Beschreibung:

Directorium et Conspectus Universalis Ephemeridum Aschkenazaec-Elamiticarum … De Resurrectione Imperii Alternitatus … In urbe Philadelphiâ America.
Lemgo: Heinrich Wilhelm Meyer, 1702. 40 pp., small 4to (195 x 160 mm). Late 19th century three quarters blue morocco over marbled paper boards, with the original? plain wrappers bound in. Condition : lower margin of the title slightly shaved; extremities a bit rubbed. Provenance : Julius F. Sachse (name stamped in gilt on the upper cover, bookplate on the front pastedown). In 1694, German pietist Johannis Kelpius (1673-1708) and his followers arrived in religiously tolerant Philadelphia seeking a heavenly kingdom which they predicted would emerge following an impending Apocalypse. These mystics settled along the Wissahickon Creek in Germantown where they lived in celibacy and meditated in small caves (one still surviving). Shortly thereafter, however, one of his followers, Henry Bernard Koster, split from the sect and began preaching in Philadelphia. Siding with the Keithians in their conflict with the Society of Friends, Koster established what he called The True Church of Philadelphia, or Brotherly Love. Julius F. Sasche, the early owner of this treatise by Koster and a noted Pennsylvania historian, authored the only history dedicated to the German Pietists in Pennsylvania. In that 1895 privately-printed work, he refers directly to this “extremely rare and almost forgotten” book, explaining its publication history and importance: “The most important incident, from a literary point of view, after the formation of the 'True Church of Philadelphia' by Koster was the writing, in the fall or winter of the year 1697, of a Latin thesis, 'De Resurrectione Imperii Alternitatus' a quarto of forty pages. When the work was finished, as there was no printer in Pennsylvania at that time, he attempted to get it printed by William Bradford in New York. The printer declined the commission, as he could get no one to correct the printed sheets intelligently. This mystical dissertation is the first theological or theosophical book written or composed in Pennsylvania to be printed in the Latin language, if not within the English colonies on the Atlantic coast.” Sachse, then continues, “Great was the disappointment of Koster, upon the completion of the thesis, when he found that the work could not be printed in America. Upon his return to Europe he, however, lost no time in having the manuscript put into print. A number of these copies were sent to his friends and late associates in America. The only known copy of this work is now in the library of the writer [i.e. the present copy]. This book not only shows the trend of Koster's thoughts and speculations as to the expected millennium, but also furnishes a proof of his great learning and the scope of his researches in both sacred and profane history” (Sachse, The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, pp 88-91). The lengthy title, translated in part, reads: A Directory and Universal View of the Ashkenaz-Elamite Journals that is of the at last triumphant struggles of arising and restoring righteousness to wit of the Resurrection of the Empire of the Eternities among the Churches exiled yet pressing forward from Jesus to Jesus the Restorer from the Millennium of the Apostolic Jerusalem unto the Trumpet of Illyricum and to the sixth Vial … composed in the City of Philadelphia of America, on the border of great Cymry-Wales upon the ashes of the Indian husbandman of ancient Celt-Iberian or Celtic-Hebrew Spain, toward the close of the year 1697; in those days when, in the limits of the City and the whole region of Philadelphia, the first standard and public outcry against every arrogance and enthusiasm Spanish and Quaker was set up by the Philadelphian Union of the Unarmed Baptism of the primative churches of Asia. This work is not recorded by NUC, BMC, Sabin, Bibliotheca Americana, Friends Historical Library of Swathmore College, RLIN or OCLC; GBV cites copies at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz and Herzog-August-Bibliothek. Not in Alden & Landis. See Sachse, The German Pietist