Person:Andres Osiander (3)

Andreas Osiander was an early Protestant reformer who worked with Martin Luther 1483-1546), German theologian and author: leader, in Germany, of the Protestant Reformation.[1]

Excerpt From ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA Osiander, Andreas

b. Dec. 19, 1498, Gunzenhausen, Ansbach [now in Germany] d. Oct. 17, 1552, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia] original name ANDREAS HOSEMANN, German theologian who helped introduce the Protestant Reformation to Nürnberg. The son of a blacksmith, Osiander was educated at Leipzig, Altenburg,and the University of Ingolstadt. Ordained in 1520, he helped reform the imperial free city of Nürnberg on strictly Lutheran principles andin 1522 won over Albert von Hohenzollern, grand master of the Knightsof the Teutonic Order, to the Lutheran movement. Osiander also helpedwrite the influential Brandenburg-Nürnberg Church Order (1532) and compiled the liturgically conservative Pfalz-Neuberg Church Order (1543). By substituting his own preface in 1543 to Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI ("Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs"), which introduced Copernican theories in a purely hypothetical manner, he helped keep this controversial work off the Index of Forbidden Books until the next century. In 1548, when the Holy Roman emperor compelled Nürnberg to accept theAugsburg Interim, a provisional imperial religious ordinance, Osiander fled, first to Breslau and then to Königsberg, where despite his lack of a theological degree he was appointed professor primarius of thenew university's theological faculty (1549). The envy of his colleagues and apparently his own stubborn personality produced a violent controversy the next year. One Lutheran faculty and synod after another declared its opposition to Osiander's deprecation of forensic justification of sinners and his exaggerated stress on the indwelling of Christ himself as the essential factor in justification. In addition to his Harmonia Evangelica (1537), Osiander wrote several treatises expoundinghis theological views, which his followers, the Osiandrists, continued to promote until 1567.

Excerpt From ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA Copernicus, Nicolaus Publication of De revolutionibus

The presentation of Copernicus's theory in its final form is inseparable from the conflicted history of its publication. When Rheticus leftFrauenburg to return to his teaching duties at Wittenberg, he took the manuscript with him in order to arrange for its publication at Nürnberg, the leading centre of printing in Germany. He chose the top printer in the city, Johann Petreius, who had published a number of ancient and modern astrological works during the 1530s. It was not uncommonfor authors to participate directly in the printing of their manuscripts, sometimes even living in the printer's home. However, Rheticus was unable to remain and supervise. He turned the manuscript over to Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), a theologian experienced in shepherding mathematical books through production as well as a leading political figure in the city and an ardent follower of Luther (although he was eventually expelled from the Lutheran church). In earlier communication with Copernicus, Osiander had urged him to present his ideas as purely hypothetical, and he now introduced certain changes without the permission of either Rheticus or Copernicus. Osiander added an unsigned "letter to the reader" directly after the title page, which maintained thatthe hypotheses contained within made no pretense to truth and that, in any case, astronomy was incapable of finding the causes of heavenlyphenomena. A casual reader would be confused about the relationship between this letter and the book's contents. Both Petreius and Rheticus, having trusted Osiander, now found themselves double-crossed. Rheticus's rage was so great that he crossed out the letter with a great red X in the copies sent to him. However, the city council of Nürnberg refused to punish Petreius, and no public revelation of Osiander's role was made until Kepler revealed it in his Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) in 1609. In addition, the title of the work was changed from themanuscript's "On the Revolutions of the Orbs of the World" to "Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs"--a change that appeared to mitigate the book's claim to describe the real universe.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Andreas Osiander.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Theodore (Ted) Epton. History of the Epting / Epton Families of South Carolina.

   19 JAN 2002