FABIAN, Wbi-an: Pope Jan. 10, 236-Jan. 20, 250, martyr in the Decian persecution. In the Chroni con Paschale he is called Flavian, while the Coptic Synaxarium terms him Palatian. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., vi. 29), he was chosen to succeed Anterus because a dove descended from heaven and lighted on the head of Fabian, a bishop who had been summoned to Rome with others to elect

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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 Colonis Lambesitana in Numidia. Macarius Magnes speaks of Fabian as a worker of miracles, and names him together with Polycarp, Irenæus, 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 grad, 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. Hauck.)

Bibliography: Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, i. 148-149,

Paris, 1886, ed. Mommsen in MGH, Gut. pont. Ram., i (1898), 27; R. A. Lipsius, Chronologie der römischen Bischafe, Kiel, 1889; J. B. l.ightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, i. Clement of Rome, London, 1885; Harnack, Litlarahur, i. 848, 11. i. 144 sqq.; Bower, Popes, i. 23-24; Milman, Latin Christianity, i. 82.

FABRI, fd'brf (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: Evagatorlum in Terra Sancta;, Arabite et Xgypti peregrinationem (ed. C. D. Hassler, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1843-49; Eng. transl.,

The Wanderings of Felix Fabra, in Publications of Pilgrims' Text Society, vols. vii.-x., London, 1897); Eigentliche Beschrexbung der Hin- and Wiederfahrt zum heiligen Land (Frankfort,? 1556); Gereimtes Pilgerbiichlein (ed. A. Birlinger, Munich, 1864); and Historic Suevonsm (partly edited by M. Goldcat, in Suevorum rerum Scriptores, Frankfort, 1605, Ulm, 1727). The most important portions of the Descriptio Suevice were published by H. Fseher, in Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vi. 107-202 (Basel, 1884), while G. Veesenmeyer has edited the Traaatua de civitate Ulmensi (Stuttgart, 1889). Die Sionapilgerin is partly printed in Verhandlung des Vereins für Kunst and Altertfmer in Ulm and Oberachwaben, new series, i. 30 sqq.

G. Bossert.

Bibliography: An early account is: Haberfin, De vita, itineribus et scrip& Felicia Fabri, 08ttingen, 1742; J. Echard and J. Quetif, Script. ordinia prmdticatorum, i. 871, Paris, 1721; 0. Lorens, Deutschlande Gaashichtequeilen, i. 91, 108, 209, 347, Berlin, 1887.