"I have not become a quaker" : Johannes Kelpius és a londoni kvékerek

Abstract

The Transylvanian-born Johannes Kelpius left the European continent for America in 1693. He was the leader of a group of religious enthusiasts known as the Chapter of Perfection or The Woman in the Wilderness. Members were recruited by Johann Jacob Zimmermann, a pietist scholar. Both him and Kelpius were millenarists and avid readers of Jacob Boehme. In their view, Pennsylvania was one of the few places of the corrupted world where the True Religion could find shelter and the Second Coming could be prepared for. Zimmerman died before the group left Europe, and Kelpius, only 21, was elected as the new leader. - The group of forty could not raise the substantial sum for the fare. It was assumed that the support of Benjamin Furly (a Rotterdam merchant and William Penn's continental agent) was the only source of the financial support that made the emigration possible. Quaker manuscript sources, however, tell a different story: the Minutes for Meetings for Sufferings of the 'London Friends' contain entries that testify that the Quakers have contributed more towards the group's voyage than Furly had. Consequently, though Kelpius himself has 'not become a Quaker,' he obtained significant support from the 'Friends'.