THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
are all within the globe. The earth is supposed to be eternal, a great battery continually renewing itself. Alchemy, rather than chemistry, is held to be true, matter and spirit to be interchangeable and interdependent. God is a personal being, invested with a trinity of specific attributes; Jesus Christ was God Almighty, and the Holy Spirit was the product of his transmutation or of the burning of his body The coming of the Messiah is the fruition of an e\'olution through a succession of reincarnations. The divine seed was sown 1 ,S()0 years ago, and the first fruit is another Messianic personality, who is affirmed to be now in the world, declaiming his scientific gospel. Reincarnation is the central law of life and identical with resurrection, which is reached through a succession of reembodiments. The origin and destiny of man are found in God. The standard of Koreshan purity is the virgin life of Jesus. The Bible is accepted as the best written expression of the (li\'ine mind, and its truth is demonstrated by Koreshanity. The Koreshan government has as its principal divisions the Church Triumphant, the College of Life, and the Society Arch-Triumphant. There are also three general orders: the investigative court, the marital order, and the communistic and cehbate order, the last being the highest and most central of the three. The following of Koreshanity is estimated at about 5,000, and the property at S2 50,000. The town of Estero includes an area of 110 square miles. W H. Larrabee.
Bibliography: The literature of the society comprises: C. R. Teed's Koresh. The Immortal Manhood; L. Page Borden, The Logos or Word Book; C. R. Teed and U. G. Morrow, The Cellular Cosmology, a series of pamphlets explaining the principles of the society, all published at Estero, and The Flaming Sword, the periodical of the community. Consult also W. A. Hinds, American Communities, pp. 471-485, Chicago, 1908.
5. The Ephrata Community: A society founded in Lancaster County, Pa., in 1732 by John Conrad Beissel (b. at Eberbach, 12 m. e. of Heidelberg, Germany, 1690; d. at Ephrata July 6, 1768). He is said to have been converted in 1715, to hare come under Pietistic influence, 1. John and especially to have been affected Belssef ^'^ ^"^^^^ °^ Gottfried Arnold
The ' (l-'^-)- 1720 he emigrated to
Building's. America, intending to .join the community of the " Woman in the Wilderness," on the banks of the Wissahickon; but finding that society no longer in existence, he joined the Dunkers (q.v.) in 1724. Later he became convinced of the duty of celebrating the seventh day as Sabbath and published Das Biichlein voin Sabbath (Philadelphia, 1 72S). He then withdrew from the Dunkers and adopted a solitary life in a cabin on the Cocalico Creek, where he was joined by three men and two women. About this nucleus a community was formed, composed mainly of Dunkers, and in 1733 a conventual mode of life was formally adopted; buildings for the accommodation of the members were erected, of whicli those constructed in 1746-47 are still standing (near the borough limits of the present town of Ephrata, 19 ni. s.w. of Reading). They were made entirely of wood, and the use of iron
was long avoided in the entire life of the community. The sister house shows the method of construction, being divided into some fifty cells, each about six feet long by five wi(k>, containing a window eighteen inches by fourteen and a door sixty inclies by twenty, while under the window was a bench about eighteen inches wide upon which the occupant slept with a block for a pillow. The halls were so narrow that they permitted the passage of only one person at a time. The walls of the Saal, another early building, are still hung with charts, illustrated texts, and drawings made by the inmates in the early days, all done with the quill pen; and in the library are preserved manuscript hymn- and tune-books done not later than 1750.
The community was organized upon a basis of voluntary celibacy, those who were married living apart. In the neighborhood gradually gathered a number of persons who accepted the 2. Org-an- religious principles of the community ization and except those of celibacy and commu- Doctrines. nism. Within the community the members assumed monastic names, and the founder was known as Friedsam and Gottrecht. A small tract of land was acquired, all the work on which was done by the members. In 1740 the holding of property by individual members was declared sinful, and all who joined the community were required to surrender aU they had to the common fund; in 1786 this regulation was abolished. The religious mysticism which underlay the society assumed that true Christianity could be attained only by overcoming the bonds of the flesh, and true wisdom was to be sought by union with the celestial Sophia. Man originally combined in one perfect being the male and the female elements, which condition, lost at the Fall, is to be regained in the body of Christ. To the attainment of perfect happiness there is necessary right living, purity of life, renunciation of self and of human love and marriage, meditation, and praise of Christ, all of which lead to the mental state where the celestial male and female elements shall be united. The New Testament was accepted as the bond of faith, trine baptism was practised with the laying on of hands whUe the candidate knelt in the water, the Lord's Supper was celebrated on the evening of the Sabbath together with washing of feet, and love-feasts and night services were held as occasion demanded. The community was opposed to the taking of oaths and to bearing arms, though the buildings were opened as a refuge after fights on the frontier, and after the battle of Brandywine the place served as a hospital with the members of the community as nurses. Compensation from the British government and from the State of Pennsylvania for these services was refused on the ground that it would be a temptation to worldliness.
By 1740 thirty-six men and thirty-five women had united with the society. Its largest membership is given as 300. ^^dlile the society regarded agriculture as its principal business, it possessed the second printing-press set up in the Slate, had a paper mill, and also saw mills, grist mills, and other like enterprises. It furnished the