founded by Queen Matilda in 1117. In England alone there are about 150 churches dedicated to this saint. In Edinburgh the church of St Giles could boast the possession of an arm-bone of its patron. Representations of St Giles are very frequently met with in early French and German art, but are much less common in Italy and Spain.
See Acta Sanctorum (September), i. 284-299; Devic and Vaissete, Histoire générale de Languedoc, pp. 514-522 (Toulouse, 1876); E. Rembry, Saint Gilles, sa vie, ses reliques, son culte en Belgique et dans le nord de la France (Bruges, 1881); F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, or England’s Patron Saints, ii. 46-51, iii. 15, 363-365 (1899); A. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, 768-770 (1896); A. Bell, Lives and Legends of the English Bishops and Kings, Medieval Monks, and other later Saints, pp. 61, 70, 74-78, 84, 197 (1904). (H. De.)
GILFILLAN, GEORGE (1813–1878), Scottish author, was
born on the 30th of January 1813, at Comrie, Perthshire, where
his father, the Rev. Samuel Gilfillan, the author of some theological
works, was for many years minister of a Secession congregation.
After an education at Glasgow University, in March
1836 he was ordained pastor of a Secession congregation in
Dundee. He published a volume of his discourses in 1839,
and shortly afterwards another sermon on “Hades,” which
brought him under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters, and was
ultimately withdrawn from circulation. Gilfillan next contributed
a series of sketches of celebrated contemporary authors
to the Dumfries Herald, then edited by Thomas Aird; and these,
with several new ones, formed his first Gallery of Literary Portraits,
which appeared in 1846, and had a wide circulation. It was
quickly followed by a Second and a Third Gallery. In 1851 his
most successful work, the Bards of the Bible, appeared. His
aim was that it should be “a poem on the Bible”; and it was
far more rhapsodical than critical. His Martyrs and Heroes of
the Scottish Covenant appeared in 1832, and in 1856 he produced
a partly autobiographical, partly fabulous, History of a Man.
For thirty years he was engaged upon a long poem, on Night,
which was published in 1867, but its theme was too vast, vague
and unmanageable, and the result was a failure. He also
edited an edition of the British Poets. As a lecturer and as a
preacher he drew large crowds, but his literary reputation has
not proved permanent. He died on the 13th of August 1878.
He had just finished a new life of Burns designed to accompany
a new edition of the works of that poet.
GILGAL (Heb. for “circle” of sacred stones), the name of
several places in Palestine, mentioned in the Old Testament.
The name is not found east of the Jordan.
1. The first and most important was situated “in the east border of Jericho” (Josh. iv. 19), on the border between Judah and Benjamin (Josh. xv. 7). Josephus (Ant. v. 1. 4) places it 50 stadia from Jordan and 10 from Jericho (the New Testament site). Jerome (Onomasticon, s.v. “Galgal”) places Gilgal 2 Roman miles from Jericho, and speaks of it as a deserted place held in wonderful veneration (“miro cultu”) by the natives. This site, which in the middle ages appears to have been lost—Gilgal being shown farther north—was in 1865 recovered by a German traveller (Hermann Zschokke), and fixed by the English survey party, though not beyond dispute. It is about 2 m. east of the site of Byzantine Jericho, and 1 m. from modern er-Riha. A fine tamarisk, traces of a church (which is mentioned in the 8th century), and a large reservoir, now filled up with mud, remain. The place is called Jiljūlieh, and its position north of the valley of Achor (Wadì Kelt) and east of Jericho agrees well with the biblical indications above mentioned. A tradition connected with the fall of Jericho is attached to the site (see C. R. Conder, Tent Work, 203 ff.). This sanctuary and camp of Israel held a high place in the national regard, and is often mentioned in Judges and Samuel. But whether this is the Gilgal spoken of by Amos and Hosea in connexion with Bethel is by no means certain [see (3) below].
2. Gilgal, mentioned in Josh. xii. 23 in connexion with Dor, appears to have been situated in the maritime plain. Jerome (Onomasticon, s.v. “Gelgel”) speaks of a town of the name 6 Roman miles north of Antipatris (Ras el ‘Ain). This is apparently the modern Kalkilia, but about 4 m. north of Antipatris is a large village called Jiljūlieh, which is more probably the biblical town.
3. The third Gilgal (2 Kings iv. 38) was in the mountains (compare 1 Sam. vii. 16, 2 Kings ii. 1-3) near Bethel. Jerome mentions this place also (Onomasticon, s.v. “Galgala”). It appears to be the present village of Jiljilia, about 7 English miles north of Beitin (Bethel). It may have absorbed the old shrine of Shiloh and been the sanctuary famous in the days of Amos and Hosea.
4. Deut. xi. 30 seems to imply a Gilgal near Gerizim, and there is still a place called Juleijil on the plain of Makhna, 212 m. S.E. of Shechem. This may have been Amos’s Gilgal and was almost certainly that of 1 Macc. ix. 2.
5. The Gilgal described in Josh. xv. 7 is the same as the Beth-Gilgal of Neh. xii. 29; its site is not known. (R. A. S. M.)
GILGAMESH, EPIC OF, the title given to one of the most
important literary products of Babylonia, from the name of the
chief personage in the series of tales of which it is composed.
Though the Gilgamesh Epic is known to us chiefly from the fragments found in the royal collection of tablets made by Assur-bani-pal, the king of Assyria (668–626 B.C.) for his palace at Nineveh, internal evidence points to the high antiquity of at least some portions of it, and the discovery of a fragment of the epic in the older form of the Babylonian script, which can be dated as 2000 B.C., confirms this view. Equally certain is a second observation of a general character that the epic originating as the greater portion of the literature in Assur-bani-pal’s collection in Babylonia is a composite product, that is to say, it consists of a number of independent stories or myths originating at different times, and united to form a continuous narrative with Gilgamesh as the central figure. This view naturally raises the question whether the independent stories were all told of Gilgamesh or, as almost always happens in the case of ancient tales, were transferred to Gilgamesh as a favourite popular hero. Internal evidence again comes to our aid to lend its weight to the latter theory.
While the existence of such a personage as Gilgamesh may be admitted, he belongs to an age that could only have preserved a dim recollection of his achievements and adventures through oral traditions. The name[1] is not Babylonian, and what evidence as to his origin there is points to his having come from Elam, to the east of Babylonia. He may have belonged to the people known as the Kassites who at the beginning of the 18th century B.C. entered Babylonia from Elam, and obtained control of the Euphrates valley. Why and how he came to be a popular hero in Babylonia cannot with our present material be determined, but the epic indicates that he came as a conqueror and established himself at Erech. In so far we have embodied in the first part of the epic dim recollections of actual events, but we soon leave the solid ground of fact and find ourselves soaring to the heights of genuine myth. Gilgamesh becomes a god, and in certain portions of the epic clearly plays the part of the sun-god of the spring-time, taking the place apparently of Tammuz or Adonis, the youthful sun-god, though the story shows traits that differentiate it from the ordinary Tammuz myths. A separate stratum in the Gilgamesh epic is formed by the story of Eabani—introduced as the friend of Gilgamesh, who joins him in his adventures. There can be no doubt that Eabani, who symbolizes primeval man, was a figure originally entirely independent of Gilgamesh, but his story was incorporated into the epic by that natural process to be observed in the national epics of other peoples, which tends to connect the favourite hero with all kinds of tales that for one reason or the other become embedded in the popular mind. Another stratum is represented by the story of a favourite of the gods known as Ut-Napishtim, who is saved from a destructive storm and flood that destroys
- ↑ The name of the hero, written always ideographically, was for a long time provisionally read Izdubar; but a tablet discovered by T. G. Pinches gave the equivalent Gilgamesh (see Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 468).
