Christian Cyclopedia

(the Elder; 1498–1552). Father of L. Osiander* the Elder; father-in-law of A. Aurifaber*; b. Gunzenhausen, Middle Franconia, W Bav., Ger.; educ. lngolstadt; priest Nürnberg 1520; introd. the Reformation and opposed fanatics and Anabaps. there; sided with M. Luther* against H. Zwingli* at Marburg 1529 (see Lutheran Confessions, A 2) and with Luther in distinction from P. Melanchthon* at Augsburg 1530; helped crystallize a Brandenburg-Nürnberg ch. order 1530–32; present at the 1537 meeting of the Schmalkaldic League (see Lutheran Confessions, B 2), at the Hagenau* Colloquy 1540, and at the Colloquy of Worms* 1540–41; reformed the principality Pfalz-Neuburg 1542–43; opposed the Augsburg Interim*; prof. Königsberg 1549. Works include a gospel harmony (Gk. and Lat.); a polemic against J. Eck*; an edition of N. Copernicus,* De revolutionibus orbium caelestium; Conjecturae de ultimis temporibus, ac de fine mundi, ex Sacris literis (in which he calculated the end of the world for ca. 1656 and identified the papacy as the Antichrist). See also Albert of Prussia; Osiandrian Controversy. W. Möller, Andreas Osiander, in Leben und ausgewählte Schriften der Vätor und Begränder der lutherischen Kirche, ed. J. Hartmann et al., V, in vol. 2 (Elberfeld, 1870).