Alter, Franz Carl

Alter, Franz Carl a German Jesuit, and professor of Greek at the gymnasium in Vienna, was born at Engelberg, in Silesia, Jan. 27, 1749, and died March 29, 1804. He published a new critical edition of the New Testament (Novum Testamentum, 2 vols. Vienna, 1786-87) on the basis of the Codex Lambecii I, with which he collated 24 manuscripts, and the Slavic and Coptic versions of some parts of the N.T. Bishop Marsh, in his supplement to the Introduction of Michaelis, lays down the advantages and disadvantages of this edition. He also wrote an essay on Georgian Literature (in German, Vienna, 1798), published an edition of a number of Latin and Greek classics, and translated into German "The Classical Bibliography of Edward Harwood." He was a frequent contributor to the Memorabilien of Paulus and the Leipzig Allgemeiner Literatur-Anzeiger, two Protestant papers. Hoefer, Biographie Generale, 2, 229; Landon, Ecc. Dictionary, s.v.