MERZ, PHILIPP PAUL. - Biblical homiletic-catechetical author, b. at Augusta. A Protestant, he was a Lutheran theologian and preacher at Strasbourg and Kehl. On 12 Aug. 1725 he converted to Catholicism; he then became a priest and, from 1740 to 1754, parish priest at Schwabsoyen (Bavaria) and Augusta, where he d. on 15 Oct. 1754.
He published: Thesaurus Biblicus, i. e. dicta et exempla Biblica (Augusta 1733 and many subsequent editions; 3rd Italian ed., Cremona 1842); it is a topical concordance (v.); Onomasticum Biblicum seu index ac dictionarium historico-etymologicum (ibid. 1738), the second part of the Thesaurus, whose basis is Guglielmo Alot’s Thesaurus Biblicum: M. arranged alphabetically all the biblical texts relating to the same subject, so that theologians and especially preachers might have them all assembled together; Quodlibet catechisticum, i. e. Vollkommener und vollständiger Christenlehrer (5 vols., ibid. 1752), a catechetical work compiled from more than twenty famous catechists; moreover, an explanation of the ceremonies of the Mass for his parishioners (ibid. 1751).