Matthias Faber, S.J., (24 February 1587 – 26 April 1653) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

, who gained fame as a religious writer and preacher.

Life

Faber was born in

Altomünster Altomünster is a Municipalities in Germany, municipality in the district of Dachau (district), Dachau in Bavaria in Germany. Geography Geographical location The market is located northwest of Dachau and almost in the middle of the triangle form ...

, in

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. He received

Holy Orders In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordination, ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders inclu ...

and became

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

of the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

St. Maurice Maurice (also Moritz, Morris, Maurits, or Mauritius; ) was an Egyptian military leader who headed the legendary Theban Legion of Rome in the 3rd century, and is one of the favourite and most widely venerated saints of that martyred group. He is t ...

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (; Austro-Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an Independent city#Germany, independent city on the Danube, in Upper Bavaria, with 142,308 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2023). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan ...

, where he became a professor at the University of that city. He gained such a great reputation that he was appointed to serve as a

Canonical Visitor The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean 'according to the canon' the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, ''canonical example ...

to examine the

Prince-bishopric A prince-bishop is a bishop who is also the civil ruler of some secular principality and sovereignty, as opposed to ''Prince of the Church'' itself, a title associated with cardinals. Since 1951, the sole extant prince-bishop has been the Bi ...

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Dioce ...

. His sermons had already won for him a reputation as a sacred orator when he entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

in 1637. He was then already fifty years old. Faber joined the faculty of the Jesuit university in Tyrnau (which became the

University of Budapest A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

), then in the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

, now

Trnava Trnava (, , ; , also known by other #Names and etymology, alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of the Trnava Region and the Trnava District. It is the seat o ...

in Slovakia. It was there that he died in 1653.

Works

Faber published a three-volume collection of his sermons in 1631, entitled ''Concionum opus tripartitum pluribus in singula Evangelia argumentis instructum'', providing ten sermons for every Sunday of the year. It was reprinted several times, both in Germany and in the Netherlands, over the next twenty years. The sermons which Faber has left are remarkable for the clarity of their

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

doctrine and learning. He is even more a controversialist than orator in the ordinary sense of the word. The goal of his preaching was, before everything,

polemical Polemic ( , ) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial to ...

, either to convert non-Catholics or to safeguard Catholics from the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

. According to the custom of the times, Faber made exhaustive use of Scriptural texts, which overwhelm his instructive sermons and render the reading of them difficult. They are all written in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, and have been published in many editions. After his admission to the Jesuits, Faber continued his sermon writing and in 1646 published another volume of sermons, this one for all Sundays and major

feast days The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...

of the day. The work, entitled ''Auctarium operis concionum tripartiti'', is divided into two parts, and was published in combination with his earlier work. The ''Concionum opus tripartitum'', combined with the ''Auctarium'', contain one thousand and ninety-six sermons. Besides these, he preached sermons at funerals and weddings, which were published after his death. In Faber's one of the sermons in his published collection, he treated the topic of "curiosity", a popular one in that period. It was one of eight sermons he provided for the

Feast A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes inc ...

of St. John the Evangelist, reflecting on the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

passage of

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

21:22. He divided curiosity into five directions, based upon the object of the curiosity. These sermons were referred to approvingly by Lutheran writers as late as 1690.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faber, Matthias 1587 births 1653 deaths People from Dachau (district) 17th-century German Jesuits 17th-century German Catholic theologians German sermon writers German male non-fiction writers 17th-century German male writers