THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
and establishing a missionary society which during his lifetime sent out more than 140 missionaries, especially among the Khols of East India. After his resignation from his pastorate in 1846, he devoted himself for the remainder of his life to ministerial work in the hospital which he had founded while still at the Bethlehem Church.
Gossner made a highly popular and very faithful translation of the New Testament; and published numerous tracts and pamphlets. Among his more important works may be mentioned his Schatzkastlein (Leipsic, 1825), M Boos, der Prediger der Gerechtigkeit (1826), and Goldkorner (Berlin, 1859). In 1834 he founded a missionary journal, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, which he edited for several years. (W. Hallenberg")".)
Bibliography: M. A. von Bethmann-Hollweg, Johannes Gossner, Berlin, 1858; J. D. Prochnow, Johannes Evangelista Gossner, ib. 1859; H. Dalton, Johannes Gossner, ib. 1878.
GOTHS.
Origin and History (§ 1).
First Contact with Christianity. Ulfilas (§ 2).
Alario. Settlement in the Roman Empire (§ 3).
Relations to the Romans and the Church (§ 4).
The Gothic Kings (§ 5).
The Visigoths (§ 6).
The Goths were a people of Germanic stock who
erected powerful Christian kingdoms upon the
ruins of the Roman Empire in the West. Their
original home seems to have been in
i. Origin Scandinavia and in the lands south of and the Baltic Sea corresponding to the
History, modern Prussia and Posen. About the year 150 the Scandinavian Goths migrated southward into Silesia, whence they pressed on to the north shore of the Black Sea. There they came into conflict with the decaying strength of the Roman Empire and in a series of devastating campaigns overran Thrace, Greece, and parts of Asia Minor. The Emperor Aurelian (270-275) relinquished to them the region north of the Danube, where for a century they remained in peaceful possession.
The Goths met with Christianity as a result of
their frequent marauding expeditions into the
Empire. In 276 they carried off a number of
Christian captives from Cappadocia
2. First and soon after we hear of a Syrian
Contact priest Audius who founded a number with Chris- of small churches among them. The
tianity. new faith made appreciable progress
Ulfilas. owing to the tolerant character of the people but, while the numbers of converts grew rapidly, Christian teachings exercised but little influence on the spirit of the warlike nation till the advent of Ulfilas (q.v.). The latter, a descendant of the captive Cappadocian Christians of 276, was consecrated bishop of the Goths by Eusebius, the Arian bishop of Nicomedia at Antioch in 341, and so the heretical form of Christianity was introduced. In the same year, however, the storms of persecution broke on the Christian converts. In 348 Ulfilas removed his followers across the Danube into Mcesiu where they followed a peaceful pastoral life. Ulfilas did not abandon, however, his missionary labors
among the Goths north of the Danube, in the course of which he reduced the Gothic language to writing, as embodied in his translation of the Bible (see Bible Versions, A, X.). The complete conversion of the Goths to Christianity was effected when the pressure of the Hun invasion induced them to cross the Danube and seek a settlement within the borders of the empire. This the majority of the nation, under the leadership of Fritigern, accomplished in 376 with the approval of the Roman authorities. A portion of the nation under Athanaric remained north of the Danube. The Ostrogoths had been conquered and to a certain degree incorporated by the Huns.
The perfidy of the Roman officials drove the Goths to turn their arms against the empire and in the battle of Adrianople (Aug. 9, 378) 3. Alaric. they overwhelmed an army com- Settlement manded by Valens, Emperor of the in the Ro- East, who lost his life in the slaughter. man Empire. It was under Alaric, who first appeared c. 395, that the Goths became thoroughly Christianized and united; their creed was the Arian, a circumstance of the utmost importance in its influence on the fortunes of the future Gothic kingdoms. Alaric's ambition was to obtain for his people a legally assured home within the confines of the empire and it was with such views in mind that, after ravaging the Peloponnesus, he turned, in 400, against Italy. Repulsed by Stilicho at Pollentia and Verona, he made a second attempt in 408 to overrun the provinces of Noricum, Ulyria, and Pannonia, and failed again. In 410 he invaded Italy and spread abroad the terror of the Gothic name by plundering Rome, revealing at the same time a spirit of moderation which may be taken as proof of the sincerity of his Christian faith (see Innocent I.). Alaric died before the end of the year. Under his successor, Athaulf, the Goths left Italy for Gaul, but it was only under the next ruler, Wallia, that the object for which Alaric had struggled was obtained. Aquitania Secunda, the land between the Loire and the Garonne, was granted to the Goths and as fcederati of the Empire they ruled it, in nominal subjection to Rome till the fall of Augustulus (476), in complete independence after that. The Ostrogoths, meanwhile, had thrown off the yoke of the Huns after the death of Attila; united under Theodoric, they entered Italy in 489, overthrew Odoacer, captured Ravenna in 493 and erected a barbarian kingdom in the peninsula.
Both among the Visigoths of France and the" Ostrogoths of Italy, a sharp line of dirision ran between the conquerors and their Roman subjects. The Goths retained their military or- 4. Relations ganization, and as an armed estate to the Ro- dwelt almost entirely in the open mans and country, leaving the cities to the Rothe Church, mans. In the cities a new aristocracy arose at the head of which stood the Catholic bishop to whom with time an increasing measure of authority fell. The Church succeeded to the prestige of the empire and assumed the role of protector of the Romans against their alien masters, while at the same time the preeminence of Rome as the capital of Catholic Christianity was