Johann Konrad Dippel

1673-1734. German Pietist. Born at Frankenstein and educated at Giessen University, he at first sought academic preferment by professing orthodoxy, but was disappointed and removed to Strasbourg where he taught astrology and palmistry and professed Pietism. He then fled from his creditors to the court of Darmstadt, where his Pietism received a better hearing and was deepened into intense conviction under the influence of G. Arnold. There followed the satirical Orthodoxia Orthodoxorum (1697) and the vigorously apologetical Papismus Protestantium Vapulans (1698). For the rest of his life Dippel upheld his controversial form of Pietism, repeatedly enraged the Lutheran authorities, and interfered, usually to his loss, in political affairs. Forbidden to publish in 1702, he fled to Berlin where he dabbled in alchemy and accidentally discovered the Prussian blue. In 1707 he removed to Köstritz and then to Holland, where he took a medical degree (1711). Later he appeared in Denmark and was sentenced to exile on the isle of Bornholm. Freed and expelled in 1726, he went to Sweden and became physician to King Frederick I, but was again expelled and returned to Germany, finding refuge first at Liebenberg and then at Berleberg, where he died, and where his Works (3 vols.) were published in 1747.