Kober, FRANZ QUIRIN VON, German canonist and pedagogist, b. of simple country folk on March 6, 1821, at Warthausen, Biberach, Wurtemberg; d. at Tubingen, January 25, 1897. He first attended the Latin school in the neighboring town of Biberach, and subsequently, in accordance with the course prescribed for Catholic theologians of the Diocese of Rottenburg, entered the preparatory seminary at Ehingen on the Danube. From 1840 to 1844 he pursued his studies in the seminary (Wilhelmsstift) of Tubingen, and on September 4, 1845, was ordained priest in Rottenburg. After only half a year’s activity in the cure of souls at Ulm, Franz Kober became a tutor in the seminary at Tubingen, and lectured on philology and the Pauline Epistles. From 1848 he taught canon law, to counteract the evil influence of the Josephinist professor Warnkonig, of the faculty of law, on which Catholic theological students even in Wurtemberg had depended for their training in canon law according to a custom existing in Austria since Joseph II. On January 28, 1851, Kober became professor extraordinary in the faculty of Catholic theology, teaching pedagogy, didactics, and the Pauline Epistles. He was appointed professor ordinary of canon law and pedagogy on September 8, 1857, having been professor extraordinary since April 19, 1853. As such he wrote with good historico-legal method some excellent works: “Der Kirchenbann” (1857); “Die Suspension der Kirchendiener” (1862); “Die Deposition and Degradation” (1867). He also treated various ecclesiastico-criminal subjects (“Das Interdikt”; “Die korperliche Ziichtigung als kirchliches Straf-mittel gegen Kleriker and Monche”; “Die Gefangnisstrafe gegen Kleriker and Monche”; “Die Geldstrafen im Kirchenrecht”) in a series of essays, the majority being lengthy treatises, published in the “Archly fur katholisches Kirchenrecht” and especially in the “Theologische Quartalschrift” of Tubingen. In the last-named periodical appeared other essays on canon law (“Der Ursprung and die rechtliche Stellung der Generalvikare”; “Der Einfluss der Kirche and ihrer Gesetzgebung auf Gesittung, Humanitat and Zivilisation”; “Medizin and Kirchenrecht”; “Die Residenz-pflicht der Kirchendiener bei feindlichen Verfolgungen and ansteckenden Krankheiten”) and many book-reviews. Kober was also a frequent contributor to the first and second edition of the Freiburg “Kirchenlexikon”.
JOHANNES BAPTIST SAGMULLER