RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Gaudentius G-aussen
be located at al-Tell, where the Arabs have their winter huts. Leading New Testament references to the place are Mark vi. 30-44; cf. Luke ix. 10 sqq.; Mark viii. 22; John i. 44, xii. 21. The question of a second Bethsaida in Galilee is to be decided in the negative, since that province was often regarded as extending eastward of the Sea of Galilee. The residents of Bethsaida were Jews. According to Mark viii. 27, Jesus led his disciples from Bethsaida to the villagesof Csesarea Philippi, on which journey Peter made his celebrated confession (verse 29). Csesarea Philippi lay in the district of Paneas (Banias), named from Pan and the celebrated grotto of the source of the Jordan (Eusebius, Hist, eccl., vii. 17). Near this grotto Herod the Great erected a splendid temple, about which his son Philip built a city which he named Csesarea after the emperor (Josephus, Ant. XVIII., ii. 1). Agrippa II. extended it and renamed it Neronias after Nero, a name which did not adhere, since Cassarea Philippi, or Csesarea Paneas, or Paneas is the usual designation. It was a favorite resort of Vespasian and Titus for rest from the exertions of war. The population was prevailingly heathen. Of the places inland from the sea little is known. The ruins now called Selukiyah doubtless mark Seleucia. The situation of the strong fortress of Gamala can not be certainly identified. Since Kalat al-Hozn has been given up, the village Jamli is regarded as a probable site, located by Schumacher on the east bank of the gorge of the Nahr al-Rukkad. Furrer and Van Kasteren place it on the Tell al-Ahdeib or Ras al-Hal, between Jamli and the Rukkad. The conjunction of the ruins and the present name (Jamli) makes this identification probable. The place was conquered by Alexander Jannseus (Josephus, Ant. XIII., xv. 3), and by the Romans under Vespasian after a siege of a month (Josephus, Wars, IV., i. 1 sqq.). Gamala was the center of a toparchy. Another Gamala mentioned in Ani.X VIII., v. 1 is perhaps the Jamli discovered by Schumacher in Ajlun. The Bathyra built by Herod the Great is probably the modern Bait Ari, south from Jamli. See Trachonitis. (H. Guthe.)
Bibliography: 'G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, London, 1897; U. J. Seetzen, Reisen, vols, i., iv., Berlin, 1854-59; J. G. Wetzstein, Reiseberichl iiber Hauran, Berlin, 1860; idem, Das batanaische Giebelgebirge, Leipsic, 1884; A. Neubauer, La Geographie du Talmud, Paris, 1868; P. Le Bas and W. H. Waddington, Inscriptions grecqu.es et latines, vol. ill. , Paris, 1870; C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener, Survey oi Western Palestine, Memoirs, vol. i., London, 1881, S. Merrill, East of the Jordan, ib. 1881; W. M. Thomson, Land and Book, Central Palestine, ib. 1883; G. Schumacher, Across the Jordan, ib. 1886; idem, The Jaulan, ib. 1888; P. de Lagarde, Onomastica sacra, Gottingen, 1887; W A. Neumann, Qurn Dscheradi, Freiburg, 1894; F. Buhl, Geographie des alten Palastina, Freiburg, 1896; Schurer, Geschichte, i. 427, ii. 4, 12-13, Eng. transl., I. ii. 12, II. i. 2-4.
GAUSSEN, gd"san', ETIENNE: French Protestant; b. at Nimes at the beginning of the seventeenth century; d. at Saumur (100 m. s.w. of Orleans) 1675. He became professor of philosophy in the academy at Saumur in 1651 and in 1665 professor of theology. He was rector of the academy in 1667 The school of Saumur represented at that time a more liberal conception of French Protestantism than did the schools of Sedan and
Montauban; and Gaussen contributed much to propagate this conception. His works were highly rated by his contemporaries, and up to the middle of the eighteenth century they were frequently reprinted, both in Holland and Germany. To be mentioned particularly are : De consensu gratia cum natura (Saumur, 1659); De verbo dei (1665); and Quattuor dissertationes theologicce (1670), including De ratione studii theologici, De natura iheologice, de ratione concionandi, and De utilitate philosophice ad theologiam, forming, according to Bayle, the best manual of the time for the study of theology.
Bibliography: E. and ]£. Haag, La France protestante, ed. H. L. Bordier, vol. v., Paris, 1886; Bulletin du protestantisms francais, i. 311, ii. 158, 327; Lichtenberger, ESR, v. 441-442.
GAUSSEN, FRANQOIS SAMUEL ROBERT LOUIS: Swiss clergyman; b. at Geneva Aug. 25, 1790; d. there June 18, 1863. Two years after completing his studies at the university of his native city (1814), he was appointed minister at Satigny, near Geneva, where he succeeded Cellerier, one of the few members of the Swiss clergy who clung to orthodoxy, and who exercised a profound influence on the formation of Gaussen's theological convictions. The period was almost contemporaneous with the dawn of the religious revival in French Switzerland. This awakening resulted in the issuance of an order (May 7, 1817) by the Venerable compagnie des pasteurs, practically prohibiting the preaching of certain important doctrines of divinity. Gaussen and Cellerier protested against this ruling in 1819, chiefly by republishing the new French edition of the Helvetic Confession, to which they added a preface in which they declared that a Church must have a declaration of faith, and that the Second Helvetic Confession correctly voiced their personal convictions. In the meantime Gaussen pursued his clerical duties in Satigny, besides holding religious meetings in his own home, as well as in his mother's house in Geneva, striving to revivify the national church, but not advocating separation from it. At Geneva, which gradually became the center of his activity, Gaussen founded a missionary society, which held meetings, first in private houses and later in the church. In 1828, through the intervention of the Venerable compagnie, certain new members were elected to its committee whom Gaussen considered heterodox in their views, and he therefore withdrew from the society. This conflict with the clergy of Geneva was the precursor of frequent storms which influenced his future career. Calvin's catechism had long been used as a basis for the instruction of the young, but the Venerable compagnie now substituted another in its stead, and ordered Gaussen to use it. He tried to do so, but found it unsatisfactory and laid it aside. The clergy of Geneva lodged a complaint against him, and after a lengthy dispute he was finally censured by the compagnie, and deprived of his right to take part in its meetings for a period of one year (cf . Lettres de Mr. le Pasteur Gaussen a la venerable compagnie des pasteurs de Geneve, 1831; and Expose historique des discussions elevees entre la compagnie des pasteurs de Geneve et Mr. Gaussen, 1831) With his friends,
Gaussen Gebhard II