BINER, JOSEPH. - Swiss Jesuit and canonist, b. at Glaringen (Valais) on 16 July 1697, d. at Rottenburg on 24 March 1766. Received into the novitiate at Landsberg in 1715, he taught philosophy, theology, and then canon law for 16 years at Innsbruck, Dillingen, and Amberg, and was rector at Friburgo di Brisgovia and Rottenburg.
In addition to a series of controversial writings against Protestants, he compiled a kind of ecclesiastical encyclopedia (though not in lexicon 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. [to which a volume of indexes was subsequently added], was reprinted at Bologna; 5th ed. 1767 in 8 vols.). The Apparatus is a veritable mine: it provides, for example, the canons of councils, peace treaties, etc. It contains many extensive canonical and also historical dissertations; several were reproduced in later collections, such as those of Zaccaria and Migne.