Gottschalk

Gottschalk or Gottschalck , d. c.868, German theologian; son of the count of Saxony. He was placed as a boy in the monastery of Fulda (c.822). He did not wish to be a monk but was forced by Rabanus Maurus Magnentius , his superior, to remain. In 829 a synod freed him of his vows, but he went to the monastery of Orbais, where he was ordained a priest. He soon began to teach an extreme doctrine of predestination, holding that God had selected in advance whom God would save and whom God would condemn. His views, which he apparently derived from St. Augustine, created great interest. He preached in Italy and elsewhere. Rabanus and Hincmar worked to suppress him, and Gottschalk was condemned in 848 and 849, deposed from the priesthood, and imprisoned in the monastery of Hautvilliers.

Gottschalk (c.804–c.869), heterodox theologian. Entered as an oblate at Fulda, he later sought to leave the monastic life. He elaborated an extreme doctrine of predestination, according to which the chosen are predestined to blessedness but others to eternal fire, though not to sin. He was ordained by a chorepiscopus and propagated his views in Italy and the Balkans. In 848 he returned to Germany and at the Synod of Mainz his teaching was condemned. He was sent to Hincmar, Abp. of Reims, and at the Synod of Quiercy in 849 he was again condemned, deprived of his orders, and sentenced to imprisonment. He replied to a pastoral letter of Hincmar with the statement of his views known as the ‘Confessio prolixior’. He also defended the use of the phrase ‘trina deitas’ against Hincmar.