Matthias Faber

Writer and preacher, born at Altomünster, Germany, 24 February, 1586; died at Tyrnau, 26 April 1653. He embraced the ecclesiastical state, became curé of the parish of St. Maurice at Ingolstadt, and was a professor at the University of that city. His sermons had already won for him a reputation as a sacred orator when he entered the Society of Jesus at Vienna. He was then fifty years old. The sermons which he has left are remarkable for soundness of doctrine, and learning. He is even more a controversialist than orator in the ordinary sense of the word. His object in preaching was, before everything, either to convert heretics, or to safeguard Catholics from the false doctrines of the Reformation. According to the custom of the times he made excessive use of Scriptural text, which crowd his instructive sermons and render the reading of them difficult. They are all written in Latin, and have been published in many editions.