GERVASIUS AND PROTASIUS, SAINTS: Two brothers martyred at Milan during the reign of Nero. In 386 their remains were found by St. Ambrose under the pavement of the church at Milan. He describes his discovery in a letter to his sister

(Epist., xxii.; cf. also Augustine, Con.f., ix. 7), and says the place of burial was revealed to him in a vision. This vision and the miracles which the relics immediately performed were used by Ambrose in his contest with the Arians as proof of his orthodoxy. The cult of the martyrs rapidly spread over Europe and was introduced into Africa by Augustine. In 1864 a porphyry shrine was discovered at Milan, which, according to the inscription it bears, contains the remains of the two martyrs and of Ambrose.

Bibliography: ASB, June, iii. 817-846; L. A. Muratori, Auecdota, i. 171-177, Milan, 1697; DCB, ii. 666; KL, iv.

486-491.

GESENIIUS, (HEINRICH FRIEDRICH) WILHELM: German Protestant Hebraist; b. at Nordhausen (38 m. n.n.w. of Erfurt) Feb. 3, 1786; d. at Halle Oct. 23, 1842. After completing his early training at the gymnasium of his native city, he entered the University of Helmstedt in 1803, where he received a lasting influence from the rationalistic H. Henke. Having taught for a short time at Helmstedt, he migrated to Göttingen at Easter, 1806, and a few months later received the degree of Ph.D. For three years he lectured at Göttingen on the Old Testament and on the classics, Neander being one of his first pupils. In 1809 he accepted a position in the Roman Catholic gymnasium of Heiligenstadt, but in the following year went to a more congenial position at Halle as extraordinary professor of theology. In 1811 he was promoted to ordinary professor, and retained this position until his death, declining calls to Göttingen in 1827 and to Oxford in 1832. Semester after semester he had in his courses of lectures over a thousand pupils. In 1820 he visited France and England, and in 1835 went to England and Holland, both times bringing back rich treasures for his studies. Shortly after his return from this second trip, he was seized with a stubborn and painful disease of the stomach, which recurred at irregular intervals with increasing severity until it finally caused his death.

Gesenius was the pioneer of a new era of Hebrew philology. On the basis of the great Dutch Orientalists of the eighteenth century, he divorced Hebrew linguistics from dogmatic theology, and ph .ed the subject on the level of other linguistic sciences by a systematic comparison of cognate languages and a strictly rational method. As a lecturer he was no less influential than as an author. He was a born teacher, and knew how to make the driest subjects fascinating in their interest. Exactness of method, absorption in details, sobriety of judgment, clear presentation, and practicality were his chief characteristics. He was a student of linguistics rather than of theology, and his attention was devoted to details rather than to generalizations, even in the realm of Hebrew grammar.

In 1830, three years after receiving the title of consistorial councilor, Gesenius was attacked for his rationalism by the Pietistic Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, but the preliminary investigation conducted by the Minister of Worship, Altenstein, ended in the complete vindication of the accused professor and his colleagues. He was again assailed by

478

Heinrich Ewald for his grammatical views, but this onslaught in its turn proved futile.

The chief works of Gesenius were lexicographical. His dictionary, which bore in its first edition the title Hebraisches Hand-tvorterbuch über die Schriften des Alten Testaments mit Einschlusa der geographischen Namen und der ehaldaischen Worter beym Daniel and Ezra, was begun in 1810 and completed two years later. Like the majority of his works, it was published at Leipsic. In 1815 appeared an abridgment entitled Neues Hebraisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch caber die Schriften des Alten Testaments, which after its third edition in 1828 was translated by the author into Latin as Lexicon manuals Hebraic cum et Chaldaicum in Veteris Testamenti llbros (1833). The abridgment gradually superseded the original work, and has been repeatedly reprinted since the death of Gesenius, the fifth to the seventh editions (1868) being edited by F. E. C. Dietrich, the eighth to the eleventh (1890) by F. Mühlau and W. Volck, and the twelfth to the fourteenth (1905) by F. Buhl, A. Socin, and H. Zimmern. The richest fruit of his lexicographical studies was his Thesaurus philologicus criticus lingum Hebräew et Chaldcete Veteris Testamenti (3 vols., Leipsic, 1829-58), which was continued and completed after its author's death by his pupil E. R6diger. Among his grammatical works the chief is his Hebraische Grammatik, which first appeared in 1813, and which passed through repeated editions, thirteen being issued in the lifetime of Gesenius, who revised the last in 1842. After his death the fourteenth to the twenty-first editions (1872) were revised by E. R6diger, and the twenty-second to the twenty-seventh (1902) by E. Kautzsch. This is by far the most popular work of Gesenius, and has been translated into French, Danish, English, Polish, Hungarian, and other languages. His extremely rationalistic Hebraisches Lesebuch appeared in 1814, and after passing through six editions in the author's lifetime was edited by W. M. L. de Wette (1844) and A. Heiligstedt (1873). Mention may also be made of his Geschichte der hebraischen Sprache and Schrift (Leipsic, 1815) and Ausfuhrliches grammatiseh-kritisches Lehrgebaude der hebräischen Sprache mit Vergleichung der verwandten Dialekte (1817).

The sole exegetical work of Gesenius was his Der Prophet Jesaia (3 parts, Leipsic, 1820-21), one of the last products, of the rationalistic exegesis which had hitherto enjoyed complete supremacy, and one of the best productions of its class.

His remaining writings, in chronological order, include Versuch über die maltesische Sprache (Leipsic, 1810), in which he rightly interpreted the language as a corrupt Arabic dialect; De Pentateuchi Samaritani origins, indole et auctoritate (Halle, 1815); De Samaritanorum theologies ex fontibus ineditis (Leipsic, 1822); Carmina Samaritana (1824); De Bar Alio et Bar Bahlulo, lexicographis Syro-Arabicis ineditis (1834); Paldographische Studien über phbnizische and lvunische Schrift (Leipsic, 1835); Seripturm lingumque Phwnicim monuments quotquot supersunt (3 parts, 1837), the result of his second trip to England and a work which marks an epoch in Phenician studies; and numerous briefer contributions to periodicals, particularly to the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, of which he was associate editor after 1828. He likewise contribu ted a number of articles to Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie.

(R. Kraetzschmar.)

Bibliography: Both the Handwdrterbuch and the Grammatik of Gesenius have appeared in several English translations. The earliest version of the former was by J. W. Gibbs (Andover, 1824); other versions, many of them with amendments and additions, followed-by C. Leo (2 parts, Cambridge, 1825-28), E. Robinson (Boston, 1836), and S. P. Tregelles (London, 1846). The Grammatik was rendered into English by rf. Stuart (Andover, 1826), T. J. Conant (Boston, 1839), B. Davies (London, 1869), and G. W. Collins and A. E. Cowley (Oxford, 1898). H. Gesenius, W. Gesenius, Ein Erinnerungeblatt an den hundertjabrigen Geburtetag, Halle, 1886 (printed, not pub lished); R. H. S. (Robert HaymP). Geeenius. Eine Erinnerung far seine Freunde, Berlin, 1842; T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism, pp. 53 sqq., London, 1893; ADB, ix. 89 sqq.