RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Geiger Geiler
Minor. Between 1901 and 1905 be traveled extensively for a comparative ethnographical and missionary study of native races, and penetrated deeply into China and Africa. He has lectured in many lands on religious, historical, and scientific topics. He has written Pocket Sword (London, 1895); Laodicea (1898); The Isle That Is Called Patmos (Philadelphia, 1898); Ocean and Isle (Melbourne, 1902); A Yankee on the Yangtze (New York, 1904); The Man of Galilee (London, 1904); A Yankee in Pigmyland (New York, 1905); The Men on the Mount (London, 1905); and The Automatic Calf (1905).
GEILER, gai'ler, JOHANN, OF KAISERSBERG:
Roman Catholic preacher; b. at Schaffhausen Mar. 16, 1445; d. at Strasburg Mar. 10, 1510. He was educated in the elementary branches at immersweier, a small town in the neighborhood )f Kaisersberg in Upper Alsace, where his father ^as town secretary. At the age of fifteen he mtered the University of Freiburg. In 1462 he
was made bachelor and two years His Life, later master of arts. As such he
lectured on Aristotle and Latin gramnar, and for a short time was dean of the philosophcal faculty. In 1471 he went to Basel to study heology. After promotion he lectured on exegesis ind Peter Lombard and, in 1475, was made doc- ;or of theology. At the request of students the own council of Freiburg induced him to return to he university there, and according to custom he >ecame first rector of the university for the winer term of 1476-77. But his talents inclined him oward the office of preacher, and Peter Schott, immeister of Strasburg, prevailed upon him to :ettle there, where there was a lack of good preaches. With the firm determination to reform the lepraved morals of the city, he entered upon his ;alling (1478; and remained at Strasburg until he end of his life.
He preached fearlessly and without regard of lersons. At the opening of a synod convoked by Bishop Albert he censured the assembled officers or their selfishness and worldliness and demanded i reform of morals among the clergy. In the inerest of the Church he fell into several disputes
with the magistrates on account of His Preach- their refusal to grant the Holy Coming and munion and a Christian funeral to Reforma- persons condemned to death; he also tory Efforts, made war against the tendency of civil
legislators to encroach upon the iberty of citizens who intended to bequeath their iroperty to the Church. His vehement attacks cere, however, often powerless and without effect, n the same way he denounced the abuses of church ife, as, for instance, the carousals and debauches t church festivals, the masquerades at the beginling of Lent, the pursuit of worldly business during hurch hours, and the sales in the vestibules of the hurches. la these battles he found an almost nsuperable obstacle in the tenacity with which the leople held to tradition and the lenient ways followed litherto by the clergy. Sometimes his invectives -gainst the city council in the pulpit were so vio-
lent that he was called to account; as an answer he published twenty-one articles which contained his demands of reform. With the same relentless vigor he reproved abuses among the ecclesiastical classes. Many, he knew, chose the clerical profession only because of their laziness. He deplored the accumulation of benefices and the preference given to noblemen irrespective of their merits. Not less fiercely he attacked the abuses in monasteries, the sins of the rich, the degeneration in army circles, luxury in dress, fads, and immorality. It is a mistake, however, to look upon Geiler as a precursor of the Reformation. His view of life centered in Catholicism and medievalism. In spite of his high esteem for the Bible he considered its explanation subject to the consensus of the theologians. Over against the awakening of humanism he remained a scholastic of the old school. He commended indulgences and good works for the achievement of salvation and regarded the saints as intercessors before God.
When Count Frederick of Zollern, a devoted pupil and friend of Geiler, was chosen bishop of Augsburg, he invited his Strasburg friends, among them Geiler, to prepare him for his office. The eminent preacher accepted and preached in Augsburg several months until he was called back by his anxious congregation. Now he devoted himself entirely to the affairs of his own town. Together with his friend Jacob Wimpfeling he tried to reform the school system; but their efforts were not successful and Geiler, in spite of his appreciation as preacher, came at the end of his life to the conclusion that a general reform of Christianity was impossible. The only achievements possible, according to him, were isolated reforms on a small scale.
Most of the literature which is considered to-day as Geiler's production did not proceed directly from his pen. His sermons were either copied, and prepared for print, or sometimes he simply handed over his Latin notes, from which his sermons were reconstructed in German or these notes were used after his death. It will therefore always be a question how far his publications
His Ser- are authentic. Some of his editors mons. are unknown; of those known may be mentioned Jacob Otther of Speyer; the physician Johann Adelphus Muling; Johann Pauli, the well-known author of the humorous collection Schimpf und Ernst; Heinrich Wessmer; and Peter Wickram. Geiler's sermons lasted usually one hour. He gave free range in the pulpit to his talents of popular oratory in the vernacular, and his spontaneous invention of anecdotes, comparisons, word plays, and proverbs give his sermons their charm. They are either sermons on the Gospel arranged in the form of homilies or consist of series which are grouped around one common picture. To the scholastics he owes his fondness for analyzing his material into divisions and subdivisions and his tendency to quote recognized authorities. His interest centers chiefly in the daily happenings of public and private life. Satire and humor are his principal weapons. He makes his sermons interesting by striking similes which some-
Oelasius G-elzer