Osiander
Full Name: Andreas Osiander
Nickname/Alias: Born: Andreas Hosemann
Achievements: Wrote Copernicus’ Preface.
Born: December 19, 1498; Gunzenhausen, Ansbach, Germany
Died: October 17, 1552; Konigsberg, Prussia (now Russia; Aged 53)
Field & Discipline: Religion; Theologian
Language: German
Education: Schools in Leipzig and Altenburg; University of Ingolstadt
Major Work:
"Evangelical Union" (1537)
Life & Times:
Osiander was ordained in 1520 and became involved in the Lutheran reform movement of the church. In common with many humanists, he adopted the Greek form of his given name.
The city of Nurnberg was a free city within the Holy Roman Empire and Osiander helped to institute reforms there according to [a follower of] Luther’s* principles. In 1522 he persuaded one of Germany's grandees, Albert von Hohenzollern, grand master of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, to accept Lutheranism.
The reformers themselves were divided over questions of Christian doctrine and in 1529 Osiander, together with other evangelicals like [a colleague of] Melanchthon*, [a colleague of] Bucer* and [a colleague of] Zwingli*, attended the Marburg colloquy, set up as an attempt to resolve their differences. Osiander later wrote "Evangelical Union" in an attempt to bridge the divided between reformers.
His position as a moderator appealed to[a sympathizer was] Cranmer*, the future archbishop of England and Protestant martyr, who visited Nurnberg in 1532 as part of [involved with plan of] Henry VIII's* plan to get support from the Lutheran princes for divorcing his first wife. Cranmer and Osiander got on well and Cranmer got on even better with Osiander's niece whom he married.
Osiander was involved in the composition of the Brandenburg-Nurnberg Church Order (1532) which influenced regulation of reformed churches in Germany, and in 1543 he was responsible for the more traditional Pfalz-Neuberg Church Order. He had a reputation as a scholar and a humanist outside Germany and had many links with humanists and intellectuals in other European countries.
He was recommended as an editor to the Italian mathematician [editor to] Cardano* and in the 1540's he became involved in the publication of the controversial theories of the astronomer [editor to] Copernicus*.
Copernicus was under attack by the Catholic church because his view of the universe contradicted that of [opposed views of] Aristotle* which had been accepted for centuries in the western Christian tradition and was used to demonstrate the unchanging and unknowable perfection of God's creation. In 1540, the scholar [took over from] Rheticus*, a pupil of Copernicus, was allowed to take Copernicus's manuscript out of Italy to Nurnberg for printing. When Luther and other evangelicals objected, Rheticus went on to Leipzig leaving publication to Osiander.
Worried that the book would be placed on the index of banned books, Osiander took action to pre-empt this. Without reference to Copernicus, he added a preface to the work, stating that the theory put forward was only for simplifying astronomical calculations and bore no relation to how the Sun and the planets really behaved. His ploy was successful and Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs") was published in 1543.
Five years later, during a bad period for Protestantism, Nurnberg was forced to accept the Augsburg Interim, a prohibitive imperial decree about religious ordinance. Osiander was a prominent member of the Protestant reformers and he fled to Breslau and then to Konigsberg where he got a job as professor in the theological faculty of the newly established university.
He became embroiled in more doctrinal disputes, particularly over the issue of justification by faith. Like Melanchthon, Osiander believed that Christ had suffered on the cross in order to redeem the sins of man and that an individual's true faith was sufficient for the granting of God's forgiveness and grace. In this, he opposed the more traditional idea that virtue lay in the undertaking of good deeds and the enacting of religious ritual.
Assessment: Osiander was one of the key players in the establishment of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and is also remembered for his part in the publication of Copernician theory.
Oneliner: Andreas Osiander, who edited Copernicus.
Father: Unknown
Mother: Unknown
Siblings: Unknown
Spouse: Unknown
Children: Unknown
Bibliography:
- Encyclopedia Britannica.
- Schwiebert, Ernest G, The Reformation, Vols. I and II, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1996.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Osiander**
CONNECTIONS III #8 -*