Samuel Gobat (January 26, 1799 - May 11, 1879), Bishop of Jerusalem, was born at Crémines, Bern, Switzerland.
After serving in the mission house at Basel from 1823 to 1826, he went to Paris and London, whence, having acquired some knowledge of Arabic and Ge'ez, he went out to Ethiopia under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society.
He visited Ethiopia twice, the first time from the beginning of 1830 to the end of 1832; returning to Europe, he took his wife Maria May, 1834. He then returned in March 1835, but his own ill health (he writes that he was confined to his bed, "suffering cruel pains") forced him to return to Europe in 1836. His journal of his stay in Ethiopia (Sejour en Abyssinie) was published in 1835 at Paris, and later translated into English as Journal of Three Years' Residence in Abyssinia.[1] From 1839 to 1842 lived in Malta, where he supervised an Arabic translation of the Bible.
In 1846 he was consecrated second Protestant bishop of Jerusalem, under the agreement between the British and Prussian governments (1841) for the establishment of a joint bishopric for Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists in the Holy Land, carried by the Anglican Church of England and the united Evangelical Church in Prussia. Gobat succeeded the late Bishop Michael Solomon Alexander. He carried on a vigorous mission as bishop for over thirty years, his diocesan school and orphanage on Mount Zion being specially noteworthy.
In order to support Gobat's effort Wilhelm Hoffmann (*1806-1873*), one of the royal Prussian court preachers at the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin, co-founded Jerusalem's Association (German: Jerusalemsverein), a charitable organisation on 2 December 1852, also becoming its first president.[2] Gobat could found a number of charitable institutions with the help of funds raised by this Association.
In 1866 Gobat integrated the Jaffa Protestant mission of Peter Metzler, a missionary of St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission (German: Pilgermission St. Chrischona near Basel) to Johannes Gruhler, the ordained Anglican pastor of Ramle. However, most Jaffa congregants disliked the Anglican Rite and preferred to attend Metzler's services.[3]
A record of his life, largely autobiographical, was published at Basel in 1884, and an English translation at London in the same year. Gobat was succeeded by Bishop Joseph Barclay.
Notes
- ^ English translation originally published in 1851; republished by Negro Universities Press in 1969, ISBN 837114160
- ^ Frank Foerster, Mission im Heiligen Land: Der Jerusalems-Verein zu Berlin 1852-1945, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlags-Haus Mohn, 1991, (Missionswissenschaftliche Forschungen; [N.S.], 25), pp. 45 and 96, ISBN 3-579-00245-7
- ^ Cf. Ejal Jakob Eisler (איל יעקב איזלר), Peter Martin Metzler (1824-1907): Ein christlicher Missionar im Heiligen Land [פטר מרטין מצלר (1907-1824): סיפורו של מיסיונר נוצרי בארץ-ישראל; German], Haifa: אוניברסיטת חיפה / המכון ע"ש גוטליב שומכר לחקר פעילות העולם הנוצרי בארץ-ישראל במאה ה-19, 1999 ,(פרסומי המכון ע"ש גוטליב שומכר לחקר פעילות העולם הנוצרי בארץ-ישראל במאה ה-19/Abhandlungen des Gottlieb-Schumacher-Instituts zur Erforschung des christlichen Beitrags zum Wiederaufbau Palästinas im 19. Jahrhundert; vol. 2), pp. 39 and לג. ISBN 965-7109-03-5
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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