Mayr, Beda

Mayr, Beda a Benedictine monk, was born at Duitingen, in Bavaria, in 1742. He entered the cloister at Donauworth in his twentieth year. Finely cultured, and classed with the best talent of his day, he sought relief from the dullness of convent life by teaching mathematics, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, canon law, and theology. He was charged with being liberal to excess, and was both feared and distrusted by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. His principal work, Defence of the Natural, Christian, and Catholic Religion, according to the Necessities of our Time, was published at Augsburg in 1787, and is still mentioned. He died April 28, 1794. A list of his works is given by Doring, Gelehrte Theol. Deutschlands, vol. ii, s.v.; see also Wetzer und Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, 6:953. (G. M.)