PHILIP JAKOB, founder of the Pietists in Germany, and an exceedingly active reformer of the Protestant Church, was born, on the 13th of January 1635, at Rappoltsweiler in Alsace, now Ribeaunville, in the department of Haut-Rhin in France. His father was a councillor of his native town, and he received much of his early education from the Countess of Rappolstein and her chaplain, who seem to have taken great interest in the lad. He displayed early a strong leaning to theology and mysticism. At 15 years of age he was sent to the gymnasium of Colmar, and subsequently went to Strasbourg to study theology under Schmidt and Dannhauer, who were hot Lutherans. His mind was active and open, and he stored it with all manner of solid learning, from Grotius and his philosophy down to Hebrew and Arabic. Having taken his degree in philosophy in 1654, he became for a time tutor to the sons of the Prince of Birkenfeld, and delivered lectures on philosophy and history. From 1659 to 1662 he visited, in pursuit of knowledge, the universities of Basle, Tübingen, Freiburg, Geneva, and Lyons. In the latter town, his contact with Père Menestrier determined him to heraldry, and he published a number of works of no great interest, and chiefly of a genealogical-historical character. On his return to Strasbourg, he was appointed public preacher in 1662, and he at once rose into notice by the fervid piety of his discourses and the purity of his life. He was soon invited to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where his earnestness and zeal soon gained him followers, and his intemperate denunciations of the Calvinists drew from him many of the powerful and wealthy citizens of the town. The Calvinists remonstrated with Spener, and, to the scandal of his own party, he listened to their complaints, and resolved henceforward to confine his denunciations to the vicious and the immoral.

In 1670 he set on foot his "Collegia Pietatis," which consisted of a meeting of any of his hearers who found any difficulties in his weekly discourses, or who required further explanation of anything that had been advanced in his sermons. In 1675 appeared his Pieti Desideria, pointing out the need of a reform in the preaching of Germany, and inveighing against all who held up mere doctrine to their people, to the neglect of common Christian charity and humility. In 1686 he removed to Dresden, at the request of the Elector of Saxony, where he was made court preacher and member of the consistory. The resistance of some clergymen to the doctrines of mysticism called forth, in 1691, his work on the Independence of Christians from all Human Authority in Matters of Faith, which materially extended the principles of tolerance throughout Germany.

At the University of Leipzig the nickname of Pietists was first bestowed on the followers of Spener; and one of his disciples, a theological teacher, had been persecuted by the other professors. An appeal was made to the elector, but in vain, and Spener found it for his advantage to remove to Berlin, where the office of provost, of inspector of the church of St Nicholas, and assessor of the consistory, awaited him. Here he enjoyed great respect. Being charged with heresy in 1692 by the theologians of Halle, Spener wrote in his own defence the True Agreement with the Confession of Augsburg. Friedrich August I., on his accession to the throne of Saxony in 1694, urgently solicited his return to Dresden, but he declined. The good and pious Spener died at Berlin on the 5th of February 1705. In 1700 appeared his Theologia Bedenkens, in 4 vols.; and in 1711 there were added to those theological replies, Letzte Theologie. Bedenkens. Besides his Kleinere Schriften, published by Steinmetz, there likewise appeared the posthumous work, Consilia Theologica, in 1709. His life was written by Canstein in 1740, and by Hosbach in 1828.