How can I change the \pagenumbering without resetting the page count?

Question

I want to start the page numbers with 1 on my table of contents, but I do not want to show page numbers.

I can do this with \pagenumbering{gobble}.

After the toc, I want to show the numbers with arabic numerals but I do not want to reset the page count. How can I do this?

I have a book on latex that tells me to set the page counter to some other value if I want to start with another value, like so:

\setcounter{page}{some_number_here}

But this doesn't work, because the counter, that holds the value to which I want to set the page counter is the page counter itself, which just got reset to 1.

How can I start showing page numbers without resetting their value?

minimal working example:

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt, titlepage]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[german]{babel}

\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{gobble}
\tableofcontents
There is no page number on this page, great!
\clearpage
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\section{A}
This should not be the first page, 
just the first page that displays the numbers.
In this example, this should be page 2
\clearpage
\section{B}
text
\clearpage
\section{C}
text
\end{document}

Answer 1

Hidding/displaying page numbers/headers/footers should be done with page styles, such as empty or plain (or more sophisticated ones).

If article class is used, then no explicit redefinition of \thepage to \arabic{page} is necessary, but in the case of book and \frontmatter, the ToC would be displayed with roman figures, so this redefinition might be necessary.

\pagenumbering{...} always resets the page counter.

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt, titlepage]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[german]{babel}

\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}  % No page numbers/headers/footers
\tableofcontents
There is no page number on this page, great!
\clearpage
\pagestyle{plain} % restore the plain style
%\renewcommand{\thepage}{\arabic{page}}  % Setting the page output to arabic   -- not necessary, unless `book` class and `\frontmatter` is used.

\section{A}
This should not be the first page, 
just the first page that displays the numbers.
In this example, this should be page 2
\clearpage
\section{B}
text
\clearpage
\section{C}
text
\end{document}