Jakob Sylvan's Preface to the Zoarite Anthology, Die Wahre Separation, oder die Wiedergeburt, As an Introduction to Un(der)studied Separatist Principles

In August, 1817 some 300 Separatists who had broken with the established Lutheran church in the southern German state of Wurttemberg arrived in Philadelphia.Though its immediate needs for shelter and support were met by sympathetic Quakers, the group soon arranged to purchase a 5,5000-acre tract of land along Ohio's Tuscarawas River.Under the leadership of Joseph M. Bimeler (earlier: Baumler, 1778-1853), this band of German immigrants made its way to Ohio, where the first cabin in the new settlement was completed in early December, 1817.Thus began an experiment in communal living whose fortunes ebbed and flowed until 1898, when the Society of Separatists at Zoar was formally dissolved. 1 Only two major works were printed by the Zoarites.One of these is Die Wahre Separation, oder die Wiedergeburt ("True Separation, or Rebirth") consisting primarily of sermons delivered by Zoar's founding leader, Joseph M. Bimeler. 2 These sermons, often called "The Discourses," were first recorded from memory in 1822 by Johannes Neef, a youthful member of the community whose father had become deaf.By the time of Neef's untimely death in 1832, he had trained himself to recall and transcribe entire sermons verbatim; beginning in 1834, another individual continued the work (I, viiviii).The other imprint of the Zoar press was the hymnal Sammlung ausgelesener geistlicher Lieder?When Bimeler died in 1853, no successor appeared, and it was found that reading "from good books and from Holy Scripture" (aus guten Buchern und der Heiligen Schrift, I, viii) simply did not suit the needs of the membership