Andreas Osiander (19 December, 1498 – 17 October 1552) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
Lutheran
theologianThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
.
Born at
GunzenhausenGunzenhausen is a town in the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Altmühl, 19 km northwest of Weißenburg in Bayern, and 45 km southwest of Nuremberg.-Twin towns: - Frankenmuth, Michigan USA...
in
FranconiaFranconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a part of southern Thuringia, and a much smaller region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Heilbronn-Franken...
, Osiander studied in at
IngolstadtIngolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As of December 31, 2005, Ingolstadt had 121,801 residents. It is part of the Munich Metropolitan Area with a population of more than 5 million.Ingolstadt is...
before being ordained as a priest in 1520. In the same year he began work at an Augustinian convent in
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
as a
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
tutor. In 1522, he was appointed to the church of
St. LorenzSt. Lorenz is one of the most important medieval churches of the former free imperial city of Nuremberg. It is dedicated to Saint Lawrence. It was badly damaged during the Second World War and later rebuilt....
in Nuremberg, and at the same time publicly declared himself to be a Lutheran.
Andreas Osiander (19 December, 1498 – 17 October 1552) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
Lutheran
theologianThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
.
Career
Born at
GunzenhausenGunzenhausen is a town in the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Altmühl, 19 km northwest of Weißenburg in Bayern, and 45 km southwest of Nuremberg.-Twin towns: - Frankenmuth, Michigan USA...
in
FranconiaFranconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a part of southern Thuringia, and a much smaller region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Heilbronn-Franken...
, Osiander studied in at
IngolstadtIngolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As of December 31, 2005, Ingolstadt had 121,801 residents. It is part of the Munich Metropolitan Area with a population of more than 5 million.Ingolstadt is...
before being ordained as a priest in 1520. In the same year he began work at an Augustinian convent in
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
as a
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
tutor. In 1522, he was appointed to the church of
St. LorenzSt. Lorenz is one of the most important medieval churches of the former free imperial city of Nuremberg. It is dedicated to Saint Lawrence. It was badly damaged during the Second World War and later rebuilt....
in Nuremberg, and at the same time publicly declared himself to be a Lutheran. During the
First Diet of NurembergThe Diet of Nuremberg is often called the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg.There were several of them because, according to the Golden Bull of 1356, each Holy Roman Emperor had to hold his first diet in Nuremberg after his election...
(1522), he met Albert of Prussia, Grand Master of the
Teutonic KnightsThe Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem , or for short the Teutonic Order , is a German Roman Catholic religious order. It was formed to aid Catholics on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals to care for the sick and injured...
, and played an important role in converting him to Lutheranism. He also played a prominent role in the debate which led to the city of Nuremberg's adoption of the
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
in 1525, and in the same year Osiander married.
Osiander attended the
Marburg ColloquyThe Marburg Colloquy was a meeting at Marburg Castle, Marburg, Hesse, Germany which attempted to solve a dispute between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli over the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. It took place between October 1 and October 4, 1529. The leading Protestant reformers of...
(1529), the
Diet of AugsburgThe Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire in the German city of Augsburg. There were many such sessions, but the three meetings during the Reformation and the ensuing religious wars between the Catholic emperor Charles V and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League...
(1530) and the signing of the
Schmalkalden articlesThe Schmalkaldic League was a defensive alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire during the mid-16th century. Although originally started for religious motives soon after the start of the Protestant Reformation, its members eventually intended for the League to replace the Holy...
(1531). The
Augsburg InterimThe Augsburg Interim was an imperial decree ordered on May 15, 1548, at the Diet of Augsburg, after Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, defeated the forces of the Schmalkaldic League in the Schmalkaldic War, from 1546 to 1547. The document was written by three theologians: Johannes Agricola, Julius von...
of 1548 made it necessary for him to leave Nuremberg, settling first at Breslau, then, in 1549, at
KönigsbergKönigsberg was the capital of eastern Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945. It was founded by the Teutonic Knights just south of the Sambian peninsula in the year 1255 AD during the Northern Crusades and named for King Ottokar II of Bohemia...
as professor of the newly founded Königsberg University, appointed by Albert of Prussia. Osiander lived and worked in Königsberg until his death in 1552. Osiander's son Lukas (1534–1604), and grandsons Andreas (1562–1617) and Lukas (1571–1638) also worked as theologians. His niece married the future Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas CranmerThomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See...
.
Works
Osiander published a corrected edition of the
Vulgate BibleThe Vulgate is an early 5th-century Latin version of the Bible, largely the result of the labors of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of old Latin translations...
, with notes, in 1522 and a Harmony of the Gospels in 1537. In 1533, Brandenburg-Nuernbergishe Kirchenordnung vom Jahre 1533 was published, with Osiander assisting in both the source material the final editing. This combined order of worship and catechism was the first work to include the Keys section of
Luther's Small CatechismLuther's Small Catechism was written by Martin Luther and published in 1529 for the training of children. Luther's Small Catechism reviews The Ten Commandments, The Apostles' Creed, The Lord's Prayer, Holy Baptism, The Office of the Keys & Confession, and The Sacrament of the Eucharist...
, of which Osiander is a suspected author.
http://www.wlsessays.net/authors/F/FredrichOsiander/FredrichOsiander.PDF
In 1543, Osiander oversaw the publication of the book
De revolutionibus orbium coelestiumNicolai Copernici Torinensis De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Libri VI , first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg, is the seminal work on heliocentric theory and the masterpiece of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus...
(On the revolution of the celestial spheres) by Copernicus. He added a preface suggesting that the model described in the book was not necessarily true, or even probable, but was useful for computational purposes. This was certainly not the opinion of Copernicus, who was probably unaware of the addition. As a result, many readers, unaware that Osiander was the author of the preface, believed that Copernicus himself had not believed that his hypothesis was actually true.
In 1550 Osiander published two controversial disputations,
De Lege et Evangelio and
De Justficatione. In these, he set out his view that justification by faith was instilled in (rather than ascribed to) humanity by
ChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed". It is a translation of the Hebrew . The term "Christ" was a title rather than a proper name. In the four gospels in the New Testament, the word "Christ" is nearly always preceded by the definite article...
's divinity, a view contrary to those of
Martin LutherMartin Luther changed the course of Western civilization by initiating the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesmen with his The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could...
and
John CalvinJohn Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
although he agreed with Lutheranism's fundamental opposition to Roman Catholicism and
CalvinismCalvinism is a theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
. These beliefs were maintained after his death by Johann Funck (his son-in-law) but disappeared after 1566.
Theology
Osiander was a Christian mystic and his theology incorporated the idea of mystical union with Christ and the Word of God. He believed that justification for a Christian believer resulted by Christ dwelling in a person. Contrary to Luther's belief that justification was imputed by God's grace, Osiander believed that the righteousness of a believer was accomplished by the indwelling of God; thus, God finds one righteous because Christ is in that person. Calvin rejected these views of Osiander, as did
MelanchthonPhilipp Melanchthon was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and a influential designer of educational systems...
and
FlaciusMatthias Flacius Illyricus was a Lutheran reformer.He was born in Carpano, a part of Albona in Istria, son of Andrea Vlacich alias Francovich and Jacobea Luciani, daughter of a wealthy and powerful Albanian family...
. Flacius' opposing view was that God justifies us by Christ's work of obedience on the cross, not by his presence in us.