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 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.

 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.

 OELSCHLÄGER [], 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.

 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