OSIANDRO (OSIANDER), Andreas. — Protestant theologian, b. Dec. 19, 1498 at Gunzenhausen (Brandenburg), d. Oct. 17, 1552 at Königsberg. Ordained priest in 1520 at Nuremberg, professor of Hebrew among the Augustinians, restless and combative, he led the movement that made Nuremberg Protestant in 1522-25. Present at the Colloquy of Marburg (1529), he drew up a report of it; in 1530 at Nuremberg he advocated against Luther the necessity of resisting the Emperor by armed force. At the Diet of Augsburg (1530) he had close relations with Melanchthon, though he harshly criticized his conciliatory spirit.
When an oppressive atmosphere developed in Nuremberg, O. took advantage of the Interim of 1548 to take refuge with Albert of Prussia, who appointed him professor at the University of Königsberg (1549). His personal opinions on Justification here gave rise to the controversy known as the Osiandrist controversy (Oct. 1550). As early as 1524 O., in a work that remained almost unnoticed (Ein gut Unterricht und der getreuer Ratschlag aus heiliger göttlicher Schrift), had defended a thesis at odds with the fundamental ideas of Protestantism: whereas Luther affirmed that Justification consists in the extrinsic imputation of Christ’s justice to individual men through the act of fiducial faith, O. held that the Word, in which all divine life resides, is communicated really and internally to the soul at the moment when it hears the external word, Scripture (the reflection of the Eternal Word), and makes it its own (interiorizes it) through faith; hence the real indwelling of Christ in individual souls, which operates like the head in the members, brings with it all divine justice and inwardly moves one to perform good works. This mysticism, which approaches Catholicism, alarmed O.’s opponents.