- Frobenius Forster
Frobenius Forster (b.
30 August 1709 , atKönigsfeld inUpper Bavaria ; d.11 October 1791 , atRatisbon ) was a GermanBenedictine ,Prince-Abbot of St. Emmeram .Life
After studying the humanities and philosophy at
Freising andIngolstadt , he entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Emmeram at Ratisbon where he took vows on 8 December, 1728. He made his theological studies partly at his monastery and partly atRott , where the Bavarian Benedictines had their common study house. Shortly after his elevation to the priesthood, in 1733, he became professor of philosophy and theology at St. Emmeram and for some time held the office of master of novices.In 1745 he was sent to the
Benedictine university at Salzburg to teach philosophy and physics. Two years later he returned to his monastery where he taught philosophy and Holy Scriptures until he became librarian andprior in 1750. He had gained a reputation as a philosopher and scientist, and was one of the first religious who endeavoured to reconcileScholastic philosophy with theCartesian and theLeibniz-Wolffian school . Though leaning towards the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy, he rejected many of its teachings, such as thecosmological optimism of Leibniz and the mechanism of Wolff, and was rather an eclectic than a slavish follower of any one system.In 1759 Forster was chosen one of the first members of the newly founded
Bavarian Academy of Sciences . A year later he laid down the office of prior and was appointed provost atHohengebraching , a dependency of St. Emmeram, situated about five miles south of Ratisbon. On 24 July, 1762, he was elected as successor to the deceased Prince-AbbotJohann Baptist Kraus of St. Emmeram.Forster's election was the inauguration of the golden era of St. Emmeram. The learned new prince-abbot endeavoured to impart his own love for learning. During his reign the course given in the natural sciences at St. Emmeram became famous throughout Germany and drew scholars not only from the Benedictine monasteries of Bavaria, but also from the houses of other religious orders. In order to promote the study of Holy Scripture, Forster called the learned
Maurist philologist,Charles Lancelot ofSt-Germain-des-Prés , who instructed the monks of St. Emmeram in Oriental languages from 1 October, 1771, to 27 May, 1775. To encourage his young monks still more in their respective studies, he founded a physical, a mineralogical, and a numismatic cabinet and procured the best available literature in the various branches.Works
Forster's chief literary production is his edition of the works of
Alcuin which appeared in two folio volumes (4 parts) at Ratisbon in 1777. It is reprinted in the "Latin Patrology " ofMigne (vols. C and CI). He also wrote in Latin five short philosophical treatises and a dissertation on theVulgate . From acodex preserved in the library of the cathedral chapter at Freising he edited the decrees of theSynod of Aschheim and made a German translation of it for "Abhandlungen der Bayr. Akad. der Wissenschaften" (I,30-60); and from a codex in the library of St. Emmeram he published inMansi 's "Collectio Ampl. Conciliorum" (XIII, 1025-28), the decrees of a Bavarian synod held during the times of theAgilolfings .References
ENDRES, Frobenius Forster in Strassburger theol. Studien (Freiburg im Br., 1900), IV, fasc. 1; LINDNER, Die Schriftateller des Benediktiner-Ordens in Bayern (Ratisbon, 1880), I, 56-62; SCHNEIDER in Hist.-Polit. Blotter (Munich, 1901), CXXVII, 902-913.
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