Background
Johann Kelpius was born in 1673 near Schässburg in Transylvania (now Sighişoara, Romania), probably at Halwegen, where his father, Georg Kelp, who died February 25, 1685, as pastor at Denndorf in the same district, was then the incumbent. He was one of the Transylvanian Saxons, German immigrants, who had settled near the south-eastern border of Hungary in Transylvania around the 12-13th centuries.
Education
Kelpius was educated at the expense of three friends of his father and attended the University of Altdorf, in Bavaria, where he received his master's degree in 1689 and published a thesis on natural theology. He became fluent in German, English, Latin, Hebrew, and Greek and used his knowledge for religious study and philosophy.
Career
In 1690 Kelpius published an Inquisitio an Ethicus Ethnicus Aptus sit Christianae Juventutis Hodegus, etc. and, in collaboration with Professor Johannes Fabricius, Scylla Theologica, Aliquot Exemplis Patrum et Doctorum Ecclesiae Qui cum Alios Refutare Laborarent in Contrarios Errores Misere Inciderunt, Ostensa, etc. He had little right to fling this stone, for his own orthodoxy was overlain, in the most sumptuous rococo manner, with cabalism, chiliasm, Pietism, and Rosicrucianism. He was deeply versed in the writings of Jacob Boehme and became an intimate of Johann Jacob Zimmermann, the deposed deacon of Britigheim in Württemberg. Zimmermann, a mathematician, astronomer, and author as well as a theologian, had determined by exact calculations that the Millennium would begin in the autumn of 1694 and was raising a company of about forty adherents, male and female, who were to voyage to Pennsylvania and await its arrival in the solitude of the primeval forest. Kelpius joined the expedition and succeeded to the leadership when Zimmermann died at Rotterdam on the eve of their sailing.
After a perilous voyage they disembarked June 22, 1694, at Bohemia Landing, Maryland, and proceeded to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where they settled on the wooded ridge overlooking Wissahickon Creek. "Hermit Spring" and "Hermit Lane" in Fairmount Park commemorate their occupancy of this tract. Even after the failure of Zimmermann's prediction, the community patiently awaited the Millennium, meanwhile devoting itself to prayer and meditation, the cultivation of medicinal plants, and religious instruction among the Germans of the vicinity.
Among the abler members of the group were Johann Gottfried Seelig, Daniel Falckner, and Heinrich Bernhard Koster, a man at once so learned and so eccentric that Johann Christoph Adelung included a biography of him in his Geschichte der Menschlichen Narrheit. Koster, after creating much stir as a preacher, returned to Germany in 1699.
About 1700 Reinier Jansen may have published a tract by Kelpius entitled Kurtzer Begriff oder Leichtes Mittel zu Beten oder mit Gott zu Reden, of which no copy is known to be extant. Christopher Witt's translation of it was published as a Short, Easy, and Comprehensive Method of Prayer. Kelpius' other literary remains are a diary of the voyage to America, some miscellaneous letters, and a book of original hymns with musical scores. He was on friendly terms with Andreas Rudman and Jonas Auren, the Swedish Lutheran clergymen on the Delaware, and apparently possessed a wide reputation as a sage and saint. Of his saintliness there has never been any doubt.
Exposure and privation undermined his health, tuberculosis set in, and finally he had to relinquish the hope of escaping bodily death. The touching story of his end was preserved by Henry Melchior Mühlenberg. Seelig became the leader of the community, which continued to exist for some years after Kelpius' death.
Views
Kelpius believed with his followers that the end of the world would occur in 1694.