RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Saoy Sailer
ingict (1684); Antiquitates gentilismi et christianismi Thuringici (1685); Antiquitates Ducatus Thuringici (1688); Memorabilia histories Gothance (1689); and Theses theologice apologeticw de promovendo vero Christianismo (1692). His Introductio in historiam ecclesiasticam et singulas ejus -partes, which he began in 1692, was continued and completed by Johann Andreas Schmid (2 vols., Jena, 1718). (Paul Tschackeet.)
Bibliography : J. A. Schmid, Commentarius de vita et scriptis Casp. Sagittarius, Jena, 1713; M. J. C. Zeumer, VitcB professorum . . in academia Jenensi, ib. 1703-06; G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantiscken Theologie, ii. 147, Leipsic, 1865.
SAILER, sail'er, JOHANN MICHAEL VON: Roman Catholic bishop of Regensburg; b. at Aresing (a village near Schrobenhausen, 16 m. s.s.w. of Ingolstadt), Upper Bavaria, Nov. 17, 1751; d. at Regensburg May 20, 1832. He was educated at the Jesuit colleges of Landsberg (1770-72) and Ingolstadt (1773-77), having entered the Society of Jesus as a novice. On Sept. 23, 1775, he was ordained to the priesthood, and in 1777 the Elector Maximilian III. appointed him lec- Professional turer on philosophy and theology at Career. Ingolstadt. In 1782 he became second professor of dogmatics, but two years later he was retired on a pension of 240 guldens, since the new elector, Charles Theodore, diverted the funds of the college to other uses. The years immediately following were passed by Sailer at Ingolstadt as a private scholar. He had already published his Fragment zur Reformationsgeschichte der christlichen Theologie (Ulm, 1779) and Theologice Christiana cum philosophia nexus (Augsburg, 1779), and he now issued his Vollstdndiges Lese- und Gebetbuch fiir Jcatholische Christen (1783) and Vernunftlehre fur Menschen, wie sie sind, d. i. Anleitung zur Erkenntnis und Liebe der Wahrheit (3 vols., Munich, 1783). In 1784 a new academic career was opened to Sailer by his appointment as professor of ethics at the reorganized University of Dillingen, where the lectures on pastoral theology were soon placed under his guidance. He contributed essentially to the progress of the institution, but the methods of teaching in vogue at Dillingen aroused the suspicions of the faculty of the College of St. Salvator at Augsburg, and in 1793 a committee of investigation decided adversely to Dillingen. In the year following Sailer was removed from his professorship, especially as he was suspected, though unjustly, of sympathy with the Enlightenment. While professor at Dillingen, he had been active as an author, writing, among other works, Ueber den Selbstmord (Munich, 1785); Predigten bei verschiedenen Anlassen (3 vols., 1790-92); Kurzgefasste Erinnerungen an junge Prediger (1792); Glilckseligkeitslehre aus Vernunftgrunden (2 parts, 1793) ; and Vorlesungen aus der Pastor altheologie (2 vols., 1793-94). After being dismissed from Dillingen, Sailer took up his residence in Munich, but the attacks made upon him compromised his position with the papal nuncio, Zoglio, as with Elector Charles Theodore. Under these circumstances Sailer gladly accepted an invitation, in Jan., 1795, to the castle of Ebersberg, belonging to the Knights
of Malta. In this retirement he turned again to literature, producing his Buck von der Nach/olge Christi (Munich, 1794) and his Ecclesice catholicce de cultu sanctorum doctrina (1797), as well as his extremely popular Uebungen des Geistes zur Griindung und Forderung eines heiligen Sinnes und Lebens (Mannheim, 1799), and Brief e aus alien Jahrhunderten der christlichen Zeitrechnung (Munich, 1804). With the accession of Max Joseph I., in 1799, the entire situation changed. The Enlightenment was now officially adopted, and on the transfer of the reorganized University from Ingolstadt to Landshut Sailer was reappointed professor of ethics and pastoral theology. He now published his Ueber Erziehung fiir Erzieher; oder Padagogik (Munich, 1807) ; Grundlehren der Religion (1805) ; and Handbuch der christlichen Moral fiir kiinftige katholische Seelsorger (3 vols., 1817-18).
When, at the close of the Napoleonic wars, the Roman Catholic Church entered upon a phase of development most favorable for her revival, one of her most pressing tasks was the filling of the numerous vacant dioceses. In 1818 Sailer was twice offered the archbishopric of Cologne Bishop of by the Prussian government, but his Regensburg. attachment to Bavaria led him to decline. In the following year Max Joseph proposed him as bishop of Augsburg, only to have the nomination rejected by the papal nuncio at Munich. Before long, however, this opposition vanished, and in 1821 Sailer was made a canon of the cathedral of Regensburg, and in the following year (Oct. 28, 1822) he was consecrated titular bishop of Germanicopolis as coadjutor to the aged bishop of Regensburg, with right of succession. In 1825 he added to his other duties those of dean of the cathedral, and, after having declined to be transferred to the diocese of Passau in 1826, he became full diocesan of Regensburg on Oct. 29, 1829. His health was, however, already failing, and within the year he was forced to have the assistance of a bishop-coadjutor, Georg Michael Wittmann, who succeeded him as full diocesan on his death in 1832. The importance of Sailer in the German Roman Catholic episcopate of the nineteenth century was due preeminently to the fact that he was the representative of a definite type of Roman Catholicism which enabled the church to recover Character in a comparatively short time from and the heavy losses she had incurred at Influence, the beginning of the century. Deeply religious and strongly contemplative in character, he was more than a mere teacher of theology or governing prelate. He sought to inspire others with his own enthusiasm and spirit, to train up a clergy who should appeal to all that was best in their parishes, and to lead the way in deeply needed practical reforms. At the same time, while manifesting a certain amount of sympathy with the mystical movement rife at the opening of the nineteenth century, and while not unfriendly to Protestants in many respects, he never forgot his consciousness of the superiority and divine mission of his own communion. Nevertheless, the orthodoxy of his theological writings was not free from the suspicion of a taint of the Enlightenment, and
Faint Albans Saint Gall