RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
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a new pope. Fabian was pope during the reign of Philip the Arab. Origen addressed to him a treatise defending his teachings, while Cyprian mentions a letter written by Fabian with regard to Privatus, a heretic (and probably bishop) of Colonia Lambesitana in Numidia. Macarius Magnes speaks of Fabian as a worker of miracles, and names him together with Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Cyprian. Cyprian occasionally mentions this pope with respect, but the ordinances of Fabian in the three letters of the pseudo-Isidore and the twentyone decrees of Gratian are forgeries.
Though few details are actually known concerning Fabian, it is clear that he was one of the most important popes. His reign was in a period of extraordinarily rapid development of the Church, for it was the time in which the Gnostic heresies, the Christological controversies, and the schism of Hippolytus were crushed, when penance increased rapidly, when the city of Rome was divided into seven or fourteen parishes, when the minor clergy was formed into five grades, and when the temporal power of the Church was greatly augmented. In all these measures Fabian must have been the leading spirit. It was due to him, moreover, that the Decian persecution found a far more sturdy power of resistance in Rome than in Carthage, and that_the Roman Church was able to maintain so honorable a position in the year which elapsed between the martyrdom of Fabian and the election of his successor, Cornelius. (A. Harnack.)
Bibliography: Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, i. 148-149, Paris, 1886, ed. Mommsen in MGH, Gest. pont. Rom., i (1898), 27; R. A. Lipsius, Chronologie der rijmischen Bischofe, Kiel, 1869; J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, i. Clement of Rome, London, 1885; Harnack, Litteratur, i. 648, II. i. 144 sqq.; Bower, Popes, i. 23-24; Milman, Latin Christianity, i. 82.
FABRI, fa'bri (not Faber), FELIX: German Dominican; b. at Zurich 1441 or 1442; d. at Ulm Mar. 14, 1502. He belonged to a distinguished family, and in 1465 entered the Dominican order at Basel. He studied theology and was sent to Ulm in 1477 or 1478 as lector and preacher. From early childhood he desired to visit the Holy Land, and his longing was increased by pilgrimages to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1468 and to Rome in 1476. He first visited the East in 1480, but remained only nine days in Jerusalem. In 1483-84 he made a second journey of longer duration, visiting Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine, as well as Mount Sinai and Egypt in company with four Swabian noblemen. Except for frequent trips in behalf of his order, such as his visits to Venice in 1486-87, he spent the remainder of his life as a teacher and preacher in his monastery at Ulm, though he was also a preacher in neighboring nunneries. His works, which are mostly unpublished or lost, show keen observation, piety, sincerity, and humor, though they are marred by their lack of critical acumen, while their Latinity is strongly monastic. Nevertheless, he is the most important and instructive of the pilgrims of the fifteenth century. His chief works are as follows : Evagatorium in Terras Sanctm, Arabiw et Mgypti peregrinationem (ed. C. D. Hassler, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1843-49; Eng. transl.,
The Wanderings of Felix Fabri, in Publications o) Pilgrims' Text Society, vols, vii.-x., London, 1897); Eigentliche Beschreibung der Hin- und Wiederfahrt zum heiligen Land (Frankfort, ? 1556); Gereimtes Pilgerbuchlein (ed. A. Birlinger, Munich, 1864); and Historia Suevorum (partly edited by M. Goldast, in Suevorum rerum Scriptores, Frankfort, 1605, Ulm, 1727). The most important portions of the Descriptio Sueviw were published by H. Escher, in Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vi. 107-202 (Basel, 1884), while G. Veesenmeyer has edited the Tractatus de civitate Ulmensi (Stuttgart, 1889). Die Sionspilgerin is partly printed in Verhandlung des Vereins fiir Kunst und A Uertumer in Ulm und Oberschwaben, new series, i. 30 sqq.
G. BOSSERT. Bibliography: An early account is : Haberlin, De vita, ilineribus et scriptis Felicis Fabri, Gottingen, 1742; J. Echard and J. Quetif, Script, ordinis prce.dicatorum, i. 871, Paris, 1721; O. Lorenz, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, i. 91, 106, 209, 347, Berlin, 1887.
FABRI, FRIEDRICH GOTTHARDT KARL ERNST: German theologian; b. at Schweinfurt (22 m. n.n.e. of Wurzburg) June 12, 1824; d. at Wurzburg July 18, 1891. He was educated at Wtirzburg, Erlangen, and Berlin, and in 1846 entered the seminary for preachers at Munich. In 1848 he was appointed municipal pastor and instructor in a technical school at Wurzburg, and then published his first work, Die materiellen Notstdnde der protestantischen Kirche Baierns (Nuremberg, 1848), which was followed by his Ueber Armut und Armenpflege (1851). In 1851 he became pastor at Bonnland near Wurzburg, and while there published his Ueber Kirchenzucht im Sinn und Geist des Evangeliums (Stuttgart, 1854), in which he deprecated public admonition and excommunication. He first became widely known, however, by his Briefe gegen den Materialismus (1855), a criticism of the theories of Darwin and Lyell. From 1857 to 1884 Fabri was president of the Rhenish mission at Barmen. He successfully opposed the denominational strife which threatened to disrupt the organization and raised the educational standard for those who were to go to the mission-field under the auspices of the society, making the preliminary course two years and the seminary training four, The candidates gained both in number and in ability, and branch schools were erected for younger pupils in Barmen (1856), Stellenbosch (1860, 1865), and Gutersloh. Under his auspices the mission increased from twenty-nine stations, thirty-five missionaries, and 6,600 converts in 1857 to forty-seven stations, sixty-four missionaries, and 25,800 converts in 1884. In 1866 he founded the general conference for missions, which henceforth convened triennially, and in connection with missionary activity he wrote Die Entstehung des Heidentums und die Aufgabe der Heidenmission (Barmen, 1859) and Der sensus communis das Organ der Offenbarung Gottes in alien Menschen (1861). In 1865 Fabri established a committee for German Protestants in southern Brazil, which was enlarged in 1883 to comprise all Protestant Germans in America. He was also keenly interested in inspiring the Greek Church with a spirit of Evangel-
Fabrica Ecclesise Fagnani