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’Œdipe 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 (progr., Stolp, 1877); V. Diederichs, “Russische Verwandte der 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 10th 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.
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
name. 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).
OELSCHLÄGER [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, 1634–April 7,
1635) to procure the ratification of this arrangement
from the duke, before proceeding to Persia. This accomplished,
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
14th of November 1636; but at last, by way of Shemakha
(three months’ delay here), Ardebil, Sultanieh and Kasvin,
they reached the Persian court at Isfahan (August 3, 1637),
and were received by the shah (August 16). Negotiations
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, Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions, 1656, &c.) that Oelschläger is best known, though he also published a history of Holstein (Kurtzer Begriff einer holsteinischen Chronic, Schleswig, 1663), a famous catalogue of the Holstein-Gottorp cabinet (1666), and a translation of the Gulistan (Persianisches Rosenthal, Schleswig, 1654), to which was appended a translation of the fables of Lokman. A French version of the Beschreibung was published by Abraham de Wicquefort (Voyages en Muscovie, Tartarie et Perse, par Adam Olearius, Paris, 1656), an English version was made by John Davies of Kidwelly (Travels of the Ambassadors 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 van de nieuwe Parciaensche ofte Orientaelsche Reyse, Utrecht, 1651); an Italian translation of the Russian sections also appeared (Viaggi di Moscovia, Viterbo and Rome, 1658). Paul Flemming the poet 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 (11 ft. in diameter) and armillary sphere were executed in 1654–1664; the globe was given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1713 by Duke Frederick’s grandson. Christian Augustus. Oelschläger’s unpublished works include a Lexicon Persicum and several other Persian studies.
(C. R. B.)
OELSNITZ, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony,
on the Weisse Elster, 26 m. by rail S.W. of Zwickau. Pop.
(1905) 13,966. It has two Evangelical churches, one of them
being the old Gothic Jakobskirche, and several schools. There
are various manufactories. Oelsnitz belonged in the 14th and
15th centuries to the margraves of Meissen, and later to the
electors of Saxony. Near it is the village of Voigtsberg, with
