F
FABBRONI, Angelo. See Fabroni.
FABER, Basil, an eminent Lutheran schoolmaster of the sixteenth century. Born at Sonau in Lower Lusatia in 1520, and educated at Wittemberg under Melancthon, he devoted himself with zeal to the scholastic profession, which he exercised for forty years with great success, first at Nordhausen, and afterwards at Tennstädt, Magdeburg, Quedlinburg, and Erfurt. He was a fervent disciple of Luther, as distinguished from the school of Melancthon, and shared considerably both in the polemical labours and the sufferings of his party. He was one of the first four Magdeburg centuriators—a fact which is highly honourable to his literary memory. But his principal work was his "Thesaurus Eruditionis Scholasticæ," which retained its influence in Germany, as an educational manual, for nearly two hundred years. He died in 1575.—P. L.
FABER, George Stanley, B.D., was the son of the Rev. Thomas Faber, rector of Calverley, near Bradford in Yorkshire, and was born, October 25, 1773. Having received his early education at the grammar-school of Heppenholme, he entered University college, Oxford, in 1789, when he was only sixteen. He took his degree of B.A. in 1792, and was elected a fellow and tutor of Lincoln college before he had completed his twenty-first year. In 1796 he took his M.A. degree, and proceeded B.D. in 1803. Meanwhile he had filled the office of proctor to which he was appointed in 1801; and in the same year he delivered the Bampton lecture, the substance of which he afterwards published under the title of Horæ Mosaicæ. The reputation he acquired by this work, as also by his able and eloquent exposition of orthodox truth in his sermons, brought him under the notice of Bishops Barrington, Van Mildert, and Burgess, to whom he owed his subsequent preferments. Having married in 1803 a daughter of Major Scott-Waring of Ince, Cheshire, he vacated his fellowship, and served for two years as curate to his father at Calverley. In 1805 he was collated by Bishop Barrington to the vicarage of Stockton-upon-Tees, which after three years he exchanged for that of Redmarshall in the same county. In 1811 the same prelate gave him the rectory of Long Newton, where he remained for twenty-one years. In 1831 Bishop Burgess made him a prebendary in Salisbury cathedral; and in the following year he received from Bishop Van Mildert the valuable post of master of Sherborn hospital. This he held at the time of his death which took place at the master's residence on the 27th of January, 1854, in his eighty-first year. During his long life he devoted himself chiefly to study and authorship. His learning was immense, his industry unwearied, and his productiveness great. His published works extend beyond forty volumes, of which three are in 4to; the rest in 8vo. They are for the most part polemical; but some of them may be styled archæological, and others are devoted to the exposition of prophecy. In his work on the "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," 3 vols., 4to, 1816, he labours with prodigious learning and considerable acuteness to sustain the theory advanced by Bryant in his Ancient Mythology—a theme which he also handles in his "Horæ Mosaicæ," 2 vols., 8vo, 1801, 1818; and in his dissertation on the "Mysteries of the Cabiri," 2 vols., 8vo, 1803. His theological works consist of treatises on the "Difficulties of Infidelity," 1824; "Difficulties of Romanism," 1826, 1829, 1853; on the "Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Dispensations," 2 vols., 1823; "Origin of Expiatory Sacrifice," 1827; "Apostolicity of Trinitarianism," 2 vols., 1832; "Doctrine of Justification," 1837, 1839; "Regeneration," 1840; "Transubstantiation," 1840; "Election," 1842 (second edition); "Waldenses and Albigenses," 1839, &c. On prophecy, his chief work is "The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy," 3 vols., 1828, 1844. In all his writings great learning is combined with great perspicuity and exactitude; but he is often tediously minute, and his energies are devoted rather to uphold preconceived theories than to expiscate truth by an impartial induction.—W. L. A.
FABER, Heinrich, a musician, is supposed to have been rector and magister at Brunswick, about the year 1548. In 1551 he resided in Wittemberg as a teacher of music; and subsequently he filled the office of rector of the college at Quedlinburg, in which place he died of the pest, 27th August, 1598. He published at Brunswick, in 1548, his "Compendium Musicæ pro incipientibus' (a compendium of music for beginners), which was very frequently reprinted. Three different translations were made of it into German, and in each of these forms it went through many editions.—G. A. M.
FABER, Johann, of Heilbronn, a zealous adversary of the Reformation, was born in 1504, entered the monastery at Wimpfen on the Neckar at an early age, and studied philosophy and theology at Cologne. His eloquence, learning, and zeal for the doctrines of the Church of Rome, recommended him to the bishop of Augsburg, who appointed him a preacher in his cathedral, in which he remained for many years, though he preached also for a time at Prague and Elsenben. Almost all his writings were directed against the doctrines of the reformers. The time of his death is not known, but it was not later than 1570.—P. L.
FABER, Pierre, was born in Auvergne. The date of his birth is uncertain. He died about 1615. He studied at Paris, and was employed afterwards in conducting the education of the sons of Coligny. He then became principal of the college of La Rochelle, and held there a professorship of Hebrew. He published commentaries on Cicero, which in their day were considered of high value.—J. A., D.
FABER or FABRI, Johann, the Hammer of Heretics, and bishop of Vienna in the sixteenth century, was born in 1478 at Leutkirch in Swabia. His father was a smith. Having joined the Dominicans at an early age, he was sent to Freiburg to study theology, where he speedily distinguished himself by his talents and proficiency. The bishop, of Basle gave him a canonry in his cathedral, and appointed him his official. In 1518 he was made vicar-general of Constance, and a papal prothonotary. In his early manhood he was attached to the humanistic tastes and tendencies of the age, and kept up a friendly intercourse and correspondence with Erasmus, Œcolampadius, Melancthon, Vadian, Zuingle, and other literary and ecclesiastical reformers. As late as 1521, in a letter to Vadian, he expresses his disapproval of Dr. Eck, and his favourable opinion of the writings of Luther; but in the same year a visit which he made to Rome wrought a complete change upon his spirit and views, and in 1522 he stood forth as an open enemy of the Reformation in his work—"Adversus Nova quædam Dogmata M. Lutheri," which he republished in 1523, and again in 1524, under the new title of "Malleus Hereticorum." In January, 1523, he took part in the disputation of Zurich against Zuingle, and in 1526 in the disputation of Baden. In 1528 he was appointed coadjutor of the bishop of Neustädt in Austria, and took an active part in the persecutions which were at that time directed against the Lutherans of the Austrian dominions by King Ferdinand. As court-preacher of Ferdinand, he accompanied him to the diets of Spires and Augsburg in 1529 and 1530; and he was one of the catholic theologians appointed on the latter occasion to draw up an answer to the Confessio Augustana. In 1530-31 he succeeded to the see of Vienna, and to the administratorship of the see of Neustädt; and one of his principal acts in these high offices was, to found a seminary of priests in Vienna, for the training of a better class of preachers and confessors, to counteract the effects of evangelical teaching. He continued to press for the carrying out of a more vigorous imperial policy against
