GOEZE, JOHANN MELCHIOR ( 1717-86). A German Lutheran clergyman, bibliographer, and controversialist, born at Halberstadt (Province of Saxony, Prussia). Educated at Jena and Halle, he became pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit at Magdeburg in 1750, and, in 1755, chief pastor of Saint Catherine's Church at Ham burg. From 1760 to 1770 he held the seniority of the Lutheran clergy at Hamburg. His biblio graphical works, including Versuch eines Historie der gedruckten niedersiichsischen Bibeln von 1470 bis 1621 (1775), continues to be of value. But he is known chiefly as a tireless controversialist, and in particular for his attacks on Lessing be cause of the latter's publication of the posthumous Fragmenta eines Ungennanten (1774, 1777, 1778) of Hermann Reimarus. He began the well-known contest in 1777, with an essay in Nos. 55 and 56 of the Freiwillige Beitrlige zu den hamburgischen Nachrichten, which he followed by Etwas Ver litufiges gegen des Herrn Hofrath Lessings mit telbare and unmittelbare feindselige Angriffe (1778), and Lessings Schiciichen (1778), all rather acrid and unkind, after the manner of such disputants. Lessing made his chief reply in
1778 in Eine Duplik, Eine Parabel, Aeiomata and among both the keenest of his writ ings and the foremost examples of the literature of the class. The Patriarch in Nathan der Weise also would appear to have been intended broadly to characterize Goeze. The pastor had little of the incisive thought, and yet less of the skilful expression, of his opponent. He was intolerant, even for the time, and a stickler for a narrowly literalistic interpretation of the Scriptures. But he was evidently sincere, and very alarmed at the manifestations of the Erklarung. His po lemics against Lessing were edited by E. Schmidt in 1893. Consult further: Cropp, Lessings Streit mit Hauptpastor Goeze, in Heft 155 of the Deutsche Zeit- and Streit-Fragen (1881), and Schmidt, Lessing, vol. ii. (1892). See LESSING.