The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (821 page)

Gaki
.

Japanese term for restless or hungry spirits, Skt.,
preta
.

 
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Galatians, Letter to the
.

An epistle of
Paul
and book of the New Testament. It was prompted by news that Paul's converts were turning to a ‘different gospel’ (1. 6) which required adherence to the Jewish
Torah
.

 
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Gallicanism
.

The assertion of more or less complete freedom in the
Roman Catholic Church
from the authority of the
papacy
. This was affirmed particularly for the Church in France (the old Gaul, hence the name). The opposite is
Ultramontanism
. The definition of papal infallibity at the first
Vatican Council
made any further expression of Gallicanism impossible.

 
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Galloping Girls
(name for IBVM)
:

see
INSTITUTE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
.

 
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(Heb., ‘exile’). The state of being uprooted from the Jewish homeland. By extension, Jewish mystics saw the evil inherent in the present world order as the result of the ‘galut of the Divine Presence’. In contrast, trust in the providence and the promises of God is expressed in the hope, which underlies
Zionism
, of
kibbutz galuyyot
, the ingathering of the exiles.

 
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Gamaliel
.

Name of six Jewish sages, descendants of
Hillel
, who filled the role of
nasi
. Rabban Gamaliel ha-Zaken (the elder) (early 1st cent. CE) was responsible for many
takkanot
. According to Acts 22. 3, he was the teacher of the apostle
Paul
. Rabban Gamaliel II (late 1st cent.) succeeded
Johanan b. Zakkai
as nasi and was one of the greatest scholars of his generation. Gamaliel III (early 3rd cent.), the son of
Judah ha-Nasi
, pronounced invalid the method of ritual slaughter of the
Samaritans
. Rabban Gamaliel IV was nasi in the late 3rd cent., while Rabban Gamaliel V presided in the late 4th cent. Rabban Gamaliel VI (d. 426) was the final nasi. He was deprived of his position in 415 because he had built a
synagogue
without permission and had defended the Jews against the Christians.

 
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