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

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

Jesuit

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 deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

, who gained fame as a religious writer and preacher.

Life

Faber was born in Altomünster, in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

. He received Holy Orders and became

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

of the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

of St. Maurice in

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an Independent city#Germany, independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area ...

, 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 In the Catholic Church, a canonical visitation is the act of an ecclesiastical superior who in the discharge of his office visits persons or places with a view to maintaining faith and discipline and of correcting abuses. A person delegated to ca ...

to examine the Prince-bishopric of

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 , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

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 higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

), then in the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephe ...

, now

Trnava Trnava (, german: Tyrnau; hu, Nagyszombat, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a ''kraj'' (Trnava Region) and of an ''okres'' (Trnava ...

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

Works

Faber published a three-volume collection of his sermons in 1631, entitled the ''Concionum opus tripartitum, ... argumentis in singula evangelia festorum, dominicarum hyemalium & aestivalium 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 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

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 topics ...

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

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. 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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, and have been published in many editions. After his admission to the Jesuits, Faber continued his sermon writing and 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 doe ...

of the day. The work, entitled the ''Auctuarium'', is divided into two parts, and was published in combination with his earlier work. The ''Concionum opus tripartitum'', combined with the ''Auctuarium'', 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 i ...

St. John the Evangelist John the Evangelist ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης, Iōánnēs; Aramaic: ܝܘܚܢܢ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ; ar, يوحنا الإنجيلي, la, Ioannes, he, יוחנן cop, ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ or ⲓⲱ̅ⲁ) is the name traditionally given t ...

, reflecting on the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

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 * Seco ...

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