founding Brethren were broadly influenced by Radical Pietist understandings of an invisible, nondenominational church of awakened Christians who would fellowship together in equality, purity, and love, following Jesus while awaiting Christ's return. A notable influence was Ernest Christopher Hochmann von Hochenau, a traveling Pietist minister. While living in Schriesheim, his hometown, Mack invited Hochmann to come and minister there. Like others who influenced the Brethren, Hochmann considered the pure church to be spiritual and did not believe that a highly organized church was necessary. By 1708, the date of the first Brethren baptisms, Mack had rejected this position in favor of forming a separate church with visible rules and ordinances—including threefold baptism by immersion, a three-part Love Feast (that combined communion with feet washing and an evening meal), anointing, and use of Church discipline steps as instructed in Matthew 18, culminating with the "ban" against wayward members. Religious persecution drove the Brethren to take refuge in Friesland, Netherlands. In 1719 Peter Becker led a group to settle in Pennsylvania. In 1720 forty Brethren families settled in Surhuisterveen in Friesland. They lived among the Mennonites there, remaining until 1729, when all but a handful emigrated to America in three separate groups from 1719 to 1733. By 1740, nearly all of the "Schwarzenau" Brethren had relocated to Pennsylvania and they ceased to exist as an organized group in Europe. Peter Becker organized the first American congregation at Germantown, Pennsylvania, on December 25, 1723. In 1743 Christopher Sauer, an early preacher and a printer, printed a Bible in German, the first published in a European language in North America. Early schisms The first schism from the general body of German Baptist Brethren occurred in 1728, but more followed after the American Revolution, as different groups sought their own ways. The first separatists became the Seventh Day Dunker Brethren, whose distinctive principle was that they believed that Saturday was still the true Sabbath. They were founded by Conrad Beissel (1690–1768). In 1732 Beissel led the establishment of a semi-monastic community with a convent and monastery at Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. While celibate, the community also welcomed believing families, who lived nearby and participated in joint worship. The monastic feature and celibacy were gradually abandoned after the American Revolution. In 1814 the Society was incorporated as the Seventh Day German Baptist Church. Several branches were established, some of which still exist.