lso participated in some of the most important
transactions of his day. He was present at the Marburg Colloquy, 1529,
where he made the personal acquaintance of Luther and the Wittenbergers.
He also took part in the discussions at the Diet in Augsburg, 1530; at
Smalcald, 1537; at Hagenau and Worms, 1540. Nor were his interests
confined to theological questions. When, at Nuernberg, 1543, the work of
Copernicus, _De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium_, "Concerning the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies," was published for the first time,
Osiander read the proof-sheets and wrote the Preface, in which he
designated the new theory as "hypotheses," thus facilitating its
circulation also among the Catholics, until in the 17th century the book
was placed on the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_, where it remained till
the 18th century.

When the Augsburg Interim was introduced in Nuernberg, Osiander
resigned, and with words of deep emotion (in a letter of November 22,
1548, addressed to the city council) he left the place where he had
labored more than a quarter of a century. January 27 1549, he arrived in
Koenigsberg. Here he was joyously received by Count Albrecht of Prussia,
whom he had gained for the Reformation in 1523. Moved by gratitude
toward Osiander, whom he honored as his "spiritual father," Count
Albrecht appointed him pastor of the Old City Church and, soon after,
first professor of theology at the University of Koenigsberg, with a
double salary, though Osiander had never received an academic degree.
The dissatisfaction which this unusual preferment caused among his
colleagues, Briessman, Hegemon, Isinder, and Moerlin, soon developed
into decided antipathy against Osiander, especially because of his
overbearing, domineering ways as well as his intriguing methods. No
doubt, this personal element added largely to the animosity and violence
of the controversy that was soon to follow, and during which the
professors in Koenigsberg are said to have carried firearms into their
academic sessions. (Schaff, _Creeds_ 1, 273.) Yet it cannot be regarded
as the real cause or even as the immediate occasion, of the conflict,
which was really brought about by the unsound, speculative, and mystical
views of Osiander on the image of God and, particularly, on
justification and the righteousness of faith,--doctrinal points on which
he deviated from the Lutheran teaching to such an extent that a
controversy was unavoidable. Evidently, his wa