After spending his early years in Danzig and Cracow with his fellow townsman Giovanni Hodtfilier, who was in the service of Cardinal Campeggio, he went to Italy and studied philosophy and theology at Padua. In 1533 he returned to Danzig and in 1536 went to Wittenberg, where, in contact with Melanchthon, he became Lutheran. Called by Albert of Prussia to the new University of Königsberg (1541), he entered into conflict with the Anabaptist sympathizer Giovanni Gnaphaeus and with Osiander (q.v.), until, having returned to Danzig, he prepared the pamphlet *Synodus Sanctorum Patrum antiquorum contra nova dogmata*.
Andrea Osiander (Nuremberg 1553), who manifests his initial return to the Church. He abjured during an illness in Breslau and made contact with St. Peter Canisius (q.v.), and in 1554 became imperial counsellor to Emperor Ferdinand I. At the Colloquy of Worms (1557), S. found himself facing his former protector, Melanchthon, but mastered the situation and wrote his *Theologiae M. Lutheri trimembris epitome* (1558) with the accompanying *Defensio pro trimembri theologia* (Naiss 1560), in which he pointed to the principle of free examination as the cause of the discord among the various “reformers.” Though a layman and married, he received permission from Rome to teach theology at the University of Ingolstadt (1560). Consulted by Pius IV on the ecclesiastical reforms to be implemented at the Council of Trent, S. sent the Pope a memorandum rich in personal observations; at the Emperor’s invitation he composed the *Consultatio Ferdinandi I iussu instituta de articulis reformationis in Conc. Trid. proponendis*. Posthumous is the work: *Vom letzten und grossen Abfall, so vor der Zukunft des Antichrist geschehen soll* (Ingolstadt 1565). All his works were collected by his son Friedrich: *F. S. sparsim editi libelli in unum volumen digesti* (ibid. 1613). A convinced advocate of the necessity of the Church’s magisterium, S. deserves particular attention today.