Franz Xaver von Funk

File:Franz Xaver Funk.jpg

Franz Xaver Funk, 1900

Franz Xaver von Funk (22 October 1840 – 24 February 1907) was a German Roman Catholic priest, theologian and historian.

Biography

Funk was born at Abts-Gmünd, Württemberg, and educated at Tübingen, at the seminary of Rottenburg am Neckar, and in Paris, where he studied economics. In 1864 he was ordained priest in the Diocese of Rottenburg.

He then went to Tübingen. There he was assistant to Karl Joseph von Hefele, later ordained bishop, whose advisor he was at the First Vatican Council. In 1870 he was appointed professor of theology at Tübingen and in 1876 became an editor of the Tübingen Theologische Quartalschrift.

In 1890, he was raised to the rank of personal nobility by being awarded the Honorary Knight's Cross of the Order of the Crown. In 1903, he was awarded the Commander's Cross 2nd Class of the Friedrich Order.

Though he is perhaps best remembered today for his edition of the Apostolic Fathers, he produced a number of other works on early Christian literature. Funk thought the apostolic constitutions were written as late as the beginning of the fifth century.

Select publications

• Zins und Wucher: Eine moral-theologische Abhandlung, 1868.
• Geschichte des kirchlichen Zinsverbotes, 1876, online.
• Opera Patrum apostolicorum, 2 vols., 1878–1881; 2nd ed., 1901.
• Die Echtheit der Ignatianischen Briefe, aufs neue verteidigt, 1883.
• Doctrina duodecim Apostolorum, 1887.
• Die Apostolischen Konstitutionen: Eine literar-historische Untersuchung, 1891.
• Das 8. Buch der Apostolischen Konstitutionen und die verwandten Schriften, auf ihr Verhältnis neu untersucht, 1893.
• Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen, vol. I, 1897; vol. II, 1899; vol. III, 1907.
• Das Testament unseres Herrn und die verwandten Schriften, 1901.
• Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, 2 vols., 1905.
• Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, 1886; fourth edition, 1902 (published in English as "A Manual of Church History", 2 vols. Trans. by P. Perciballi and edited by W. H. Kent. London: Burns & Oates, 1914.)

References

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•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
• Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (1990). "Funk, Franz Xaver". In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 2. Hamm: Bautz, p. 156.