BINER, Joseph. – Swiss Jesuit and canonist, b. at Glaringen (Valais) on 16 July 1697, d. at Rotterdam on 24 March 1766. Received into the Society in 1715 at Landsberg, he taught philosophy, theology and then for 16 years canon law at Innsbruck, Dillingen and Amberg, and served as rector at Freiburg in Breisgau and Rottenburg.
Besides a series of controversial writings against Protestants, he compiled a kind of ecclesiastical encyclopedia (though not in lexicographical form), with special attention to the canonical part: Apparatus eruditionis ad iurisprudentiam praesertim ecclesiasticam (6 vols., Innsbruck-Vienna 1747–49; the 3rd ed., 1754–66, in 12 vols. [later an index vol. was added], was reprinted at Bologna; 5th ed. 1767 in 8 vols.). The Apparatus is a veritable mine of information: it provides, for example, the canons of councils, peace treaties, etc. It contains many extensive canonical and also historical dissertations; several were later reprinted in collections such as those of Zaccaria and Migne.