RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Osiander Oswald
OSSAT ARNAUD D': French cardinal of the sixteenth century; b. probably at Laroque-enmagnoac (Bagneres Bigorre, department of Hautes Pyrenees) Aug. 23, 1536; d. at Rome Mar. 13, 1604. He resided at Rome after 1574, where he finally served as ambassador; hence the collection of his correspondence furnished abundant material oh his ecclesiastical and political contemporaries. He obtained the papal absolution for Henry IV., and was made a cardinal in 1599 by Clement VIII. His correspondence has been repeatedly published since 1624; the best edition is that by A. de la Houssaye (2 vols., Paris, 1697). K Beneath.
Bibliography: Mme. Thiroux d'Arconville, Vie du Cardinal d'Ossat, 2 vols., Paris, 1771.
OSTERWALD, os'ter-valt", JEAN FREDERIC: Preacher of Neuchatel; b. at Neuchatel Nov. 16, 1663; d. there Apr. 14, 1747. He pursued his preparatory studies in his native city and in Zurich, and in 1678 entered the academy of Saumur, and subsequently studied at Orleans and Paris under Claude Pajon, Pierre Allix, and Jean Claude. In 1686 he was appointed deacon in his native city. His methods of instructing children attracted general attention and his sermons met with such favor that a new church was built for him, of which he became pastor in 1699. In 1700 he became a member of the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and during his whole life he was on intimate terms with English and Dutch clergymen. In 1702 he began to gather students, and his activity as teacher, pastor, and writer exerted so lasting an influence upon the church of Neuchatel that he was called its second reformer. He was no creative theologian, and did not essentially advance the development of theology. Influenced by the theologians of Saumur, he represented, with Turretin of Geneva and Werenfels of Basel, the opposition to orthodoxy, and strove to make his opposition effective by silently passing over in his practical activity the dogmas which seemed to him superfluous and by trying to preserve for his church dogmatic freedom. He was neither a rationalist nor a moralist, but might be called a Pietist in so far as he tried to replace dogmatics by the Bible and doctrinal disputes by the cultivation of personal piety and a genuine preaching of the Gospel. He opened his effective activity in the practical service of the Church by a treatise, Des sources de la corruption, qui regne aujour d'hui parmi les Chretiens (Neuchatel, 1700; Eng. transl., London, 1700, and in Bishop Watson's Collection of Theological Tracts, vi., Cambridge, 1785). It was a work parallel to Spener's Pia desideria and similar in its effects. Osterwald demanded the continuation of the reformatory work in the direction of the reformation of morals. He devoted great energy to the moral elevation of his hearers and of the children to be confirmed, also to the elevation and reform of worship and to the revision of the liturgy. In 1702 appeared his catechism, which found a large circulation. It was immediately introduced in Neuchatel, took the place of Calvin's catechism in Geneva, and was accepted even in England, Holland, and Germany (Eng. transl. by H. Wauley and G. Stanhope, The Grounds and Principles of the
Christian Religion, London, 1704). The ignorance and indifference which he found on his pastoral visits led him to prepare Arguments et reflexions sur l'.ecriture sainte (1709-15), from which proceeded the " Osterwald Bible- version " (see Bible Versions, B, VI., § 3). An Eng. transl., in 2 vols., appeared in London, 1716-18. (W. Hadoen.)
Bibliography: Sources are: Museum Helveticum, part v. and vi., Zurich, 1747; Journal helvetique, April, 1747, pp. 369-416. Modern biographies are by L. Henriod, Neuchatel, 1868; R. Gretulat, ib. 1904. Consult also J. F. Osterwald, in L'Eglise nationale, 1891, nos. 42-50; Lichtenberger, ESR, x. 98-104.
OSTIARIUS: Primarily a porter and later one of the minor orders of the clergy. Originally the porter was a slave (cf. Mark xiii. 34; John x. 3, xviii. 17; Acts xii. 13); but when the Christians came to possess their own churches, they were compelled to have porters, who, after the second half of the third century, were reckoned among the minor clergy. From Rome the employment of porters (Lat. ostiarius, rarely wdituus and mansionarius; Greek, pyloros, thuroros, or ostiarios) spread, so that most Western and some Eastern communities possessed them in the fourth century. Since the office was entrusted only to persons of settled age, and since frequent changes were undesirable, the ostiarius was debarred from ecclesiastical advancement. An ordination rite, with the giving of the keys of the church as its central feature, is given in the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, ix., and, more fully, in the Sacramentary of Gregory (MPL, lxxviii. 218). In the East the order declined earlier than in the West, though ostiarii are mentioned as late as the Trullan Council of 692. Also in the Roman Church sacristans are no longer clergy, though the ostiarius ordination is still conferred, as a matter of form, at the beginning of the clerical career. (H. Achelis.)
Bibliography: Bingham, Origines, III., vi.; J. G. Geret, De exorcistis et ostiariis, Ansbach, 1747.
OSTORODT, CHRISTOPH. See Socintjs, Fatts-