In the writings of Luther we often find passages foreboding a future
corruption of the doctrine of justification, concerning which he
declared in the _Smalcald Articles_: "Of this article nothing can be
yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth, and whatever will
not abide, should sink to ruin.... And upon this article all things
depend which we teach and practise in opposition to the Pope, the devil,
and the world. Therefore we must be sure concerning this doctrine, and
not doubt, for otherwise all is lost, and the Pope and devil and all
things gain the victory and suit over us." (461, 5.) Martin Chemnitz
remarks: "I frequently shudder, because Luther--I do not know by what
kind of presentiment--in his commentaries on the Letter to the Galatians
and on the First Book of Moses so often repeats the statement: 'This
doctrine [of justification] will be obscured again after my death.'"
(Walther, _Kern und Stern_, 26.)
Andrew Osiander was the first to fulfil Luther's prophecy. In 1549 he
began publicly to propound a doctrine in which he abandoned the forensic
conception of justification by imputation of the merits of Christ, and
returned to the Roman view of justification by infusion _i.e._, by
infusion of the eternal essential righteousness of the divine nature of
Christ. According to his own statement, he had harbored these views ever
since about 1522. He is said also to have presented them in a sermon
delivered at the convention in Smalcald, 1537. (Planck 4, 257.) Yet he
made no special effort to develop and publicly to disseminate his ideas
during the life of Luther. After the death of the Reformer, however,
Osiander is reported to have said: "Now that the lion is dead, I shall
easily dispose of the foxes and hares"--_i.e._, Melanchthon and the
other Lutheran theologians. (257.) Osiander was the originator of the
controversy "Concerning the Righteousness of Faith before God," which
was finally settled in Article III of the _Formula of Concord_.
Osiander, lauded by modern historians as the only real "systematizer"
among the Lutherans of the first generation, was a man as proud,
overbearing, and passionate as he was gifted, keen, sagacious, learned,
eloquent, and energetic. He was born December 19, 1498, at Gunzenhausen,
Franconia, and died October 17, 1552, at Koenigsberg, where he was also
buried with high honors in the Old City Church. In 1522 he was appointed
priest at St. Lawrence's Church in the Free City of Nuernberg. Here he
immediately acted the part of a determined champion of the Reformation.
Subsequently he also 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 was either a case of relapse
into Romanism, or, what seems to be the more probable alternative,
Osiander never attained to a clear apprehension of the Lutheran truth
nor ever fully freed himself from the Roman doctrine, especially in its
finer and more veiled form of mysticism.