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his vast journeys appears to have made a much greater impression on the laity of his native territory than on his Franciscan brethren. The latter were about to bury him without delay or ceremony, but the gastald or chief magistrate of the city interfered and appointed a public funeral; rumours of his wondrous travels and of posthumous miracles were diffused, and excitement spread like wildfire over Friuli and Carniola; the ceremony had to be deferred more than once, and at last took place in presence of the patriarch of Aquileia and all the local dignitaries. Popular acclamation made him an object of devotion, the municipality erected a noble shrine for his body, and his fame as samt and traveller had spread far and wide before the middle of the century, but it was not till four centuries later (1755) that the papal authority formally sanctioned his beatification. A bust of Odoric was set up at Pordenone in 1881.

ODORIC (c. 1286-1331), styled "of Pordenone," one of the chief travellers of the later middle ages, and a Beatus of the Roman Church, was born at Villa Nuova, a hamlet near the town of Pordenone in Friuli, in or about 1286. According to the ecclesiastical biographers, in early years he took the vows of the Franciscan order and joined their convent at Udine, the capital of Friuli. Friar Odoric was despatched to the East, where a remarkable extension of missionary action was then taking place, about 1316-1318, and did not return till the end of 1329 or beginning of 1330; but, as regards intermediate dates, all that we can deduce from his narrative or other evidence is that he was in western India soon after 1321 (pretty certainly in 1322) and that he spent three years in China between the opening of 1323 and the close of 1328. His route to the East lay by Trebizond and Erzerum to Tabriz and Sultanieh, in all of which places the order The numerous copies of Odoric's narrative (both of the original had houses. From Sultanich he proceeded by Kashan and text and of the versions in French, Italian, &c.) that have come Yazd, and turning thence followed a somewhat devious route by down to our time, chiefly from the 14th century, show how Persepolis and the Shiraz and Bagdad regions, to the Persian speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It does not deserve Gulf. At Hormuz he embarked for India, landing at Thana, the charge of mendacity brought against it by some, though near Bombay. At this city four brethren of his order, three of the adulation of others is nearly as injudicious. Odoric's credit them Italians and the fourth a Georgian, had shortly before was not benefited by the liberties which Sir John Mandeville met death at the hands of the Mahommedan governor. The took with it. The substance of that knight's alleged travels bones of the martyred friars had been collected by Friar Jordanus in India and Cathay is stolen from Odoric, though amplified of Séverac, a Dominican, who carried them to Supera-the❘ with fables from other sources and from his own invention, and Suppara of the ancient geographers, near the modern Bassein, garnished with his own unusually clear astronomical notions. about 26 m. north of Bombay-and buried them there Odoric We may indicate a few passages which stamp Odoric as a genuine tells that he disinterred these relics and carried them with and original traveller. He is the first European, after Marco him on his further travels. In the course of these he visited Polo, who distinctly mentions the name of Sumatra. The Malabar, touching at Pandarani (20 m, north of Calicut), at cannibalism and community of wives which he attributes to Cranganore, and at Kulam or Quilon, proceeding thence, appar- certain races of that island do certainly belong to it, or to islands ently, to Ceylon and to the shrine of St Thomas at Maylapur closely adjoining. His description of sago in the archipelago near Madras. From India he sailed in a junk to Sumatra, is not free from errors, but they are the errors of an eye-witness. visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island, and In China his mention of Canton by the name of Censcolam or thence to Java, to the coast (it would seem) of Borneo, to Censcalam (Chin-Kalan), and his descriptions of the custom Champa (South Cochin-China), and to Canton, at that time of fishing with tame cormorants, of the habit of letting the known to western Asiatics as Chin-Kalan or Great China (Maha-finger-nails grow extravagantly, and of the compression of chin). From Canton he travelled overland to the great ports of Fukien, at one of which, Zayton or Amoy harbour, he found two houses of his order; in one of these he deposited the bones of the brethren who had suffered in India. From Fuchow he struck across the mountains into Cheh-kiang and visited Hangchow, then renowned, under the name of Cansay, Khanzai, or Quinsai (i.e. Kingsze or royal residence), as the greatest city in the world, of whose splendours Odoric, like Marco Polo, Marignolli, or Ibn Batuta, gives notable details. Passing northward by Nanking and crossing the Yangtsze-kiang, Odoric embarked on the Great Canal and travelled to Cambalec (otherwise Cambaleth, Cambaluc, &c.) or Peking, where he remained for three years, attached, no doubt, to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John of Monte Corvino, at this time in extreme old age. Returning overland across Asia, through the Land of Prester John and through Casan, the adventurous traveller seems to have entered Tibet, and even perhaps to have visited Lhasa. After this we trace the friar in northern Persia, in Millestorte, once famous as the Land of the Assassins in the Elburz highlands. No further indications of his homeward route (to Venice) are given, though it is almost certain that he passed through Tabriz. The vague and fragmentary character of the narrative, in this section, forcibly contrasts with the clear and careful tracing of the outward way. During a part at least of these long journeys the companion of Odoric was Friar James, an Irishman, as appears from a record in the public books of Udine, showing that shortly after Odoric's death a present of two marks was made to this Irish friar, Socio beati Fratris Odorici, amore Dei et Odorici. Shortly after his return Odoric betook himself to the Minorite house attached to St Anthony's at Padua, and it was there that in May 1330 he related the story of his travels, which was taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Solagna. Travelling towards the papal court at Avignon, Odoric fell ill at Pisa, and turning back to Udine, the capital of his native province, died in the convent there on the 14th of January 1331. The fame of

women's feet, are peculiar to him among the travellers of that age; Marco Polo omits them all.

Seventy-three MSS. of Odoric's narrative are known to exist in Latin, French and Italian: of these the chief is in Paris, National Library, MSS. Lat. 2584, fols. 118 r.-127 v., of about 1350. The calls lingua inculta e rozza. narrative was first printed at Pesaro in 1513, in what Apostolo Zeno Ramusio's collection first contains it in the 2nd vol. of the 2nd edition (1574) (Italian version), in which are given two versions, differing curiously from one another, but without any prefatory matter or explanation. (See also edition of 1583, vol. ii. fols. 245 r.-256 r.) Another (Latin) version is given in the Acta Sanctorum (Bollandist) under the 14th of January. The curious discussion before the papal court respecting the beatification of Odoric forms a kind of blue-book issued ex typographia rev. camerae apostolicae (Rome, 1755). Professor Friedrich Kunstmann of Munich devoted one of his valuable papers to Odoric's narrative (Histor-polit. Blatter von Phillips und Görres, vol. xxxviii. pp. 507537). The best editions of Odoric are by G. Venni, Elogio storico alle gesta del Beato Odorico (Venice, 1761); H. Yule in Cathay and the Way Thither, vol. i. pp. 1-162, vol. ii. appendix, pp. 1-42 (London, 1866), Hakluyt Society; and H. Cordier, Les Voyages... du frère Odoric: (Paris, 1891) (edition of Old French version of c. 1350). The edition by T. Domenichelli (Prato, 1881) may also be mentioned; likewise those texts of Odoric embedded in the Storia universale delle Missione Francescane, iii. 739-781, and in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (1599), ii. 39-67. See also John of Viktring (Joannes Victoriensis) in Fontes rerum Germanicarum, ed. J. F. Boehmer; vol. i. ed. by J. G. Cotta (Stuttgart, 1843), p. 391; Wadding, Annales Minorum, A.D. 1331, vol. vii. pp. 123-126; Bartholomew Albizzi, Opus conformitatum B. Francisci bk. i. par. ii. conf. 8 (fel. 124 of Milan, edition of 1513); John of Winterthur in Eccard, Corpus historicum medii aevi, vol. i. cols. 1894-1897, especially 1894; C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 250-287, 548-549, 554, 565-566, 612-613, &c.

(H. Y.; C. R. B.)

ODYLIC FORCE, a term once in vogue to explain the phenomenon of hypnotism (q.v.). In 1845 considerable attention was drawn to the announcement by Baron von Reichenbach "influence" developed of a so-called new "imponderable" or by certain crystals, magnets, the human body, associated with heat, chemical action, or electricity, and existing throughout

the universe, to which he gave the name of odyl. Persons sensitive to odyl saw luminous phenomena near the poles of magnets, or even around the hands or heads of certain persons in whose bodies the force was supposed to be concentrated. In Britain an impetus was given to this view of the subject by the translation in 1850 of Reichenbach's Researches on Magnetism, &c., in relation to Vital Force, by Dr Gregory, professor of chemistry in the university of Edinburgh. These Researches show many of the phenomena to be of the same nature as those described previously by F. A. Mesmer, and even long before Mesmer's time by Swedenborg.

was when the Ionian ships were beginning to penetrate to the farthest shores of the Black Sea and to the western side of Italy, but when Egypt had not yet been freely opened to foreign intercourse. The adventures of Odysseus were a favourite subject in ancient art, in which he may usually be recognized by his conical sailor's cap.

See article by J. Schmidt in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie (where the different forms of the name and its etymology are fully discussed); O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. pp. 624, 705-718; J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature (1881), with appendix on authorities. W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte (1905), ii. p. 106; O. Seeck, Gesch. des Untergangs der antiken Welt, ii. p. 576; G. Fougères, Mantinée et l'Arcadie orientale (1898), according to whom Odysseus is an Arcadian chthonian divinity and Penelope a goddess of flocks and herds, akin to the Arcadian Artemis; S. Eitrem, Die göttlichen Zwillinge bei den Griechen (1902), who identifies Odysseus with one of the Dioscuri ('Oλvryes = Iloλvõetens); V. Bérard, Les Phéniciens et l'Odyssée (1902-1903), who regards the Odyssey as "the integration in a Greek vooros (home-coming) of a Semitic periplus," in the form of a poem written 900-850 B.C. by an Ionic poet at the court of one of the Neleid kings of Miletus. For an estimate of this work, the interest of which is mainly geographical, see Classical Review (April 1904) and Quarterly Review (April 1905). It consists of two large volumes, with 240 illustrations and maps. OEBEN, JEAN FRANÇOIS, French 18th-century cabinetmaker, is believed to have been of German or Flemish origin; the date of his birth is unknown, but he was dead before 1767. In 1752, twenty years after Boulle's death, we find him occupying an apartment in the Louvre sublet to him by Charles Joseph Boulle, whose pupil he may have been. He has sometimes been confused with Simon Oeben, presumably a relative, who signed a fine bureau in the Jones collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. J. F. Oeben is also represented in that collection by a pair of inlaid corner-cupboards. These with a bureau and a chiffonier in the Garde Meuble in which bouquets of flowers are delicately inlaid in choice woods are his best-known and most admirable achievements. He appears to have worked extensively for the marquise de Pompadour by whose influence he was granted lodgings at the Gobelins and the title of "Ebéniste du Roi" in 1754. There he remained until 1760, when he obtained an apartment and workshops at the Arsenal. His work in marquetry is of very great distinction, but he would probably never have enjoyed so great a reputation had it not been for his connexion with the famous Bureau du Roi, made for Louis XV., which appears to have owed its inception to him, notwithstanding that it was not completed until some considerable time after his death and is signed by J. H. Riesener (q.v.) only. Documentary evidence under the hand of the king shows that it was ordered from Oeben in 1760, the year in which he moved to the Arsenal. The known work of Oeben possesses genuine grace and beauty; as craftsmanship it is of the first rank, and it is remarkpro-able that, despite his Teutonic or Flemish origin, it is typically French in character.

ODYSSEUS (in Latin Ulixes, incorrectly written Ulysses), in Greek legend, son of Laërtes and Anticleia, king of Ithaca, a famous hero and typical representative of the Greek race. In Homer he is one of the best and bravest of the heroes, and the favourite of Athena, whereas in later legend he is cowardly and deceitful. Soon after his marriage to Penelope he was summoned to the Trojan war. Unwilling to go, he feigned madness, ploughing a field sown with salt with an ox and an ass yoked together; but Palamedes discovered his deceit by placing his infant child Telemachus in front of the plough; Odysseus afterwards revenged himself by compassing the death of Palamedes. During the war, he distinguished himself as the wisest adviser of the Greeks, and finally, the capture of Troy, which the bravery of Achilles could not accomplish, was attained by Odysseus' stratagem of the wooden horse. After the death of Achilles the Greeks adjudged his armour to Odysseus as the man who had done most to end the war successfully. When Troy was captured he set sail for Ithaca, but was carried by unfavourable winds to the coast of Africa. After encountering many adventures in all parts of the unknown seas, among the lotuseaters and the Cyclopes, in the isles of Aeolus and Circe and the perils of Scylla and Charybdis, among the Lacstrygones, and even in the world of the dead, having lost all his ships and companions, he barely escaped with his life to the island of Calypso, where he was detained eight years, an unwilling lover of the beautiful nymph. Then at the command of Zeus he was sent homewards, but was again wrecked on the island of Phaeacia, whence he was conveyed to Ithaca in one of the wondrous Phaeacian ships. Here he found that a host of suitors, taking advantage of the youth of his son Telemachus, were wasting his property and trying to force Penelope to marry one of them. The stratagems and disguises by which with the help of a few faithful friends he slew the suitors are described at length in the Odyssey. The only allusion to his death is contained in the prophecy of Teiresias, who promised him a happy old age and a peaceful death from the sea. According to a later legend, Telegonus, the son of Odysseus by Circe, was sent by her in search of his father. Cast ashore on Ithaca by a storm, he plundered the island to get visions, and was attacked by Odysseus, whom he slew. The prophecy was thus fulfilled. Telegonus, accompanied by Penelope and Telemachus, returned to his home with the body of his father, whose identity he had discovered.

OECOLAMPADIUS, JOHN (1482-1531), German Reformer, whose real name was Hussgen or Heussgen,' was born at Weinsberg, a small town in the north of the modern kingdom of Württemberg, but then belonging to the Palatinate. He went to school at Weinsberg and Heilbronn, and then, intending to study law, he went to Bologna, but soon returned to Heidelberg and betook himself to theology. He became a zealous student of the new learning and passed from the study of Greek to that of Hebrew, taking his bachelor's degree in 1503. He became cathedral preacher at Basel in 1515, serving under Christopher von Uttenheim, the evangelical bishop of Basel. From the beginning the sermons of Oecolampadius centred in the Atone

According to E. Meyer (Hermes, xxx. p. 267), Odysseus is an old Arcadian nature god identical with Poseidon, who dies at the approach of winter (retires to the western sea or is carried away to the underworld) to revive in spring (but see E. Rohde, Rhein. Mus. 1. p. 631). A more suitable identification would be Hermes. Mannhardt and others regard Odysseus as a solar or summer divinity, who withdraws to the underworld during the winter, and returns in spring to free his wife from the suitors (the powers of winter). A. Gercke (Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, xv. p. 331) takes him to be an agriculturalment, and his first reformatory zeal showed itself in a protest divinity akin to the sun god, whose wife is the moon-goddess | (De risu paschali, 1518) against the introduction of humorous Penelope, from whom he is separated and reunited to her on stories into Easter sermons. In 1520 he published his Greck the day of the new moon. His cult early disappeared; in Grammar. The same year he was asked to become preacher Arcadia his place was taken by Poseidon. But although the in the high church in Augsburg. Germany was then ablaze personality of Odysseus may have had its origin in some primitive with the questions raised by Luther's theses, and his introduction religious myth, chief interest attaches to him as the typical into this new world, when at first he championed Luther's representative of the old sailor-race whose adventurous voyages position especially in his anonymous Canonici indocti (1519), educated and moulded the Hellenic race. The period when the seems to have compelled Oecolampadius to severe self-examinacharacter of Odysseus took shape among the Ionian bardsChanged to Hausschein and then into the Greek equivalent

tion, which ended in his entering a convent and becoming a monk. A short experience convinced him that this was not for him the ideal Christian life ("amisi monachum, inveni Christianum "), and in February 1522 he made his way to Ebernburg, near Creuznach, where he acted as chaplain to the little group of men holding the new opinions who had settled there under the leadership of Franz von Sickingen.

The second period of Oecolampadius's life opens with his return to Basel in November 1522, as vicar of St Martin's and (in 1523) reader of the Holy Scripture at the university. Lecturing on Isaiah he condemned current ecclesiastical abuses, and in a public disputation (20th of August 1523) was so successful that Erasmus writing to Zürich said "Oecolampadius has the upper hand amongst us." He became Zwingli's best helper, and after more than a year of earnest preaching and four public disputations in which the popular verdict had been given in favour of Oecolampadius and his friends, the authorities of Basel began to see the necessity of some reformation. They began with the convents, and Oecolampadius was able to refrain in public worship on certain festival days from some practices he believed to be superstitious. Basel was slow to accept the Reformation; the news of the Peasants' War and the inroads of Anabaptists prevented progress; but at last, in 1525, it seemed as if the authorities were resolved to listen to schemes for restoring the purity of worship and teaching. In the midst of these hopes and difficulties Oecolampadius married, in the beginning of 1528, Wilibrandis Rosenblatt, the widow of Ludwig Keller, who proved to be non rixosa vel garrula vel vaga, he says, and made him a good wife. After his death she married Capito, and, when Capito died, Bucer. She died in 1564. In January 1528 Oecolampadius and Zwingli took part in the disputation at Berne which led to the adoption of the new faith in that canton, and in the following year to the discontinuance of the mass at Basel. The Anabaptists claimed Oecolampadius for their views, but in a disputation with them he dissociated himself from most of their positions. He died on the 24th of November 1531.

Oecolampadius was not a great theologian, like Luther, Zwingli or Calvin, and yet he was a trusted theological leader. With Zwingli he represented the Swiss views at the unfortunate conference at Marburg. His views on the Eucharist upheld the metaphorical against the literal interpretation of the word "body," but he asserted that believers partook of the sacrament more for the sake of others than for their own, though later he emphasized it as a means of grace for the Christian life. To Luther's doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body he opposed that of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in the church. He did not minutely analyse the doctrine of predestination as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli did, contenting himself with the summary" Our Salvation is of God, our perdition of ourselves." Sce J. J. Herzog, Leben Joh. Oecolampads u. die Reformation der Kirche zu Basel (1843); K. R. Hagenbach, Johann Oecolampad u. Oswald Myconius, die Reformatoren Basels (1859). For other literature see W. Hadorn's art. in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopädie für prot. Rel. u. Kirche.

OECUS, the Latinized form of Gr. oikos, house, used by Vitruvius for the principal hall or saloon in a Roman house, which was used occasionally as a triclinium for banquets. When of great size it became necessary to support its ceiling with columns; thus, according to Vitruvius, the tetrastyle oecus had four columns; in the Corinthian oecus there was a row of columns on each side, virtually therefore dividing the room into nave and aisles, the former being covered over with a semicircular ceiling. The Egyptian oecus had a similar plan, but the aisles were of less height, so that clerestory windows were introduced to light the room, which, as Vitruvius states, presents more the appearance of a basilica than of a triclinium.

OEDIPUS (Οἰδίπους, Οιδιπόδης, Οἰδίπος, from Gr. οἰδεῖν swell, and wous foot, i.e. " the swollen-footed ") in Greek legend, son of Laïus, king of Thebes, and Jocasta (Iocastē). Laïus, having been warned by an oracle that he would be killed by his son, ordered him to be exposed, with his feet pierced, immediately after his birth. Thus Oedipus grew up ignorant of his parentage, and, meeting Laïus in a narrow way, quarrelled with him and slew him. The country was ravaged by a monster, the Sphinx; Oedipus solved the riddle which it proposed to its victims, freed the country, and married his own mother. In the Odyssey it is said that the gods disclosed the impiety. Epicastě (as Jocasta is called in Homer) hanged herself, and Oedipus lived as king in Thebes tormented by the Erinyes of his mother. In the tragic poets the tale takes a different form. Oedipus fulfils an ancient prophecy in killing his father; he is the blind instrument in the hands of fate. The further treatment of the tale by Aeschylus is unknown. Sophocles describes in his Oedipus Tyrannus how Oedipus was resolved to pursue to the end the mystery of the death of Laius, and thus unravelled the dark tale, and in horror put out his own eyes. The sequel of the tale is told in the Oedipus Coloneus. Banished by his sons, he is tended by the loving care of his daughters. He comes to Attica and dies in the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, in his death welcomed and pardoned by the fate which had pursued him throughout his life. In addition to the two tragedies of Sophocles, the legend formed the subject of a trilogy by Aeschylus, of which only the Seven against Thebes is extant; of the Phoenissae of Euripides; and of the Oedipus and Phoenissae of Seneca.

"Le

See A. Höfer's exhaustive article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mytho logie; F. W. Schneidewin, Die Sage von Oedipus (1852); D. Com. paretti, Edipo e la mitologia comparata (1867); M. Bréal, Mythe d'Edipe," in Mélanges de mythologie (1878), who explains Oedipus as a personification of light, and his blinding as the disappearance of the sun at the end of the day; J. Paulson in Eranos. Acta philologica Suecana, i. (Upsala, 1896) places the original home of the legend in Egyptian Thebes, and identifies Oedipus with the Egyptian god Seth, represented as the hippopotamus" with swollen foot," which was said to kill its father in order to take its place with the mother. O. Crusius (Beiträge zur griechischen Mythologie, 1886, p. 21) sees in the marriage of Oedipus with his mother an agrarian myth (with special reference to Ocd. Tyr. 1497), while Höfer (in Roscher's Lexikon) suggests that the episodes of the murder of his father and of his marriage are reminiscences of the overthrow of Cronus by Zeus and of the union of Zeus with his own sister.

OECOLOGY. or ECOLOGY (from Gr. olkos, house, and Xóyos, department of science), that part of the science of biology which treats of the adaptation of plants or animals to their environ-associated with the name of Judas. The main idea is the same ment (see PLANTS: Ecology).

OECUMENICAL (through the Lat. from Gr. oikovμEVIKós, universal, belonging to the whole inhabited world, oikovμevn sc. yn, oikeiv, to dwell), a word chiefly used in the sense of belonging to the universal Christian Church. It is thus specifically applied to the general councils of the early church (see COUNCIL). In the Roman Church a council is regarded as occumenical when it has been summoned from the whole church under the presidency of the pope or his legates; the decrees confirmed by the pope are binding. The word has also been applied to assemblies of other religious bodies, such as the Oecumenical Methodist Conferences, which met for the first time in 1831. "Oecumenical " has also been the title of the patriarch of Constantinople since the 6th century (see ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH).

Medieval Legends.-In the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (13th century) and the Mystère de la Passion of Jean Michel (15th century) and Arnoul Gréban (15th century), the story of Oedipus is as in the classical account. The Judas legend, however, never really became popular, whereas that of Oedipus was handed down both orally and in written national tales (Albanian. Finnish, Cypriote). One incident (the incest unwittingly committed) frequently recurs in connexion with the life of Gregory the Great. The Theban legend, which reached its fullest development in the Thebaïs of Statius and in Seneca, reappeared in the Roman de Thèbes (the work of an unknown imitator of Benoit de Sainte-More). Oedipus is also the subject of an anonymous medieval romance (15th century), Le Roman d'Edipus, fils de Layus, in which the sphinx is depicted as a cunning and ferocious giant. The Oedipus legend was handed down to the period of the Renaissance by the Roman and its imitations, which then fell into oblivion. Even to the present day the legend has

It is probable that the story of the piercing of his feet is a subsequent invention to explain the name, or is due to a false etymology (from oidiw), oidirous in reality meaning the "wise" (from olda), chiefly in reference to his having solved the riddle, the syllable -rous having no significance.

OEHLER-OELSNITZ

survived amongst the modern Greeks, without any traces of the influence of Christianity (B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, 1877). The works of the ancient tragedians (especially Seneca, in preference to the Greek) came into vogue, and were slavishly followed by French and Italian imitators down to the 17th century. See L. Constans, La Légende d'Edipe dans l'antiquité, au moyen âge, et dans les temps modernes (1881); D. Comparetti's Edipo and Jebb's introduction for the Oedipus of Dryden, Corneille and Voltaire; A. Heintze, Gregorius auf dem Steine, der mittelalterliche Oedipus "Russische Verwandte der (progr., Stolp, 1877); V. Diederichs, Legende von Gregor auf dem Stein und der Sage von Judas Ischariot," in Russische Revue (1880); S. Novakovitch, "Die Oedipussage in der südslavischen Volksdichtung," in Archiv für slavische Philologie xi. (1888). OEHLER, GUSTAV FRIEDRICH (1812-1872), German theologian, was born on the roth of June 1812 at Ebingen, Württemberg, and was educated privately and at Tübingen where he was much influenced by J. C. F. Steudel, professor of Old Testament Theology. In 1837, after a term of Oriental study at Berlin, he went to Tübingen as Repetent, becoming in 1840 professor at the seminary and pastor in Schönthal. In 1845 he published his Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, accepted an invitation to Breslau and received the degree of doctor from Bonn. In 1852 he returned to Tübingen as director of the seminary and professor of Old Testament Theology at the university. He declined a call to Erlangen as successor to Franz Delitzsch (1867), and died at Tübingen on the 19th of February 1872. Oehler admitted the composite authorship of the Pentateuch and the Book of Isaiah, and did much to counteract the antipathy against the Old Testament that had been fostered by Schleiermacher. In church polity he was Lutheran rather than Reformed. Besides his Old Testament Theology (Eng. trans., 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1874-1875), his works were Gesammelte Seminarreden (1872) and Lehrbuch Symbolik (1876), both published posthumously, and about forty articles for the first edition of Herzog's Realencyklopädie which were largely retained by Delitzsch and von Orelli in the second.

OEHRINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, agreeably situated in a fertile country, on the Ohrn, 12 m. E. from Heilbronn by the railways to Hall and Crailsheim. Pop. (1905) 3,450. It is a quaint medieval place, and, among its ancient buildings, boasts a fine Evangelical church, containing carvings in cedar-wood of the 15th century and numerous interesting tombs and monuments; a Renaissance town hall; the building, now used as a library, which formerly belonged to a monastery, erected in 1034; and a palace, the residence of the princes of Hohenlohe-Oehringen.

Oehringen is the Vicus Aurelii of the Romans. Eastwards of it ran the old Roman frontier wall, and numerous remains and inscriptions dating from the days of the Roman settlement have been recently discovered, including traces of three

camps.

name.

See Keller, Vicus Aurelii, oder Öhringen zur Zeit der Römer (Bonn, 1872). OELS, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, formerly the capital of a mediatized principality of its own It lies in a sandy plain on the Oelsbach, 20 m. N.E. of Breslau by rail. Pop. (1905) 10,940. The princely château, now the property of the crown prince of Prussia, dating from 1558 and beautifully restored in 1891-1894, contains a good library and a collection of pictures. Of its three Evangelical churches, the Schlosskirche dates from the 13th century and the Propstkirche from the 14th. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in making shoes and growing vegetables for the Breslau market.

Oels was founded about 940, and became a town in 1255. It appears as the capital of an independent principality at the beginning of the 14th century. The principality, with an area of 700 sq. m. and about 130,000 inhabitants, passed through various hands and was inherited by the ducal family of Brunswick in 1792. Then on the extinction of this family in 1884 it lapsed to the crown of Prussia.

See W. Häusler, Geschichte des Fürstentums Öls bis zum Aussterben der piastischen Herzogslinie (Breslau, 1883); and Schulze, Die Succession im Fürstentum Öls (Breslau, 1884).

QELSCHLÄGER (OLEARIUS), ADAM (1600-1671), German traveller and Orientalist, was born at Aschersleben, near Magdeburg, in 1599 or 1600. After studying at Leipzig he became librarian and court mathematician to Duke Frederick III. of Holstein-Gottorp, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadors Philip Crusius, jurisconsult, and Otto Brüggemann or Brugman, merchant, sent by the duke to Muscovy and Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly-founded city of Friedrichstadt should become the terminus of an overland silk-trade. This embassy started from Gottorp on the 22nd of October 1633, and travelled by Hamburg, Lübeck, Riga, Dorpat (five months' stay), Revel, Narva, Ladoga and Novgorod to Moscow (August 14, 1634). Here they concluded an advantageous treaty with Michael Romanov, and returned forthwith to Gottorp (December 14, 1634ment from the duke, before proceeding to Persia. This accomApril 7, 1635) to procure the ratification of this arrangeplished, they started afresh from Hamburg on the 22nd of October 1635, arrived at Moscow on the 29th of March 1636; and left Moscow on the 30th of June for Nizhniy Novgorod, whither they had already sent agents (in 1634-1635) to prepare a vessel for their descent of the Volga. Their voyage down the great river and over the Caspian was slow and hindered by accidents, especially by grounding, as near Derbent on the (three months' delay here), Ardebil, Sultanieh and Kasvin, 14th of November 1636; but at last, by way of Shemakha and were received by the shah (August 16). Negotiations they reached the Persian court at Isfahan (August 3, 1637), here were not as successful as at Moscow, and the embassy left Isfahan on the 21st of December 1637, and returned home by Resht, Lenkoran, Astrakhan, Kazan, Moscow, &c. At Revel Oelschläger parted from his colleagues (April 15, 1639) and embarked direct for Lübeck. On his way he had made a chart of the Volga, and partly for this reason the tsar Michael wished to persuade, or compel, him to enter his service. Once back at Gottorp, Oelschläger became librarian to the duke, who also made him keeper of his Cabinet of Curiosities, and induced the tsar to excuse his (promised) return to Moscow. Under his care the Gottorp library and cabinet were greatly enriched in MSS., books, and oriental and other works of art: in 1651 he purchased, for this purpose, the collection of the Dutch scholar and physician, Bernard ten Broecke ("Paludanus"). He died at Gottorp on the 22nd of February 1671.

It is by his admirable narrative of the Russian and the Persian legation (Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise, &c.) that Oelschläger is best known, though he also published a Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions, 1656, history of Holstein (Kurtzer Begriff einer holsteinischen Chronic, cabinet (1666), and a translation of the Gulistan (Persianisches Schleswig, 1663), a famous catalogue of the Holstein-Gottorp A French version of the Beschreibung Rosenthal, Schleswig, 1654), to which was appended a translation was published by Abraham de Wicquefort (Voyages en Moscovie, of the fables of Lokman. version was made by John Davies of Kidwelly (Travels of the AmTartarie et Perse, par Adam Olearius, Paris, 1656), an English bassadors sent by Frederic, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia, London, 1662; 2nd ed., 1669), and a Dutch translation by Dieterius van Wageningen (Beschrijvingh di Moscovia, Viterbo and Rome, 1658). Paul Flemming the poet van de nieuwe Parciaensche ofte Orientaelsche Reyse, Utrecht, 1651); an Italian translation of the Russian sections also appeared (Viaggi and J. A. de Mandelslo, whose travels to the East Indies are usually published with those of Oelschläger, accompanied the embassy. Under Oelschläger's direction the celebrated globe of Gottorp 1664; the globe was given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1713 by Duke Frederick's grandson, Christian Augustus. Oelschläger's (C. R. B.) (11 ft. in diameter) and armillary sphere were executed in 1654unpublished works include a Lexicon Persicum and several other Persian studies.

OELSNITZ, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Weisse Elster, 26 m. by rail S.W. of Zwickau. Pop.

being the old Gothic Jakobskirche, and several schools. There are various manufactories. Oelsnitz belonged in the 14th and (1905) 13,966. It has two Evangelical churches, one of them electors of Saxony. Near it is the village of Voigtsberg, with 15th centuries to the margraves of Meissen, and later to the

the remains of a castle, once a residence of the governor (Vogt) | body, whether it be a coin, fishbone, toothplate or a portion of of the Vogtland.

See Jahn, Chronik der Stadt Ölsnitz (1875).

OELWEIN, a city of Fayette county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 132 m. N.E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 830; (1900) 5142, of whom 789 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 6028. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Chicago Great Western railways, the latter having large repair shops here, where four lines of its road converge. Oelwein was named in honour of its founder, August Oelwein, who settled here in 1873; it was incorporated in 1888, and chartered as a city in 1897.

OENOMAÜS, in Greek legend, son of Ares and Harpinna, king of Pisa in Elis and father of Hippodameia. It was predicted that he should be slain by his daughter's husband. His father, the god Ares-Hippius, gave him winged horses swift as the wind, and Oenomaüs promised his daughter to the man who could outstrip him in the chariot race, hoping thus to prevent her marriage altogether. Pelops, by the treachery of Myrtilus, the charioteer of Ocnomaüs, won the race and married Hippodameia. The defeat of Oenomaüs by Pelops, a stranger from Asia Minor, points to the conquest of native Aresworshippers by immigrants who introduced the new religion of Zeus.

See Diod. Sic. iv. 73; Pausanias vi. 21, and elsewhere; Sophocles, Electra, 504; Hyginus, Fab. 84. 253. Fig. 33 in article GREEK ART represents the preparations for the chariot race.

OENONE, in Greek legend, daughter of the river-god Kebren and wife of Paris. Possessing the gift of divination, she warned her husband of the evils that would result from his journey to Greece. The sequel was the rape of Helen and the Trojan War. Just before the capture of the city, Paris, wounded by Philoctetes with one of the arrows of Heracles, sought the aid of the deserted Oenone, who had told him that she alone could heal him if wounded. Indignant at his faithlessness, she refused to help him, and Paris returned to Troy and died of his wound. Oenone soon repented and hastened after him, but finding that she was too late to save him slew herself from grief at the sight of his dead body. Ovid (Heroïdes, 5) gives a pathetic description of Oenone's grief when she found herself deserted.

OERLAMS, the name (said to be a corruption of the. Dutch Oberlanders) for a Hottentot tribal group living in Great Namaqualand. They came originally from Little Namaqualand in Cape Colony. They are of very mixed Hottentot-Bantu blood.

OESEL (in Esthonian Kure-saare or Saare-ma), a Russian island in the Baltic, forming with Worms, Mohn and Runö, a district of the government of Livonia, and lying across the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, 106 m. N.N.W. of the city of Riga. It has a length of 45 m., and an area of 1010 sq. m. The coasts are bold and steep, and, especially towards the north and west, form precipitous limestone cliffs. Like those of Shetland, the Oesel ponies are small, but prized for their spirit and endurance. The population, numbering 50,566 in 1870 and 60,000 in 1900, is mainly Protestant in creed, and, with the exception of the German nobility, clergy and some of the townsfolk, Esthonian by race. The chief town, Arensburg, on the south coast, is a place of 4600 inhabitants, with summer sca-bathing, mud baths and a trade in grain, potatoes, whisky and fish. In 1227 Oesel was conquered by the Knights of the Sword, and was governed by its own bishops till 1561, when it passed into the hands of the Danes. By them it was surrendered to the Swedes by the peace of Brömsebro (1645), and, along with Livonia, it was united to Russia in 1721.

OESOPHAGUS (Gr. oïow I will carry, and dayev, to eat), in anatomy, the gullet; see ALIMENTARY CANAL for comparative anatomy. The human oesophagus is peculiarly liable to certain accidents and diseases, due both to its function as a tube to carry food to the stomach and to its anatomical situation (see generally DIGESTIVE ORGANS). One of the commonest accidents is the lodgment of foreign bodies in some part of the tube. The situations in which they are arrested vary with the nature of the

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food. An impacted substance may be removed by the oesophageal forceps, or by a coin-catcher; if it should be impossible to draw it up it may be pushed down into the stomach. When it is in the stomach a purgative should never be given, but soft food such as porridge. Should gastric symptoms develop it may have to be removed by the operation of gastrotomy. Charring and ulceration of the oesophagus may occur from the swallowing of corrosive liquids, strong acids or alkalis, or even of boiling water. Stricture of the oesophagus is a closing of the tube so that neither solids nor liquids are able to pass down into the stomach. There are three varieties of stricture; spasmodic, fibrous and malignant. Spasmodic stricture usually occurs in young hysterical women; difficulty in swallowing is complained of, and a bougie may not be able to be passed, but under an anaesthetic will slip down quite easily.. Fibrous stricture is usually situated near the commencement of the oesophagus, generally just behind the cricoid cartilage, and usually results from swallowing corrosive fluids, but may also result from the healing of a syphilitic ulcer. Occasionally it is congenital. The ordinary treatment is repeated dilatation by bougies. Occasionally division of a fibrous stricture has been practised, or a Symond's tube inserted. Mikulicz recommends dilatation of the stricture by the fingers from inside after an incision into the stomach or a permanent gastric fistula may have to be made. Malignant strictures are usually epitheliomatous in structure, and may be situated in any part of the oesophagus. They nearly always occur in males between the ages of 40 and 70 years. An X-ray photograph taken after the patient has swallowed a preparation of bismuth will show the situation of the growth, and Kilhan and Brünig have introduced an instrument called the oesophagoscope, which makes direct examination possible. The remedy of constant dilatation by bougies must not be attempted here, the walls of the oesophagus being so softened by disease and ulceration that severe haemorrhage or perforation of the walls of the tube might take place. The patient should be fed with purely liquid and concentrated nourishment in order to give the oesophagus as much rest as possible, or if the stricture be too tight rectal feeding may be necessary. Symond's method of tubage is well borne by some patients, the tube having attached to it a long string which is secured to the check or ear. The most satisfactory treatment, however, is the operation of gastrotomy, a permanent artificial opening being made into the stomach through which the patient can be fed.

OETA (mod. Kotavothra), a mountain to the south of Thessaly, in Greece, forming a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and the Bocotian Cephissus. It is an offshoot of the Pindus range, 7080 ft. high. In its castern portion, called Callidromus, it comes close to the sea, leaving only a narrow passage known as the famous pass of Thermopylae (q.v.). There was also a high pass to the west of Callidromus leading over into the upper Cephissus valley. In mythology Oeta is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the funeral pyre on which Heracles burnt himself before his admission to Olympus.

OETINGER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH (1702-1782), German divine and theosophist, was born at Göppingen on the 6th of May 1702. He studied theology at Tübingen (1722-1728), and was much impressed by the works of Jakob Böhme. On the completion of his university course, Oetinger spent some years in travel. In 1730 he visited Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut, remaining there some months as teacher of Hebrew and Greek. During his travels, in his eager search for knowledge, he made the acquaintance of mystics and separatists, Christians and learned Jews, theologians and physicians alike. At Halle he studied medicine. After some delay he was ordained to the ministry, and held several pastorates. While pastor (from 1746) at Waldorf near Berlin, he studied alchemy and made many experiments, his idea being to use his knowledge for symbolic purposes. These practices exposed him to the attacks of persons who misunderstood him. "My religion," he once said, "is the parallelism of Nature and Grace." Oetinger translated Swedenborg's philosophy of heaven and earth, and added notes

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