1834 he entered his father's white lead factory, but soon found that business was not to his liking, and after a sharp disagreement with his father enlisted in a cavalry regiment. In a few months military life became equally distasteful, and he purchased his discharge with the assistance of Liebig, with whom, after a short interval at Dresden, he went to study at Giessen in 1836. But his stay at Giessen was also short, and in 1837 he re-entered the factory. Again, however, he quarrelled with his father, and in 1838 went to Paris with introductions from Liebig. There he attended Jean Baptiste Dumas' lectures and worked with Auguste Cahours (1813-1891) on essential oils, especially cumin, in Michel Eugene Chevreul's laboratory, while he earned a precarious living by teaching and making translations of some of Liebig's writings. In 1841, by the influence of Dumas, he was charged with the duties of the chair of chemistry at the Montpellier faculty of sciences, becoming titular professor in 1844. In 1842 he annoyed his friends in Paris by the matter and manner of a paper on the classification of organic compounds, and in 1845 he and his opinions were the subject of an attack by Liebig, unjustifiable in its personalities but not altogether surprising in view of his wayward disregard of his patron's advice. The two were reconciled in 1850, but his faculty for disagreeing with his friends did not make it easier for him to get another appointment after resigning the chair at Montpellier in 1851, especially as he was unwilling to go into the provinces. He obtained leave of absence from Montpellier in 1848 and from that year till 1855 resided in Paris. During that period he established an "Ecole de chimie pratique" of which he had great hopes; but these were disappointed, and in 1855, after refusing the offer of a chair of chemistry at the new Zurich Polytechnic in 1854, he accepted the professorships of chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences and the Ecole Polytechnique at Strassburg, where he died on the 19th of August in the following year. Although Gerhardt did some noteworthy experimental work--for instance, his preparation of acid anhydrides in 1852--his contributions to chemistry consist not so much in the discovery of new facts as in the introduction of new ideas that vitalized and organized an inert accumulation of old facts. In particular, with his fellow-worker Auguste Laurent (1807-1853), he did much to reform the methods of chemical formulation by insisting on the distinction between atoms, molecules and equivalents; and in his unitary system, directly opposed to the dualistic doctrines of Berzelius, he combined Dumas' substitution theory with the old radicle theory and greatly extended the notion of types of structure. His chief works were _Precis de chimie organique_ (1844-1845), and _Traite de chimie organique_ (1853-1856).

See _Charles Gerhardt, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa correspondance_, by his son, Charles Gerhardt, and E. Grimaux (Paris, 1900).

GERHARDT, PAUL (c. 1606-1676), German hymn-writer, was born of a good middle-class family at Grafenhainichen, a small town on the railway between Halle and Wittenberg, in 1606 or 1607--some authorities, indeed, give the date March 12, 1607, but neither the year nor the day is accurately known. His education appears to have been retarded by the troubles of the period, the Thirty Years' War having begun about the time he reached his twelfth year. After completing his studies for the church he is known to have lived for some years at Berlin as tutor in the family of an advocate named Berthold, whose daughter he subsequently married, on receiving his first ecclesiastical appointment at Mittelwald (a small town in the neighbourhood of Berlin) in 1651. In 1657 he accepted an invitation as "diaconus" to the Nicolaikirche of Berlin; but, in consequence of his uncompromising Lutheranism in refusing to accept the elector Frederick William's "syncretistic" edict of 1664, he was deprived in 1666. Though absolved from submission and restored to office early in the following year, on the petition of the citizens, his conscience did not allow him to retain a post which, as it appeared to him, could only be held on condition of at least a tacit repudiation of the Formula Concordiae, and for upwards of a year he lived in Berlin without fixed employment. In 1668 he was appointed archdeacon of Lubben in the duchy of Saxe-Merseburg, where, after a somewhat sombre ministry of eight years, he died on the 7th of June 1676. Gerhardt is the greatest hymn-writer of Germany, if not indeed of Europe. Many of his best-known hymns were originally published in various church hymn-books, as for example in that for Brandenburg, which appeared in 1658; others first saw the light in Johann Cruger's _Geistliche Kirchenmelodien_ (1649) and _Praxis pietatis melica_ (1656). The first complete set of them is the _Geistliche Andachten_, published in 1666-1667 by Ebeling, music director in Berlin. No hymn by Gerhardt of a later date than 1667 is known to exist.

The life of Gerhardt has been written by Roth (1829), by Langbecker (1841), by Schultz (1842), by Wildenhahn (1845) and by Bachmann (1863); also by Kraft in Ersch u. Gruber's _Allg. Encycl._ (1855). The best modern edition of the hymns, published by Wackernagel in 1843, has often been reprinted. There is an English translation by Kelly (_Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs_, 1867).

GERICAULT, JEAN LOUIS ANDRE THEODORE (1791-1824), French painter, the leader of the French realistic school, was born at Rouen in 1791. In 1808 he entered the studio of Charles Vernet, from which, in 1810, he passed to that of Guerin, whom he drove to despair by his passion for Rubens, and by the unorthodox manner in which he persisted in interpreting nature. At the Salon of 1812 Gericault attracted attention by his "Officier de Chasseurs a Cheval" (Louvre), a work in which he personified the cavalry in its hour of triumph, and turned to account the solid training received from Guerin in rendering a picturesque point of view which was in itself a protest against the cherished convictions of the pseudo-classical school. Two years later (1814) he re-exhibited this work accompanied with the reverse picture "Cuirassier blesse" (Louvre), and in both subjects called attention to the interest of contemporary aspects of life, treated neglected types of living form, and exhibited that mastery of and delight in the horse which was a feature of his character. Disconcerted by the tempest of contradictory opinion which arose over these two pictures, Gericault gave way to his enthusiasm for horses and soldiers, and enrolled himself in the _mousquetaires_. During the Hundred Days he followed the king to Bethune, but, on his regiment being disbanded, eagerly returned to his profession, left France for Italy in 1816, and at Rome nobly illustrated his favourite animal by his great painting "Course des Chevaux Libres." Returning to Paris, Gericault exhibited at the Salon of 1819 the "Radeau de la Meduse" (Louvre), a subject which not only enabled him to prove his zealous and scientific study of the human form, but contained those elements of the heroic and pathetic, as existing in situations of modern life, to which he had appealed in his earliest productions. Easily depressed or elated, Gericault took to heart the hostility which this work excited, and passed nearly two years in London, where the "Radeau" was exhibited with success, and where he executed many series of admirable lithographs now rare. At the close of 1822 he was again in Paris, and produced a great quantity of projects for vast compositions, models in wax, and a horse _ecorche_, as preliminary to the production of an equestrian statue. His health was now completely undermined by various kinds of excess, and on the 26th of January 1824 he died, at the age of thirty-three.

Gericault's biography, accompanied by a _catalogue raisonne_ of his works, was published by M.C. Clement in 1868.

GERIZIM, a mountain in the hill-country of Samaria, 2849 ft. above the sea-level, and enclosing, with its companion Ebal, the valley in which lies the town of Nablus (Shechem). It is the holy place of the community of the Samaritans, who hold that it was the scene of the sacrifice of Isaac--a tradition accepted by Dean Stanley but no other western writers of importance. Here, on the formal entrance of the Israelites into the possession of the Promised Land, were pronounced the blessings connected with a faithful observance of the law (Josh. viii. 33, 34; cf. Deut. xi. 29, 30, xxvii. 12-26), the six tribes, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin, standing here for the purpose while the remaining tribes stood on Ebal to accept the curses attached to specific violations thereof. Gerizim was probably chosen as the mount of blessing as being on the right hand, the fortunate side, of a spectator facing east. The counter-suggestion of Eusebius and Jerome that the Ebal and Gerizim associated with this solemnity were not the Shechem mountains at all, but two small hills near Jericho, is no longer considered important. From this mountain Jotham spoke his parable to the elders of Shechem (Judg. ix. 7). Manasseh, the son of the Jewish high-priest in the days of Nehemiah, married the daughter of Sanballat and, about 432 B.C., erected on this mountain a temple for the Samaritans; it was destroyed by Hyrcanus about 300 years afterwards. Its site is a small level plateau a little under the summit of the mountain. Close to this is the place where the Passover is still annually celebrated in exact accordance with the rites prescribed in the Pentateuch. On the summit of the mountain, which commands a view embracing the greater part of Palestine, are a small Moslem shrine and the ruins of a castle probably dating from Justinian's time. There was an octagonal Byzantine church here, but the foundations alone remain. Josephus describes it as the highest of the mountains of Samaria, but Ebal and Tell Azur are both higher. (R. A. S. M.)

GERLACHE, ETIENNE CONSTANTIN, BARON DE (1785-1871), Belgian politician and historian, was born at Biourge, Luxemburg, on the 24th of December 1785. He studied law in Paris and practised there for some time, but settled at Liege after the establishment of the kingdom of the Netherlands. As member of the states-general he was an energetic member of the opposition, and, though he repudiated an ultramontane policy, he supported the alliance of the extreme Catholics with the Liberal party, which paved the way for the revolution of 1830. On the outbreak of disturbance in August 1830 he still, however, thought the Orange-Nassau dynasty and the union with the Dutch states essential; but his views changed, and, after holding various offices in the provisional government, he became president of congress, and brought forward the motion inviting Leopold of Saxe-Coburg to become king of the Belgians. In 1832 he was president of the chamber of representatives, and for thirty-five years he presided over the court of appeal. He presided over the Catholic congresses held at Malines between 1863 and 1867. That his early Liberal views underwent some modification is plain from the Conservative principles enunciated in his _Essai sur le mouvement des

## partis en Belgique_ (Brussels, 1852). As an historian his work was

strongly coloured by his anti-Dutch prejudices and his Catholic predilections. His _Histoire des Pays-Bas depuis 1814 jusqu'en 1830_ (Brussels, 2 vols., 1839), which reached a fourth edition in 1875, was a piece of special pleading against the Dutch domination. The most important of his other works were his _Histoire de Liege_ (Brussels, 1843) and his _Etudes sur Salluste et sur quelques-uns des principaux historiens de l'antiquite_ (Brussels, 1847).

A complete edition of his works (6 vols., Brussels, 1874-1875) contains a biography by M. Thonissen.

GERLE, CHRISTOPHE ANTOINE (1736-c. 1801), French revolutionist and mystic, was born at Riom in Auvergne. Entering the Carthusian order early in life, he became prior of Laval-Dieu in Perche, and afterwards of Pont-Sainte-Marie at Moulins. Elected deputy to the states-general in 1789, Gerle became very popular, and though he had no seat in the assembly until after the Tennis Court oath, being only deputy _suppleant_, he is represented in David's classic painting as taking

## part in it. In 1792 he was chosen elector of Paris. In the

revolutionary turmoil Gerle developed a strong vein of mysticism, mingled with ideas of reform, and in June 1790 the prophetic powers of Suzanne Labrousse (1747-1821), a visionary who had predicted the Revolution ten years before, were brought by him to the notice of the Convention. In Paris, where he lived first with a spiritualistic doctor and afterwards, like Robespierre, at the house of a cabinetmaker, his mystical tendencies were strengthened. The insane fancies of Catherine Theot, a convent servant turned prophetess, who proclaimed herself the Virgin, the "Mother of God" and the "new Eve," were eminently attractive to Gerle; in the person of Robespierre he recognized the Messiah, and at the meetings of the Theotists he officiated with the aged prophetess as co-president. But the activities of Catherine and her adepts were short-lived. The Theotists' cult of Robespierre was a weapon in the hands of his opponents; and shortly after the festival of the Supreme Being, Vadier made a report to the Convention calling for the prosecution of Catherine, Gerle and others as fanatics and conspirators. They were arrested, thrown into prison and, in the confusion of Robespierre's fall, apparently forgotten. Catherine died in prison, but Gerle, released by the Directory, became one of the editors of the _Messager du soir_, and was afterwards in the office of Pierre Benezech (1775-1802), minister of the interior. Having renounced his monastic vows in Paris, he is thought to have married, towards the close of his life, Christine Raffet, aunt of the artist Denis Raffet. The date of his death is uncertain.

GERMAN BAPTIST BRETHREN, or GERMAN BRETHREN, a sect of American Baptists which originated in Germany, and whose members are popularly known in the United States as "Dunkers," "Dunkards" or "Tunkers," corruptions of the German verb _tunken_, "to dip," in recognition of the sect's continued adherence to the practice of trine immersion. The sect was the outcome of one of the many Pietistic movements of the 17th century, and was founded in 1708 by Andrew Mack of Swartzenau, Germany, and seven of his followers, upon the general issue that both the Lutheran and Reformed churches were taking liberties with the literal teachings of the Scriptures. The new sect was scarcely organized in Germany when its members were compelled by persecution to take refuge in Holland, whence they emigrated to Pennsylvania, in small companies, between 1719 and 1729. The first congregation in America was organized on Christmas Day 1723 by Peter Becker at Germantown, Pennsylvania, and here in 1743 Christopher Sauer, one of the sect's first pastors, and a printer by trade, printed the first Bible (a few copies of which are still in existence) published in a European language in America. From Pennsylvania the sect spread chiefly westward, and, after various vicissitudes, caused by defections and divisions due to doctrinal differences, in 1908 were most numerous in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and North Dakota.