GEREON, Saint, Martyr.
Uncertain and confused are the details concerning him. St. Gregory of Tours recalls a splendid basilica at Cologne built in honor of fifty unknown martyrs and commonly called, because of its beautiful mosaics, “Ad sanctos aureos.” In the Hieronymian Martyrology thirty-one martyrs called “Mauri” are commemorated on October 10 at Cologne. On the preceding day, however, GEREON is commemorated with 392 soldier companions, put to death by Maximian in the same city on the occasion of the war against the Bagaudae.
It seems certain that the three notices refer to the same group of martyrs. There is moreover a Passio of the tenth century in which it is narrated that GEREON, together with 318 fellow soldiers of the Theban Legion, was beheaded at Cologne and cast into a well for refusing to sacrifice. In their honor St. Helena had a great and beautiful basilica built, called precisely “Ad sanctos aureos.” In 1121, under Bishop Norbert, a sarcophagus was opened in the cathedral of Cologne and the body of GEREON was believed to be recognized within II.
GERGESEI (Hebr. Grigašt; LXX, Γεργασίου), Latinized as Gergesaei.
A clan or tribe which shared with other ethnic groups the dominion of pre-Israelite Palestine. In the Table of Nations (Gen. 10:16) the G. are presented as descendants of Ham; but this does not prejudice the ethnological classification of this people, since in that document particular principles are followed which do not always coincide with the somatic-linguistic characteristics of modern ethnology.
Perhaps they were Semites like the Canaanites; but an ethnic affinity with the Hittites is not excluded. In the Bible the G. are mentioned only a few times (Gen. 10:19; 15:21; Deut. 7:1; Josh. 3:10; 24:11; Neh. 9:8) and always with stereotyped phraseology which lists the various clans or tribes of pre-Israelite Palestine. Hitherto no confirmatory evidence has been found for the existence of such a people; however, Phoenician or similar proper names, or at least names deriving etymologically from the same root, have been discovered (cf. M. Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik, I, Weimar 1898, p. 252).