ASSARATH, RAINER. - Conventual friar, moral theologian, b. at Holtzheim near Reuss on 20 Aug. 1696, d. at Cologne between 1771 and 1775. He entered the Order of Conventual Franciscans in Cologne in 1712, and after obtaining a doctorate in theology at the University of Cologne on 22 Jan. 1744, he taught moral theology there for many years. He served as provincial minister of Germany and definitor general.
Among other works, he left a *Directorium confessariorum*; but his fame is bound up with the principal work of his life: *Cursus theologiae moralis tripartitus*, which went through repeated editions even during his lifetime (2nd ed., 3 vols., Cologne 1760; 4th ed., 4 vols., Augsburg 1771). The work is divided into three parts: 1) *De actibus humanis, legibus, conscientia, peccatis, censuris et virtutibus theologicis*; 2) *De virtute religionis, de iustitia et iure, de contractibus*; 3) *De Sacramentis in genere et in specie et de indulgentiis*. The arrangement of the treatises which he adopted, it seems for the first time, is still used more or less in almost all manuals of moral theology. The clarity and solidity of the work and the balance of the author are unanimously recognized and praised; he is classed among the most representative probabilists.
