taken captives healed the sick and cist out devils by calling on the name of Christ, the Son of God; and they, besides, overcame all the prejudices existing against the name of Christian bj' the purity of their life and In' their virtues. The barbarians, full of ad- miration of the life and deeds of these men, saw that it would be well to gain the favor of the Christian God ; and when they sought for it, they were instructed, bap- tized, and organized into congregations." The Arian historian, Philostorgius, gives a similar account of the propagation of Christianity among them. In the reign of Constantine, Athanasius speaks of the triumphs of the Gospel over the bflrbarians, and especially the Goths, now civilized. At the Council of Nice in 325, Theophilus, a Gothic bishop, subscribed the decrees. Ulphilas(see the article), having become bisho]) in 348, labored with great zeal for the propagation of Chris- tianity among the Goths, even in the tribes beyond the Danube, notwithstanding the persecutions of Athana- rie, the heathen king of tlie Visigoths, who commanded Christians to worship idols he caused to be drawn up in front of their houses, under penalty of being burned in their dwellings {Acta S.S., Sept. 15). In tlie middle of the 4th century, Eutyches and Audius, whiclj latter had separated from tlie Syrian Church, both labored among tlie Goths beyond tlie Danube, and the result was the erection of several monasteries for the con- verts, which, however, disappeared in the persecution of 370. These persecutions ceased only when Friti- gern, rival of Athanaric, took the Christians under his protection, and embraced Arianism, tlic general form of Christianit}' among the Goths. In 370 Ulphilas translated the Scriptures into Gothic; but soon after, the hordes of Huns crowding from Asia upon the Os- trogoths, whose king, Hermanrich, was unable to resist them, drove part of the Visigoths south of the Danube into the Roman territor}', while others followed Friti- gern into Thrace, where war, and the persecutions of the Roman prefects, interrupted the missions for a time. Finall}', Fritigern, victorious in 378, marched with his troops on Constantinople, but died; and Theo- dosius, the new emperor, concluded a peace with Athan- aric, who had once more joined the Goths, and who died also soon after. Thcodosius then induced them to become firdcrali of Rome ; and, in order to unite them still more to the empire, the council of Constan- tinople (A.D. 383), attempted, but unsuccessfully, to frame a creed acceptable to botii the Arians and the Nicene party ; the latter also prevented the assem- bling of another council promised to the former for 388. Religious divisions among the Goths afterwards per- mitted Chrvsostom to attempt uniting the secessionists from Arianism with the Catiiolic Church, and he or- dained presb3'ters, deacons, and lectors who spoke the Gothic language ; he also sent bishop L'nila to the Goths in the Crimea. Gothia, along the Cimmerian Bosphorus, was, during the whole of tlie ^Middle Ages, a see of the Byzantine Church, and the bishop of Ca- pha was also named bishop of Gothia as late as the 18th centur}'. The Catholic Goths of the Crimea, men- tioned in the IGtli century liy Busbek, disappeared with the surname of tlie bishop. The Goihi minores near Nicopolis seem to have disappeared among the nations which invaded the Danubian countries in the 7th cen- turj', and the two principal Gothic trilies returned A\'est. The Visigoths, under Alaric, invaded the countries south of the Danulie to the Peloponnesus, destroying the temples and altars of the heathen gods ; the sack- ing of Eleusis put an end to the famed mysteries of Ceres ; pagan priests and philosophers Avere put to death ; and finally, in 408, after the death of Stilicho, Alaric appeared before Rome, demanding tribute. To satisfy him, the statues of the gods— among them the Virtus Romana — were melted. Alaric came again in 410, when he made the Christian prefect Attalus em- peror of Rome ; yet, fin(Vng that his end was not ac- complished, he returned a third time and lay waste
GOTTHARDT
950
GOUGE
the city, with the exception of the Cliristian churches, s|iaiiug only such of the inhabitants as had taken ref- uge in them. After Alaric"s death, his brother-in-law Athaulf succeeded liini ; and, having married Galla Placidia, daughter of Tlieodosius the Great (in which marriat;e some saw a fultilnient of Dan. ii, 32), he at- tempted to reanimate the decaying Koman empire by Gothic help. Finally, the Visigoths were rewarded for conquering Spain to Kome b_v permanent possessions in Gaul, where they founded an independent empire. See Visigoths. The Ostrogoths settled for a while in Pannonia, then some of them united with the Visi- goths in Gaul, while the greater part -ioUowed Theodo- mir into the Eastern empire. The emperor Zeno final- ly induced them to remove to Italy, where Theodoric, in 489, founded the Ostrogoth kingdom (see that art.). — Herzog, Renl-Encyklop. v, 251 sq. ; Dr. J. Aschbach, Geschichte (kr Westgothtn (Frank, a. M. 1827); Kraft't, Kircheiif/esch. d. germ. Volker (Berlin, 1854); Helffer- ich, JJer westgothiscke Arianismus (Leipz. 18G0).
Gotthardt. See Godehakd.
Gottschalk (Gotteschalcus, Godeschalc,
GoTiiESCHALCus, surnamed Fulgentius from his schol- arship), a theologian of the Oth century, celebrated for his share in the controversy on the subject of predes- tination and grace. He was born about BOG at or near Mentz, and was intrusted to the monks at Fulda (q. V.) at an early age. Growing up, he wished to abandon the monastic life, and obtained an ecclesias- tical release from his vow, but the abbot, Eabanus Maurus, retained him against his will, on the ground that no human power could annul the contract entered into by his parents. After studying at Paris he en- tered the Benedictine convent at Orbais, and was or- dained. He was soon distinguished in the cloister for his paradoxes, his love of novelty, his zeal for science, his bold opinions, and, above all, for the warmth with which he supported them. At this period Augustine's works were the favorite study of all ecclesiastics ; the I'jarned 3'oung men occupied their time in copying them out, the professors in expounding, and the old men in recommending them. Gottschalk passed his life in endeavoring to understand them, and lost him- self in the field of metaphysics and mystery. Ho wished to explain, understand, and penetrate every- thing. He believed that he found in Augustine the twofold predestination, viz. of some to everlasting life, and of others to eternal death. He visited Kome, Caesarea, Alexandria, and Constantinople, everj'whcrc sowing his opinions, and only reaping disappoint- ment. On his return to Italy in 847, he had several conversations with Nothingus, bishop of Verona, on the subject of his doctrines ; and this prelate, alarm- ed at his principles, tliought it his duty to combat them ; and, after having vainly endeavored to con- vince • Gottschalk of bis danger, he referred him to Rabanus, now archbishop of Mentz. He judged, as Xothingus had done, that Gottschalk taught a dan- gerous and fatal prcdestinarianism, that is to say, the doctrine that "God had, from all eteniity, predesti- nated men to their salvation or d.'.nination ; which doctrine takes away a man's libcrt}-, destroys all idea of good and evil, and reduces the human will to a kind of automaton." In Gottschalk's system, fore- knowledge was identified comi)lctely with predestina- tion ; and predestination was arbitrary, both with re- gard to the saved and to the lost : the one infallibly attaining eternal life, " the other l;eing so necessitated to continue in his sins th.it he can only be in name a subject of God's grace, and onlj- in appearance a par- taker of the sacrament." See Predksti.vation. (Jottschalk, hearing that llabaniis had declared against him, went to IMentz hoping to undeceive or convert him, but he was unsuccessful. After several useless conferences, the}' wrote against each otlicr ; and in one of his writings Gottschalk accuses his adversary