GIESEBRECHT, gi"ze-brest, FRIEDRICH WILHELM KARL: German Protestant; b. at Kontopp (50 m. s.w. of Posen) July 30, 1852. He studied in Erlangen and Halle (Ph.D., 1876), and from 1876 to 1879 was in charge of the courses in Old Testament exegesis end adjunct at the royal seminary for canons at Berlin. In 1879 he became privatdocent at Greifswald, and was appointed associate professor of Old Testament exegesis in the same university in 1883. In 1895 he was made honorary professor there, and since 1898 has been professor of the same subject at Königsberg. He has written Die hebräische Prdposition Lamed (Halle, 1876); Der Wendepunkt des Buches Hiob (Berlin, 1879); Beiträge zur Jesaia-Kritik (Göttingen, 1890); Das Buch Jeremias übersetzt and erkldrt (1893); Die Berufsbegabung der alttestamentlichen Propheten (1897); Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinatbundes (Königsberg, 1900); Die alttestamentliche Schdtzung des Gottesnamens (1901); Der "Knecht Jahves" des Deuterojesaia (1902); Friede für Babel and Bibel (1903); Grundzuge der israelitischen Religionsgeschichte (Leipsic, 1904); Die Metrik Jeremias (Göttingen, 1905); and commentary on Jeremiah in Hand-Kommenlar zum Allen Testament (1907).

GIESELER, gi'ze-ler, JOHANN KARL LUDWIG: Church historian; b. at Petershagen (on the Weser, 35 m. w. of Hanover), Prussia, Mar. 3, 1792; d. at Göttingen July 8, 1854. He attended the Latin school of the Orphans' House at Halle and the University of Halle. In 1812 he became collaborator in the Latin school, but the following year joined the German army at the outbreak of the war of liberation. In 1814 lie resumed his activity as teacher, in 1817 he became doctor of philosophy and conrector at the gymnasium of Minden, 1818 director of the gymnasitun at Cleves, and 1819 professor of theology at Bonn. In 1831 he went to Göttingen where he showed administrative talents besides ability as scholar and teacher. His lectures treated church history, history of dogma and dogmatics. Several times he was prorector of the university, he served on different commissions, and was member of the Göttinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften; as curator of the orphans' home, he dispiayed much practical benevolence, and he was an active freemason. His principal work is his Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, one of the most remarkable productions of German learning, distinguished by erudition, accuracy, and careful selection of passages from the sources, given in footnotes. The first volume appeared at Darmstadt in 1824; the fifth and last, containing his lectures, and treating the period after 1814, at Bonn, 1857. An English translation from the earlier editions by F. Cunningham, was published at Philadelphia in three volumes, in 1836; another, from the last edition by S. Davidson, in five volumes at Edinburgh, 1848-56 (revised and edited by H. B. Smith and Mary A. Robinson, New York, 1857-81). The work is characterized by the fundamental principle that every age or period can be understood only in so far as we allow it to speak for itself; the chief task of the historian is to judge objectively and from the sources. His main strength lies therefore in the careful observation of details rather than in a grasp of the unity of events. His standpoint has been characterized as that of a historico-critical rationalism. Of his other writings may be mentioned: Versuch über die Entstehung und die fruhesten Schicksale der achriftlichen Evangelien (Leipsic, 1818), against the hypothesis of a primal Aramaic Urevangelium; Ueber den Reichstag zu Augsburg im Jahre 1630 (Hamburg, 1821); Symbolæ ad historiam monasterii Lacensis (Bonn,, 1826); an edition of the history of the Manicheans of Petrus Siculus (Göttingen, 1846) and other works devoted to ancient or medieval church history. He treated of modern church history in Rückblick auf die theologischen Richtungen der letzten fiinfzig Jahre (Göttingen, 1837), and Ueber die Lehninsche Weissagung (1849).

(N. Bonwetsch.)

Bibliography: A sketch of Gieseler's life by E. R. Reepenning is in the last vol. of the Kirchengeschichte, and such a sketch is in vol. i. of the AIn. ed., New York, 1868. Consult: F. Oesterley, Geschichte der UniversitXat Göttingen, pp. 410 sqq., Göttingen, 1838; ADB, ix. 163 sqq.