OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerard Groote

From volume 7 of the work.
(Or Geert De Groote; Gerhardus Magnus.)
Founder of the "Brethren of the Common Life", b. 1340 at Deventer, Gelderland; d. 20 Aug., 1384. From the chapter school in his native town Geert went for higher studies first to Aachen, then to Paris, where at the Sorbonne he studied medicine, theology, and canon law. He returned home, barely eighteen years old. In 1362 he was appointed teacher at the Deventer chapter school. A few years later his admiring countrymen sent him to Avignon on a secret mission to Pope Urban V. Soon after we find him in Cologne teaching philosophy and theology, enjoying two prebends and ample means. Warnings of the vanity and danger of this life he heeded not until he met his fellow-student of the Sorbonne, Henry Æger of Calcar, prior of the Chartreuse of Munnikhuizen near Arnheim. Geert stripped himself at once of honours, prebends, and possessions and entered seriously upon the practice of devout life. At this time he also frequently visited the famous ascetic Ruysbroek, and no doubt by the advice of this man of God he withdrew into the monastery of Munnikhuizen, where he spent three years in recollection and prayer. From his retreat he issued burning with apostolic zeal. He had received the diaconate and licence to preach in the Diocese of Utrecht wherever he wished. Young men especially flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these he sent to his schools, others he occupied at transcribing good books, to all he taught thorough Christian piety. Florence Radewyns, his favourite disciple, asked him one day: "Master, why not put our efforts and earnings together, why not work and pray together under the guidance of our Common Father?" In perfect accord both set to work and founded at Zwolle the "Brethren of the Common Life".
His fearless attacks on vice, which spared neither priest nor monk, developed considerable opposition, which culminated in the withdrawal of his licence to preach. He submitted to episcopal authority, but applied to the Soveregin Pontiff for redress. Henceforth his communities, which were spreading rapidly through the Netherlands, Lower Germany, and Westphalia, claimed and received all his attention. He contemplated organizing his clerics into a community of canons regular, but it was left to Radewyns, his successor, to realize this plan at Windesheim two years later. Before the answer to his petition to the pope arrived, Geert De Groote died from pestilence, contracted in ministering to the sick. Groote was the first successful practical mystic, who worked and prayed, and taught others to do the same. He did much for literature in general, for the spread of knowledge, and for the development of the vernacular in the Netherlands and Germany. Of his biographies the "Vita Gerardi" of Thomas à Kempis still remains the best.
Kerkgesch, van Nederl.; DELPART, Broederschap van Geert Groot (Arnheim, 1856); ACQUOY, Het Kloester te Windesheim; WEISS, Weltgeschichte, vol. VI (Graz and Leipzig, 1894).
Charles B. Schrantz.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerasa

From volume 6 of the work.
A titular see in the province of Arabia and the Patriarchate of Antioch. According to Josephus, it was a city of Decapolis in which a number of Jews resided. Alexander Jannaeus took possession of it, although it was surrounded by a triple wall (Bell. Jud., I, 4, 8). In 68 A.D. Vespasian ravaged the country and sacked the city because the Jews were all-powerful there (op. cit., IV, 9, 1). Simon, the son of Gioras, one of the principal leaders of the rebellious Jews, was born at Gerasa. The city is mentioned as forming a part, sometimes of Arabia, sometimes of Syria, by Ptolemy, Pliny, and Stephen of Byzantium, who also speak of several notable persons of the place. Coins and a number of inscriptions prove that it was sometimes called Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas, the little river by which it is watered. In the Gospel (Matt., viii, 28; Mark, v, i; Luke, viii, 26, 37) there is question of the country of the Gerasans, but if this name is to be read instead of Gadarenians or Gergesians, the reference is to another locality, near the Lake of Tiberias. The prosperity of Gerasa, once considerable, dates from the first centuries of our era, its buildings date from the emperors of the second and third centuries. Its destruction was brought about by earthquakes and the Arab invasions. We know three Greek Bishops of Gerasa: Exairesius, fourth century; Plancus, 451; Aeneas, who built the church of St. Theodore in the sixth century. In 1121 Baldwin II attempted in vain to conquer it, and at the beginning of the thirteenth century the geographer Yakut informs us that it was no longer inhabited. In modern times, several thousand Tcherkesses have established themselves amid its ruins and have unfortunately destroyed most of the Graeco-Roman monuments which time had spared. Until recently Djerasch was the best preserved city of Roman antiquity and the one which afforded us the most exact idea of Roman civilization. Its ramparts, in a state of partial preservation, are still to be seen; also a magnificent triumphal arch, with three openings about 82 feet wide by 29 high; a "naumachia", or circus for naval combats; two theatres; the forum with fifty-five columns still standing; the great colonnade which crosses the city from north to south, and which still retains from 100 to 150 of its columns; several aqueducts; some propylaea; a temple of the Sun, the columns of which are about 40 feet high, and several other temples, baths, etc. Greek and Latin inscriptions are very numerous among the ruins. The ramparts of the city cover a distance of about three miles.
S. VAILHÉ
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerhard of Zütphen

From volume 6 of the work.
(ZERBOLT OF ZUTPHEN)
Born at Zütphen, 1367; died at Windesheim, 1398; a mystical writer and one of the first of the Brothers of the Common Life, founded by Gerhard Groote and Florentius Radewyn at Deventer, in the Netherlands. Even in that community of "plain living and high thinking" Gerhard was remarkable for his absorption in the sacred sciences and his utter oblivion of all matters of merely earthly interest. He held the office of librarian, and his deep learning in moral theology and canon law did the brothers good service, in helping them to meet the prejudice and opposition which their manner of life at first aroused. His best known works are entitled "Homo quidam" and "Beatus vir"; the two are almost identical (de la Bigne, Bibliotheca Patrum, XXVI). Two other treatises on prayer in the mother-tongue and on reading the Scripture in the mother-tongue are attributed to him (Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation; and Hirsche in Herzog's Realencyklopädie, 2nd ed.). Ullmann and other controversialists have used Gerhard of Zütphen's zeal for propagating the vernacular Scriptures as proof to connect the Brothers of the Common Life with the German Reformers; but an examination of Gerhard's arguments, as quoted by them, reveals with how little foundation.
Vincent Scully.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerlac Peterssen

From volume 11 of the work.
(GERLACUS PETRI)
Born at Deventer, 1377 or 1378; died 18 Nov., 1411. He entered the Institution of the Brethren of Common Life, and devoted his time to calligraphy, transcription of manuscripts, education, and prayer. He became connected with many illustrious contemplative men, e. g. John Rucksack; Flo rent Radon; Henry Kale Gerard of Zutphen Thomas and John a Kempis, and John Vos of Hayden. When Radon founded a monastery of regular canons at Windscreen, in 1386, Gerlac followed him, and remained there till 1403 as a simple clerk; he had no other employment than that of a sexton. He has been called another Kempis, and several critics have ascribed to Kempis words or theories which belong to Gerlac. Gerlac left his brethren to come back to his cell, where, as he said, "somebody was waiting for him". It has been maintained that the "Imitation" reproduced several ideas and the general spirit of Gerlac's ascetic works. In fact, Thomas a Kempis inserted into the work, a copy of which he wrote in 1441, the passage of the "Soliloquies" where Gerlac says that he would feel no pain, if necessary for the greater glory of God, to be in hell for ever. This passage is an interpolation, which was soon deleted from the "Imitation". The difference between the ascetic theories of Gerlac and those of the author of the "Imitation" are numerous and deep enough to make any similarities apparent.
Works: "Breviloquium de accidentiis exterioribus" (before 1403); "De libertate spirit us"; "Soliloquium cum Deo ignitum" (Cologne, 1616; Flemish tr., 1623; Fr., 1667; It.l 1674; Sp., 1686).
FABRICIUS, Bibl. m. œ., V (1736), 770; FOPPENS, Bibl. Belgica, I (1739), 364; GRAESSE, Trésor (1862), III, 58; PAQUOT, Hist. litt. Pays-Bas, XVIII (1770), 35-36.
Joseph Dedieu.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerard Schneemann

From volume 13 of the work.
Born at Wesel, Lower Rhine, 12 Feb., 1829; d. at Kerkrade, Holland, 20 Nov., 1885. After studying law for three years, he entered the seminary at Munster where he was ordained subdeacon in 1850. He became a member of the Society of Jesus, 24 Nov., 1851, and was ordained priest on 22 Dec., 1856. For some years he taught philosophy at Bonn and Aachen, and subsequently lectured on church history and canon law in the Jesuit scholasticate at Maria Laach. His first notable publication was "Studien über die Honoriusfrage" (Frieburg, 1864) in which he refuted the opinion of Döllinger. Between the years 165 and 1870, he contributed a number of timely and important dissertations to "Die Encyclica Papst Pius IX" and "Das öcumenische Concil", two series of papers that were published at Freiburg under the general title of "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach". In 1871 the "Stimmen" became a regular monthly review and for six years was edited by Father Schneemann. He was moreover the chief promoter in the collaboration and publication of the "Acta et decreta sacrorum conciliorum recentiorum", commonly called "Collection Lacensis", and died while preparing the documents of the Vatican Council for the seventh and last volume. His work "Controfersiarum de divinae gratiae liberique arbitrii concordia initia et progressus" (Freiburg, 1881), was the occasion of a renewed controversy on the nature of grace and free will.
Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, XXX (1886), 167 sq.; Collectio Lacensis, VII (Freiburg, 1885), ix; Sommervogel, Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jesus, VII (Paris, 1896), c. 822; Frins, S. Thomae doctrina de cooperatione Dei (Paris, 1892); Dummermuth, Defensio doctrinae S. Thomae de praemotione physica (Paris, 1896).
F.X. DELANY
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Gerard of Cremona

From volume 6 of the work.
A twelfth-century student of Arabic science and translator from Arabic into Latin; born at Cremona, in 1114; died in 1187. The place and date of Gerard's birth are not given in any document prior to the fourteenth century. Tiraboschi, in his "Storia della letteratura italiana", is at pains to refute the contention of some Spanish writers that Gerard was born, not at Cremona in Italy, but at Carmona in Spain. While conceding that Gerard spent a good many years at Toledo, Tiraboschi shows that Cremona and not Carmona is his birthplace. In fact, the manuscripts of his writings style him Cremonensis, or Chremonensis (which seems to be a corrupt form of Cremonensis). From the "Chronicle" of the Dominican Francisco Pipino, who flourished about the year 1300, we learn, besides the place and date of his birth and death, that impelled by his interest in teh works of the astronomer Ptolemy, he went to Toledo, and, applying himself to the study of Arabic, soon acquired so great a proficiency in that language that he was able to translate not only the "Almagest", but also the entire works of Avicenna, into Latin. He died in the year 1187 and was buried in the church of St. Lucy at Cremona, to which he bequeathed his valuable library. The number of books which he translated from Arabic into Latin is said by Pipino to be seventy-six. Whether he is the author of original treatises is uncertain. The works sometimes attributed to him are almost certainly to be ascribed to Gerard of Sabionetta, who lived in the thirteenth century. He must have been a man of extraordinarily wide taste in scientific matters, for he translated, according to the "Chronicle" of Pipino, works on dialectic, geometry, philosopht, physics, and several other sciences. His activity as a translator, combined with the efforts in the same line of Michael Scott, and of the group of men who formed a regular college of translators at Toledo under the direction of Bishop Raymond, brought the world of Arabian learning within the reach of the scholars of Latin Christendom and prepared the way for that conflict of ideas out of which sprang the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. In this work Gerard was a pioneer. If the description of his moral qualities given by Pipino is not overdrawn, he was a man whose single-minded devotion to the cause of science enabled him to overcome the difficulties which in those days were inevitable in a task such as he undertook.
WILLIAM TURNER
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec

From volume 2 of the work.
A theologian and physician, b. probably at Paris, date unknown; d. at Lyons c. 1584. He became a Carmelite monk at Paris. A sermon which he preached there aroused misgivings in ecclesiastical circles regarding the soundness of his ideas, and Bolsec left Paris. Having separated from the Catholic Church about 1545 he took refuge at the Court of Renée, duchess of Ferrara, who was favourably disposed towards persons holding Protestant views. Here he married, and began the study of medicine, about 1550 settling as a physician at Veigy, near Geneva. A theological controversy with Calvin, whose doctrine of predestination he deemed an absurdity, soon ensued. In 1551, at one of the religious conferences or public discussions, then held at Geneva every Friday, he interrupted the orator of the day, Jean de Saint André, who was speaking on predestination, and argued against him. As the triumph of his ideas would have meant the ruin of Calvin's influence in the Swiss city, Bolsec was arrested, and through the influence of the reformer banished forever from Geneva (1551). In 1555 he was also driven from Thonon, in the Bernese territory, whither he had retired. He went to Paris and sought admission into the ministry of the Reformed Church. But his opinions were not found sufficiently orthodox, from a reformed point of view, for one wishing to hold such a position. He was asked for a declaration of faith, but refused. He went to Lausanne (c. 1563), but as the signing of the Confession of Bern was made a condition of his residence here, he preferred to return to France. Shortly after this, he recanted his errors, was reconciled with the Catholic Church, and published biographies of the two Genevan reformers, Calvin and Beza (1519-1605). These works are violent in tone, and find little favour with protestant writers. Their historical statements cannot always be relied on. They are "Histoire de la view, des moeurs . . . de Jean Calvin" (Lyons and Paris, 1577; published in Latin at Cologne in 1580; German tr. 1581); "Histoire de la vie et des m urs de Th. de Bèze" (Paris, 1582). The life of Calvin was edited by L.F. Chastel in 1875 with extracts from the life of Beza.
FRITZ in Kirchenlex.; SCHAFF, History of the Christian Church (New York, 1903), VII, 614-621; WALKER, John Calvin (New York, 1906), 116-119, 315-320.
N.A. WEBER
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Jérôme Besoigne

From volume 2 of the work.
A Jansenist writer, b. at Paris, 1686; d. 1763. Ordained in 1715, he received the doctorate of the Sorbonne three years later. He was also assistant principal of the College of Plessis, but his defence of Jansenism and his opposition to the Bull "Unigenitus" obliged him to resign the post. In 1729, the Sorbonne erased him from the list of Doctors and, in 1731, he was exiled from Paris. During the following year he was allowed to return. He wrote a "History of the Abbey of Port Royal" (6 vols.), and "Lives of the Four Bishops engaged in the case of Port Royal". We have also from his pen two works on Scripture: "Concorde des livres de la Sagesse" (Paris, 1737), reprinted in Migne's "Cursus Completus" (XVIII) and "Morale des Apôtres ou concorde des épîtres de saint Paul et des épîtres cononiques du N. T." (Paris, 1747).
Memoire sur la vie et les ourvrages de Jerome Besoigne (Paris, 1763); Querard, La France litteraire (Paris, 1827), I, 315-316; Heurtebize in Dict. de theol. cath., with a list of his Jansenistic writings; Rey in Dict. De la Bible.
JOHN CORBETT
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Jörgen Zoega

From volume 15 of the work.
(GEORGE).
Archaeologist and numismatist, born at Daler near Tönder, near the west coast of northern Schleswig, 20 December, 1755; died in Rome, 10 February, 1809. His father, whose family came originally from Northern Italy, was Christian Zoega, Protestant pastor of Vilhad; his mother was Henriette Clausen. When a boy Jörgen was taught at home, and then attended the gymnasium at Altona. He went in 1773 to the University of Göttingen and later to Leipzig, studying philosophy and the Classics. Repeated journeys to Italy developed the interest for archaeology which had awakened early in him. In 1782, by the good offices of the Danish minister Guldberg, he received for two years a pension from the State. From Vienna, where he studied under the celebrated numismatist Eckhel, Zoega went to Rome early in 1783. Through introductions he received here a kindly welcome from Stefano Borgia, then a prelate and later cardinal. On his way home Zoega heard at Paris of the political overthrow of his patron Guldberg. He, therefore, returned to Rome, and took up his permanent abode in the Eternal City, which a man, as he said, should never see or else never leave. He had before this catalogued and exhaustively described Borgia's fine collection of coins; the prelate now gave him hearty support and Pius VI granted him a pension of 400 scudi. With the aid of influential friends Zoega also received permanent assistance from Denmark, and in 1790 was made an honorary member of the Academy of Art at Copenhagen. When his patron, Cardinal Borgia, was exiled from Rome in 1798, Zoega, grateful for the cardinal's hospitality to Danes who had gone to Rome, obtained a pension for Borgia from the state revenues of Denmark. From 1798 Zoega was Danish consul at Rome and a member of the Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen. His labours in numismatics led him to take up Egyptological and Coptic studies, which he carried on with success. By his power of penetration and sound judgment he pointed out to later investigators the path to be followed in the interpretation of hieroglyphics. He is regarded as the associate of Winckelmann and Visconti in establishing scientific archaeology. His services to learning were also acknowledged in foreign countries by his election in 1806 to membership in the Academies of Science at Berlin and Vienna.
Zoega's most important works are: "Nummi aegyptii imperatorii" (Rome, 1787); "De origine et usu obeliscorum" (Rome, 1797); "Bassirilievi antichi di Rome" (2 vols., Rome, 1808), translated into German by Welcker (1811); "Catalogus codicum copticorum manuscriptorum, qui in musco Borgiano Velitris adservantu" (Rome, 1810), a posthumous work. He also wrote several treatises on classical archaeology, translated into German by Welcker, "Georg Zoegas Abhandlungen" (Gottingen, 1817). A work on the topography of Rome was left unfinished in manuscript.
WELCKER, Zoegas Leben (Stuttgart, 1819); JORGENSON, Georg Zoega (Copenhagen, 1881).
Philipp von Kettenburg.
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Kaiserchronik

From volume 8 of the work.
(Der Keiser und der Kunige buoch.)
A German epic poem of the twelfth century. It is at once a kind of "Legend of all the Saints" and a confused but remarkable account of the Roman emperors and also of the German emperors and kings to the crusade of King Conrad III (1147). The language is comparatively good and often quite poetic. The chronicle was written about 1150. Undoubtedly the work of an ecclesiastic of Ratisbon, an earnest partisan of the Guelphs, the chronicle is not improbably to be referred to Konrad der Pfaffe (q. v.), who composed the well-known "Song of Roland" (Rolands-lied). He drew his information from the "Chronicon Wirzeburgense", the Chronicle of Ekkehard (see EKKEHARD IV), and the "Annolied"; it may be that he also drew from some earlier record or rhymed chronicle. Judging from the large number of manuscripts still extant (twelve complete and seventeen partial), it must have been very popular, and it was twice continued in the thirteenth century. The original poem, according to the latest authorities, ended with verse 17283; the first addition, called "Bavarian", comprised 800 verses, while the second, the "Swabian", which brought the poem to the Interregnum (1254-73), consisted of 483 lines. The chronicle was first published in full Massmann (Quedlinburg, 1849-54) in three volumes, under the title: "Die sogenannte Kaiserchronik, Gedicht des 12. Jahrhunderts in 18578 Reimzeilen", with careful researches into manuscripts, investigation of authorship, age, etc. The best edition is that of Schröder: "Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen" (Hanover, 1892), in "Mon. Germ. Deutsche Chroniken", I,i; Appendix I is the Bavarian, appendix ii the Swabian continuation.
GREDY, Ueber die Kaiserchronik ein Gedicht des 12. Jahrhunderts. Mit neuhochdeutschen Uebertragungen und Anmerkungen (Mainz, 1854); WELZHOFER, Untersuchungen über die deutsche Kaiserchronik (Munich, 1874), in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, XIV, XVII, XIX, XXVI, XXXII, XXXIV.
PATRICIUS SCHLAGER
# Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Kajetan Georg von Kaiser

From volume 8 of the work.
Chemist, born at Kelheim on the Danube (Bavaria), 5 January, 1803; died at Munich, 28 August, 1871. He was appointed professor of technology at the University of Munich in 1851, and in 1868 became professor of applied chemistry at the technical high school in the same city. His scientific researches into the chemistry of fermentation are of importance; a saccharometer invented by him in 1842 serves for the determination of the percentages of the contents of wort. In addition to articles in scientific journals, he published the paper "Ueber Bieruntersuchungen und Fehler, welche dabei gemacht werden können (Munich, 1846). He also brought out the scientific works of his friend, the chemist and mineralogist, Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs (d. 1856), under the title "Gesammelte Schriften des Joh. Nep. von Fuchs" (Munich, 1856), adding an obituary notice of that scientist. Like Fuchs, Kaiser always remained a faithful and steadfast Catholic, even in the period of 1870-1. It is stated of him in an obituary notice that "his Catholic belief was invulnerable spot in his heart, in which he always maintained his own individuality under every trial".
Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, IV (Berlin, 1871); KNELLER, Das Christentum und die Vertreter der neueren Naturwissenschaft (Freiburg im Br., 1904).
J. Rompel.