Gerhoch Or Geroch
Gerhoch Or Geroch [1]
a Roman Catholic priest of Germany, was born in 1093 at Polling, in Bavaria. Soon after completing his theological studies he took an active part in the conflict between the popes and the emperors in favor of the former. Bishop Herman of Augsburg made him a canon and scholasticus of the cathedral school; but he soon left this position, as the bishop, who sided with the emperor, appeared to him to be a schismatic. He withdrew to the Augustinian monastery of Raitenbuch (now Rotenbuch), where he remained until 1122, when, peace having been made between the pope and the emperor, the bishop of Augsburg recalled him. In 1123 he accompanied the bishop to Rome, to reconcile him with the pope. After his return from Rome he was again for a time Magister and Doctor Junenum at Augsburg, but, being disgusted with the want of ecclesiastical discipline which prevailed there, he left the city again for Raitensbuch. But there also his reformatory efforts were unsuccessful, though they were supported by the pope. In 1126, bishop Kuno, of Ratisbon, made him his secretary; soon after he ordained him priest, and gave him the parish of Cham, to establish there a house for regular canons; but the opponents of a rigid discipline again thwarted the whole plan. After the death of bishop Kuno, Gerhoch found a new patron in archbishop Conrad I of Salzburg, who, in 1132, made him provost of the monastery of Reicheisnberg, which position he retained until his death in 1169. Gerhoch was a zealous defender of a rigid orthodoxy and of all the claims of the pope, and a violent and quarrelsome opponent of the rights claimed by the emperors in Church affairs, of simony, and of the marriage of priests. He devoted throughout his life a special attention to the reformation of the clergy, and was a steadfast adherent of the theological method of the earlier fathers in opposition to the rising scholasticism. He even went so far as to charge the Magister Sententiarum with heresy. His eagerness in combating Adoptianism and Nesterianism carried him off into the other extreme and he used many expressions on the person of Christ which seem to be Eutychian. Of his writings, a commentary on the 64th Psalm, in which he treats of the corrupt condition of the Church, is best known. He gives, himself, a list of all his works, in the preface to the Commentary on the Psalms, which has been published by Pez as the fifth volume of his Thesaurus Anecdotorum, in 1728. Some of these works have not yet been found. Those that are known are given in Migne, Patrolagia Latina, volumes 193, 194. — See Herzog, Real-Encyclop. 5:49; Neander, Church History (Torrey's trans., volume 4). (A.J.S.)
