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THOMAS A KEMPIS
HIS AGE AND BOOK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
STATE INTERVENTION IN ENGLISH
EDUCATION
NATIONAL EDUCATION AND NATIONAL
LIFE
THE PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN
ENGLAND
MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA
"CAUSE THE MUSICIANS PLAY ME THAT SAD NOTE
i NAM'D MV KNELL, WHILST i SIT MEDITATING
ON THAT CELESTIAL HARMONY I GO TO"
(King Henry I' I II, Act iv, Sc. ii)
ILLUMINATED FRONTISPIECE OF THE TREATISE CALLED "MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA" FROM THE
ROYAL MANUSCRIPT ^ B VIII IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. THIS MS. CONSISTS OF THE FIRST THREE
BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI," AND BELONGS TO THE THIRD QUARTER
OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
THOMAS X KEMPIS
HIS AGE AND BOOK
BY
J. E. G. Jffi MONTMORENCY, B.A., LL.B.
OF ST PETER'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1906
TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
JAMES LODGE DE MONTMORENCY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ..... ix
LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS OF THE TREATISE " DE
IMITATIONS CHRISTI" IN ENGLISH LIBRARIES xix
LIST OF OTHER MANUSCRIPTS CITED . . xxi
LIST OF PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE TREATISE " DE
IMITATIONS CHRISTI" CITED . . . xxii
I. THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS . . . i
II. SOME FIFTEENTH CENTURY MANUSCRIPTS AND
EDITIONS OF THE IMITATION . . .106
III. MASTER WALTER HILTON AND THE AUTHORSHIP
OF THE IMITATION . . . .139
IV. THE STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION . .170
V. THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION . . . 223
APPENDIX I
" DE MEDITATIONS CORDIS," BY JEAN LE CHARLIER DE
GERSON, CHANCELLOR OF PARIS . . .29?
APPENDIX II
EXTRACT FROM THE " GARDEN OF ROSES," BY THOMAS
A KEMPIS ...... 305
INDEX ....... 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
(These illustrations are all reproductions from fifteenth century
manuscripts or printed books.)
Description
The Four Latin Fathers producing
the Music of the Church of
Christ ....
Lib. i. Cap. i. of the treatise
Imitatione Christi .
(See p. 162 within.)
The same ....
(See p. 114 within.)
Richard Rolle of Hampole .
(See p. 68 et seq. within.)
Facing
Page
Frontis.
de
22
4 8
70
Lib. II. part of Cap. xi. and Lib. III.
part of Cap. xxi. of the treatise
de Imitatione Christi . . 96
(See p. 94 et seq. within.)
Lib. I. Cap. i. of the treatise de
Imitatione Christi . . .107
(See p. 1 06 et seq. within.)
The same 1 1 1
(See p. 1 10 et seq. within.)
The same 117
(See p. 116 within.)
The same 119
(See p. 1 1 8 et seq. within.)
Source
British Museum. Royal
MSS. 7 B. viii. (circa
1460).
Lambeth Palace Library.
Codex 536 (circa 1440).
British Museum. Harleian
MSS. 3216. (21 De-
cember 1454).
British Museum. Cotton
MS. Faustina, B. II.
Part II. fol. 114 b.
(circa 1400).
Royal Library, Brussels.
(1441. Autograph of
Thomas a Kempis.)
British Museum. Royal
MSS. 8 C. vii. (circa
1420).
British Museum. Burney
MSS. 314 (circa 1419).
British Museum. Harleian
MSS. 3223 (1478).
First page of Editio Prin-
ceps printed at Augsburg
about 1471.
vii
Vlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Description
The Device of Les Freres Marnef
(See p. 130 within.)
Lib. I. Cap. i. of the treatise de
Imitatione Christi .
(See p. 160 et seg. within.)
The same
(See pp. 162-3 within.)
Facing
Page
Source
130 Paris edition of 1491.
141
161
Lambeth Palace Library.
Codex 475 (circa 1450.)
The same (in English)
(See p. 163 within.)
Emmanuel College
Library, Cambridge.
Codex 83 (circa 1450).
163 Cambridge University
Library. G.g. i, 16
(circa 1450).
From a photograph by Messrs Mason &* Basevi
The same 166 Magdalen College Library,
(See p. 164 et seq. within.) Oxford. Codex xciii.
(November 29th, 1438).
From a photograph by Mr Horace Hart
Woodcut a Pieta with Jerusalem
in the distance
(See p. 137 within.)
Woodcut of the Adoration of the
Magi .....
(See pp. 132-3 within.)
Woodcut of the Crucifixion .
(See pp. 132-3 within.)
Lib. I. Cap. 5. and ii. and part
of Cap. iii. of the treatise de
Imitatione Christi .
(See p. 114 within.)
Woodcut of the Descent from the
Cross (a Pieta) ' . . .
(See p. 127 within.)
Woodcut of Christ and the Sup-
pliant . ...
(See pp. 129-130 within.)
Lib. III. Cap. i. of the treatise de
Imitatione Christi (in English)
(See p. 163 within.)
Woodcut of the Crucifixion .
(See p. 133 within.)
195
London edition of 1 503.
Paris edition of 1496.
217 Paris edition of 1496.
225
230
240
247
British Museum. Addi-
tional MSS. 1 1437 (circa
1465).
Venice edition of 1488 of
the treatise de Imitatione
Christi.
Argentine edition of 1489.
Trinity College Library
Dublin (circa 1450).
288 Paris edition of 1498.
INTRODUCTION
T^VESPITE the vast literature that has gathered
^^^ round the treatise de Imitatione Christi, no
apology should be needed for the appearance at the
present time of a volume dealing with that work, and
with the age in which it was written. The perpetual
fascination of the former theme is undeniable, while
the wave of mysticism that is now moving across
Europe, England, and America, makes the study of
the not dissimilar phenomenon that troubled the
minds and consciences of men in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries both monitory and profitable. We
hear much to-day concerning the weakening of faith
in God, Freedom, and Immortality, and there can be
no doubt that the outlook of the western world upon
the fundamental dogmas of religion has greatly
changed in the last thirty years. The outlook
tends to become an inlook, and the movement from
one position of spiritual equilibrium to another
necessarily involves the dislocation that accompanies
any radical change. It is with a sense of despair
and a certainty of loss, that many who have grown
up in the older school see this tendency in religious
thought. To some it seems almost irreligious to
b ix
x INTRODUCTION
seek, with the mystic, the Kingdom of Heaven in
the soul rather than in the firmament and to find
the voice of God not in the earthquake or the fiery
universe, but in the whispers of conscience. Yet
there is nothing surprising in such a tendency.
The mediaeval mystics deliberately adopted it in
answer to the spiritual discontents and social
miseries, to the faithlessness and unhappiness, of
their day. The Imitation of Christ was, and~-is,
the apology for this position of introspection an
apology that has appealed to men with a force
otherwise unknown in profane literature.
An attempt has been made in the following pages
first of all to place before the reader the group of
European movements and events that was respon-
sible for the school of spiritual thought of which
Thomas a Kempis is the most notable represen-
tative ; secondly, to trace in outline the various
forces religious, philosophical, and literary that
came to a focus in a Kempis, and so brought to
life the treatise de Imitatione Christi', lastly, to
analyse that treatise in considerable detail so as to
exhibit the body of doctrine that its author drew
from the material that he had gathered together
a body of doctrine that repels completely the charges
brought against the mysticism of Haemmerlein by
Dean Milman and Thackeray. These writers ap-
pear entirely to have missed the author's point
INTRODUCTION xi
of view, and to have confounded the Outer with
the Inner life, despite the very clear and sensible
distinction that a Kempis makes between these two
broad aspects of man's complex personality.
It has been a laborious task to describe even
briefly the historical environment, the structure and
the content of the Imitation. Many volumes would
be required for anything like an exhaustive dis-
cussion of the Age and Book of Thomas a Kempis.
It seems, however, not possible to explain the ex-
traordinary literary history of the Imitation, or to
estimate its influence in the future, without some
such discussion, though it is impracticable in any
limited space to clear up the innumerable questions
that arise as soon as a student attempts to deal with
the complex age in which a Kempis lived, with
the literary texture of his deathless work, and the
mystical doctrines with which that work abounds.
It has been assumed, in writing these words, that
Thomas Haemmerlein of Kempen is the author of
the treatise de Imitatione Christi. That is my
definite opinion after a very careful consideration of
this literary problem, and in the following pages
there are set out some of the reasons that have
enabled me to make up my mind on that ancient
question. The doubt as to the authorship of the
Imitation has probably aroused more acute contro-
versy than any other problem in pure literature.
xii INTRODUCTION
The bitterness of the controversialists has been in
inverse proportion to the sweetness of the book.
Nor has this intensity of feeling altogether passed
away. This is more particularly the case with
respect to what is known as the Gersen claim. I
have never seen any evidence that, on examination,
presented even B.prima facie case for the authorship
of a person named John Gersen, Abbot of Vercelli,
who is supposed to have flourished in the first half
of the thirteenth century. If a thirteenth century
manuscript of the Imitation can be produced, the
cases for John le Charlier de Gerson and Thomas a
Kempis would disappear. But this fact would not
enthrone the mysterious Abbot. The quotation
from St Bona ventura in the fiftieth chapter of the
third book would tell as heavily against Gersen as
against St Bernard. This fact has to be met, and
never has been met, by the Benedictine Order in
their curious support of the Abbot discovered for
them by Constantine Cajetan in the seventeenth
century. But there is no thirteenth century manu-
script of the Imitation. Manuscripts of this treatise
abound throughout Europe, but not a single one
that has been examined by competent authorities
has been placed earlier than the early fifteenth
century, and it must be remembered that the margin
of error in dating a mediaeval manuscript does not
exceed forty years. The "Codex Aronensis"
INTRODUCTION xiii
printed by the Benedictine Constantine Cajetan
at Rome, in the year 1616, attributes the work to
the Abbot John Gersen. Cajetan fruitlessly en-
deavoured to identify this name as an Abbot of
Vercelli. There is no evidence that there was
ever an Abbot of Vercelli bearing that name. The
Aronensis manuscript is undoubtedly a fifteenth
century document. The difficulties of establishing
the Gersen authorship are indeed overwhelming.
We have first to establish the fact that there was
an Abbot of Vercelli bearing that name ; then we
have to show that the existing fifteenth century
manuscripts are transcripts from a lost thirteenth
century original ; then we have to expunge from the
manuscripts all later references, such as the quota-
tion from Bonaventura ; finally, having proved the
existence of the Abbot of Vercelli and the thirteenth
century origin of the work, we have the hopeless
task of connecting the abbot and the work. This
series of improbabilities destroys the Gersen theory.
Gersen, or Gersem, or Gerseem can be nothing but
variants of Gerson. The British Museum manu-
scripts are very strong evidence of this.
The claims of Gerson and Walter Hilton to the
authorship are discussed at length in the follow-
ing pages. The work was certainly attributed to
each of them in the first half of the fifteenth cen-
tury, and in the absence of Thomas Kempis, the
xiv INTRODUCTION
claims of either of them would be strong enough
to secure the prize. Certainly the claim in Hilton's
case is remarkable enough, for there is nothing in
his prose style to exclude him from consideration.
This cannot be said with respect to Gerson. I have
certainly not cleared up finally the problem that I
set out to solve the explanation of the fact that the
treatise, Musica Ecclesiastica (consisting of the first
three books of the Imitation) was for centuries
attributed to Walter Hilton, a canon of the same
Order as that to which a Kempis belonged. The
flaw in Hilton's case and, for the matter of that, in
Gerson's case also, is that the student is compelled
to lay undue stress on the value of the fact that
Gerson's or Hilton's name is in quite early times
attached to the work. There was neither copy-
right nor conscience in these matters during the
Middle Ages, and the giving of an author's name
is no guarantee at all of authorship. The exact
problem that troubles us in the case of the Imitation
occurs in the case of innumerable treatises of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries. These are dead, and
it does not much matter who wrote them, but we
are necessarily concerned with the authorship of
the one work that has survived.
Mr Samuel Kettlewell's writings on the Author-
ship of the Imitation and the Brothers of Common
Life have, of course, been of great assistance to me,
INTRODUCTION xv
and it has been with much diffidence that I have
ventured here and there to question his statements
or extend his material. His confiding style, real
learning, and admirable earnestness disarm all
criticism, and I shall be gratified if this volume
may be considered in some small measure to
supplement his patient labours.
Especial attention may be drawn to one feature
of this book. I have reprinted in the first appendix
Gerson's little treatise de Meditatione Cordis. This
work was as popular in the Middle Ages as the
Imitation itself. It has never been printed as a
single work, but probably appeared in print before
the Imitation, as it was issued under Gerson's name
with other tracts of his from Cologne by Ulrich Zel
between 1467 and 1472. Manuscripts of the treatise
are very rare. I doubt if there is one in England.
It was apparently one of a series of tracts of the
same type, such as Gerson's de Simplification
Cordis, de Perfectione Cordis, and others. Internal
evidence indicates that it was a late work, written
probably after the Council of Constance, and
proves beyond doubt that it was from Gerson's
pen. The editio princeps differs very considerably
from the series of editions between 1485 and 1526,
and the series between 1570 and 1575, when it
appeared as a supplement to successive editions of
the Imitation. The text here presented is to some
extent composite, the intention being to secure a
xvi INTRODUCTION
text as free as possible from the errors and obscuri-
ties of early copyists and printers. The Cologne
edition of 1467-72 has been in one or two places
used to clear up difficulties, but the text is chiefly
founded upon that of Milan (1488); another of
1492 without printed place of origin (possibly
Ulm) ; that of Nuremberg (1494); and another
of about 1496, issued either at Leipsic or Magde-
burg (British Museum, I. A. 10,955). The work
is, of course, of real interest as showing the funda-
mental difference between the style of Gerson and
that of the author of the Imitation, but it also
possesses much intrinsic value. It is from the
pen of the last, and certainly not the least of the
great Schoolmen ; it was written when the classical
Renaissance was actually in sight ; it may be called
the last literary work of the Old Age, and it has
all the learning and all the humour that distinguished
the work of Walter Map two centuries before. The
work proves conclusively that Gerson was not, as
some critics have thought, the dry remainder biscuit
of a dead age, but was in fact the living link
between the learning of the Middle Ages and the
learning of the Renaissance. The greatest figure
of his age, he was, of necessity, associated with
its greatest book, and perhaps no finer tribute has
been offered to the genius of the humble monk who
penned the work than this inevitable association.
It has been a matter of anxious care to secure
INTRODUCTION xvii
contemporary illustrations for the book. The early
printed editions have supplied the curious woodcuts
here reproduced. The frontispiece is a peculiarly
interesting illumination, for it is not only an
admirable example of a lost art, but it shows the
meaning that the term Musica Ecclesiastica con-
veyed to the mediaeval mind. The pages reproduced
from manuscripts in London, Oxford, Cambridge,
Dublin, and Brussels will, I think, be of particular
interest to Colonial, American, and Continental
students who are unable to visit the libraries from
which these pages are drawn. A definite purpose
is served by these reproductions. If we had but
an exact reproduction of one page of the unique
manuscript of Asser's Life of King Alfred, burnt
in the great Cottonian fire of October 23rd, 1731,
a literary problem of the first magnitude would not
have arisen. I have reproduced here eleven pages
from various English and Irish manuscripts of the
Imitation, and the fact that these are brought
together from scattered sources will enable scholars
to test for themselves with some degree of accuracy
the views that I have ventured to express on the
authorship question.
A book of this type necessarily owes a great
deal to others beside the author. I have to thank
various members of the ever-courteous and learned
staff at the British Museum Library, and especially
of Mr J. A. Herbert of the Department of Manu-
xviii INTRODUCTION
scripts, for assistance and advice in the ceaseless
difficulties that arise in any discussion of problems
dealing with manuscripts and early printed books.
My acknowledgments are due to His Grace the
Archbishop of Canterbury for kindly allowing the
reproduction of pages from the Lambeth manu-
scripts, and I have especially to thank Mr Kershaw,
the librarian, for enabling me to identify beyond
much doubt the handwriting of Archbishop Bancroft
in the attribution, written on MS. 475, of the
Imitation to Walter Hilton. I have to thank
Mr Falconer Madan for valuable information as to
the Bodleian manuscripts, and, in particular, for
drawing my attention to the interesting Dutch MS.
(Marshall, 124). My acknowledgments are also
due to the authorities of the various libraries men-
tioned in the text for their readiness in permitting
the reproduction of pages of manuscripts in their
possession. The late Dr Shuckburgh and Mr F. W.
Head, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge ; and Mr
de Burgh, of Trinity College, Dublin, were good
enough to give me the most useful information as
to the manuscripts in their charge. I have also
particularly to thank my publishers for their ready
help in the difficult task of securing contemporary
illustrations.
J. E. G. DE M.
ii NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN
August zgth, 1906.
LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS OF THE
IMITATION IN ENGLISH LIBRARIES
(The MSS. marked with an asterisk are entitled Musica
Ecclesiastica and have only the first three books.)
P]ace Reference and reputed Date
Author
1. British Museum. Royal MSS. C. vii. Circa 1420
(none; part of First (or earlier).
Book only).
2. British Museum. Burney MSS. 314 Circa 1419
(Gerson). (or earlier).
3. British Museum. Harley MSS. 3216. 2ist Dec.
1454-
4. British Museum. Additional MSS. 11,437 Circa 1465.
(Gerson; first two
books only}.
*5- British Museum. Royal MSS. 7, B. viii. Circa 1470.
(none).
6. British Museum. Harley MSS. 3223 1478.
(Gerson).
*7. Lambeth Palace Codex 475 (Hilton). Circa 1450
Library. (or later).
*8. Lambeth Palace Codex 536 (none). Circa 1440
Library. (or earlier).
9. Bodleian Library. K. D. 37(5) (none; First Circa 1450.
Book only).
10. Bodleian Library. Laud Misc. 167(1) Sixteenth
(Gerson or John d Century.
Kentpis).
xix
xx LIST OF ENGLISH MANUSCRIPTS
Place
ii. Bodleian Library.
*i2. Bodleian Library.
*I3- Bodleian Library.
*I4. Bodleian Library.
*I5. Magdalen College,
Oxford.
*(?)i6. Emmanuel College,
Cambridge.
*ij. Emmanuel College,
Cambridge.
*i8. Cambridge University
Library.
*ig. Library of Trinity
College, Dublin.
*2O. Coventry Grammar
School MSS.
21. Formerly in Sir
Thomas Phillipp's
Collection.
Reference and reputed
Author
Date
Circa 1450.
Marshall 124(6) (none;
lib. ii. cap. 12 in
Dutch).
Laud Misc. 215(1) Circa 1450.
(none; Tractatus im-
perfectus).
Bodley 632 (none). Circa 1450.
Arch. Seld. Bodley 93 1469.
(none).
Codex xciii. (none).
Codex 77 (none ; Third
Book only).
Codex 83 (none).
Nov. 29th,
1438.
Circa 1450.
Circa 1450.
G.g. i, 16 (none ; in Circa 1450.
English).
(None; in English.) Circa 1450.
(None.)
Circa 1460.
(In Greek. Noted by Mr Seventeenth
Kettleivell as among Century.
the Guildford MSS.)
{Note. Four manuscripts entitled Musica Ecclesiastica were in the
Syon Library in the Fifteenth Century, and in the Sixteenth Century
William Bonham and Reiner Wolfius each possessed a manuscript
(noted by John Bale) with the same title. These may or may not be
identical with some of the MSS. mentioned above. The above list
contains five manuscripts not noted by Mr Kettlewell, namely, 8, 9,
ii, 16, and 19. Four of the manuscripts are dated, namely, 1438(15),
1454(3), 1469(14), and 1478(6).]
LIST OF SOME OF THE OTHER
MANUSCRIPTS CITED
Title and Page where Cited
1. Gerson's Sermon, Vivat
l?ex(pp. 24-6).
2. Gerson's De Laude
Scriptorum (p. 49).
3. De Imitatione Christi
(P- 93)-
4. De Imitatione Christi
(pp. 94-5).
5. Treatises of Thomas a
Kempis (p. 95).
6. Sertnones ad Novitios
(P- 95)-
7. Musica Ecclesiastica (p.
97)-
8. De Contemplarione (p.
107).
9. The Passion of our Lord
(p. 108).
10. Terence (p. in).
n. De Conjugio (p. 151).
12. Stimulus Amoris (p.
13. Scala Perfectionis (p.
151).
14. Speculum de Utilitate
Religionis Regularis
(p. 151).
Place
Paris.
New College, Oxford.
Royal Library, Brussels.
Royal Library, Brussels.
Royal Library, Brussels.
University Library, Louvain.
Royal Library, Brussels.
British Museum, Royal
MSS. C. vii.
Bodleian Library, Bodley,
75-
Bernard's List, 9259, 73, 2.
Cambridge University Lib-
rary, H. h. 1-12.
Cambridge University Lib-
rary, Ee. iv. 30.
British Museum, Harl. 3852.
Date
1406.
Fifteenth
Century.
1425.
1441.
1456.
Circa
1450.
Circa
1450.
Circa
1420.
1405.
1419.
Fifteenth
Century.
Fifteenth
Century.
Fifteenth
Century.
xxi
XX11
LIST OF OTHER MANUSCRIPTS
Title and Page where Cited
15. Scala Perfections (p.
152).
1 6. De Sacramento Altaris
(p. 156).
17. De Sacramento Altaris
(P- 157)-
1 8. Liber Commonitorius de
Mundi Contemptu (p.
157).
19. De Utilitate Tribula-
tionis (pp. 160-1).
20. Augustini Soliloquia
(p. 162).
21. De Utilitate et prae-
rogati-vis Religionis et
praecipue ordinis Car-
thusiensis (p. 165).
22. The same treatise (pp.
165-6).
Place Date
British Museum, Harl. 330. 1495.
Once in Syon Library. Fifteenth
Century.
British Museum, Arundel Fifteenth
214. Century.
Once in the Library of Duke Circa 1440.
Humphrey. Now possibly
the MS. at Lincoln Col-
lege, Oxford, xviii. 21.
Lambeth Palace Library, Fifteenth
Codex 475. Century.
Emmanuel College, Cam- Fifteenth
bridge, Codex 83. Century.
Magdalen College, Oxford, Circa
Codex 93. 1438.
Merton College, Oxford, Fifteenth
Codex 514. Century.
LIST OF PRINTED EDITIONS OF
THE IMITATION CITED
Reputed Author Place
1. Thomas k Kempis (Editio
Princeps) .... Augsburg.
2. None (First Book only) . . Metz.
3. Gerson (entitled de Contemptu
Mundi) . . . . Venice.
4. Gerson Venice.
5. Gerson or St Bernard . . Brescia.
Date
1471?
1481.
1483.
1485.
1485.
LIST OF PRINTED EDITIONS
xxin
Reputed Author
6. Gerson
7. None (First Book only) .
8. Gerson
9. Thomas a Kempis .
10. None
11. None .
12. None (in German) .
13. Gerson
14. Gerson
15. Gerson . . ...
16. Gerson
17. Thomas a Kempis .
1 8. Thomas a Kempis .
19. Gerson
20. None
21. Thomas a Kempis .
22. Thomas a Kempis (his col-
lected works) .
23. Thomas a Kempis .
24. Gerson . . . .
25. Gerson
26. Gerson
27. Gerson
28. Thomas a Kempis .
29. Gerson (in English) .
Place
Date
Lou vain.
I 4 8 S ?
Cologne.
1486?
Venice.
1486.
Argentine.
1487.
Ulm.
1487.
Ulm.
1487.
Ulm.
1487.
Venice.
1488.
Milan.
1488.
Augsburg.
1488.
Paris.
1489.
Louvain.
1489.
Argentine.
1489.
Paris.
1491.
Ulm (?).
1492.
Luneborch.
1493-
Nuremberg.
I494-
Leipsic or Magde-
1496?
burg.
Venice.
1496.
Paris.
1496.
Florence.
1497.
Paris.
1498.
Cologne.
1501.
London.
1503-4.
ERRATA
p. 5, line i : for Baarlam read Barlaam.
p. 136, line 4 : delete the words and to Gerard Groote,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
HIS AGE AND BOOK
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS
late fourteenth and early fifteenth century
in Europe is a period difficult to realise, for it
is a period both of preparation and dissolution.
Change and decay are visible on every side.
Internal forces of disruption challenge observation.
External forces, ominous and destructive, compel
attention. But change and reconstruction can also
be observed. The New Learning is beginning to
move almost unnoticed from East to West a fitful
dawn, the precursor of a new day destined to reveal
vast continents of knowledge and belief. The New
Mysticism too is come, the Religion of the Inner
Soul that fain would shuffle off the mortal coil of
corrupt and unholy formalism. It is everywhere
on a sudden. It is in Sweden, England, France,
Germany, Italy. No one is free from its influence.
The Pope at Avignon trembles and is afraid. The
New Mysticism moves even faster than the New
Learning, and thoughtful men begin to find one
or other or both of these movements more im-
portant than even the Great Schism of the West.
2 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Both are beginning to influence the Universities
and even the Great Councils of the Church. Jean
le Charlier de Gerson, the most Christian Doctor,
last and not the least of the great theologians, carried
from Paris to Pisa, from Pisa to Constance, mystical
forces of reform sufficient to abash the monstrous
triarchy that filled the vicariate of Christ.
Nor did the New Learning and the New
Mysticism exhaust the reconstructive and recreative
forces of Christendom. Pressure from the East was
answered by expansion West and South, and the
revelation of new continents. Yet all these forces
must have seemed vague and unreal enough to
the pessimists and worldlings of that generation.
Central Europe was distraught with private war
and unchecked lawlessness. The German Emperors
received no divine gift of government with the be-
stowal of their crown at Rome itself the scene of
every vice, the home of every negation of goodness.
There was no peace, no sense of rest in any part
of Europe, from Ireland to the confines of Asia.
England was rent by internal wars and discontent,
following on the desolation of the Black Death.
That Oriental plague moving West, in the mid-
fourteenth century, prepared the way for the hun-
dred years of disaster, desolation, shame, and
destruction the veritable reign of anti-Christ
which preceded, necessitated, but obscured the advent
of the new worlds of religion, thought, and explora-
tion. On all sides was the darkness of night. In
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 3
Spain were many kingdoms, but the Moor and the
Crescent still dominated this part of the extreme
West. From the middle of the thirteenth century
when the great Subutai with his marvellously
handled Mongol armies conquered Poland and
Hungary, all Eastern Europe, and even Central
Europe, had stood in dread of some new portent in
the East. A century later it came.
The Ottoman tide of humanity at last overflowed
from Asia Minor into Europe, heedless of raging
Constantinople and the Byzantine call to the careless
West. The Ottoman Turks under Orchan first ob-
tained a permanent position in Europe by the cap-
ture of Gallipoli in 1358 some twenty years before
Thomas a Kempis was born. During his childhood
they isolated Constantinople from the Christian
West, and the fall of that city accompanied by the
extinction of the Eastern Empire on May 29th, 1453,
was the completion of a long and disastrous struggle.
Some reference to the position of the Eastern Empire
must be made, for it throws light on the general con-
ception of Christianity that pervaded Europe in the
age immediately preceding the Renaissance. The
needs of Constantinople, in face of the age-long threat
of the Ottoman, were ever being placed before the
secure monarchies of Europe. The Emperors
pleaded that they ruled a buffer kingdom which alone
stood between Europe and the hordes of Asia.
Such ground for assistance for the most part fell
away in the thirteenth century, when it was seen
4 THOMAS A KEMPIS
that Europe was open to the East elsewhere and
that the Mongol was even a worse foe than the
Ottoman. But if the Emperors could no longer
play upon the needs of Europe, her superstition
(as Gibbon would say), or her sense of Christian
solidarity was open to conviction. The Greek had
faz. filioque clause with which to barter in times of
need. The dream of the re-union of Christendom,
the healing of the schism of the Greek and Latin
Churches was ever evoked when the strong arm
of the schismatic West was needed to prevent
the rising of the Eastern Crescent. Never perhaps
before in all the doubtful and unhappy Erastian
preoccupations of the Orthodox Church had the
precious tenets of Christianity been employed in
so scandalous a fashion. At no time did the
Greek Church intend re-union, and yet the farce of
reconciliation was maintained by servile and ignoble
ecclesiastical politicians for more than a whole
century in face of the Ottoman peril. So degraded
had Christianity become in its Eastern centre that
when St Sophia was dedicated to the uses of
the Crescent, it certainly suffered no spiritual
diminution. There was scarcely a degree of degra-
dation that the Orthodox Church was not prepared
to suffer. Its embassies to Rome and Avignon,
made in bad faith and happily crowned with discredit
and unsuccess, are among the more lamentable
incidents of history. Yet they answered an uncon-
scious and glorious purpose. When the learned
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 5
Calabrian Baarlam in 1339 was despatched as an
ambassador by the younger Andronicus to Benedict
XII. with a plea for the union of the Churches, he
met Petrarch and set in motion that revival of letters
which resulted in the Classical renaissance. But the
heedless Pope of Avignon and the careless monarchs
of Europe rejected all political advances. Nine years
later, Clement VI., magnificent and infamous, received
the envoys of Cantacuzene in Avignon, that cheerful
Babylon of the West, and after much entertainment
sent Bishops with them on their return to Con-
stantinople to discuss meaningless propositions for
the re-union of what both parties were pleased to
regard as Christendom.
John Palaeologus, a Western both by descent and
inclination for his mother was Anne of Savoy
was alone perhaps in his desire for the union of the
Churches. In 1355 he placed the Eastern Church
under the control of Innocent VI. ; and fourteen years
later, when the whole of the Empire, with the
exception of Constantinople, was in the hands of
the Ottomans, he himself, journeying by sea, visited
Urban V., who had just returned from Avignon to
Rome, and admitted the doctrines of the Catholic
Church and the double procession of the Holy Ghost.
In the same year the German Emperor of the West
was also entertained. Urban, says Gibbon, " enjoyed
the glory of receiving in the Vatican the two imperial
shadows who represented the majesty of Constantine
and Charlemagne." Help, however, was not forth-
coming, and the Emperor of the East returned to
Constantinople by sea after a brief arrest for debt at
Venice.
Thirty years later, at the end of the fourteenth
century, Constantinople was still isolated from Europe
by land when Manuel, the son of John Palaeologus,
renewed the attempt to secure the help of the
Western princes. It was useless for him to solicit
the aid of Rome or Avignon. The Western Church
had its own schism to heal. Manuel was magnifi-
cently entertained in Paris and not less magnificently
in London, but seething Europe had no interest in
the affairs of the East, and Manuel returned to find
that the danger had passed. The mighty Timour had
broken the Ottoman power, and a generation was to
die before the attack on Constantinople could be
resumed in earnest. During this period there was
no talk of re-union. Indeed, until after the Council
of Constance, the possibility of re-union would have
been remote even had the Greeks been earnest in
their Christian professions.
Rome for a century and a half before the conclusion
of the Great Schism of the West had ceased to be
the residential see of the Vicar of Christ. Before
the opening of the fourteenth century the Popes had
ceased permanently to reside amid the broils and
dangers of the ruinous city. Boniface VIII., in
I 3O3> was settled at Anagni in the French dominions.
A breach between the Pope and Philip the Fair
resulted in the excommunication of the King and
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 7
the expulsion of the Pontiff. His successor, Benedict
XI., hurled the harmless bolts of the Church from
Rome, but Clement V., a nominee of the French
Court, abandoned the city and led his Court across
the Alps in search of a new Rome. In 1308 the
wanderers finally settled at Avignon and acquired
its sovereignty. The seventy years of captivity had
begun and eight Popes in succession ruled Western
Christendom in not unpleasant exile. Clement V.
was succeeded by John XXII., Benedict XII.,
Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XI.,
and Clement VII. Widowed Rome rejoiced to
receive Urban V. in 1367, but three years' sojourn
was enough, and he returned to die in his beloved
Avignon in 1370. His successor, Gregory XL,
after seven years by the Rhone, removed the
Papal Court once more to Rome, where he died
in 1378, and he was succeeded by a Roman Pope,
Urban VI. For the moment it seemed as if the
widowed and mystic Jerusalem had regained her
spouse, but the Cardinals during the summer fled
across the Alps and there elected an Anti-Pope,
Clement VII.
The Great Schism had begun. The seventy
years of captivity had been a fitting prelude to the
scenes that were to follow. Petrarch had hardly
exaggerated the position when he had declared of
Avignon, "veritas ibi dementia est, peccandi
licentia magnanimitas et libertas eximia. Stupra, in-
cestus, adulteria, pontificalis lasciviae ludi sunt." In
8 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the struggle that followed between the Babylon of the
West and the Jerusalem of Italy we see the forces
of iniquity struggling with the nerveless efforts of
political expediency. The forces of righteousness in
the main stood aside from the struggle, if we except
the noble figure of Jean Gerson wrestling in the
darkness for the preservation of a Church that had
ceased to preserve or even demand the respect of
Christendom.
It is desirable to realise in some measure these
various forces, for without so doing it is not possible
fully to appreciate the most singular position in
which the Christian world to use a comprehensive
phrase has ever found itself. We must endeavour
to realise an invisible Church recognising Christ and
Christ alone as its Founder and Head, and working
without conscious unity of effort for the regeneration
of Christendom like yeast in a measure of meal.
We must at the same time realise a formal, visible,
and official Church, highly organised, immensely
rich, claiming, and in an extraordinary measure
exercising, control over the persons, the purses,
and the spiritual personalities of men ; a
Church with incomparable traditions and pos-
sessing unlimited power ; a Church that had
emerged weakened but triumphant from three
centuries of conflict with the temporal power of
Europe.
We have to watch this Church, sated with
worldliness and honeycombed with corruption,
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 9
rapidly losing its spiritual and its temporal power
and becoming a private corporation of enormous
wealth under the patronage of its eldest daughter the
Kingdom of France. We see its managers abandon
the great capital that created its organisation and
settle in a city of Southern France which forthwith
becomes the open cloaca of Europe and the Magna
Meretrix of the Middle Ages. We see the Catholic
Church watching in vain for a spiritual awakening.
We see Rome sick almost to death of Roman
fever and raving with Rienzi as its voice. Further
West we see Constantinople in its death throes, false
to the last and faithless even to the painted rags that
symbolised its Christianity.
The Orthodox Church was beyond recovery.
At the most it could hand on an insane tradition
of corruption and superstition to the most savage
tribes of Eastern and Northern Europe. But the
Catholic Church even in the depths of its degradation
was great both in its political instincts and its power
of recuperation. It had, it had always had, the power
of producing both saints and statesmen, and in the
hour of its need, while the Church Invisible was
slowly permeating Europe with what a writer of
the late fourteenth century called the New Faith, 1
it made effort after effort to leave its Slough
of Despond. Slothfully, unwilling, it returned to
Roma Aeterna, and this was the signal for the huge
forces of degradation to join issue with the political
1 Adam of Usk
10 THOMAS A KEMPIS
party which saw that the only hope for Catholicity
lay on the banks of the Tiber.
Nor were the forces only political that under-
took this notable effort. The invisible Church
turned from its silent labours to precipitate the
result. Reluctant Popes saw visions and dreamt
dreams. Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden
disturbed with relentless minds the peace of Avignon
and the sloth of death.
St Bridget was not least among the remarkable
revivalists of the fourteenth century and was cer-
tainly the sanest of them all. She was born in the
year 1304, one of the Royal House of Sweden. At
the age of sixteen she married Ulpho, Prince of
Nericia, in Sweden. She bore him eight children,
and after his death in 1344 she retired from the
world and devoted herself to good works and a life of
austere contemplation. She founded the great double
monastery of Wastein in the Diocese of Lincopen
in Sweden, and imposed the Rule of St Augustine.
Her writings are full of interest, and in the be-
ginning of the sixteenth century had some vogue
in England. The most practical minded of women,
she endeavoured to combine the life of Mary, who
represented in her phraseology the life contempla-
tive, with the life of Martha, who represented the life
active. Some of her sayings are of value as repre-
senting the singularly sane outlook of a prominent
mystic of the fourteenth century.
"He that fasteth muste take hede that he be not
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 11
overmoch enfebled and made weyke by his un-
resonable fastyng " 1
"The contemplatyve man maye nat be ydel."
" If he be wery and temptation rise in his prayers
he may labour with his handes some honest and
profitable werke either for him selfe if he have nede
or for other."
"If the contemplatyve man have nat sufficient to
lyve withal but through his labour than may he
make the shorter prayers for his necessary laboure
and that labour shalbe the perfection and encreasyng
of his prayer."
" Also the contemplatyve man must hate his owne
wyl, ofte remembre his dethe, fly curiosytie, al mur-
muringe ane grudgynge, alway remembre. the right-
wysenesse of God and take hede of his owne affec-
tions."
The following passage may be taken to heart to-
day as deeply as when it was written :
"The sonne of God speketh to saynt Bryget and
sayth, he that desyreth to visyte the londes of the
infydels ought to have v thinges. The first is that
he discharge his conscience with trewe confessyon
and contrition as though he should forthwith dye.
Seconde that he put awaye al lyghtnesse of maners
and of apparyl nat takynge hede to newe customes
or vanytyes but to such laudable customes as his
1 Certayne revelacyons of Saint Birgette (London, 1535?, Godfray).
Printed with the translation of The Imitation and The Golden Epistle
of St Bernard. The Revelations were first printed at Lubec in 1492.
12 THOMAS A KEMPIS
auncesters have used before tyme. Thyrdly that he
have no temporall thynge but for necessyte and to
the honoure of God and yf he knowe any thynge un-
ryghtwysely gotten eyther by hym selfe or by his
auncesters that he restore it whether it be lytel or
great. Fourthly that he labour to the intent that
the unfaythful men may come to the trewe catholy-
cal faythe not desyrynge theyr goodes ne catel or
any other thynge but to the onely necessitie of the
body. Fifthly that he have full wyll gladly to
dye for the honour of God and so to dyspose hym-
selfe in laudable conversation that he maye deserve
to come to a good and a blessed endyng. Amen."
It may be imagined that a lady possessed with
such ideas filled the Courts of Rome and Avignon
with fear and aversion. She strove with all her
might to secure the abandonment of Avignon. The
return of Urban V. in 1367 must have filled her
with joy, while his flight to die in Avignon in 1370
was certainly calculated to point a moral. Bridget
is said to have foretold the speedy death of the
fugitive Pope. His successor, Gregory XI., re-
mained at 5 Avignon the prey of superstitious fears,
and when at last he was drawn to Rome by Saint
Catherine of Siena he died within a year, warning
men on his death-bed against visionaries of either
sex. It would seem legitimate to think that the
experiences of these saints in Avignon and Rome,
would have taught them that it was not the seat of
the Church but its mind its universal and corrupt-
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 13
ing influence that mattered. Saint Bridget's faith
in the Church, however, won for her a posthumous
reward. She died in 1373 at the age of seventy in
Rome, after a prayerful pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and
within a few years an unreformed Church with its
centre at Rome sanctioned, at Basle, her Revelations
and enrolled her, at the Council of Constance, among
the Saints.
Saint Catherine, the daughter of James Benincasa, a
dyer, was born at Siena in 1 347. From childhood she
sought the contemplative life. On her refusal to marry
at the age of twelve she was deprived of the means of
solitary contemplation, and henceforth, we are told, 1
the Holy Ghost " taught her to make herself another
solitude in her heart; where amidst all her occupations
she considered herself always as alone with God ; to
whose presence she kept herself no less attentive, than
if she had no exterior employment to distract her."
With regard to this period of her life, she wrote (in her
treatise, Concerning God's Providence] " that our Lord
had taught her to build in her soul a private closet,
strongly vaulted with the divine providence, and to
keep herself always close and retired there ; he assured
her that by this means she should find peace, and per-
petual repose in her soul, which no storm or tribula-
tion could disturb or interrupt." In 1 365 she received
the habit of the third Order of St Dominic and, enter-
ing a nunnery, for three years never spoke to any one
but God and her Confessor. "Her days and nights
1 Lives of the Saints, vol. iv. p. 330.
14 THOMAS A KEMPIS
were employed in the delightful exercises of con-
templation : the fruits whereof were supernatural
lights, a most ardent love of God, and zeal for the
conversion of sinners." This saint, famous for her
life, her visions, and her mystic treatises (such as
that on Consummate Perfection], ventured in June
1376 into the tainted atmosphere of Avignon and
interceded with Gregory XI. on behalf of the city
of Florence. That superstitious Pope turned to
Catherine of Siena for a solution of his doubts.
He had vowed to return to Rome : what was his
duty ? She replied without knowledge of the vow,
" Fulfil what you have promised to God."
It is a curious spectacle, the vision of these holy
women moving amidst the corruption of Avignon and
Rome. They represented the invisible Church of
Christ, and they were moved to intervene in the
affairs of the visible Church of Anti-Christ. A sense
of wonder fills the mind as we see the Cardinals of
Avignon questioning the Saint of Siena on the
meaning of the Interior Life, and listening to her
revelations as to the sufferings of the Founder of
Christianity and as to the revolutions of earthly
kingdoms. Little good, one must think, could come
of such trafficking between the forces of good and
evil. Yet she touched the superstitious heart of
corruption, and one cannot forget that Christ Himself
argued with the doctors in the Temple. After she
left Avignon in September 1376 she wrote more
than once to the wavering Pope, urging his return
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 15
to Rome. He appears to have followed her as
far as Genoa for further advice, and at last, in
January 1377, in fear of forces visible and invisible,
carried his Court to Rome, to die there anathe-
matising all visionaries. Catherine threw herself
into the Papal election of 1378 with all the energy
of a politician, and until her death, in April 1380,
worked actively for Urban VI. and against Clement
VII. and the revived Court of Avignon. These
women, and other less notable visionaries who took
sides in the Great Schism that followed the death
of Gregory XL, served no adequate purpose in
the regeneration of Christendom by their efforts to
bring down from Heaven that pattern of Rome
which was evidently laid up in their celestial visions.
The visions of a Jeanne d'Arc might bring victory
to the temporal arm, but they did nothing to
make new the heart of Christendom. More
worldly forces were needed to cleanse the sinks of
Europe. Womanhood was accounted little in the
days of the Great Schism.
Yet it is not altogether just to speak of the famous
man who rendered the revival of Roman Catholicism
possible as a worldly force. Jean le Charlier de
Gerson was without any doubt the most remarkable
personality of the age in which the De Imitatione
Christi was written and the tragedy of the Great
Schism enacted. He was born of obscure parentage
in the hamlet of Gerson, near the village of Barby,
on December i4th, 1363. His mother was a woman
16 THOMAS A KEMPIS
of notable holiness, and Gerson compared her to
Monica, the mother of Augustine. The cur6 of
the village saw in his devout little choir boy the
seeds of great things and sent him to school at
Rethel. Hence he passed to the College of Rheims
at the age of fourteen, and some years later, pro-
vided with what we should call a scholarship, he set
out, cheered by many blessings, on the long walk to
Paris. He entered the Royal College of Navarre,
where the famous Pierre d'Ailly became his friend.
He immediately made his mark both in University
affairs and as a student of the Trivium and Quad-
rivium. So popular did he become, that he was
elected as the representative of the "Nation" of
France in the College for the purposes of the election
of the Rector. In 1381 he took his degree in Arts
and passed to the study of Theology. About this date
he adopted the name of Gerson as a result of
punishment undergone through the confusion of his
personality with that of a man of a similar birth
name. There was perhaps a certain foreshadowing
of the future in the new name for Gerson may be
compared with the Hebrew word meaning exile.
In 1387 an apparently fortuitous opportunity gave
Gerson his great chance in life.
One of the startling theological controversies of the
Middle Ages suddenly arose. A monk named Jean
de^Montesson propounded the not unreasonable theory
that the mother of Our Lord was conceived in sin, and
that the contrary doctrine was opposed to Holy Writ.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 17
The Theological Faculty of Paris condemned the
proposition and directed the monk to retract. He
maintained his position, and was denounced to the
University who confirmed the judgment of the
Faculty, and referred the offender to the Bishop of
Paris. The bishop passed sentence forbidding
Montesson to continue the offence of promulgating
his doctrine. The monk appealed to the Anti-Pope
at Avignon. Clement VII. nominated a Com-
mission headed by three Cardinals to consider the
question. The University was represented at the
hearing by two religious and two secular doctors
(including Pierre d'Ailly, Grand-master of Navarre).
DAilly took Gerson with him to Avignon.
In 1387 the Great Schism of the West had been
in progress nine years, and Christendom was divided
beyond repair in its allegiance. Gibbon has briefly
summed up this question of allegiance during the
Schism. "The vanity rather than the interest of
the nation determined the Court and Clergy of
France. The states of Savoy, Sicily, Cyprus,
Arragon, Castille, Navarre and Scotland were
inclined by their example and authority to the
obedience of Clement VII., and, after his decease,
of Benedict XIII. Rome, and the principal states
of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, the Low
Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adhered
to the prior election of Urban VI., who was succeeded
by Boniface IX., Innocent VII., and Gregory XII."
The schism literally rent the most intimate countries
18 THOMAS A KEMPIS
asunder : England and Scotland differed in their
obedience, the Spanish kingdoms and Portugal
owned a different spiritual head. This was scarcely
the season at which to raise for discussion and decision
a question of such curious moment as that of the
Immaculate Conception, nor was Avignon at this
period exactly the place that could with decency be
chosen for the discussion of such a question. More-
over, a discussion before Clement and a decision by
Clement could not possibly be accepted by Rome.
It was perhaps this fact that delayed for something
like five centuries the official enunciation of the
doctrine that the Anti-Pope was now called upon to
examine.
DAilly spoke first, addressing Clement VII. and
his College of Cardinals. He was followed by
Gerson, whose keen eloquence and transparent piety
drew forth the personal approval of the schismatic
Pope. Three days later Clement pronounced in
favour of the University, and Montesson forthwith
fled from Avignon to Arragon, and two years later
was declared contumacious and excommunicated.
It is noticeable that he based his doctrine upon the
words of Holy Writ, and refused to be answered by
any other evidence. It was a sign of the times.
The Invisible Church with one accord was turning
back from formalism and tradition to Scripture.
The authority of Scripture was not to be over-ridden
by any other authority. In Montesson's opinion not
only was the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 19
not found in, but it was absolutely denied by,
Holy Scripture. That being the case, it was im-
possible for him to yield, though like many others
he preserved his loyalty to the Pope of his nation,
and fled to one of the few countries that admitted
his spiritual sway, and where the penalty of ex-
communication could run. The decision of Clement
was never binding on the faithful. This Apol-
linarian doctrine was supported by Gerson at the
Council of Constance, and was perhaps implied as
a doctrine of the Church at the Council of Trent,
but it was not until 1854 that it was officially
imposed upon the Roman Church by Pius IX.
The University of Paris, however, had no doubt on
the subject, and expelled the Dominicans from their
midst on the ground that Montesson was one of
them. In 1403 Gerson secured their return.
In 1387, on his return from Avignon, Gerson
took orders, and became, in the words of a con-
temporary, "a seraph at the altar." His piety now,
as always, and his fervent faith, were undeniable.
At this time he wrote a famous panegyric on Saint
Louis, applying to him the phrase, servire autem Deo,
regnare est. The style of the tract is noticeable. It
is full of recondite allusions to history and ancient
authors. It has nothing in common with the style
of the Imitation.
In 1392 he became a Doctor in Theology. At
this date d'Ailly was Chancellor of the University
and Confessor to Charles VI., the mad king.
20 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Gerson's progress thenceforward was very rapid,
and it is worthy of record that he drew into the
religious life of the time many of his numerous
brothers and sisters. His intense affection for them
and his parents are notable facts in a life that for
the most part was absorbed in the mad whirl of
a bad age. His active mind saw the evils of the
time, and was not overwhelmed by them. He saw
the Schism ruining the Catholic Church, he saw the
corruption of the great cities, the intolerable con-
ditions of life even in France, that most habitable
part of the West, and the general signs of dissolution
in the society of Europe. On the other hand he
knew well that there was reason for hope. In the
way of scholarship what he did not know was not
knowledge, and he must have been conscious of the
slow revival of classical scholarship, of the wealth
of learning introduced from the East by Barlaam
the Calabrian in 1339, and by the successive
embassies from the Bosphorus. He, too, knew of
the hidden but ceaseless religious revival that was
moving throughout Europe. He was himself at
heart, though not by education, a mystic, a profound
contemplative, who looked earnestly for the Kingdom
of God. In education and religion he saw the
twofold force that would regenerate Christendom.
They were the forces that had made his own career
possible, that had raised him from obscurity into
the doubtful daylight of kings. The education of
children seemed to him the primary secret of re-
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 21
generation, and he spent the years after his fall
in the teaching of little children.
His power as an orator was great. He was the
founder of the great line of French preachers. His
speech was free and merciless, but this did not
exclude him from the delivery of sermons to the
Court, where by the year 1396 he had secured
great influence. It says a good deal for Gerson
that when on the elevation of Pierre d'Ailly to
the episcopate in 1398, he himself was offered the
Chancellorship of the University of Paris, he was
able to refuse the posts of Almoner and Confessor
to the King which dAilly had held with the
Chancellorship. This great office should not, he
felt, be hampered by personal service to the King.
As Chancellor of Notre Dame he was in a position
that had been occupied by one hundred and sixty
bishops, thirty-nine cardinals, and six popes Gregory
IX., Adrian V., Boniface VI 1 1., Innocent VI., Gregory
XL, and Clement VII. 1 From the year 1227 when
Gregory IX., the nephew of Innocent, became Pope
the Chancellorship had been a step to the Papal throne.
Adrian V. became Pope in 1276; in 1294 Benedict
Cajetan ascended the throne as Boniface VII. Inno-
cent VI. (1352), Gregory XI. (1370), and Clement
VII. (1378), were in Gerson's own age, and the latter
was the reigning Pope of his obedience. Gerson was
in a position that might quite possibly lead to the
1 See Jean Gerson, so, Vie, son temps, ses ceuvres, by A. L. Masson
(Lyons, 1894).
22 THOMAS A KEMPIS
throne of Avignon. He threw himself into the work
of the Chancellorship with characteristic energy. He
himself taught in the Cloister School the children
of the poor, declaring that they were the children of
God and the inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven,
and that it was therefore as great an honour to teach
them as to teach the Dauphin. He went as the
representative of Charles VI. in a deputation of
the University to Benedict XIII., the successor of
Clement VII. In the year 1400 he accepted, in
his desire to see practical clerical work, a cure at
Bruges, which he managed to combine with his work
as Chancellor. It was during this period that he com-
posed several works in French, including Le TraiM
de Mendicit^ Spirituelle. He did all he could, by
writing in the vulgar tongue, and by means of
education, to bring the best thought into the lives of
the people. It was in recognition of this fact that
he was called "le Docteur du peuple et le Docteur
des petits enfants." This use of the vernacular was
perhaps Gerson's most important educational work.
His treatise de scavoir bien mourir was largely used
in the parish churches. His " L'A B C des simples
gens " was also much in vogue. The introduction
is a short statement of the undenominationalism which
seemed to him sufficient as a working religion for
the people. " Entendez-vous," it runs, " petits
enfants, fils et filles, et aultres gens simples, je vous
escripray en francois cet ABC, qui contient la Patre
nostre, laquelle Dieu fist de sa propre bouche ;
i
K- >-
tr-
, t
e q uocfitnnnfira coinftimoilK lutwe
nuttatumc fpi * fjmnptu mm vammtii muftM.
:O clmlH Cut fuupuuCicO rtottnna ummc, .
in
19
;O cmiw? {bhttiMiJ f filcn)ieo f ropiutoc ottbUJ,. u
--<
. i
t <ititi0it CT nmin cf fttfinn attdmt amngcitj ^anm
tctuhu fcwnuf c^fjnn vnoit Ijnfc 4t l au
mttao ijiuUtfttevii Wphodtf trmitatd?acaita Ate
tiow fenut (fiuaiuftti.'fi amtofa mta eflSot &o mn"u
V*'* rv WVws,-_ '
INDKX OF CHAPTKRS OK THK FIRST HOOK AW) PART OF THK FIRST
CHAFTKR OF THK FIRST HOOK OF THE TREATISE CALLED " MUSICA
ECCLESIASTICA:" FROM MS. 636 IN THE LAMHETH PALACE LIBRARY.
THIS MS. CONSISTS OF THE FIRST THREE HOOKS OF THE TREATISE
"I)E IMITATIONK CHRISTI" AND HELONCS TO THE FIRST HALF OF
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 23
I'ave Maria, que 1'Ange Gabriel adressa a la Vierge
Marie ; et le Credo qui fut fait par les Apotres ; et les
X Commandements, et aultres points de notre re-
ligion chretienne, lesquels ont ete reveles de Dieu, et
montres au commencem'ent en la claire lumiere de
grande foy dedans les ames des saintes personnes,
et auxquels on doit croire."
The "other points" are denominational enough,
but it is clear that Gerson chiefly laid stress, in the
teaching of simple folk, on the simple facts of Bible
Christianity. The interesting discussion on the seven
virtues, the seven gifts of the spirit, and so forth, is
full of mediaeval formalism, enlightened with a very
human touch, but the heart of the matter is in the
elements of Christian fact and truth. The spiritual,
educational, and material needs of the age were ever
present to the heart, ever stirring the mind of this
great Christian doctor. In a far wider sense than
Saint Bridget he realised the interaction of the life
contemplative and the life active. In every life,
he felt, there must be a mingling of prayer and
work incapable of disentanglement. With simple
people faith and work must both be simple, but must
both be in vital union. But the world, he saw, was
going very ill at the end of the fourteenth century.
Writing from Bruges to Pierre dAilly he declared
" le corps de la chretient6 est couvert de plaies de la
tete aux pieds. Tout se prcipite du mal dans le
pire, et chacun apporte sa part a la masse d'iniquiteV
This was written in regard to the superstitions and
24 THOMAS A KEMPIS
gross abuses of the parish churches on Feast Days
such as the Holy Innocents' Day. That on such a
day the children's day religion should suffer its
supreme eclipse seemed to him significant of the
canker at the very base of society. If the world
was to be redeemed, redemption must begin with the
children. Therefore in his little tract de Innocentia
Puerili he attacked as the educationalist of every
age must attack the corruption of childhood by the
influence of bad pictures and bad books. If the
fountain is poisoned how can the rivers of life be
pure ? But it was not only impurity but the grossest
superstition that tainted the age. Hence he attacked
in no measured terms the pseudo science of astrology :
"c'est par 1 'experience, par les lois divines et morales
que la raison humane doit se diriger, et non par des
superstitions ridicules." His Platonic mysticism
recognised a double manifestation of Divine Power
in the natural and the supernatural worlds, but such
manifestation was essentially reasonable, and was both
spiritually and intellectually degraded by superstition.
But it was not only with his pen that Gerson
taught the first principles of that social renaissance
of which he was the first expositor in Europe,
the spiritual forerunner of Fenelon, Rousseau, and
the Revolution. He was an eloquent preacher. At
a Provincial Council at Rheims he attracted great
attention, while his famous sermon at Notre Dame on
The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ was preached
to an immense congregation. He had become the
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 25
man of the hour, and when, after the death of the
Duke of Burgundy in 1404, a civil war between the
Burgundian and the Orleanist parties combined with
the plague to ruin the whole land, the people turned
for help to the eloquent Chancellor of Paris. His
influence at Court and his power of brilliant and
fearless speech were used unstintingly on behalf of
the people. He fiercely attacked the Orleanist party,
and in his great sermon of October 7th, 1405,
preached before the King, his family, and the noble
families of France, he set out in terrible detail the
miseries of the land.
A summary of the sermon will give some idea of
the state of France at the opening of the fifteenth
century. The opening passage is striking enough :
" Vivat Rex ! Vivat Rex ! Vivat Rex ! Vive le Roy !
Vive le Roy ! Vive le Roy ! Vive corporellement,
vive moralement et politiquement ! Vive spiritu-
ellement et pardurablement ! " He prays for good
counsellors for the King, good education for the
King's son. The troops must be properly paid in
order to prevent them pillaging the people : " Se ils
ne payent, ils pilleront et roberont sur les povres
gens tres oultrageusement." Then follows the vivid
passage in which the Chancellor describes the results
of the cruel taxation of the people. " Las ! Un
povre homme aura-t-il paye son imposition sa taille,
sa gabelle, son fouage, son quatriesme, les esprons du
roy, la saincture de la reyne, les truages, les chauce'es,
les passages, peu lui demeure ; puis viendra encore
26 THOMAS A KEMPIS
une taille qui sera cr6ee, et sergents de venir et de
engager pots et pouilles. Le povre homme n'aura
pain a manger, sinon par adventure, aucun peu de
seigle ou d'orge. Sa povre femme gerra, et auront
quatre ou six petits enfants au fouyer, ou au four
qui, par adventure, sera chauld, lesquels demande-
ront du pain, criant a la rage de faim. La povre
mere si n'aura que bouter es-dents un peu de pain
ou il y ait du sel." To increase the misery of this
awful but common picture, we see the brutal unpaid
soldiery adding infamy to woe. These were the
simple annals of the poor. How can the King, cries
the preacher, with a flash of the deadly irony for
which he was famous, "how can the King, seeing
such servitude, call himself Francorum Rex the
King of the Free." Up the ages we hear the cry of
Rousseau, Man is born free, and lo ! everywhere he
is in chains. Gerson is almost brutally frank. He
describes the peasant as " pille par princes ou par
gens d'armes." He adds emphatically, "Toy, Prince,
tu ne fais pas tilz maux, il est vrai, mais tu les
souffres." The receiver is worse than the thief.
Children, men, beasts, are all dying of hunger :
" Dieu, par sa grace, y vueille mettre remede par le
moyen de vous, tres nobles et excellents seigneurs, a
fin que le roy vive de sa vie civile et politique : Vivat
rex!"
We may well believe that this great sermon did
more than make a great sensation at the time. It
permeated through the country in manuscript form.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 27
The earliest extant manuscript is one of 1406, which
belonged to the King's niece, Marie, the daughter of
the Due de Berri. It was not forgotten. It was
printed in the year 1500, and again in 1561 and
1588. In it we see the statement of the case of
the people as it was to be presented by the direct
forerunners of the Great Revolution. At the time
this bold intervention in social questions merely
added to Gerson's already great reputation and
strengthened the University of Paris. The Duke
of Orleans complained in vain.
The problem of the hour was, however, the
Great Schism. Upon its solution seemed to depend
the future of Europe. The University of Paris
played an important part in the movement that led
to the restoration of Catholicity. At first it disliked
the idea of recognising the Anti-Pope Clement VII.,
but it was divided on the subject, the various
"nations" following the views of the nationalities
they nominally represented. When Pietro Thoma-
celli succeeded Urban VI. at Rome as Boniface
IX. in 1389, the University proposed that the
Schism should be ended either by a General Council
or a compromise, or the retirement of both popes.
The majority of the cardinals favoured the last
proposal, and Clement VII. seems to have died of
chagrin in 1394 on learning this decision. The
Schism might now well have ended, but the
cardinals at Avignon suddenly changed their policy
and elected as their choice, Pope Benedict XIII. To
28 THOMAS A KEMPIS
deal with the new situation the King called together
an ecclesiastical assembly or council at Paris in 1395.
This body recommended the retirement of both
popes, but Benedict absolutely refused to resign
despite the prayers of the University and of the
King's envoys that he would not tear the seamless
garment of Christ. A second assembly of 1398
recommended the withdrawal of obedience with
the cessation of supplies, and the troops of the King
actually besieged the Pope, whose cardinals had fled,
in Avignon. At this moment the Duke of Orleans
intervened on behalf of the Lord of Avignon, and
the party of reform were compelled to yield. Gerson
heading a deputation from the University to the in-
flexible Benedict in 1403, appealed for reunion, that
Jerusalem might no longer be widowed and desolate.
He had with great regret recognised Benedict, and
little was gained by the recognition. Boniface IX.
died at Rome in 1404, and the Roman cardinals pro-
posed that Benedict should resign and end the schism.
This was refused, and they thereupon elected
Cosmo Meliorati as Innocent VII. The new pope
took an oath to do all that was possible, even to the
renunciation of the See, to restore peace. He died
of old age in November 1406, and was succeeded
by the Venetian, Ange Corrario, as Gregory XII.
Gerson approached both popes in order to secure
reunion, but the efforts were fruitless, and he
continued to labour tirelessly both with pen and
voice to create a new public opinion on the whole
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 29
question of Church Government and Church Reform.
In January 1408 Charles VI. of France declared
that if re-union were not established before Ascension
day and a sole pope elected, his kingdom would
cease to be neutral. Benedict at once excommuni-
cated the King, and placed the kingdom under an
interdict. He was a really strong pope, and had
the Church been united in his time would have
gone far as a reformer. The University replied
by excommunicating the Pope as a heretic and a
schismatic, whom none need obey. A third Gallic
Council was called, and a position of neutrality was
adopted until the assembly of a General Council.
The other nations agreed, and it was decided to
call a General Council of the Church at Pisa.
At this moment France was in a furious uproar.
The Duke of Orleans was assassinated by the
orders of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, on
November 23, 1407, but such was the hatred in
which the King's brother was held that practically
all Paris sided with Duke John, and the Orleans
family were forced in 1409, after his triumphant
return from Flanders, to come to some terms with
him. But Gerson, though the enemy of the Duke
of Orleans, found it impossible to justify the murder,
and denounced the crime in unmeasured terms.
He attacked the University supporters of the Duke
of Burgundy, led by Doctor Jean Petit, with all his
power, and became at once the head in Paris of
the Orleanist party henceforth known as the
30 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Armagnacs in consequence of the marriage of the
young Duke of Orleans with the daughter of the
Count of Armagnac. That was the position in
France when the Council of Pisa was opened in
the Cathedral on Lady Day 1409. It was an
immense Assembly, and included doctors in theology
from all parts of Europe. The rival popes, Gregory
XII. and Benedict XIII., were summoned, and in
their absence were declared contumacious, and the
vacancy of the Holy See was announced. Gerson,
who was the deputy of the Church of France, argued
here, as later (thereby drawing on himself the
wrath of the Vatican, still muttering even to-day),
that a General Council could depose and was
superior to the pope. The cardinals forthwith on
adopting this argument entered into conclave and
elected the Cardinal of Milan, Pietro Filargo of
Candia, a Franciscan and a doctor of Paris. He
chose the name of Alexander V. At the request of
the Council, Gerson harangued the new pope. He
called upon him to restore the kingdom to Israel
in all her former splendour. Alexander agreed to
the propositions put forward by the Council, and
announced that another Council would be called
together in 1412 to consider the Reformation of
the Church.
The only result that the Council of Pisa produced
was an addition to the number of popes, and a further
rent in the seamless garment which in the jargon of
the time signified the Catholic Church. Indeed the
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 31
Church was about to face the crowning scandal of
the Middle Ages. The pontificate of Alexander
was brief. He had settled at Bologna, but called
to Rome by the fickle inhabitants of the restless city
he at once set out on his journey. He died while
crossing the Apennines on May 3, 1410, after a
pontificate of ten months and fifteen days. The
election of his successor illustrates with an unspeak-
able force the utter ungodliness of the Roman
Church at the time. As a matter of policy it was
desirable to end the schism. Yet it was not the
seamless garment of Christ that was in danger, but
the wealth-getting capacity of the Western Church.
The talk of peace and reunion except in the mouths
of a few men like Gerson was sheer hypocrisy.
Although this is almost obvious to the unprejudiced
student of history, it would be difficult absolutely to
bring home the charge of hypocrisy to the official
Church were it not for the action of the conclave of
cardinals who met at Rome to elect a successor to
Alexander V.
The man they chose was Baldassarre Cossa, Car-
dinal of Bologna, who ascended the pontifical throne
under the divine name of John John XXIII. He
was, says Gibbon, the most profligate of mankind.
His crimes, his loathsome offences against every law
of God and man, were notorious in his own day before
his election. He was a jovial monster, the details
of whose iniquities have been made the subject of
original research by a German specialist. There
32 THOMAS A KEMPIS
was no particular reason why he should have been
elected, except that he represented the current taste
in wickedness of the Roman cardinals. It is painful
to find that modern Roman Catholic writers dealing
with this period, such polished and sympathetic
writers as M. A. L. Masson (to whose life of Gerson
all students must be indebted), should not only accept
without comment the fact of the election of Pope
John XXIII., but should actually complain of the
action of the Civil power in detaining him in prison
after his deposition. The position of modern Roman
Catholicism is not strengthened by refusing to recog-
nise that Anti-Christ was reigning in Rome in the
year 1410. Nothing perhaps is more astonishing
in the remarkable history of the mediaeval papacy
than the acceptance of John by the Reform party.
A strain of weakness, a yielding to expediency runs
through the character of Gerson, and the fact that
he not only placed himself within the obedience of
the new Pope, but actually accepted at his hands
the appointment of Penitencier de 1'Eglise de Paris
is perhaps the chief stain upon a great character.
His position was, however, singularly difficult.
John secured the recognition of the University
of Paris, and the anti-Gerson party led by Jean
Petit in the University was very strong. It is
probable that if Gerson had refused to accept John
as the legitimate successor of the man appointed by
the general Council of Pisa, his position as Chan-
cellor would have become intolerable. It was bad
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 33
enough in any event in the interval between the
Councils of Pisa and Constance. The sons of the
late Duke of Orleans were endeavouring to avenge
their father's murder. The whole country was
ravaged by the conflicting forces of the Armagnacs
and the Burgundians. Paris was sacked by the
white-hooded Cabochiens or Burgundians on April
28th, 1413. They were led by Caboche and Jean
Petit. Gerson himself escaped with difficulty, and
watched from the towers of Notre Dame the de-
struction of his house and his beloved books. In
the following September the Armagnacs carried the
capital by assault, and after a desperate conflict
peace was restored. Gerson, at the price of con-
siderable self-respect, retained his ascendency in the
University, and preached a sermon of reconciliation
at Saint Martin des Champs. Pope John would not
have been abashed had ecclesiastical Europe shrunk
from him, but he had to face no such difficulty.
Having won the University of Paris, and Gerson, he
had won all. He was elected at Bologna, but passed
on to Rome, where he made fourteen cardinals,
including three members of the University.
It was not long before the forces of evil as repre-
sented by John came into active conflict with the re-
forming forces, which in one shape or another formed
or gave political strength to the Invisible Church.
Central Europe was seething with discontent. The
connection between Bohemia and England due to
the marriage of Anne, the daughter of King Wences-
34 THOMAS A KEMPIS
las, to Richard II. of England, had led to the im-
portation into Bohemia, and thence to Germany, of
Wiclivism. Social and religious discontent went hand
in hand. A vile and corrupt Church and a brigand
baronage were faced by an incensed peasantry and
by a deep religious movement long stirring and
now roused to active life by the passionate preach-
ing of John Hus. Within a month of the election
of John XXIII., the official Church had begun its
attack on the real forces of reform not on the
reformers of Pisa, not on mediating reformers like
Gerson, but on the men who, as far as could be seen,
represented the great under-current of holiness and
faith, which men like the official Pope recognised as
the real danger to Established Catholicism. In
June 1410, Wiclif's works were burnt at Prague,
and in the following March, Pope John XXIII.
in solemn form excommunicated John Hus. It
was a dramatic moment in the history of Chris-
tianity. Hus replied that he would only obey the
Pope in so far as his commands were in accordance
with those of Christ. The excommunication was
renewed and the city of Prague laid under an
interdict. The issue was boldly joined and the
combat between Christ and Anti- Christ in terms
begun. It remained to be seen what the official
Church, as distinct from the official Pope, would do.
Would Gerson, one of the greatest influences in the
Church, a keen reformer and a theologian of the
first rank, support a policy deliberately aimed at
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 35
suppressing all that remained of spiritual Christianity
in Europe ?
A General Council had been promised for 1412,
and John had the effrontery to call it at Rome. It met
early in 141 3. It was very sparsely attended. Rome
offered few attractions to the followers of Gregory
XII. now living under the protection of Ladislaus of
Naples or to those of Benedict XIII. Moreover,
John's reputation had not improved. The scandal of
his life, though it scarcely shocked the cardinals, was
not attractive to the bishops of Christendom. The
only act carried was a Bull against the writings of
Wiclif. Having thus pledged the Church to the policy
of suppressing reform, John adjourned the sittings of
the Council, the resumption to take place at Constance
on All Saints' Day, 1414. In fact it met two days
later. 1 1 was the scene of Gerson's greatest triumphs,
For the moment he had secured his position in
Paris, and his journey to Constance was one of
singular interest to himself, for he passed through
Rheims, where he received almost royal honours,
and revisited his old home. The Council's first busi-
ness was to consider the disunion of official Christen-
dom. John XXI 1 1. was supported by France, Poland,
England, Hungary, Portugal, the kingdoms of the
North, and parts of Italy and Germany. Practically
the whole of what is now Protestant Europe supported
this sinister representative of Roman Catholicism.
Benedict XIII., now resident at Peniscola, was
supported by Castile, Arragon, Navarre, Scotland,
36 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Corsica, and Sardinia, and by the Counts of Foix
and Armagnac. Gregory XII. was the nominee of
part of the kingdom of Naples, Romagna, part of
Germany, Bavaria, the Palatinate of the Rhine,
Brunswick, Luxembourg, Hesse, Treves, a part of
the electorates of Mayence and Cologne, and the
territorial bishops of Worms, Spires, and Verdun.
The seamless garment of the Church was indeed rent,
and wondering Europe, distraught with every misery,
believed that the age of Anti-Christ had come.
The work before the Council was immense, and
indeed dangerous, but Sigismund guaranteed the
safety of the delegates who poured in from all
quarters. Gerson, as the representative of the
University of Paris and ambassador of the King of
France, is said to have led to Constance no less than
two hundred doctors of Paris. A hundred thousand
observers are reported to have flocked to the town,
including eighteen thousand ecclesiastics. The
Council had three main subjects to discuss : errors
against the faith, the re-establishment of ecclesiastical
discipline, and the extinction of the Schism. John,
who had called, or induced the Emperor Sigismund
to call, the Council, was present at the first sitting
in order to have his election confirmed. He evi-
dently feared no rebuke ; he was above both the
moral and the civil law of Europe. He claimed to
preside. An accident prevented this final blow to
the moral authority of the Church. The representa-
tives of Benedict and Gregory refused to take part in
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 37
the proceedings if this were allowed, and as their
presence was necessary in order to heal the Schism,,
John was pressed to abdicate. He agreed, and the
worthy Pierre d'Ailly declared that this act showed
grandeur of soul. Such an utterance by a man of
the undoubted personal goodness of d'Ailly seems
incomprehensible. The truth was that all things
were to be sacrificed to a policy of expediency that
would secure once more a United Church. If Saint
Gregory could have recourse to expediency, could
lavish letters of almost fulsome adulation on the
murderer of the Emperor Maurice, surely an ex-
Chancellor of the University of Paris could praise the
spiritual grandeur of the most profligate of mankind.
But John was under no misapprehension. He
understood the formulae of the Middle Ages and,
having put off the sheltering crown, fled for his life
to Schaffouse, where he placed himself under the
protection of the Emperor Frederick of Austria.
He was the third anti-Pope, and it was the business
of the distressed Council to supply the Church with
an official representative. Gerson once more con-
vinced the not reluctant assembly of the Church
that a General Council is superior to a Pope, and
at the twelfth session, on May 25th, 1415, John
XXIII. was deposed. It is perhaps not altogether a
matter for surprise that he accepted the decision of
the Council and agreed not to entertain the idea of
re-election even if he were invited! The fact was
that he was at this date in the hands of the Emperor
38 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Sigismund, and the secular arm looked with dis-
favour on offences and on a career that Gibbon
has deftly summed up in a mordant and unpleasant
epigram. For three years the ex- Pope was detained
in prison by Sigismund, a fact which fills M.
Masson with indignation. To those faithful persons
who believe that the efforts of Gerson, d'Ailly, and
the moderate reformers of Constance had a
cleansing effect on the Church, may be com-
mended the last stage of John's career. With
this stage Gibbon fortunately was not familiar.
His comment would have been justified, and one
more bitter gibe against Christianity would have
been recorded. Indeed it was difficult for an
historian of the eighteenth century, dealing only
with the history of Christianity in Rome, to realise
that any good thing could come out of Nazareth.
Cossa returned to Rome after his release
from prison. He was familiar with the city
long before his adventure as a pontiff. The
bitterest days of the Schism were among his
pleasantest recollections. He was in Rome when
Adam of Usk, the English clerical fugitive from
justice, arrived there in 1402. He was then
Cardinal-Deacon of the title of St Eustace, and
received the wanderer kindly, was kissed by
him on foot, hand, and cheek, and passed him on
to Cosimo dei Migliorati, who afterwards became
Innocent VII. This was the ripest period of
Roman simony, the period, as Adam says, when
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 39
" everything was bought and sold, so that benefices
were given not for desert, but to the highest
bidder." Cossa must have been present at the
great scene of September 29th, 1404, when an
embassy of the kings of the Avignon obedience
came to Rome and waited upon Boniface IX.
a man gorged with simony to endeavour to
bring him into the way of re-union. Boniface
shrieked at the embassy : " Thy lord is false,
schismatic, and very anti-Christ " ; to which Pierre
de Rabat, Bishop of St Pons de Tomieres, in the
province of Narbonne, replied with warmth : " My
lord is holy, just, true, catholic ; and he sits upon
the true seat of St Peter " ; and added with bitter
meaning, "nor is he simoniac."
Benedict XIII., the Lord of Avignon, was indeed
almost the only respectable papal figure of that age.
He had some conception of the dignity of the episcopal
office. Rabat's reply appears to have smitten Boni-
face ; Adam of Usk, at any rate, attributes his death
two days later to the interview and the punishment
of God. He was succeeded by Cossa's friend, Cosimo
dei Migliorati, the nominal Cardinal of Bologna.
It is at this date that Adam tells his story of the
Roman wolves : " Being lodged near the Palace
of St Peter, I watched the habits of the wolves and
dogs, often rising at night to this end. For, while
the watch-dogs barked in the gateways of their
masters' houses, the wolves carried off the smaller
dogs from the midst of the larger ones, and
40 THOMAS A KEMPIS
although, when thus seized, the dogs, hoping to
be defended by their larger companions, howled
the more, yet the latter never stirred from their
posts, though their barking waxed louder. And
so I pondered on the same sort of league which
we know doth exist in our parts between the great
men of the country and the exiles of the woods."
The English priest might have added that when
he rose to watch the wolves of the Campagna
fighting the dogs of Rome in the streets of the
Eternal City, he was observing in brief the history
of feudal and ecclesiastical Europe.
Rome at the opening of the fourteenth century
was corrupt beyond imagination. The story of
the false prophet calling himself Elias who came
to Rome at that date baffles belief. It is told by
Adam of Usk as a somewhat ordinary affair. It
is therefore not altogether surprising that a man
like Baldassarre Cossa should have attained the
popedom, even though the appointment took place
in pursuance of the reformatory measures of the
Council of Pisa. What, however, does seem sur-
prising, is that the new Pope, the nominee of the
Council of Constance, should have treated with
contempt the reformatory measures of the Council.
John XXIII. had been deposed, Gregory XII.
had agreed on terms to retire, and only the
hardy and respectable Benedict XIII. stood out.
Legal proceedings had been taken against him,
and at the thirty-seventh session of the Council
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 41
he had been deposed, and the faithful released
from their obedience. It is true that the brave
old Pope of Avignon stood out against the sen-
tence till his death in 1423, but the Council having
done all that was possible to heal the Schism, on
nth November 1417 appointed a Roman of famous
birth, Otto Colonna (Martin V.), as Pope.
One of the first acts of the new head of the
Church, the leader of Roman society, was to recall
Baldassarre Cossa to Rome, to rescue him from the
tyranny of the secular arm, and give this putative
poisoner of Pope Alexander V. his proper place in
the College of Cardinals. He received him, we are
told, with manifestations of honour and gratitude and
made him the doyen of the Sacred College. Cossa
was gratified by this tardy recognition of his merits
and became the faithful subject of the Conciliar Pope,
dying at last in the sulphurous odour of sanctity
and amidst the benedictions of the Church which
he had ruled. This was one fruit of the Council of
Constance, a tangible proof that a party of moderate
reformers cannot afford to enter into compromises
with the fundamental evils of their time. The
Schism was not even ended. It was destined to
become visible once more before the revival of
Rome as the city of the Renaissance.
The Council of Constance touched the problems of
the day from other points of view than that of its dis-
astrous settlement of the Great Schism of the West.
It dealt elaborately with questions of discipline and
42 THOMAS A KEMPIS
questions of faith, and in the lengthy debates on these
questions which were now stirring all Christendom,
Gerson played a brilliant and leading part. The
conservatism of his views was in remarkable contrast
to the views of earlier years. But he had come to
the conclusion that the social peace of Europe
depended upon the re-establishment of the Catholic
faith and the Catholic discipline. He carried all
before him. Mr Neville Figgis, writing upon
" Politics at the Council of Constance," l declares
that he was "great indeed . . . great in his in-
fluence and his activity, greater perhaps in his
learning and devotion, greatest of all in the pos-
session of a sense of humour, which leads him to
omit many arguments on account of his 'brevitatis
amor.' ' His sympathy must in many ways have
been with John Hus, who appealed against his ex-
communication by Pope John XXIII. to the Council.
" He was not prepared to submit unconditionally to
the authority of the pope, for Christ, he contended,
is the real head of the Church, the pope only His
representative, and His commands are supreme.
A pope in mortal sin has no authority, is indeed
Anti-Christ, and from Anti-Christ he was entitled
to appeal to Christ. By what right have you
deposed John XXIII., demanded the bold prisoner,
if the power of the Pope is absolute ? " 2 Such a
1 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1899), vol. xiii.
(N.S.) pp. 108-9.
2 Mackinnon's History of Modern Liberty, vol. i. pp. 160-1.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 43
declaration must have made Gerson wince. He
could scarcely share his friend d'Ailly's high opinion
of the Pope. He was actually at the moment
engaged on his work dealing with the distinction
between true and false visions, in which he lays
stress upon the free and voluntary power of God.
Yet Gerson could not afford, it was not expedient,
to rank himself on the side of even such a mild
heretic as Hus, and with all the learning of Paris he
overwhelmed the noble Bohemian and was con-
senting unto his death.
Yet not even the dire pressure of expediency and
the dangerous gift of compelling eloquence could al-
together blind the eyes of the great Chancellor to the
dangers of his policy. The forces of iniquity were
strongly represented at the Council of Constance.
It was their business to destroy not only Wiclivism,
not only Hussism, but all the purifying forces of
Christianity, and even conservative reformers like
Gerson himself. The dreamer of dreams, the seer of
visions, the honest sower of good seed, were all alike
abhorrent. Christ Himself they would have perse-
cuted as they persecuted those who followed Him.
This hatred of all that was good must have been
the motive that inspired the attack upon the
Brothers of Common Life, one of whom at that very
time was writing the purest devotional treatise, not
only of that, but of any age. Matthew Grabon led
the attack. He asserted that a community could
only be lawful if approved by the Holy See. The
44 THOMAS A KEMP1S
whole matter was referred for Gerson's decision, and
for once he resisted the temptations of expediency.
He rejected the doctrine that such a Brotherhood
required the sanction of a Pope who was possibly,
and in fact usually, immersed in mortal sin. The pro-
position touched the very ground of the convictions
that had ruled all his earlier life. The Brothers of
Common Life held the two chief doctrines of his faith,
that purity of life and the education of children were
the twin saviours of society. The work of the Brother-
hood as a purifying and teaching community was now
famous through the West, and the attack was in itself
an outrage. Gerson therefore upheld in this matter
his position as an educationalist and a contemplative.
In one other matter he faced the evil advisers
of the Council. He deliberately attacked the doc-
trines of Doctor Jean Petit, the member of his own
University who had attempted to justify the murder
of the Duke of Orleans. Petit was now dead,
and though his views were formally condemned,
the matter was carried no further. The Duke of
Burgundy was too formidable a person for even a
General Council to attack. From that moment,
however, Gerson was a marked man. Despite all
his diplomacy and eloquence, men recognised that
his heart was with the movement of reform and that
he was in spirit, if not in action, a member of the
Invisible Church. Such a man was abhorrent to
Burgundians and Vaticanists alike. There was no
doubt as to the party he would follow if Christianity
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 45
in the Apostolic sense ever again became a power
in Europe. For the moment, however, he was
covered by the safe conduct granted to the
Members of the Council, and up to the last shone
as the leader of the Assembly. At the forty-
fifth and last session held on April 22nd, 1418,
Cardinal Zabarella, Archbishop of Florence, ad-
dressed Gerson officially as " Superexcellens Doctor
Christianitatis," and thenceforth he was known to
Christendom as the Most Christian Doctor. From
this almost theatrical blaze of glory, he stepped
straightway into darkness and exile. His attack on
the Burgundians and probably his want of sympathy
with the Roman cardinals had made his position not
only politically impossible but absolutely dangerous.
With his two faithful secretaries he fled, on
the breaking up of the Council, from monastery to
monastery, pursued by the fear of assassination.
In Bavaria he learnt that Paris had been ravaged
by insurrection and massacre. Return was obviously
impossible. He eventually reached Rathembourg in
the Tyrol, and from there he retired on the invitation
of the Duke of Austria to the safe Benedictine abbey
of Moelck. There he wrote his Theological Consola-
tions. In 1419 the murder of the Duke of Burgundy
rendered a return to France possible. But all
ambition seems to have passed from the great Chan-
cellor's heart. He returned, but not to throw himself
into the passionate intrigues of Paris, or into the
whirl of events that followed the stricken field of
46 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Agincourt, when patriotism was made subservient to
the conflicts of revolutionary parties and a typical
visionary of the fifteenth century, in the person of
Jeanne d'Arc, became the saviour of society. The
world no longer appealed to him. It had been too
much with him. Its choicest fruits had proved but
dust and ashes. His triumphs at Constance had
been unprofitable. The evil spirit had been expelled
from the Church, the Church itself had been swept
and garnished. But the expelled spirit, now united
with its spiritual leaders in corruption, had returned to
Rome, and the last state of that Church was worse
than the first. Well might Gerson put aside the
world. It had rewarded him in its accustomed fashion.
He had left France and his own people in almost regal
guise. He returned to France to throw himself in
his brother's arms and to declare that he was a mere
suppliant for the mercy of God. He came to Lyons,
to the monastery of the Celestines, of which his
brother John was the first prior, and there he lived
for four years, engaged in prayer and contemplation
and in the writing of devout works.
It has been suggested that he wrote The Imitation
partly at the Abbey of Moelck and partly or mostly
at Lyons. I can see no evidence to support this
view. When at Moelck the bitterness of the re-
action after the glorious ending of the Council of
Constance was with him, and we know in fact
that his Consolations of Theology were written there
and largely consisted of a reasoned attack on
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 47
his old enemy long dead, Jean Petit. This was
not the spirit of the Imitation, not the atmosphere
in which the Imitation could have been written.
Men do not beat dead dogs with one hand and write
down with the other the painful aspirations of the
purified soul. It is true that when Gerson had
settled in Lyons about the year 1420, his mental and
spiritual view of life was in harmony with the out-
look of parts at any rate of the Imitation. But at
that date I have no doubt whatever that the Imita-
tion was already written. I have elsewhere discussed
the date of composition of the little treatises that form
this work, and it seems to me impossible to suppose
that they were completed later than the year 1420.
I think 1410 is more nearly the date. If this is so,
it is clear that Gerson could not have been the
author. It is moreover certain that the Imitation
was complete in 1425, and it appears to me improb-
able in the highest degree that this elaborate and
highly finished work was written between 1420 and
1425 by a man prematurely old, filled with disappoint-
ment and sorrow and divorced by every consideration
of human nature from the supreme structural arti-
ficiality of the Imitation. The work was built up
phrase by phrase. It is a complex mosaic, built in
accordance with a definite scheme. It is not such
an outpouring of the human heart, fluent but brimming
over with learned memories, as must have proceeded
from the pen of Gerson, such an outpouring as
did in fact more than once come from his pen.
48 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Moreover, not only is the date and spirit of com-
position against the theory that Gerson wrote the
work, but the style itself has absolutely no point in
common with Gerson's style, the style of a scholar,
reminiscent at every turn of classical learning and
the Latin philosophy of life. Had Gerson written the
Imitation, it would have contained, not some poor
half-dozen echoes of classical thoughts, but a
classical illustration in every paragraph. That is
Gerson's manner, but it is not the manner of the
author of the Imitation. It is probable, however,
that Gerson's sojourn at his brother's monastery did
in some way affect the history of the authorship of
this work. Copies of the Imitation were spreading
over Europe after the year 1420, and it is more than
probable that a copy came to the Celestine
monastery at Lyons and was in later years attributed
to the prior. This seems the rational explanation
of the Aronensis manuscript. Gersen is certainly
Gerson, and there is something unreasonable in the
attribution of this manuscript to an abbot created for
the purpose. So many early manuscripts were
attributed to the Chancellor of Paris, that it seems un-
reasonable in the extreme to argue that, because the
"o" has become an "e" another author has to be
found. In fact two of the British Museum manu-
scripts have this peculiarity in an intensified form.
In one of these manuscripts the Chancellor is called
u Gerseem," and in the other " Gersem." Other
imaginary claimants would have been created, no
Vl iexjuttrmer
Turn .tmtuLtf
in ttncbtrif dt
ClTcIonun. r)
Tpi -
monemiir 'q'
tetauTiuteim.
ii
a iVucUum Ticum fie in uitrA, y
'rut auC. aefdcctrttWCtnctou
k tttunt h*t^t. ^Wcyditum ibt mArux. inucntrflt-
-multi ^c fvequcti ^utditu etum4jcl^
liui) de/tdctriu; fentnunc <ji (puriCum
ro.
nttan.
.f iuttuo(X uust. efllatrcieo caeurn-
Sx
cr otuj pl^- d
"i J t- - r T
l ^ > '^' *<--. -(\-i 4 .'r..
M.S. IN THK BRITISH MUSEUM (HAKL. 3JHI) OK THE TREATISE " I)E
IMITAT1ONK CHRISTI." THE M.S. IS DATED '"21 DEC., 1I5I." PART OK
CAP. 1. (I.IH. I.) IS HERE REPRODUCED.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 49
doubt, to fit these names, had it not been for the fact
that the word " Chancellor " in each follows. The
omission of the word " Chancellor " in the Aronensis
manuscript has led to one of the most inane
controversies, perhaps the most inane of mediaeval
or modern times. There can be no reasonable doubt
that every manuscript that bears a variant of the
name Gerson was intended by the scribe to be attri-
buted to the great Chancellor of Paris. That Gerson
was familiar with the work might possibly be adduced
from the fact that in his De Laude Scriptorum he
refers to the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine as
good copyists, if we couple it with the fact alleged
by M. Masson that one of the most ancient manu-
scripts of the Imitation was transcribed by, or by the
direction of, Thomas de Gerson, a nephew of the
Chancellor and a canon of Sainte Chapelle. In any
event it is certain that if the work did come Gerson's
way he would have read it with profound admiration,
for its attitude of humility accorded with the mental
and spiritual resignation of the broken statesman of
Constance. It may well have been at this time that he
wrote his De Meditatione Cordis repeatedly in after-
times treated as an integral part of the Imitation
and the fact that this work was known to be his may
have associated his name with the Imitation. In
any event Gerson, a voluminous author who did not
love anonymity, and whose works written during the
ten years of meditation and obscurity were for
the most part, at any rate, signed, never claimed the
50 THOMAS A KEMPIS
authorship. The apparently very early date of the
Burney manuscript in the British Museum which
bears his name no doubt offers some difficulty if
it was in fact written before his death. But the
difficulty, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is not
a very serious one, unless of course the origin of the
manuscript can be traced to Lyons. There is no
vestige of a claim by Gerson to have written the
work. Indeed his time seems to have been filled
with other labours, and continual introspection.
In 1423 he left the Celestine monastery and
took up educational work in connection with the little
church of St Paul at Lyons and still wrote on. He
taught the children in the cloister beside the college
of St Paul, and there they learnt also to pray for him
in the pathetic words, " Mon Dieu, mon Createur,
faites misericordes a votre pauvre serviteur Jean
Gerson." Here Gerson wrote his mystic commen-
tary on the Song of Songs. He finished it on
July Qth, 1429, and immediately fell into an ecstatic
trance from which he never came back to common
day. His poor children were with him each day, re-
peating for him the prayer he had taught them. On
July 1 2th, 1429, he passed away from the world
in which he had played so great a part. " Notre
pere Jean Gerson" had ended his strange career
a mystic after all and not a politician. The spiritua
aspirations and ideals that had inspired his earlies
labours crowned his latest efforts. To instil into th(
education of youth the rapture of true religion was th(
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 51
solution that he offered first and offered last for the
woes of the world. Such a conception is perhaps
a better title to fame than the fruitless victories of the
Most Christian Doctor in the Council of Constance.
Education is the only factor of progress, the
future is in the hands of the little children, and it is
in our power to make these children what we will.
We may make them princes in all lands and give
them power to change the very aspect of society.
This Gerson fully recognised and ceaselessly
preached. The poorest child was a child of God
and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven, and
therefore it was as great an honour to teach him as
to teach the Dauphin. Gerson absolutely realised
the relationship of education to the social problems
of his day and of all days. He was in fact the first
educationalist in our modern sense of the term. It
is not possible fully to realise the age of Thomas a
Kempis unless we obtain some conception of what
education meant and whither it was drifting in that
period of blood and iron, and also some appreciation
of the mysticism or quietism which at this time lay
beneath much, if not all, of the religious revivals in
various parts of Europe. One particular combina-
tion of education and mysticism produced d'Ailly
and Gerson, another Gerard Groote, Florentius, and
a Kempis, and another the English mystics, and yet
another visionaries such as Catherine of Siena and
Bridget of Sweden. Education, on the other hand,
uncombined with mysticism or any other form of
52 THOMAS A KEMPIS
earnest religion, was responsible for the cold and
not very striking intellectuality of the average
Paris doctor, the men who followed Jean Petit and
justified the Burgundian reign of terror. Education,
moreover the mediaeval education of the mind
alone in no way checked the unrestrained lawless-
ness and debauchery of the Papal Courts at Avignon
and Rome. True education, then as now, comprised
the training of the spiritual and moral as well as the
purely intellectual faculties. If either of these
faculties were left untrained, there was a form of
education that produced some abnormality of nature
varying from the calculated degradation of Cossa to
the ignorant but noble mysticism of Jeanne dArc.
It will be convenient to glance somewhat rapidly
at the educational system in force about the year
1390. In education, as in everything else, the
decline had begun and mediaevalism was fighting in
strange, strenuous fashion against forces that it could
neither understand nor adequately resist. In the
same way that mediaeval armour in the fifteenth
century as illustrated in the sepulchral brasses
both of England and the Continent steadily in-
creased in weight and complexity with the addition
of grotesque devices for resisting the new mysterious
gun, did the intellectual armour endeavour to meet
new explosive ideas.
A desperate effort was made to carry the old
educational ideals, the old strict training in the
Trivium and the Quadrivium, into battle against the
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 53
intellectual moral and spiritual unrest of the world.
The Doctors of Europe, gathered together at
Constance and elsewhere to do battle for old ideals,
were cumbered by an intellectual armour that
robbed them of all real strength. For a time it was
possible by a continual increase of the outward
strength of this armour to resist the new mysterious
forces that were awakening in Europe. But the
great century that saw the armour of the knight
attain its most monstrous proportions, saw also its
disappearance. The same is true of the armour of
the Doctor. Knight and Doctor indeed vanished
together. The gunpowder of the Reformation
swept both away as the symbols of material and
spiritual brigandage.
It must never be forgotten that the Roman
Church performed a great work for education and
culture during the Early and Middle Ages. Learning
must inevitably have died after the decay and end
of the Western Empire, had it not been for the
efforts, first of the monasteries, and then of the popes
and provincial councils. The names of the councils
and popes who strove to keep alight the flickering
torch of learning are forgotten to-day. Who re-
members the Capitulare Aquisgranense^- of the year
789 A.D., when the first Adrian was pope ; the
Theodulfi Capitulare (caps. 19 and 20) of the year
797, and the third canon of the Second Council of
Chalons-sur-Soane of the year 813, both in the days
1 Cap. 72 de schola.
54 THOMAS A KEMPIS
of Leo III.? Who recalls the thirty- fourth canon De
scholis reparandis pro studio literarum, promulgated
at the Concilium Romanum of the year 826, when
Eugenius II. was pope, and who ever heard of the
Schola Cantorum of Pope Sergius II. ? The seven-
teenth canon of the Council of Turin, held in the
year 858, when the first Nicholas was pope, possibly
only interests the antiquarian mind, while the refer-
ence to education in the same year at the Synodus
Carisiaca (cap. 12) is probably too obscure for any
notice, and the tenth canon (de scholis sacraescripturae,
et humanae literaturaeinstituendis] of the year 859 at
the Council of Tullens is perhaps as dead as the rest.
These and other instances of the scholastic activity
of the Holy See and the bishops of the Church
when all the world of thought and light seemed dead
are, however, important as proving that in the dark
eighth and ninth centuries there was a force in the
world drawing men on to some far dawn.
Indeed the scholastic legislation of the Church
in the ninth century is directly responsible for the
educational organisation of the twelfth century. It
is customary to attribute to the combined effects of
the decrees of Third and Fourth Councils of Lateran *
the establishment throughout Christendom of a
diocesan system of schools. The Concilium
Romanum of 826, however, in its thirty-fourth canon,
really created this system. The canon runs : " We are
1 Third Council of Lateran (cap. 18), 1179 A.D. ; Fourth Council of
Lateran, 1215 A.D.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 55
informed that in certain places there are to be found
neither teachers nor provision for the study of letters.
Therefore in all bishoprics and among subject peoples
and other places wherein the necessity arises, let all
care and diligence be exercised in the appointment
of such masters and teachers as shall have at heart
and diligently teach the study of letters and of the
liberal arts and the sacred doctrines. For in these
things are the divine commands most clearly mani-
fested and declared," The Fourth Council of Lateran
was but carrying this express provision into effect
when it declared, in 1215, that "in every cathedral
or other church of sufficient power the Dean or
Chapter must appoint a schoolmaster to whom the
revenue of a prebend should be given. In a
metropolitan church a theologian must also be
appointed. And if the church cannot support both
a grammarian and a theologian, it must provide for
a theologian out of its own revenues and see that
provision is made for the grammarian in one of the
churches of its state or diocese." These provisions
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were but a
re-statement of a recognised position made with
the view of encouraging and indeed of enforcing the
higher clergy to carry out their educational duties.
In the larger cities throughout Europe, however,
the diocesan system of education was and had long
been in force. It is more than probable that one of
the earliest permanent officials of a cathedral was
the Magister Scolarum, and that this official eventu-
56 THOMAS A KEMPIS
ally became through the importance of his position
the chancellor of the diocese. Mr A. F. Leach,
dealing with the fact that the chancellorship of
Southwell Minster was annexed to one of the first
and most ancient prebends Normanton tells us
that this is a " fact which suggests that here, as
at York and Waltham, the Magister Scolarum was
the earliest dignitary. All collegiate churches and
cathedrals were bound to keep schools ; and the
teaching of the grammar school was regarded in
early days as an even more important part of the
duties of the official, who afterwards was known as
the chancellor, than his legal and clerkly business. It
is indeed only through his scholastic functions that,
at Southwell, we learn there was a chancellor at all,
though when he appears in written evidence he no
longer teaches school himself, but only sees that
others do so. This he does not only in Southwell
Grammar School itself, but throughout the county
of which Southwell was the mother church. So
the schools of the University of Oxford were, at first,
under the superintendence of the Chancellor of Lin-
coln, as chancellor of the mother church of the dio-
cese." 1 The diocese of Worcester gives us evidence
as to the Magister Scolarum in that county, 2 while
we get a particularly valuable instance of the powers
of this official in the case of the diocese of London.
1 Visitations and Memorials of Southwell Minster ; Camden Society,
1891, p. xli.
2 Register of Worcester Priory, pp. ex., 130 b, Camden Society, 1865.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 57
As this is apparent in the very period with which I
am dealing, it is desirable to refer to it somewhat
fully. Dugdale, in his History of St Paul's Cathedral?
tells us that a charter of Richard, Bishop of London,
in the time of King Henry I., "granted to one Hugh,
the schoolmaster, and his successors in that employ-
ment, the habitation of Durandus at the corner of
the turret (id est the Clochier or Bell Tower), where
William the Dean of Paul's had placed him by his
the said Bishop's command. To which Hugh
succeeded in that place Henry, a canon of the same
Bishop's, that had been educated under the said
Hugh . . . which Henry had such great respect in
those days that Henry de Bloys, that famous Bishop
of Winchester (who was nephew to the King), com-
manded that none should presume to teach school
within the whole city of London, without his licence,
excepting the schoolmasters of Saint Mary Bow, and
St Martin's le Grand." Newcourt, in his History of
the Diocese of London? adds a little to this informa-
tion. He tells us that Henry the Chancellor of
Paul's " was that Henry for whom Henry de Blois
(who was Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to 1171
and nephew to the King) had such great respect,
that by virtue of his legatine power he commanded
the chapter of St Paul's and William the Archdeacon,
and their ministers, by virtue of their obedience, that
after three times calling, they should pronounce the
1 Edition 1658, pp. 8-9.
2 Edition 1708-9, p. 109 ; see Round : Commune^ p. 117.
58 THOMAS A KEMPIS
sentence of anathema against all those who without
licence of Henry, the Master of the Schools, should
presume to teach within the whole city of London,
except those who were masters of the schools of St
Mary le Bow and St Martin le Grand." The school
was further endowed by Richard Nigel in the time of
Richard I. I think, however, we must date the
origin of the school earlier than the beginning of the
twelfth century, for the educational canons of 826
A.D. promulgated by Pope Eugenius II. must have
applied to an important cathedral church such as
St Paul's, especially when we consider the fact that
King Alfred is known to have initiated an educational
revival on a large scale and must have been familiar
with the specific educational provision of the English
Provincial Council of Cloves-hoo and the Council of
Rome in 826. 1 The school of Paul's, however,
became a national factor under the patronage of
Henry of Blois soon after the Norman occupation
of England. During his occupation of the see of
Winchester, Henry of Blois was an important social
force in England. A contemporary writer, 2 under
the date 1171, tells us: "Henry, Bishop of
Winchester, than whom never was man more chaste
or prudent, more compassionate, or more earnest in
transacting ecclesiastical matters, or in beautifying
1 Concilium Cloveshoviense, Canon vii., A.D. 747 (Wilkin's Concilia,
vol. i. pp. 95-6, London, 1737).
2 See Annals of the Church of Winchester from the year 633 A.D. to
the year 1277, by a monk of Winchester, translated by Rev. J. Stevenson
(Church Historians of England, vol. iv. part i., 1870).
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 59
churches, departed to the Lord, whom with his
whole heart he had loved, and whose ministers, the
monks and all other religious, he had honoured as
the Lord Himself. May his soul repose in the bosom
of Abraham." To the noble prelate, Alexander III.,
a great educational pope, wrote sometime after 1 159 :
" In future be more careful to see that nothing be
demanded or even promised for the licence to teach
anyone. If hereafter anything is either paid or
promised, take care that the promise is remitted and
payment restored, such charge being null and void
knowing what is written ' freely thou hast received,
freely give.' Indeed if anyone by reason of such a
prohibition delay the institution of masters in fit
places, you may, by our permission, disregarding
all gainsaying or appeals, appoint in such places for
the instruction of the people, prudent, honest, and
discreet men." l We may be sure that the bishop
who had done so much for education in London did
all that was possible to carry out this truly national
policy. We know that even the reign of Stephen
did not altogether check educational work, 2 and
thirty years after the death of Henry of Blois the
Council of Westminster ordained, "let nothing be
exacted for licences to priests to perform divine
offices, or for licences to schoolmasters. If it have
been paid, let it be restored." 3 Alexander III. did not
1 Corpus Juris Canonici, par. 2, col. 768 (Editio Lipsiensis secunda
post A. L. Richteri, 1879-81).
2 See Sarum Charters and Documents, Rolls Edition, p. 8.
3 Johnson's Laws and Canons, vol. ii. p. 89.
60 THOMAS A KEMPIS
restrict his educational efforts to England. In 1 1 70 it
was especially provided with respect to the Gallican
Church: "prolicentiadocendi pecuniaexiginondebet,
etiam si hoc habeat consuetude " ; l and this provision
was confirmed for the whole of Europe by the Third
Lateran Council in 1179. From the middle of the
twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century, Rome
indeed was doing all that was possible to secure the
spread of education throughout Europe, and her
efforts were admirably seconded in many cases, despite
the disorders of the times, by great ecclesiastics like
the Bishop of Winchester, and by a devoted clergy.
The corruption of Rome in the fourteenth century did
not undo her noble earlier work. We find that the
great London school for which Henry of Blois had
done so much had for the year 1 1 90 become an educa-
tional centre of the greatest importance, and as in
the two succeeding centuries the supremacy was
maintained and the curriculum practically unchanged
save for the increasing application of Aristotelian
scholasticism I may quote William Fitzstephen's
description of the curriculum, 2 as rendered by Stow.
" Upon the Holydayes, assemblies flocke together
about the Church, where the Master hath his abode.
There the Schollers dispute ; some use demonstra-
tions, others topicall and probable arguments, some
practise Enthimems, others are better at perfect
1 Corpus Juris Canonici, par. ii. col. 769.
2 See State Intervention in English Education, by the present
writer (Cambridge University Press, 1902), p. 43.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 61
Syllogismes : some for a shew dispute, and for
exercising themselves, and strive like adversaries :
Others for truth, which is the grace of perfection.
The dissembling Sophisters turne Verbalists, and
are magnified when they overflow in speech ; some
also are intrapt with deceitfull arguments. Sometime
certaine Oratours, with Rhetoricall Orations, speake
handsomly to perswade, being carefull to obscure the
precepts of Art, who omit no matters contingent.
The Boyes of divers Schooles wrangle together in
versifying, and canvase the principles of Grammar,
as the rules of the Preterperfect and Future Tenses.
Some after an old custome of prating, use Rimes and
Epigrams : these can freely quip their fellowes,
suppressing their names with a festinine and railing
liberty : these cast out most abusive jests, and with
Socraticall witnesses either they give a touch at the
vices of Superiours, or fall upon them with a
Satyricall bitternesse. The hearers prepare for
laughter, and make themselves merry in the meane
time."
London at the end of the twelfth century was
in the way to become, as Paris was becoming, one
of the great Universities of Europe. The sudden
development of Oxford and Cambridge checked
the expansion of the ancient London school into a
university, but the school itself remained famous
and efficient, and was a type of the cathedral
schools scattered all over Europe, some of which
became universities in answer to some peculiar
62 THOMAS A KEMPIS
geographical or social demand, but all of which
for two centuries, from the end of the twelfth
century, remained centres of learning, sending forth
travelling teachers possessing the licence to teach
and actually teaching in the parochial schools of
Europe the ABC schools, the reading schools,
the reading and writing schools and in the im-
portant song and grammar schools that led directly
to the universities, and possessing the curriculum
the very advanced curriculum indicated by
Fitzstephen. The Church, despite the terrible
growth of ecclesiastical corruption in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, kept a firm hold upon the
schools. We see this in all parts of Europe. At
Beverley, at the opening of the fourteenth century,
the independent schoolmaster is crushed out of
existence. 1 At Dundee at the beginning, and at
Glasgow at the end, of the fifteenth century, the
same thing happens. 2
In 1364 we have at Geneva an appeal to the
Pope at Avignon, informing his Holiness that the
titular canon of the chantry of St Peter, who was
the Magister Scolarum of the city, had put up
for sale the right to control the city and diocesan
schools, and as no purchaser had been found, " quod
scole ipse quasi ad nichilum sunt redacte." 3 The
Pope ordered the canonical provisions on the subject
1 Memorials of Beverley Minster, edited by A. F. Leach (Surtees
Society, 1897), pp. lix.-lxv.
8 State Intervention in English Education, p. 113.
3 LAcadtmie de Calvin, par Charles Borgeaud, Geneve, 1900, p. 6.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 63
to be enforced. The dispute between educational
authorities had, however, temporarily destroyed a
flourishing- local system. The schools in this case,
as in many other cases from about this time for-
ward, were taken over by the municipal authorities.
In London in 1393-4 we find the Magister
Scolarum and the ecclesiastical authorities which
controlled schools situated in Peculiars engaged in
a desperate controversy. London was then so
important, and the ecclesiastical courts so power-
less, that the Church could not retain its control
without the aid of the secular arm, and in conse-
quence we have a petition to the Crown from the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dean of the Free
Chapel of St Martin le Grand, and the Chancellor
of the church of St Paul's, relating a strange tale.
The petitioners declared l that by the laws spiritual,
and immemorial custom, the ordinance, the dis-
position, and examination of the masters of certain
schools of the faculty of Grammar within the city of
London, and the suburbs of the same, belonged
to them, but that nevertheless strange unqualified
masters of grammar held general schools in
grammar in the said city, to the deceit and
illusion of the children, and to the great prejudice
of the King's lieges, and of the jurisdiction of
Holy Church. The masters of the official schools
of St Paul's, the Arches, and St Martin's had
pursued their right against the intruders in the
1 State Intervention in English Education, p. 41.
64 THOMAS A KEMP1S
Court Christian, and the intruders in reply began
proceedings in the secular court to secure a
declaration of their right to teach grammar without
ecclesiastical licence. The breath of the Refor-
mation was in the bold demand. It was a de-
liberate attack in one of the greatest centres of
Christendom on the immemorial claim of a Church
now notoriously corrupt to control all and every
form of education. The significant fact is that the
attack was successful. The petition remained un-
answered, and seventeen years later the English
courts declared in the Gloucester Grammar School
Case 1 that there was by the common law of the
land, apart from prescriptive rights in particular
cases, a perfect right to teach : " It is a virtuous
and charitable thing to do, helpful to the people,
for which he cannot be punished by our law."
This was in the year 1410, a date when new
educational ideas were in the air, when the Brothers
of Common Life had given their new conceptions
of teaching to the world, when Gerson was pro-
claiming to Europe that education and the inner
life alone could save society, when a Kempis was
penning his immortal claim for the free intercourse
of man with God, and the spiritual necessity for
the following of Christ. The decay, the failure
of the great mediaeval educational system had
begun, but the whole of its vast machinery was
open to the new ideas, and they flowed in. The
1 Year Book, anno n, Henry IV., p. 47, Case 21.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 65
University corporations of masters and scholars
associated for this or that scholastic discipline,
for the study of the liberal arts, of theology,
medicine, or law, was gradually permeated with
the new unrest that ran before the new learning.
In Paris, with its faculties of arts, theology, and
canon law the very home of that study of Aristotle
which from the end of the twelfth century had
substituted dialectic and philosophy for the ancient
Quadrivium Gerson thundered forth the needs of
the inner and the outer life. The life of Oxford was
Wiclivism at this date, and the revival of Church
authority as shown in Archbishop Arundel's Con-
stitutions of 1408 was short-lived. In so far as
the University was under the control of the Church,
it slowly died during the fifteenth century, and the
University of Paris about the middle of the century
refused even to recognise Oxford as a seat of
learning. Lollardism alone kept the flame of
culture alive and made Oxford fit to receive the
new learning at the end of the century. The
mediaeval system of education was in process
of dissolution at the date when the Imitation first
appeared, and the question for the world was
whether the old machinery could be adapted to
new needs, new methods of thought, new spheres
of learning, new manners of life. The revolu-
tion in religion that accompanied the revolution
in thought alone rendered this possible. The
machinery of society was rapidly fitted to the new
66 THOMAS A KEMPIS
ideas, and for this we have in some large measure
to thank the practical work of mystical thinkers
who did all that was possible to soften the rudeness
of revolution, and to make the hearts of men move
with their minds. The Imitation was, indeed, un-
consciously enough, a representative of a force that
rendered possible the transition from mediaeval to
modern manners without a disastrous loss of power,
and without a revolution that could only recreate by
virtue of destruction. That force was the Christian
mysticism which then as now lay beneath the
varying living forms of Christian profession.
In England the influence of mysticism was
peculiarly apparent. England gave to the world
extraordinary developments both of scholasticism
and mysticism. It was Anselm who first definitely
enunciated the principal of scholasticism in its
application to the interpretation of scripture. Had it
not been for his work, Petrus Lombardus could never
have created that logical structure which comprised
the whole dogma of the mediaeval Church. These
men were realists and believed in the reality of
general ideas, and therefore in a sense made logically
possible the later extreme mystical position. Their
great descendants Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas were for this reason no opponents of the
mystic position. If general conceptions represented
real facts in nature, the general conceptions of the
mystic were real. The two Victorines Hugo of
St Victor, a Saxon, and Richard of St Victor, a
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 67
Scotsman had already realised this and evolved
their mystic doctrine by the means of scholastic
logic. Richard definitely built up a philosophical
theory of contemplation as an intuitive fact dis-
tinguishable from cogitation (the ordinary power of
reason) and meditation (the power of reflection upon
a single subject). Another man closely connected
with England, Bonaventura, carried the mystic
doctrine into daily life and showed its practical ap-
plication. At this stage, the mid-thirteenth century,
the theory of religion was partly controlled by the
Aristotelian logic and partly by the new trans-
cendental logic of the mystics. One force or other
was, however, certain sooner or later to dominate
the religious world. The decision came in the
fourteenth century. Another Englishman, Duns
Scotus, gave the final development to scholasticism.
He carried it beyond the bounds marked out by
Albert and Aquinas. He forced it to its ultimate
and logical conclusions, and justified Roger Bacon's
appreciation of its essential unreality.
When Duns Scotus died in 1307, the final stage
of mediaeval scholasticism was in its prime. It was
an intellectual triumph of the highest order, but
it had ceased to have any relationship to life or
religion. Throughout and beyond the fourteenth
century, it was magnified as an intellectual
weapon, but it had ceased to have any meaning in
the life of the people. Realism vanished from the
scholastic philosophy, and with realism the relation-
68 THOMAS A KEMP1S
ship of mysticism and scholasticism. Paris became
the school of the nominalists, and formal theology
was controlled by nominalism. Universals, she
taught, were mere words, mere figments of the
imagination. From that time the official faith of
the Church became hard and materialistic, and the
mystics alone represented the Invisible Church and
alone carried on the Platonic conceptions of Saint
Augustine. It was in England that the mystic
movement was carried to its height. From early
Norman times England had exhibited a vigorous
Christianity that depended but little on the dictates
of Rome. Even when Rome, in the reign of Henry
III., possessed her maximun of power in England,
the spiritual movements of the time seem to have
developed quite freely. The monastic life from the
time of Stephen appeared to offer singular attractions
to English men and women, and in the twelfth
century we get a curious mystic development, not so
much among the thinkers, as among the people.
The monastic discipline was not enough. An extra-
ordinary desire for the eremitical life arose. The
hermit was regarded as a person of peculiar and
enviable sanctity. A desire to experience the fullest
sweetness of religious contemplation became wide-
spread. Men and women of all classes wished to
live the mystic life. Mr Horstman tells us that " the
chief conquests of the English mystics lay on the
side of practical, moral, and popular theology, and
gradually they even more than Bonaventura
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 69
absorbed the whole sphere of religion. They
taught the way Godward, the way of perfection, the
ruling of life ; and at the same time they undertook
the edification and instruction of the people, of the
poor and illiterate, taught them the elements of the
faith, the commandments, the sacraments, etc., and
took hold of the pulpit ; or they instructed the parish
priests how and in what to teach the people, how to
use the sacraments, etc., and made model sermons,
festivals, legendaries, for their use. The sermon,
the homily, the epistle, the religious tract became
the mouthpiece of the mystics." 1
It is in this mystical movement of which a vast
unprinted literature survives that we find the
origin of Lollardism and of the Reformation in
England. It is in this movement that we find
the leaders in their efforts to reach the people turn-
ing from Latin to the vernacular in England,
Germany, and (later) France. Gerson, as we have
seen, at the end of the fourteenth century wrote for
the people in the vernacular ; a Kempis in at least
one tract did the same ; but a century earlier, David
of Augsberg (who died in 1272) and Meister Eckhart
wrote in German, and in the first half of the
fourteenth century Richard Rolle of Hampole, the
great English mystic, wrote many of his tracts in the
English tongue. Some mention must be made of
Richard Rolle de Ampulla, for it would be difficult
to over-estimate the indirect influence that he
1 Richard Rolle of Hampole^ by C. Horstman, vol. i. p. xii.
70 THOMAS A KEMPIS
exercised over the development of religion in Europe.
He was born about the year 1300 at Thornton, near
Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He
died on September 29th, 1349, at Hampole. His
life was an extraordinary exhibition of what appears
to the ordinary mind as perverted holiness. He
was sent to Oxford, and there he met scholasticism
in its latest, its most brilliant, and its most arid stage of
development. It rilled him with horror, and after a
brief sojourn at the University he fled at the age
of nineteen. He returned home and, at an age
when the pleasures of life seem most vivid, he de-
cided to become a hermit. He found a patron who
supplied him with a cell and the necessaries of life.
He set to work to realise in his own person the
mystic ideal. He passed through the stage of
Purification, or Purgation, and was able to declare
that he had reached that point of purification when
even remorse is washed away. From that stage he
passed to the second, the stage of Illumination, where
the mind is kindled to the perfect love of God.
Two years and eight months were spent in the ex-
hausting exercises that could produce this subjective
state. Then the hermit passed into his final stage,
that of Contemplation, where man " sees into heaven,
with his ghostly eye." In this extraordinary state
he lay absorbed for a year, until he attained to the
final goal of this type of mystic. He acquired the
Calor the inward spiritual warmth, almost indis-
tinguishable, he tells us,Trom physical warmth and
RICHARD R01.I.K OF H A.Ml'OI.K (i:jco-l:U!i) FROM COT-
TON MS. FAUSTINA I!. II., PART II., KOI.. lUii-
HRITISH MUSEUM).
I>K. C. HOKSTMAN CONSIOKKS THIS A CONTKMI'UKAKV I1)M1'KAIT, HfT
IT IS IJIKKICt'T TO DATK THK MS. EAKI.IKK 'I MAN 1400. IT MAV
WKI.I. UK A COI'V OK A CONTKMI'OKAKV KCKIOIKS
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 71
nine months later this was followed by the Canor
an all-pervading melody of uncloyable sweetness.
These experiences were accompanied by the Dulcor
a sense of spiritual happiness ineffable and divine.
A period of four years and three months had given
to Rolle these results. Henceforth, he declared,
they remained with him in various forms of intensity.
He laid claim to saintship as a being wholly
absorbed in the love of God, and he asserted that
the gift of Canor that spiritual music, that invisible
melody, celestial sound, the greatest gift of God to
men brought him within the select class of the one
or two " privilegiati." J
What is one to think of all this? It is cer-
tainly repellent, it is still more certainly danger-
ous. It shows us the road to that most
horrible of all heresies Perfectionism and it estab-
lishes, I think, the reactionary character of all ex-
cessive religious emotion. But nevertheless it is a
fact that has to be considered, very seriously to be
considered, in an age that promises to become as
mystical as the fourteenth century. It must be
remembered that Richard Rolle did not stand
alone. Some mystics went even further. It was
claimed that Saint Bernard actually saw God face
to face. We have to realise that there is in human
nature this extraordinary quality : the desire to
become unclothed of human characteristics while
still in the flesh, and to take part in a life which is in
1 See Richard Rolle of Hampole, vol. ii. (Introduction/ajttw).
72 THOMAS A KEMPIS
truth pure mentality. Rolle deliberately en-
deavoured to realise in his own person the transcen-
dentalism of Richard of St Victor, and he claimed
success. But the important point about this extra-
ordinary mystic, for my present purpose, is his career
after he attained the summit of subjective holiness.
He returned to the world and became a wandering
preacher, and at last took up his pen. Here the
practical North Country Englishman came to light.
His treatises were treatises for the people ; treatises
of the practical mystic life ; treatises of well-living
and well-doing, not untouched with the spirit of
social revolt that was to become a political factor in
his spiritual descendants the preaching friars in
russet grey who filled the countrysides with
Lollardism. It is a curious story. This man was
not a monk. He was a layman who determined
to live the mystic life and inculcate it by word and
example. Having done his work, he settled down,
at the age of forty, at Hampole, as the spiritual
adviser of a community of nuns, and there nearly
ten years later he died, probably of the plague, which
was then raging in England. Wiclif was then twenty-
five years of age. Even a cursory examination of
Rolle's Latin writings show a remarkable unity of
ideas between him and the author of the Imitation.
His description of love and the true lover is almost
identical with the wonderful fifth chapter of the
book of Internal Consolations. Walter Hilton, of
whom I have written in another chapter, was a
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 73
follower of Rolle, and certainly those who are
tempted to think that Hilton wrote the Imitation
will find a measure of support in the influence
that Rolle undoubtedly exercised over Hilton. It
might well be contended that only one intimately
acquainted with Rolle's writing could have written
certain parts of the Imitation. The answer to such a
contention is that the English and Flemish mystics
had a common ground of thought and faith.
When we turn from England to Germany and
the Low Countries, we find that mysticism had there,
as in England, become a great though intangible
force. Mechthild of Magdeburg, "prophetess,
poetess, Church reformer, quietist," l had stated the
mystical case and its relation to social problems
before the birth of Meister Eckhardt in 1260.
This famous Dominican became Vicar-General for
Bohemia in 1 307, and from that date was engaged in
preaching his transcendental doctrine of the God-
head, " the universal and eternal Unity comprehend-
ing and transcending all diversity." A Neo-platonist,
he gave a new currency to Plotinian conceptions,
and though his doctrines were officially condemned
in 1329, and he himself forgotten, his realistic con-
ception of God had become part of the mystic creed.
As Mr Inge points out, his philosophy "does not
keep clear of the fallacy that an ascent through the
unreal can lead to reality." But nevertheless he
brought home to innumerable congregations the
1 Light ', Life and Love, by W. R. Inge, p. xi.
74 THOMAS A KEMPIS
reality of God as an object of mystic contemplation.
His successor was John Tauler, born about the same
year, 1300, as Richard Rolle. He died in 1361, after
a life of parochial work. To mystics of this type
"everything, every event, every person, is a vision
from the U nseen, a voice from the I naudible. H e lives
in a world of parables, full of spiritual significance ;
and while for him there is a Real Presence every-
where, he finds it also most truly and effectively
where it is most clearly discerned by faith. . . .
In God's dealings with man from first to last he
perceives a harmony that implies a foreshadowing
of the last in the first, of the whole in the part ; and
in this way he can find an interpretation of spiritual
value even in the thoughts of good men, who have
pictured to themselves, inaccurately, it may be, as
to matters of fact, God's earlier work in the creation
of the world and of man." x Tauler dwells continu-
ally on the oneness of man and God. " The
soul is so nobly united to God, and, at first,
in such a supernatural way, that man might justly
shun, like death, every thought that could interfere
with this union. The thought, which is to receive
God into itself, can endure nothing strange. There-
fore desire only invisible and inexpressible things "
(Sermon on St Paul). The Plotinianism of Eck-
hardt is made into a practical mysticism by Tauler.
1 See The Inner Way, being thirty-six sermons for festivals by John
Tauler, with an invaluable introduction by the Rev. A. W. Hutton
(p. xxxiii.).
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 75
God is not the only reality. Man is also a reality,
but one that desires to merge into God. With
Tauler we ascend through reality to reality. When
we pass from John Tauler to Henry Suso (1295-
1365), we meet a mystic more of the type of Richard
Rolle but possibly less spiritual and more sensuous
and even more neurotic than was Rolle. He had
something of the same influence over a Kempis
that Rolle had over Hilton. John of Ruysbroek
{Doctor Ecstaticus) is even of more importance in con-
sidering the spiritual heritage of Thomas a Kempis.
He was a Fleming, born in 1293 at Ruysbroek, near
Brussels. He founded the Abbey of Groenendael
in the forest of Soignies, where he died in 1381,
shortly after the birth of Thomas a Kempis. At
Groenendael he was visited both by Henry Suso
and Gerard Groote. These visits may be said
definitely to connect a Kempis with the schools
of the German and Flemish mystics. Ruysbroek's
work has been carefully analysed by Mr W. R. Inge
in his learned and brilliant Bampton Lectures for
I899. 1 In his abbey "he wrote most of his mystical
treatises, under the direct guidance, he believed, of
the Holy Spirit." He " was not a learned man or
a clear thinker. He knew Dionysius, St Augustine,
and Eckhardt, and was no doubt acquainted with
some of the other mystical writers ; but he does not
write like a scholar or a man of letters. He
resembles Suso in being more emotional and less
1 Christian Mysticism, p. 167.
76 THOMAS A KEMPIS
speculative than most of the German school." He
elaborated the order of mystical evolution. He con-
ceived a " Ladder of Love," the rungs of which were
" (i) good will ; (2) voluntary poverty ; (3) chastity ;
(4) humility ; (5) desire for the glory of God ; (6)
Divine contemplation, which has three properties
intuition, purity of spirit, and nudity of mind ; (7)
the ineffable, unnameable transcendence of all know-
ledge and thought." Still more elaborate is his
analysis in his Ordo Spiritualium Nuptiarum. "The
three stages are here the active life (vita actuosa], the
internal, elevated, or affective life, to which all are
not called, and the contemplative life, to which only
a few can attain." He held with Rolle that there
were privilegiati, and his analysis of life is not unlike
that which Rolle endeavoured to realise. But his
final position is more philosophic : " What we are, that
we intently contemplate ; and what we contemplate,
that we are ; for our mind, our life, and our essence
are simply lifted up and united to the very truth,
which is God. Wherefore in this simple and intent
contemplation we are one life and one spirit with
God. And this I call the contemplative life. In
this highest stage the soul is united to God without
means ; it sinks into the vast darkness of the God-
head." Here we have Eckhardt and Tauler mingled
into one : but Rolle and Suso add some softening
touches to this cold philosophic ending to the soul's
spiritual journey. " We must be conscious of our-
selves in God, and conscious of ourselves in ourselves.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 77
For eternal life consists in the knowledge of God,
and there can be no knowledge without self-conscious-
ness." It was, we must believe, some such thought
that drove Richard Rolle back to the world ere he
reached the Ruysbroekian consummation of con-
templation.
From John of Ruysbroek we pass to a figure who
was destined to give a new and practical impulse to
mysticism, and to create the means whereby the
Imitation was given to the world. Gerard Groote
was a contemporary of Wiclif, but unlike Wiclif and
unlike Hus, he originated no political changes. An
itinerant preacher, as Wiclif was, he nevertheless made
no appeal, direct or indirect, to the spirit of social
reform that then was stirring in the hearts of men.
A spiritual descendant of the German and Flemish
mystics, he went about preaching the doctrine of the
inner life. The life story of Gerard Groote is a
strange one, and it throws a vivid light on an import-
ant aspect of society in the days when the tide of
time was turning from its ebb in the direction of the
Reformation.
Groote was born at Deventer in the year 1 340.
Educated at the grammar school of that town and
later at Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, he passed with
a sound reputation to the University of Paris, where
he drank deep of the well of scholastic learning and
became a profound theologian and a nominalist of
the recognised type. He left Paris perhaps twenty
years before Gerson came to give the University
78 THOMAS A KEMPIS
new light and leading. Groote was a man of wealth,
position, and learning, and was able to select his
own career. He chose, after some experience of
teaching and lecturing at the University of Cologne,
that ecclesiastical career which was open to laymen.
The choice appears to have been the result of a visit
paid to the papal court at Avignon in the year 1 366.
That city must in many ways have impressed the
mind of a man whose great gifts enabled him to see
below the surface of things. St Bridget of Sweden
in that very year was urging Urban V. to return to
Rome. Rumours of the new mysticism, fear of all
that it might mean, filled the papal court. There
can be no doubt that at the very time when Groote
was in Rome the mystic shadow lay on the soul of
Urban the shadow that was to drive him to Rome
in the succeeding year, and was to brood over and
haunt his death-bed. Gerard Groote had his first
acquaintance with mysticism in the strange palaces
of a dead faith. His immediate reward was scarcely
spiritual. On his return to Deventer he found
various benefices to his hand, as well as the canonries
of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle. In his new career
he led a life of cultured and learned leisure, enjoying
the present hour as his wealth and inclination dictated,
and waiting for the further preferment that his gifts
and his position were certain to secure. The turmoil
of Europe, the struggle for temporal and spiritual
power, meant as little to him as it meant to the
average church dignitary of the eighteenth century.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 79
He was a man who had great possessions material,
intellectual, and, as the sequel proved, spiritual. To
him in due time, as to his prototype in the Scriptures,
the call came, and, unlike that friend of Christ, he
was not found wanting. From time to time he had
been stirred by vague calls to life. He had heard
them in the cathedral services and in the daily life
of the church. But they came from other sources
also. An unknown hermit came to him one day in
the public street did it recall the mystic rumours
of Avignon and cried, " Another man thou oughtest
to become." Later in sore sickness he abjured his
Parisian studies in astrology and magic. At last in
1 374 the final call came, bringing inherited traditions of
piety to light. A university friend, now a Carthusian
prior, called upon him at Utrecht and eloquently bade
him take up the following of Christ. There was
little hesitation. The seed of mysticism suddenly
germinated. Without hesitation or regret he re-
nounced his benefices, his canonries, his ecclesiastical
ambitions, and took holy orders as a deacon. Such
were the contrasts of the fourteenth century :
to take orders was to end the ambition of the
Churchman. For five years he trained his heart.
He visited the monastery of the Augustinian Canons
at Viridis Vallis ; he communed deeply with John of
Ruysbroek ; he entered the Carthusian House at
Monichuysen. Under the influence of the ascetic
life and of the mind of Saint Augustine he returned
to the world in 1379, intent on its conversion. He
80 THOMAS A KEMPIS
became an itinerant preacher, and travelling on foot
from place to place, might have been taken in his
coarse grey robe for one of Wiclifs friars, who at
this very date were tramping the roads of England
and haranguing the multitude in churchyards and
market-places.
But it was a very different though a not less
wonderful work that he performed. He had three
aims : one was to bring a sense of repentance home
to the many ; another was to introduce a new life
into the work of the parochial clergy ; and the third
was to make the education of the people a vital fact
in the economy of the land. He devoted his wealth
to this third aim, and not only intimately associated
himself with the teachers in the chief schools, but
also founded schools where they were needed. His
itinerant preaching, which attracted multitudes,
arousedecclesiasticaljealousy andsuspicion. He, how-
ever, held the episcopal licence, and for five years con-
tinued his itinerant work. At last in 1383 his licence
to preach was withdrawn on the ground that he was
not a priest, but only held deacon's orders. His
appeal to Urban VI. failed, and his labours hence-
forth were limited to educational work. But he was
no longer alone. He had awakened spiritual life
throughout the diocese of Utrecht and the work of
preaching had in fact achieved its object. Centres
of spiritual life, tiny congregations of humble
Christians, had been formed in many places, and
these congregations supplied him with a band of
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 81
followers who could aid him in the great educational
work that he had designed.
His educational and religious aims were well
known, and young men seeking instruction came to
him from all parts. We are told that as far as
possible he educated them free of charge, and gave
them copying work to do, for which he paid them.
The result of his efforts was the formation of little
bands of young men who lived together a life of
simplicity, purity, and strenuous work. These were
the Brothers of Common Life, and even in Gerard
Groote's life there were several definite communities.
He also founded a House of Sisters of Common
Life at Deventer. Two of these communities are of
particular interest to us, though they only formed
part of a movement that spread throughout Germany
and was vigorous until it was absorbed into the
larger issues of the Reformation. It appears to
have been Groote's first disciple, Florentius
Radewin, who suggested the formation of com-
munities entirely supported by the joint-earnings of
the copyists, who in the days before the introduction
of printing received good payment. Groote con-
sented, and advised the drawing up of rules regulat-
ing the common life. The first community was that
formed at Deventer under Florentius. It was
immediately followed by the House of Sisters in the
same town, while the community at Zwolle was
probably formed about the same time. With this
community Groote stayed, and made it an effective
82 THOMAS A KEMPIS
mission centre. Groote felt that if the organisation
that had suddenly come to life was to grow and
prosper it must have a centre ; so, after consulting
with John of Ruysbroek, he decided to found a
central monastery to which all the scattered com-
munities could look. The members of these
communities were bound by no vow. Membership
was from first to last voluntary. To pray, to preach,
to teach, and to live by labour were the sole duties of
the members. Gerard Groote did not live to see his
work reach its prime. His desire to found a central
monastery, a community of Canons Regular of the
Order of Saint Augustine, to watch over the
praying and teaching Order that he had founded,
was, however, brought nearly to accomplishment.
He could not himself found the monastery, for his
great fortune had already been exhausted ; but at this
very time a friend dying of the plague bequeathed
the necessary money to carry out what he knew to
be Groote's desire. Unfortunately Groote himself,
waiting upon and consoling his dying friend, con-
tracted the horrible disease and died. That was in
the year 1384. His ministry had lasted, from the
date of his call, some ten years. The results of that
ministry are still felt throughout civilisation to-day.
Gerard Groote on his deathbed had exhorted his
followers to found the monastery which he saw to be
necessary as a rallying-point of the Brothers of
Common Life. He had even indicated the place " a
waste and uncultivated spot lying between Deventer
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 83
and Zwolle . . . afterwards called Windesem or
Windesheim." l The monastery, after the lapse of
some years, was founded, and among the first six
brethren was John, the elder brother of Thomas a
Kempis.
The foundation of the central monastery of
Windesheim led to the establishment of various
other houses, including that of Mount St Agnes,
which was founded in 1398, on a site which had
been chosen by Groote many years before, as a
Brother House for the Brothers who had originally
settled in the neighbouring town of Zwolle. After
Easter 1398 Brother John a Kempis was elected
Prior of the small band of Augustinian Canons now
gathered on Mount St Agnes. This was the spot
where Thomas a Kempis was destined to spend his
long and holy life, and to become the spiritual light
of a great movement which was quietly spreading
through Central Europe.
It is almost startling to turn from the restless lives
of men like Rolle, Groote, and Gerson to the serene
placidity of the life of Thomas Haemmerlein, the
only one of the innumerable writers of the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries besides
Chaucer, who has survived to our day. Other
writers of that period are read out of curiosity or
for the somewhat idle purposes of book-making ;
but these two are read of necessity. Their works
1 See Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life, by the
Rev. S. Kettlewell. It is a laborious and invaluable work.
84
are part of the spiritual heritage of the race.
"Thomas a Kempis was born in the year 1379 or
1380 at Kempen, a small but pleasant town in the
diocese of Cologne, and situated about forty miles
northward of this city, in the flat and fertile country
bordering the Rhine." 1 His parents were of the
laborious yeoman or citizen class, persons of some
education and much godliness, who apparently had
come under the influence of either Tauler or Gerard
Groote. There seems to be some evidence to prove
that the mother taught in a little school, but at any-
rate we are told that she was " sedulous in the
education of her children, attentive to the concerns
of her household, active in her habits, very
abstemious, not given to much talk, and extremely
modest in her behaviour." She is "especially
mentioned for her distinguished piety and for the
influence that she exercised over her son Thomas in
early implanting in his mind the love of holy things." 2
Her sons certainly followed closely in her footsteps,
as she followed in those of her husband. All that we
are told of this simple household recalls the house-
hold at Nazareth. We only know of two children,
John and Thomas. John was born about the year
1364, and was probably one of Groote's earliest
scholars. He had been sent to the school at
Deventer probably before the birth of Thomas, and
had been helped by the community of Brothers of
1 Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life, p. 27.
2 Ibid. pp. 30, 31.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 85
Common Life there. He must have been a witness
of the foundation of Groote's first community, and
have been intimate with Groote himself. Long
before Thomas set out from home for Deventer, John
had joined the Brotherhood ; and when, after the death
of Gerard Groote, the monastery was founded at
Windesheim, he had been chosen as one of the first
six Canons Regular. In due time, when Thomas
was about thirteen years of age, in the year 1392, he
was sent to Deventer to join his brother. His
parents did not know that John was already settled
at Windesheim. This has always seemed to me a
curious fact, and it is still more curious that Thomas
with all his gift of penmanship, makes scarcely any,
if any, definite reference to his parents. There
seems a certain want of human lovingness, an
absence of the love of kind, in the apparent
seclusion of these two men from the dearest
ties in life. Yet it is probable that the absence
of any reference is due to the loss of documents,
for we know from his biographical writings that
Thomas was peculiarly susceptible to human friend-
ship, and when Lubert Berner was called away from
the House to visit his sick father, Thomas records the
incident with pleasure. Moreover, the brothers were
certainly devotedly attached to each other ; so that
we may perhaps assume that in this instance quietism
was not guilty of the ingratitude with which it is so
often degraded and stained.
It was a long tramp from Kempen in the diocese of
86 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Cologne to Deventer in that of Utrecht, but the
farther march on to Zwolle in the same diocese was
a smaller matter. There the brothers met, perhaps
for the first time, and there was sealed one of those
deathless friendships that give such a human aspect
to the character of Thomas Haemmerlein. The
elder brother determined that the boy should follow
the course of education that had been so great a
source of spiritual strength to himself and so many
of his friends. He therefore gave him a letter
addressed to the saintly Florentius, the Rector of the
Brothers of Common Life at Deventer. Florentius,
the chief disciple of Groote, and himself a contempo-
rary of Ruysbroek and Suso, received the lad with
many welcomes. " When I came," Thomas tells us,
" therefore into the presence of this reverend Father,
he, being at once moved with pity towards me, kept
me for some little time with him in his own house,
and there he prepared and instructed me for the
schools, giving me, moreover, such books as he
thought I might stand in need of. Afterwards he
obtained a hospitable reception for me into the
house of a certain honourable and devout matron,
who showed much kindness both to me and to several
other clerks."
Between Florentius and Boheme, the rector of
the town school, the boy fared well. It was a
notable age in this respect. Education was ever
free to those who could show an intellectual or a
moral title to it. In this dark and troubled age
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 87
man's intellectual birthright was respected more
fully than in later times. Thomas Haemmerlein
remained at Deventer about seven years. The
public school was in fact, if not in name, a song-
school, with such local modifications as had been
produced by the influence of Groote. The rector
was one of the vicars in the parish church, and he in
part drew his choir from the school. The song-
school in the fourteenth century gave what we should
now call a sound secondary education of the classi-
cal type, with special attention to the spiritual needs
of the children. The part that they played in the
cathedral or church services as choristers rendered
a special training in matters of ritual essential. But
the education given was also preparatory to the
prolonged university course, and a Kempis had as
his master a distinguished university scholar, while
he had in Florentius an adviser who was acquainted
with all Groote's educational views, and was more-
over a scholar and a saint. These seven years were,
therefore, spent in an environment of the most help-
ful kind. The House of the Brothers was in intimate
touch with the school, and after perhaps five years
a Kempis entered the House and became acquainted
with the daily life of the Brotherhood a life
laborious and simple, modelled on the methods of
the early Christian Church. Their life became the
pattern of his life. Almost unconsciously he became
a member of the community, joining in their labours,
and learning to take a share of the copying work
88 THOMAS A KEMPIS
which then formed a main source of income. There
he found his first personal friend if we except his
brother a boy of his own age, Arnold of Schoon-
hoven, a youth of admirable piety, whose sweet and
amiable nature played no mean part in determining
the direction of the mind of a Kempis.
By the year 1400, when Thomas Haemmerlein
was about twenty years of age, his future seemed
clearly marked out. He had attained to a degree
of scholarship that would have enabled him to have
taken up the specialised work of a university ; he
had become a copyist of no mean ability ; he had
absorbed the spirit of the Brotherhood in which he
had lived. The serenity of his environment had
become a necessity of his life. In any other air he
would have pined and died ; in these high altitudes
he could live and could rejoice. Florentius in daily
intercourse had woven round him the subtle spell of
the simple life, and when manhood came it seemed
a matter of necessity, both to the disciple and his
master, that the youth should pass into a monastery
of the Community. At this date John a Kempis was
at Mount St Agnes, and thither Thomas was sent
with letters recommendatory. Florentius had com-
pleted his work. He had moulded this young son
of a Flemish peasant on the very pattern of
Christ, and had made it possible for him to write
a handbook for the followers of Christ. The two
were never to meet again. " The good Father and
sweet Master Florentius," as a Kempis calls him,
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 89
" died on the Feast of the Annunciation in the same
year." His life was written by his disciple, who
describes the end in touching words : " The power
of intense love compelled them to weep for so dear
a father, when the light and mirror of all the devout,
the solace of all the sufferers, was taken away from
this temporal light. But the pious faith of those
who loved him, reflecting on the sobriety and
modesty of this most excellent priest, was consoled
by the hope of celestial glory that would not be denied
to him through Jesus Christ, Whom he loved with
all his heart, to Whom he perseveringly clung unto
death, by serving Him in the full devotion of
faith. . . . For whose praiseworthy life praise and
glory be to Christ for ever, Who adorned our
times with a star of so bright a lustre." 1
Mount St Agnes is a solitary hill near Zwolle.
It is now known as Agnietenberg. In the monastery
here of the Canons Regular of St Augustine,
Thomas a Kempis lived, with one brief interval, for
seventy years. Out of the world it lay, out even of
the ecclesiastical world, to which it nominally belonged.
It knew nothing of Avignon, nothing of Rome.
" Raving Paris, roaring London " were not within
the sphere of its contemplation. It knew nothing
of ambition, nothing of controversy, nothing even of
the great spiritual movement of which it was the
heart. It was the silent, motionless centre of a
whirling and incomprehensible world. It was like
1 Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life, pp. 112-13.
90 THOMAS A KEMPIS
a cathedral shrine in a great city, shut in from all
the noise and strife of progress, but typifying the goal
of progress all the while. The poor little monastery
was composed of a tiny group of men who thought
only of Christ and strove to imitate Him ; whose sins
were minute fallings away from their ideal of the
Man of Nazareth sins wept over and watched ;
whose hope lay on the other side of the grave that
offered them no terrors ; whose faith came so near
to the faith of the first Christians that the days of
Christ seemed to have returned. Mount St Agnes
was the Little Gidding of the fifteenth century. It
represented the noblest form of Christianity that
that or perhaps any age could produce. The Rule
of the Community inculcated the fundamental law of
love towards God and man ; the lessons of humility
as taught by Christ; the preparation of body
and soul for orderly prayer, by proper and simple
attention to both body and mind. Nothing in
excess was the ideal of the community. The body
was to be made absolutely efficient for the purposes
of the soul, and the duty of man to his neighbour
was to shadow forth the duty of man to his God.
Perfect simplicity in dress and manners, food and
drink, work and play, was the ideal for the body ;
perfect charity to all men, to the young, to the sick,
to the sinful, was the ideal for the mind ; and the
love of God which passeth all understanding was
the ideal for the soul. No selfish faith dominated
the members of this little community. They did not
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 91
seek Calor, Canor, and Dulcor : but they walked
with Christ.
But nevertheless their life had many pleasures
it had all the pleasures of simplicity. John a
Kempis, who ruled it from its foundation in 1398
till 1407, in addition to superintending the erection
of the buildings, planted an orchard of fruit trees,
and an arbour, as well as laying out a herb and
vegetable garden. There were guest cells, and
there were many opportunities for converse, especially
at meal times. The work of copying and illuminat-
ing manuscripts was ever at hand, while the many
services were a continual refreshment from labour.
During the rule of John a Kempis, seven clerical
and three lay brothers were invested. On June loth
1406, Thomas Haemmerlein and Octbert Wild of
Zwolle were invested as Canons Regular, also a lay
brother, Arnold Droem of Utrecht, who brought
many gifts and was appointed Refectorarius. In
the year 1408 the brothers were parted. John was
directed by the Chapter of Windesheim to form a
new community at Bommel on the Rhine. The
movement was slowly moving south and east.
Brother William Vorniken from Windesheim suc-
ceeded him. "A lover of poverty and discipline," he
ruled the little house until 1425. He subsequently
became Father-General of the Order. "He en-
larged the boundaries of the monastery ; he built a
new house for the husbandmen, and folds near at
hand for the flocks; he planted divers sorts of
92 THOMAS A KEMPIS
trees, and among them those bearing fruit, in many
places in the grounds belonging to the community ;
the rougher portions moreover of the mountain,
which for the most part had been as yet untouched,
he planted, and reduced the sandy tracts to service.
He decorated the sacrarium with pictures, wrote
books for the choir, and good copies for practising ;
he also illuminated many books." 1
Such a life, with its simple pleasures and unassum-
ing godliness, offered many attractions to the pious,
and we find that in 1408 the first convent for Sisters
of Common Life was established at Dieppenheim
near Deventer. On April 8th 1412 the church on
the Mount, dedicated to St Agnes, was consecrated.
It had been many years a-building and the brothers
had done much of the work themselves.
In the year 1414, Thomas a Kempis was or-
dained priest. Mr Kettlewell thinks that it was
about this time that the Imitation was begun.
There is some evidence that before this Thomas
had written certain tracts. But certainly up to
this date his time was full enough, and it is difficult
to think that the four tracts of the Imitation, or any
of them, were written by a man under thirty years
of age. On the other hand, as is pointed out in
another chapter, the manuscript evidence, for what
it is worth, seems to point to an earlier date
than 1414. This evidence requires consideration.
It is at any rate certain that a complete copy of
1 Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life, p. 239.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 93
the first three books was available by the year
1425. We know that a Kempis visited the mother
House at Windesheim in 1425, and Mr Kettlewell
suggests that he did so for the purpose of depositing
there the first three tracts of the Imitation. It is
certainly remarkable that a manuscript formerly
at Kircheim, and now in the Royal Library at
Brussels, should have the following important
attestation clause attached to it : " Notandum quod
iste tractatus editus est a probo et egregio viro,
Thoma Magistro de Monte Sanctae Agnetis et
Canonico Regulari in Trajecto, Thomas de
Kempis dictus, descriptus ex manu auctoris in
Trajecto, anno 1425, in sociatu provincialatus."
Mr Kettlewell translates this passage as follows :
" Let it be observed that this treatise has been
composed by a pious and learned man, Master
Thomas of Mount St Agnes, and Canon Regular
of Utrecht, called Thomas a Kempis. It has been
copied from the manuscript of the author in (the
diocese of) Utrecht, in the year 1425, and in the
Society's House of the Provincialate." It is in truth a
very striking coincidence that a Kempis should have
visited the house of the Provincialate Windesheim
at this very date, and certainly the fact appears
directly to connect this, the earliest dated copy, with
4 Kempis. The copy itself is not in the hand-
writing of Thomas, but it may well have been
copied out at Windesheim from a copy deposited
there by a Kempis. What has become of this copy ?
94 THOMAS A KEMPIS
In 1425 he began a lengthy work the copying of
the whole Bible in Latin. This laborious under-
taking occupied him until 1440. About that year
he began the final copy from his pen of the four
books of the Imitation, and of others of his writings.
This work was finished in the following year.
" The venerable codex is now preserved among the
manuscript treasures of the Royal Library at
Brussels, where it is numbered 5855-5861. It is
a small volume, composed of 192 leaves of paper,
intermixed at irregular intervals with leaves of
vellum, and written entirely by the hand of Thomas
a Kempis, as is attested by the following inscription
which ends the manuscript : ' Finitus et com-
pletus anno domini MCCCCXLI. per manus fratris
thome Kempis in monte sancte Agnetis prope
Zwollis.' The writer has placed at the beginning
of the volume a table of the treatises therein con-
tained, all of which are of his own composition.
It is as follows :
' In hoc volumine hi libelli continentur.
Qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris. 1
Regnum Dei intra vos est dicit Dominus. 2
De Sacramento. Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis. 3
Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus Deus. 4
De disciplina claustralium. Apprehendite dis-
ciplinam.
Epistola devota ad quemdam regularem.
1 First Book of the Imitation. 2 Second Book.
3 Fourth Book. 4 Third Book.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 95
Renovamini autem spiritum mentis vestre.
Cognovi Domine quia equitas judicia tua.
Recommendatio humilitatis. Discite a me.
De mortificata vita. Gloriosus apostolus Paulus.
De bona pacifica vita. Si vis Deo dignus.
De elevatione mentis. Vacate et videte cum
ceteris.
Brevis ammonicio. Ab exterioribus.'
" Although the different treatises are written on
separate sheets of paper, and divided by one or
two blank leaves, the manuscript is quite homo-
geneous. The whole is transcribed by the same
hand, and no doubts have ever existed as to its
authenticity and integrity. The date affixed to
the last page is therefore applicable to the entire
volume : it was finished and completed in the
year 1441." 1
The only other manuscripts that we have now
extant from the pen of Thomas are (i) another
collection of treatises composed by him and written
out in 1456, "and removed from Mount St Agnes
to the House of the Jesuits at Courtrai, and after-
wards to that of the same society at Antwerp.
It is now in the Royal Library at Brussels." (2)
"A volume containing the " Sermones ad Novitios "
and "Vita sancte Ledewegis," now preserved in
the University Library at Louvain."
1 The Imitation of Christ, being the autograph manuscript of Thomas
a Kempis . . . reproduced in facsimile . . . with an introduction, by
Charles Ruelins, Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts, Royal
Library, Brussels.
96 THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Autograph manuscript has had a curious
history. It lay at St Agnes' until after the de-
struction of the House in 1559. It was found
there in 1577 by Johannes Latomus, the Visitor-
General of the congregation of Windesheim, and
taken by him to Antwerp. It passed from him
to Jean Bellere, a famous printer of Antwerp, who
died in 1595. In 1590 Bellere gave the volume to
the House of the Society of Jesus in Antwerp. On
the suppression of the Society it was transferred to
the Burgundian Library at Brussels.
These two manuscripts, the Kirchheim manuscript
of 1425, and the Autograph manuscript of 1441,
form what I may call the fundamental evidence
for the authorship of Thomas a Kempis ; but, as
we shall see in subsequent chapters, this evidence
by no means stands alone. There is one piece
of evidence inherent in the text of the autograph
manuscript which is of great importance. It was
first noticed by Dr Carl Hirsche of Hamburg.
This is the use of a peculiar system of punctuation
for the purpose of indicating a peculiar rhythm
or musical cadence running through the entire
work. This elaborate system is described by
M. Ruelins as follows. We have " the full
stop followed by a small capital, the full stop
followed by a large capital, the colon followed by
a small letter, the usual sign of interrogation, and,
lastly, an unusual sign, the dims or flexa, used in
the musical notation of the period." This system
,
ityuA <nwf tnttbe ctnttMivd ivg-
'
[ar<MMurtert9|
m
^iv DiUta3>u>mwtijfc4tuV*<tMfViifiMj < djf
Ai'^-'JpSm <#wfrt no Jrttvmir.it) wfn iCKT
THE BEGINNING OF CHAPTER XI ("DE
PAUCITATE AMATORUM CRUCISJESU")
OF THE SECOND BOOK OF THE TREA-
TISE "DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI."
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF 1441 IN
THE HANDWRITING OF THOMAS A
KEMPIS. (ROYAL LIBRARY, BRUSSELS,
MS. 5855-6861.)
THE DELETED WORDS IN LINES 2O-I ARE I " HT SI
JESUS VELLET QUOD IRENT IN INFERNUM : IBI
AEQUE CONTENTI ESSENT NKC MINIMUM CURARENT."
THIS CORRECTION OF THE TEXT BY A KEMPIS IS
STRONG EVIDENCE THAT HE IS THE AUTHOR (SEK
UK. lll(,( ,). THE WORD IN THE MARGIN IS " CKUCIS,"
FOLLOWING " IGNOMINIAS " IN THE TEXT (LINE II)
ciuCb ftm* pmf <t nficc (Uc <f
PART (BEGINNING " ET MUNEKA O.UAE
POTES DARE ET INFUNDKRK,") OF
CHAPTER XXI OF THE THIRD BOOK
OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONK
CHRISTI" FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF
14il IN THE HANDWRITING OF THOMAS
A KEMPIS. (ROYAL LIBRARY, BRUSSELS
MS. 5856-5861)
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 97
is used in a systematic fashion : "it indicates the
external structure of the sentence, marks its out-
line, and establishes the most complete harmony
between the sentence and the internal structure
of the ideas."
Now the importance of this question can hardly
be over-estimated. In a subsequent chapter I have
dealt very fully with a class of manuscripts of the
Imitation that include only the usual first three
books and are always entitled Musica Ecclesiastica.
As will be seen, these manuscripts are particularly
numerous in England, and were from very early
times attributed to Walter Hilton without there
being any idea that the Musica Ecclesiastica and
the De Imitatione Christi were the same work.
Specimens of this class of manuscript very rarely
occur on the Continent. There is, however, one
in the Royal Library at Brussels entitled : " Hie est
libellus qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica." It ends :
" Explicit liber interne consolationis id est tertius
libri Musice ecclesiastice." It is evidently of the
English type. How can we account for the title.
Dr Bigg is clearly baffled by it. He includes the
whole of the four books under it, and tells us that
" The meaning of this title is to be sought, not in the
rhythmical character of the style how could a book
be said to be "about music" because it is musical?
but in the subject. The music is the Inner Life,
or, more especially, the melifluum Nomen of the
Redeemer." This explanation, interesting though it
98 THOMAS A KEMPIS
is, is nevertheless founded upon a misapprehension.
The title of manuscripts of the class is not "de Musica
Ecclesiastica" though in some corrupt manuscripts
the "de" may occur but "Musica Ecclesiastica."
It is a descriptive title, and most scribes took it
in that sense, as may be seen from the illustration
at the beginning of this volume reproduced from
the manuscript "qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica "
in the British Museum. The Four Latin Fathers
are producing the ecclesiastical music. The title is
taken partly from the cadence of the text, and partly
perhaps from the Divine Music the Canor that
sustained the mystic. But how can he connect
Thomas a Kempis with this curious title ? M.
Ruelens has supplied the missing link. Adraan
de But, a Flemish chronicler contemporary with
a Kempis, writing under the year 1480, says:
" Hoc anno frater Thomas de Kempis de monte
Sanctae-Agnetis, professor ordinis regularium cano-
nicorum, multos, scriptis suis divulgatis aedificat ; hie
vitam sanctae Lidwigis descripsit et quoddam volu-
men metrice super illud : Qui sequitur me." The
"volumen metrice descriptum" beginning Qui sequitur
me was of course the "Musica Ecclesiastica" or the
" De Imitatione Christi" This, however, still leaves
obscure the relationship of England to this par-
ticular type of manuscript. It does not of course
entirely dispose of Hilton's claim, but it does as-
sociate a Kempis as well as Hilton with this par-
ticular type of the Imitation manuscripts.
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 99
I must briefly conclude my account of the life of
Thomas a Kempis. In 1425, Brother William
Vorniken was promoted to be prior of Windesheim.
The sub-prior of St Agnes, Brother Theodoric
Clive, succeeded him as prior on the Mount, and in
the same year Thomas a Kempis was chosen as
sub-prior. Four years after his election happened
the only event of public interest that occurred
during his long residence at St Agnes. The
people of Zwolle and Deventer refused to accept as
the bishop of the diocese Sweder de Culenborgh,
who had been confirmed Bishop of Utrecht against
the wishes of the majority of the electors. The
towns were placed under an interdict, and as the
Canons of St Agnes decided to observe the inter-
dict, they were driven out of their monastery by the
enraged people. It was a melancholy exodus.
The little army of martyrs stayed one night at Has-
selt, and took ship for Friesland on their way to the
House at Lunenkerc : this was in 1429, the year in
which Gerson died. Between two and three years
they were absent. For two years of the time a
Kempis was with them. But in August or
September 1431 he was called away to his brother
John, who lay sick at the House of Bethania near
Arnheim. For fourteen months he nursed him
assiduously, till his death at midnight on November
4th, 1432. Thomas a Kempis is almost garrulous
about the virtues of others in his records of the
brethren. Of this beloved brother he says little.
100 THOMAS A KEMPIS
He loved him too well to praise him. He baldly
recites his various charges his rectorship of the
House at Arnheim, his priorship at St Agnes, at
Bommel, at Haerlem, his rectorship of the House
at Bronopia near Campen. " At length he came
to the House of Bethania, which, being interpreted,
is the House of Obedience, where he ended his
days happily in obedience, and in a good old age,
and was buried within the cloisters after vespers,
when I was present, since I had closed his eyes."
John a Kempis was sixty-seven. Forty years were
to pass before the brothers were united beyond the
grave.
Thomas returned from Bethania to St Agnes,
for the House was once more open. He did not
continue his office as sub-prior, but in later years he
filled it once again and also served as procurator.
In 1447 Prior Theodoric Clive resigned his office,
since he was bowed with age. He was succeeded
by Brother Henry Wilhelm of Deventer after a
contested election. Thomas succeeded him as sub-
prior. Three years later a terrible outbreak of the
plague at Cologne called forth special exertions of
the St Agnes Brothers, who took over a House of
the Regulars in that town and served the people.
By this date a Kempis was approaching old age,
and he seems to have attained a certain fame,
singularly displeasing to him, as a man of peculiar
holiness. But though he avoided anything in the
nature of assumed saintship, he laboured hard with
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 101
pen and voice and took his pleasures gladly, reading
his "little book in a little nook," or meditating in his
cell or in the garden. It was about this time that he
finished his second volume of treatises still extant. It
ends, "Anno Domini M.CCCC.L VLfinitus et scriptus
per manus fratris Thomae Kempensis" He was
then seventy-seven years of age. The years that
followed, calm and beautiful as they are, are marked
with the inevitable sadness of great age. Friend after
friend died. Notice after notice he writes, in his
book of records, of friends many of them friends
of his youth with whom he had lived in continual
brotherhood. But what implies sadness to us, in
an age when doubt seems to so many to have chilled
the promises of death, was not perhaps a source of
sadness to him. As life passed by he became more
and more rapt in the mystic vision : "His cell was
made to him a Paradise, the Church or choir a
Heaven ; while the Word of God was his food, and
the bread of angels his hidden manna to feed upon."
He did not expect rest or peace in life, and therefore
he found it. But he did not find it only in his
visions. He declared, " In omnibus requiem quaesivi,
sed non inveni, nisi in Hoexkens ende Boexkens"
The "little book in the little nook" still as years passed
gave him pleasure and insight into divine things.
But to him, as to every true mystic, age brought its
consolation. " The bush is bare." At last the full
conception of God dawns upon the watchful soul.
" The poet's age is sad : for why ? "
102 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Browning answers the critic's question. The
apprehension of God makes life fuller and not
less full as the end draws near. It is not true
to say
" And now a flower is just a flower."
But the poetry of nature is absorbed into the poetry
of nature's Creator.
"... the purged ear apprehends
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed :
The Voice said ' Call my works thy friends !
At Nature dost thou shrink amazed ?
God is it who transcends.' "
These last words of one of the greatest of modern
poets have an application to the saintly mystic of St
Agnes. The dying years passed swiftly on. The
things of nature, the clamour of the outer world, the
ceaseless stir of awakening Europe in no way break
the things that belong to his peace. He had given
his message to the world, and now he was realising
his message in his own life. He still kept in touch
with all that happened in the House, though he had
long ceased to be its sub-prior. He still jotted
down its chronicles. The last entry was made
under the date January i7th, 1471 : " Died early in
the morning after high mass, a devote laic, John
Gerlac, a native of Dese, near Zwolle, nearly seventy-
two years old. He had lived with us for more than
fifty-two years in great humility, simplicity, and
patience, enduring much toil and penury. And
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 103
among other virtues which he possessed he was pre-
eminent chiefly for that of taciturnity, so that through
a whole day he would say very little : also in his
labours, and while performing other duties, he was
an example of silence." Silence was about to fall
upon the Saint of the Mount. An entry in the
Chronicle tells us that on July 26th, 1471, "at the
close of a long summer's day, after compline" he
died. His long eventless life of more than ninety
years was over. The " purged ear " long had
caught the heavenly music. The rest is silence :
but such a silence, we may believe if we hold
the mystic faith, as is full of harmony and ripe
with eternal life. Not in vain had he cried in the
Oratio Aurea, 1 " Protege et conscrva animam servuli
tui inter tot discrimina vitae corruptibilis, ac,
comitante gratia tua, dirige per viam pads ad per-
petuae patriam felicitatis et claritatis"
The age of Thomas a Kempis was one of con-
trasts vivid and significant. We pass from the
depths of wickedness to the heights of saintliness
and spiritual rapture within the confines of the same
Church. On the one hand we see atheism avowed
and shameless, on the other an intensity of belief
that would seem to make even reasonable doubt poor
and naked. At this distance of time we see clearly
enough into the strata of religion in the fifteenth
century. We see a Visible Church claiming to base
1 Lib. iii. cap. 59. So-called in MS. note to Ulm edition (B.M.).
104 THOMAS A KEMPIS
its authority on its corporate position, its immense
wealth, and its immemorial traditions. We see in
fact that it is supported by an Invisible Church which
preserved the faith that alone makes the existence
of a Church tolerable. Had the Invisible Church
ceased to exist, the organised forms of Catholicism
must have passed away. It was this Invisible Church
that made the Reformation possible, and so preserved
the organisation of Christianity in Europe from
dissolution. In this, from the social point of view,
lies the value of the all-pervading mystic movement
that resulted in the Reformation and found its
spiritual crown in The Imitation of Christ. Certainly
there are lessons for to-day in the spiritual history
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Now as
then we are on the verge of great changes : then it
was the Renaissance of Letters that was coming,
coupled with the Reformation and the discovery of
the Far West. To-day a different Renaissance, a
different Reformation, a different discovery are at
hand. Science takes the place of Letters, a social
Reformation takes the place of a political and
religious Reformation, the discovery of the Far
East the awakening of Japan and China take the
place of the discovery of the Far West. History
does not repeat itself, but the same principles are at
play. Mysticism too is now as widespread, as
deep-rooted as when the German mystics taught
and thought. Europe and the Churches of Europe
have before them much the same problem that was
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS 105
before them in the fifteenth century. How will
they solve it? Will practical mysticism conquer
once more as it conquered four centuries ago,
or will all-pervading Doubt take the place of the
unwavering Faith that alone rendered modern
Europe possible ?
SOME FIFTEENTH CENTURY MANU-
SCRIPTS AND EDITIONS OF THE
IMITATION
THE British Museum manuscripts of the
Imitation are six in number. They offer
some features of considerable interest and are in
excellent condition. Two are of very early date
and are possibly the earliest extant manuscripts of
the work. One of these early manuscripts should
play an important part in any adequate discussion as
to the authorship of the four treatises, for it is
attributed to John Gerson. None of these manu-
scripts appear, however, to have been used with effect
by any of the many militant writers on this vexed
question. Mr Kettlewell cursorily examined them,
but with so little care that he even misdates one
that is specifically dated. They probably interested
him little, since they offer no direct support to the
authorship of Thomas a Kempis. The oldest
manuscript is one of the Royal Manuscripts and is
indexed under Codex 8 C. vii. This Codex begins
with lives in Anglo-Saxon of St Agatha and St
Agnes. On folio 22b begin a series of theological
treatises (such as the De Contemplacione beginning
on folio I2ib), all in ecclesiastical hands of about the
umiri igttt* ftrtcirttf.f&tmtflrtiu? t <[ttnttu$
Iftlor ? toto. rtrtor * fetor-
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ftritn? m (Ha frfiu- ftiiwit^ X?c
tttamrtu uumlR't^cr Cttumve *
tti fquitur me nan rtwfoitot t wicDm ft tj'd>rt
mft &ictf frtfe -Ijer fift ucrt
iirrflttt* /nutu/m y fll ami mthrtc t&tii& /ilicmn- fmnii
Htitt ut ftudtif m wrtfl lira mrtwmi-iportiiHft *pi o"0 rtnr?^
fiBft /rcntf t fa Qw fllifroii&ttrt Ijerrt iln inftnn mumtitt,
6 nwtnjitif imOti fFftwiiorttmi&mt mugtitt^"" ^ ldr " u
ihiniit rp (} ^p no ljflWfttt>.^in ftutc tndt^laif srfiipid?
^ft urrirt intflKgnr ojOHrt wt towni ittimn fuam ifli to^
t tottftw mitre. jta ,p*ft ttta <to ir tnttttatf diQiutttr ft
amtfi ?r^rtatc miZr Zni]plww tnmtah nctvflfta ncrbrt no
fimift frm * u/hi 6 wtrtuoffl uttrt cftn^ftw nmT.^fW mfl|i
(otftrr raintnvwmt /pit fair cnte orfRttinrnw: fl fnttv tirtum
onu .
mrttrttc t5ril.^(tttrt*w nmtrttttu't ow umutw
i * till fob frnnnN fumu
(]pfmtt.^fttn6 4110$ efelgwwtf flftire fm
- < Ulu
Jtbttrt urta frit otmtft^ftnrtiw eft; |iihrtn twtftn foui
tot * mf ftthtm ft* tib ftnlw vmtrtttf * J5^ r 'J Jg
irlmwtr itiflt * Ubf no ftfttttmie ulw Crm|rttmtu^Mww o
NO
uiftt ncr nttiilct <t amm^tiifi?./au toa "^?W to Jj
- ortf >A
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREA-
TISE "DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI." FROM THE IMPERFECT ROYAL
MS, OF THE FIRST BOOK. 8.c.vn. (BRITISH MUSEUM)
THE MANUSCRIPT IS UNDATED BUT IT BELONGS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY AND IS PROHAULY THE EARLIEST EXTANT MS. OF THIS WORK (CF., MS.. BODL.,
758, DATED 1405).
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 107
same date and prefixed by the following rubric :
"In hoc versu ostendit quadrupliciter debemus
laudare beatam virginem Mariam videlicet, quia
est utilis, nobilis, mirabilis, amabilis, et quod prima
laus invitat nos ad ejus honorem. Secunda ad ejus
timorem. Tercia ad laborem. Quarta ad amorem."
The De Imitatione Christi manuscript begins on folio
149, and follows straight on without any break from
a short treatise of the usual theological type. The
manuscript consists only of twenty-four chapters of
the first book and the greater part of the twenty-
fifth or last chapter of the same book. It ends
abruptly at the bottom of a folio and presumably
continued on succeeding folios now lost. There is
nothing to show whether there was only one of the
four treatises or more, or even all. It is not, how-
ever, an unreasonable suggestion to make, that who-
ever tore off the succeeding folios did so with the
purpose of securing some other work beginning on
the next folio. Now the place where the manuscript
ends is almost the end of the first treatise. There-
fore at the top of the next folio there began either
the second treatise of the Imitation or some other
work. No one would have any reason for separating
the second treatise from the first, but a person may
well have had some reason for separating some
independent treatise from the treatise beginning de
imitatione Christi et contemptu mundi. For this
reason I think that this was a manuscript of the first
treatise only, which in all probability was current
108 THOMAS A KEMPIS
before the other treatises. We know that in fact
this first treatise does occur by itself, for we have
a manuscript at the Bodleian Library and very early
printed editions of this first book only. It is there-
fore not at all unlikely that an early draft of the
first treatise was current before the others, and was
thus incorporated in this collection. This fact is,
I think, confirmed by the date of the manuscript.
The Museum authorities date it as early fifteenth
century. This may mean any date between 1400
and 1440. The latter date appears to be almost
out of the question. A somewhat careful search
has not revealed any middle or late fifteenth century
manuscript written in a hand that in the least
resembles this ecclesiastical hand. The nearest
manuscript so far as the formation of letters goes is
a manuscript in the Bodleian Library (MS. Bodl.
758) on The Passion of our Lord by Michael de
Massa, an Austin Friar, and dated I4O5. 1 There is
a distinct resemblance between the two hands, but it
must be noticed that one manuscript is in English
and the other in Latin, so that it is perhaps not a
proper test to compare them. On the other hand,
it might be said that a resemblance in handwriting
which appears in two languages ought not to be
neglected. Of course, if the hands are the same,
it does not follow that the dates of the manuscripts
are the same. A man's age makes very little differ-
ence to his handwriting, and it might well be that the
1 See Paleographical Society, Series II. Plate 134.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 109
Massa MS. was written when the style was current,
and the Imitation MS. by a scribe who retained in
his old age a style then out of fashion. As against
this, however, it must be noted that the Massa
manuscript appears to be the latest dated manu-
script in this particular style, and the law of proba-
bilities is as much in favour of the earliness of the
Imitation as of the Massa manuscript. The latter
might be the late survival, and the former an
example of a current style. In that event the
Imitation manuscript would belong to the fourteenth
century, and this would render possible the argument
in favour of the authorship of Walter Hilton.
This, however, is not likely, and we may take it
that the manuscript is not earlier than the Massa
manuscript. It may therefore be as early as 1405,
and it may also be as late as 1440. On the whole
it seems not unreasonable to adopt an approxima-
tion to the earlier rather than the later date, in view
of the possibility that this manuscript only consisted
of the first of the four treatises. That would
point towards an early origin and therefore an early
date of copying into this Codex. It is to be noticed
that this manuscript varies in some ways from the
accepted text. The title of the first chapter usually
runs : de imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vani-
tatum mundi. The title in the Royal manuscript runs :
de imitatione Christi et \yanitate ei\ contemptu mundi.
The words in square brackets have been added by a
somewhat later hand. Another difference is that
110 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the opening quotation from St John's Gospel, Qui
sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris usually given, is
varied and completed by the addition of the words
seal habebit lumen vitae. The manuscript does not
in fact belong to the type of manuscripts usually
associated with the Autograph manuscript of 1442.
Neither, however, does it belong to what I may
call the "Hilton" type, of which the best dated
instance is the Magdalen manuscript of I438. 1 It is
on the whole not absurd to contend that this British
Museum manuscript is the oldest extant manuscript
of the Imitation. It is true that it may possibly be
as late as 1440, but the probabilities seem to indicate
that it was written between 1405 and 1420.
But whatever its age may be, it is probably not
much older than the next manuscript to which I shall
refer. The manuscripts themselves cannot be com-
pared, as they are in hands incapable of comparison,
the one being a peculiarly ecclesiastical and the
other a purely literary hand. This second manu-
script is numbered 314 in the Burney collection of
manuscripts. The Burney catalogue of 1840 refers
it to "Sec. 15 ineuntis" The view that this manu-
script belongs to the " beginning" of the fifteenth
century makes it an important document. The
authorities are at present inclined to confirm the
view of the specialists of 1840. At any rate it
cannot be later than 1440, and there is really very
1 This type is represented in the British Museum under the usual
title Musica Ecclesiastica.
u ns MVOTO F vrn co
MS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM (BURNEY 314) OF THE TREATISE " DE
IMITATIONE CHRISTI." THE MS. IS UNDATED BUT IT WAS WRITTEN
PROBABLY NOT LATER THAN 1120. PART OF CAP. I. (LIB. I.) IS HERE
REPRODUCED.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 111
little reason to suppose that it is as late as this. It
is in a small or minuscule humanistic Italian hand.
It is written on paper, and has many points of re-
semblance to a manuscript of Terence also on paper
in a renaissance hand and dated 1419. The obser-
vations as to the fixing of dates of manuscripts made
above apply generally, and it would of course not be
safe to say that this manuscript can also be dated
1419. But the probabilities are equally in favour
of an earlier or a later origin within a short range
of years. The specialists of 1 840 plainly gave it an
earlier origin, for to anything later than 1420 we
could not apply the phrase "Sec. 15 ineuntis."
This document is clearly one of the earliest manu-
scripts of the Imitation. If it was written before
1419, it is earlier than the manuscript in the Royal
Museum at Brussels, which has the following passage
at the foot of the first page : " Notandum quod iste
tractatus editus est a probo et egregio viro, magistro
Thoma, de Monte Sanctae-Agnetis et Canonico
regulari in Trajecto, Thomas de Kempis dictus,
descriptus ex manu auctoris in Trajecto, anno 1425,
in sociatu provincialatus." If we take this to mean
that in the year 1425 the work was attributed to a
Kempis, we must in the weighing of evidence set up
this British Museum manuscript against the Royal
Brussels Museum manuscript. The former manu-
script is probably the earlier of the two, and yet it is
absolutely explicit as to the authorship, for it begins :
" Incipit libellus devotus et utilis compositus a domino
112 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Joanne Geersem Cancellario Parisians!." This manu-
script was almost certainly written in the lifetime of
Jean le Charlier de Gerson, who ceased to be Chan-
cellor of the University, of Paris about 1419 and
died in 1429. If it was written in his lifetime, it is
probable that it was written before he retired from
the Chancellorship of the University, for the scribe,
one may surmise, would not call him the Chancellor
of the University if he had ceased to occupy that
position. This to some extent corroborates the
early date of the manuscript. It is noticeable
that the word "compositus " is used with respect
to Gerson, while it is used in no manuscript with
respect to a Kempis. It is also noticeable that
the Imitation should have reached Italy at so early
a date if it was written by a Kempis.
The manuscript offers difficulties that do not seem
to me to have been cleared up by the advocates of
the a Kempis authorship. As an advocate of that
authorship, as one who has practically no real doubts
as to that authorship, but who also believes that the
case against a Kempis should be stated in all its
strength, I am inclined to explain this manuscript as
follows. The debates at the Council of Constance
had made Gerson perhaps the most notable figure
in the religious world of Europe. His flight after
the Council was ended, and his retirement into a
purely contemplative life, added to the interest that
attached to any works that came from his tireless
pen. This work suddenly appeared without the
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 113
name of any author attached. The very anonymity
seemed under the circumstances to indicate the
authorship. It may very well be that a copy of the
work fell into the hands of an Italian scribe directly
after the sessions at Constance had ended, and
Gerson had fled from the vengeance of his Bur-
gundian enemies. If that were so, the scribe would
very naturally have attached Gerson's name to his copy
the name of the most famous religious thinker in
Europe, now suffering exile and persecution and
so may have given us the copy that lies in the
British Museum to-day. In any event the fact that
this very early copy bears Gerson's name as the
undoubted composer is one that has to be reckoned
with in any adequate discussion of the problem. It
shows that before the date of the autograph copy
Gerson was supposed to be the author, and the
fact of the authorship is stated with a clearness which
does not appear in any early manuscript that
supports the claim of the Augustinian canon. I am
convinced on other grounds that Gerson was not the
author, but I can only account for the early attribu-
tion of the work to him by the explanation that
it was the persistent practice in the Middle Ages to
attribute anonymous works to certain popular
writers. Everything in England of a mystical
character was attributed first to Rolle and later to
Hilton ; and Gerson, as the greatest contemplative
writer on the Continent, was naturally accepted as the
author of the Imitation. Fine distinctions of style
114 THOMAS A KEMPIS
did not trouble the scribes a work from the pen of
the Most Christian Doctor was worth more than
a work from the unknown pen of a monk in the far-
off independent diocese of Utrecht.
The remaining British Museum manuscripts of the
Imitation can be dealt with more briefly. The
Harleian manuscript number 3216 is dated at the
end, "21 Dec. 1454." No author is named in the
manuscript, but a much later, probably a modern
hand has added on the first folio " Thomas de
Kempis de Imitatione Christi." The only real point
of interest about this manuscript is the fact that it
proves that as late as 1454 the work was passing
from hand to hand unrecognised. The Hilton class
of manuscripts the Musica Ecclesiastica class are
further evidence of this, but they have a different
origin. The fourth manuscript I shall notice is
the Additional Manuscript, number 11,437. This
is undated, but was probably written between
1465 and 1470. It is in a German hand much
larger than but somewhat resembling the hand of
Thomas a Kempis himself. This manuscript attri-
butes the work to " Cancellarius Parusiensis" (sic).
It contains two books only of the Imitation not
three books, as stated in the British Museum manu-
script catalogue of 1905 and is a bad copy in the
way of text and spelling cf. Parusiensis. It begins
on folio no of the codex. A fifth manuscript is an
interesting example of the Musica Ecclesiastica type.
It is a Royal Manuscript (7 B viii.), with a magnifi-
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 115
cently illuminated frontispiece. It is in a Flemish
hand of the late fifteenth century, not later than
1480 or earlier than 1460. The superb frontis-
piece which is reproduced as a frontispiece to this
book represents the ecclesiastical music as given
to the world by the four Latin Fathers. Gregory the
Great as Pope is playing a two-manual organ, the
bellows of which are pumped by Saint Jerome
dressed as a Cardinal. Two bishops (Augustine
with book and crook, and Ambrose with a cross)
are apparently singing to the music. We look
through an open window to a green landscape.
The work which follows the illumination is attributed
to no author. After the Registrum the work begins
as follows : " Incipit liber interne consolacionis qui
vocaturmusicaecclesiastica. Et dividiturintrespartes.
Primapars continet xxvcapitulaprincipales Capitulum
primum de imitacione Christi et contemptu omnium
vanitatum mundi." The first book ends as follows :
" explicit prima pars libri interne consolacionis qui
vocaturmusicaecclesiastica." The second book begins:
" Incipit secunda pars ejusdem libri," and ends : "ex-
plicit secunda pars libri interne consolacionis qui
vocatur musica ecclesiastica." The third book begins :
" Incipit tercia pars ejusdem libri," and ends : "explicit
tercia et ultima pars libri interne consolacionis : qui
vocatur. musica ecclesiastica." Of this type of manu-
script I have written somewhat fully in a subsequent
chapter, and shall not deal with it further here except
to note the fact that there is no author mentioned, and
116 THOMAS A KEMPIS
that there is nothing in the title to identify the manu-
script with the De Imitatione Christi. This and the
quite independent title probably led to the fact that
throughout the Middle Ages the Musica Ecclesiastica
and the De Imitatione Christi were always regarded
as different works by different authors.
There only remains one other British Museum
manuscript of the Imitation to be noted. It is the
second Harleian manuscript (number 3223) of the
four treatises. It has one point in common with
the Magdalen manuscript of 1438 and the Autograph
manuscript of 1441 : it is dated. John Dygoun, a
recluse of Sheen, wrote part of the Magdalen manu-
script the original of the Musica Ecclesiastica type.
Thomas a Kempis of course wrote the Autograph
manuscript. This Harleian manuscript was finished
" 1478 ex floreto." " Ex Floreto" seems to refer to
some bad Latin verses that end the MS., though
one would like to find in the phrase the name of the
scribe. This was seven years after the death of Thomas
a Kempis, and eight years after the issue from the
press of the first edition of the work under his name.
Yet the scribe presumably an Italian seemed to
have no doubt as to the authorship. The manuscript
begins : " Incipitlibellus devotus et utilis compositus
a domino Johani Gersem cancellario pariensis de
Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatis (sic]
mundi." It is interesting to notice that three of these
six manuscripts attribute the work to Gerson. The
Burney manuscript (circa 1419) calls the author
L.
ft iVcbtcmpm omnium
Capim-. "
\ femut^mcno amViilat- 1 tcnc
r i/^ elicit- 4nf. bcc ( tit- iit.\
H aiuiihimAn9ch\ paring Jc^icicrtu
nilir. cu fprnxpi ndbnr. Q.tuatu- iiul
ptcm ^^\pi^c vpi i usrtu. mtvllujrcrc opo
nrr tit- rt>W5 mta^mas itti fhuacar cofoi-mA
rc.Q^uiciprccidhnSjrtlti dc trtmtalxr <i
( 11 tare (i <nrcagiijTii1fci(y uTufe dtytux. -
BRITAK
KXI> OF INDEX OF CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK. AND PART OF
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE " DE
IMITATIONS CHRISTI' FROM THE HARLEY MS. 3223 (BRITISH MUSEUM)
THIS MS. CONTAINS THE FOUR BOOKS, AND IS DATED 1478. THE DATE IS FOLLOWED BY
THE WORDS "EX KLORETO ; " POSSIBLY REFERRING TO THE SCRIBE, OR TO THE VERSES
WHICH FOLLOW.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 117
Dominus John Geersem, Chancellor of Paris ; the
Additional Manuscript (circa 1465) calls him simply
Chancellor of Paris ; while the Harleian manuscript
(1478) calls him Dominus John Gersem, Chancellor
of Paris. No manuscript refers in any way to
Thomas a Kempis if we except the modern or
almost modern attribution on the Harleian manu-
script numbered 3216. It should be noticed that
Gerson is spelt Gersem and Geersem in this manu-
script, and this spelling is associated with the
Chancellor of Paris. This alone entirely disposes
of the attribution of the work to the imaginary John
Gersen of Vercelli.
The bulk of the English manuscripts are of the
Musica Ecclesiastica type. Five of those mentioned
above are, however, not of this type, and to these we
may add three Bodleian manuscripts. Two are in
dexed with a curious note of doubt as to their origin.
One is included in the Digby codices (37.5) and isdated
circa 1450. It is indexed as follows : " liber primus
tractatus Tho. a Kempis, sive cujuscunque sit, ' De
Imitacione Christi et contemptu vanitatum mundi.'"
The book or tract concludes as follows : " explicit
libellus de Imitacione Christi et contemptu vanitatum
mundi." This is apparently an instance of the first
book only, and accounts for the printed editions con-
taining only one tract. The second is among the Laud
MSS., 1 and belongs to the sixteenth century. It is
indexed as follows : " Johannis Gersoni sive Johannis
1 The third MS. is Marshall, 124 (lib. ii. cap. 12, in Dutch).
118 THOMAS A KEMPIS
a Kempis sive cujuscunque sit de imitatione Christ!
libri quinque, cum tabula capitum unicuique libro
praefixa." The reference to John a Kempis is so late
that it adds nothing of value to the controversy as
to the authorship of the Imitation. Neither of these
fragments contain any reference to the author,
though Bernard has referred the latter to a Kempis.
The first, however, appears for some reason to have
beenindexed under the title Musica Ecclesiastical the
early eighteenth century. Hatton's correspondent *
in 1706 declared that it bore that title. Possibly
there are other manuscripts in the country that are
not of the Musica Ecclesiastica type, but I have seen
no note of them.
A consideration of some of the more important
fifteenth-century printed editions of the Imitation
will be found to throw a good deal of light upon
the authorship of the work as well as on its early
and extensive popularity. The first edition was
issued, it is thought, the year after the death of
its author, 1471, from the Augsburg press. This
famous and interesting edition, an edition older
than many of the manuscripts, attributes the work
to Thomas a Kempis, and is important because of
the very early date of issue. This edition on exa-
mination dispels a curious error adopted by some
students of the Imitation, the belief that the
title De Imitatione Christi was first adopted for
the whole collection of treatises in the well-known
1 See chapter iii.
W Innpit uhelluB confolatonuo at> injttucto; ttuote
' <umo pjimu capitulu eft a imitacoe jq>i o pttmptu
bamni vamtatum munoi.iBt 4&am tfftu hbellum
ficajpdlant fdlicct hbellum eetmitationcjcpt-uait
cuangclmm Opattxt ajpcUatut libet goioariSis ij5
rp~i ^pg? in pzimo capttlb fit mcnno te generarone
fpi fct?m eatncm fl^ndpit pn'mum capitulum
Vi fcquit me no ambulat in tcncb2tc Die
qcenuo vitam dus ct mrccs imitcmut ft
\clim2 \adta:iUuiatijctabDtccnratc
cmtjis hBatt ^umm u igic fhibiu ntm fit I
vita iBu mc&itatt.<Tochrtna ^pi DCS todrinas fcto
p;ccciht-ct qui fprn tci babent-ibi manna abfco&itu
inuenienc ,$c& tmngtt $ multi C]c fcequcntt aubitu
cuangtltj paraum afirmum fen aunt -quiafpirim
canon bafxnt .flXuiautem vult plcnc ct fapiw jcpt
vccba iotelli^ecc opostct t>t totain vitam fuam tilt
{hi&fat ?fo^Tiarc. Quip pzocdl tsbi aJta tc mnitaic
Dtfcutcre ftmtcas bumilttatc vntc sifplireaa fandc
thnitati . Vote alta vctba npn fecunt fanchinut
lulnim-fcfci vtctuofe vita dftdt bomincm ceo catnm
Op to magisfcntitc conpundioncm cjni fdceetuo
cttmnidoncm . $D\ fdtes tptam btbliam c^rtenus ct
omnium pbtiolbphoa &ida>q(h to turn pacffct- fine
catitatCLCt gcatto to. Vanitas vamtatum ^ omnta
vanitas pter amare cm et iili foli f uire.Jfta e fuma
-
Vanitao igrtur eft Muitias gtttuaa quemre ct in ~> r-
ilhsfporate . Vamtas<| dlbpnreee mun&i ambttp
ctinoltumfe cjctoilcterVanitas eft cauns ediaerta
fequiet ilia odieecate .Vnte poft moKcm opoztct
grauittt ^uniri. Vanitas dtlonjjam *Jitkm optatc
et h>na vita non cutatr . Va?nms eft ptefcntem
x-itam Tolum atuu&etc-et q fata funtnon pjcuiow;-.
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE
"DK IMITATIONS CHRISTI : " FROM THE " EDITIO PRINCEPS" ISSUED AT
AUGSBURG ABOUT THE YEAR 1471.
THE PREFATORY NOTE AS TO THE TITLE IS POSSIBLY FROM THE PEN OF THOMAS A KEMPIS
HIMSELF. THIS EDITION ATTRIBUTES THE WORK TO THOMAS A KEMPIS.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 119
Nuremburg edition of 1494. I think the title is
practically implied if not directly used in some early
manuscripts, and it is actually used in late manu-
scripts, such as the Harleian manuscripts numbered
3223. But this question of title is directly dealt
with in the Augsburg printed edition of 1471.
The work begins with this statement : " Incipitlibellus
consolatorius ad instructionem devotorum Cujus
primum capitulum est de imitacione Christi et con-
temptu damni [sic] vanitatum mundi. Et quidam
totum libellum sic appellant scilicet libellum de
imitatione Christi. sicut evangeliumMathei appellatur
liber generacionis Jesu Christi Eo quod in primo
capitulo sit mentio de generacione Christi secundum
carnem. I ncipit primum capitulum." Here we have
quite a fascinating item of literary history. We
find the first publisher discussing in the year 1471
this vexed question of the title, and actually poking
fun at those who call the whole book "libellus de
imitatione Christi " from the title of the first chapter.
It is as absurd, he says, as if we were to call the
Gospel according to St Matthew the genealogy
of Jesus Christ because mention is made in the first
chapter of our Lord's genealogy according to the
flesh. This statement makes it quite clear that
even in the lifetime of Thomas a Kempis and
before the days of printing the work was known
as the Imitation of Christ. The quiet humour of
the analogy tempts one to believe that this intro-
ductory note was from the pen of a Kempis. It has
120 THOMAS A KEMPIS
his manner and his style, and justifies the belief that
he had adopted the title which has for centuries
struck the imagination of the world. Whoever the
editor was, and despite his humour, it is clear enough
that the title is adopted in this first edition. The
first book in the edition of 1471 ends as follows :
" Explicit primus liber de imitacione Christi et de
contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi." The second
book ends : " Explicit liber secundus de imitatione
Christi scilicit de ammonitionibus ad interna trahenti-
bus." The third book begins : " Incipit tercius liber de
imitacione Christi qui tractat de interna consolacione
Christi ad animam fidelem," and it ends : " explicit
liber interne consolationis qui est tercius de imita-
cione Christi." The fourth book opens with the title
and ends, "explicit liber quartus deimitatione Cristi in
quo specialiter tractatur de venerabili sacramento
altaris." The volume concludes as follows: " Viri
egregii Thome mentis sanctae Agnetis in Trajecto
regularis canonici libri de Christi imitatione numero
quatuor finiunt feliciter, per Gintheum zainer ex
reutlingen progenitum literis impressi ahenis." The
Imitation was therefore ushered into the world of
printed books under the name of the famous though
unofficial saint of Mount St Agnes.
A consideration of the more notable editions of
the. fifteenth century shows us that the title rapidly
became settled. It will be convenient to consider
these editions for this and other reasons. The
Metz edition of 1481 came from one of the early
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 121
monastic presses, " impresse in civitate Metensi per
fratrem Johannem Colini ordinis fratrum carmeli-
tarum. Etgerhardum de nova civitate. Anno domini
mille CCCCLXXXII." The book consists only of the
first treatise and follows the title of that treatise
as given in the autograph of 1441 : " incipiunt
ammoniciones ad spiritualem vitam utiles." It seems
to show that manuscripts of the separate treatises
were abroad without any name of the author attached.
This view is in accordance with the evidence of
English manuscripts.
In the following year, 1483, there was issued from
the Venice press the first printed edition, so far as I
am aware, that attributed the work to Jean Gerson.
The edition begins : " Incipit liber primus Johannis
Gerson cancellarii parisiensis." It names the chapters,
and gives a special title to the last book or treatise.
The four books are named as usual, and are num-
bered thus: Liber primus, Liber secundus, Liber
tertius. But the last book ends as follows : " Explicit
liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento altaris." The
colophon is in these words: "Johannis Gerson can-
cellarii parisiensis de contemptu mundi devotum et
utile opusculum finit M.CCCC.LXXXIII per Petrum
loslein de langencen alemanum Venetiis feliciter
impressum. Laus Deo." The title in this edition is
"de contemptu mundi." This may have led to its
confusion with some other work by Gerson, but it is
probable that the attribution to Gerson was in the
copy used by the printer.
122 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Another edition of the Imitation was issued at
Venice in 1485. In the British Museum copy of
this edition there is written on the fly-leaf, in an old
manuscript hand, "Thomas de Kempis de Imita-
tione Christi Johannis de Gerson Tractatus de
Meditatione cordis, Venetiis 1485." This is the
earliest edition that I have seen in which these two
works are printed together. It should be com-
pared with the remarkable but very late manuscript
in the Bodleian Library referred to above among
the Laud MSS. which is indexed as follows :
" Johannis Gersoni, sive Johannis a Kempis, sive
cujuscunque sit, de imitatione Christi libri quinque,
cum tabula capitum unicuique libro praefixa." The
work begins : " Incipit libellus devotus et utilis. De
imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum
mundi." In this manuscript the "de Meditatione
Cordis" of Gerson has been treated as a fifth book
of the Imitation a unique error so far as I am
aware, either in manuscripts or printed books of the
Imitation^ but one that shows how ready the medi-
aeval mind was to confuse the works of these very
dissimilar writers.
The Venice edition of 1485 begins : " Incipit
liber primus Joannis Gerson cangellarii [sic] parisien-
sis. De imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium
vanitatum mundi." The second book begins : "In-
cipit secundus. De interna conversatione." The
third book begins : " De interna Christi locutione
ad animam fidelem." The fourth begins : " Devota
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 123
exhortatio ad sacram corporis Christi communionem,"
and ends, " explicit liber quartus et ultimus de
sacramento altaris. Johannis Gerson cancellarii
parisiensis, de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum finit MCCCC.LXXXV per Dionysium et
Peregrinum ejus sotium bononienses. Deo Gratias.
Amen."
It is perhaps a matter of controversial interest to
point out that this book was printed from a manu-
script curiously akin to the Codex de Advocatis,
which gave rise to the still living but extremely
futile controversy as to the authorship of an
imaginary thirteenth-century Abbot of Vercelli. I
am inclined to think that this edition was actually
printed from that manuscript, with small changes
necessitated by the condition of the text and the
views of the editor. This Venice edition contains
the titles of the second and fourth books used in the
Aronensis manuscript. The second book in the
manuscript begins : " Incipit liber de interna con-
versatione." The fourth book is headed " de devota
exhortatione ad sacram corporis Christi com-
munionem." The titles of the first and third books
differ, but the likenesses are very striking, and it is
allowable to conjecture some relationship between
the Gerson edition and the so-called Gersen
manuscript.
The next edition that I notice is one of unusual
interest. It was published by Jacobus Britannicus
at Brescia, on June 6th, 1485. It begins with
124 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the usual table of contents. This is followed
by a unique prefatory devout address or sermon,
and then follows the following curious state-
ment, which proves that the controversy as to
the authorship was already acute in the late fifteenth
century : " Incipit opus Beati Bernardi saluberrimum
de imitatione Christi : et contemptu mundi : quod
Johanni Gerson cancellario Parisiensi attribuitur."
This is apparently printed from the same manuscript
as the Venice edition of the same year. The second
book is entitled, " De interna conversatione " ; the
third book, " De interna Christi locutione ad
animam fidelem " ; and the fourth book, " Devota
exhortatio ad sacram corporis Christi communionem.
Vox Christi. ..."
John de Westfalia's edition, issued at Louvain
probably in the same year, begins : " Incipit liber
primus Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis. De
imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium vani-
tatum mundi." The books have the above titles, and
the volume ends : " Johannis Gerson cancellarii
parisiensis de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum finit. Impressum per me Johannem
de Westfalia."
From Louvain we pass to Cologne, where a
curious little undated edition of the first book only,
without any indication of authorship, appeared pro-
bably in 1486. The table of chapters is followed by
the phrase " incipiunt ammoniciones ad spiritualem
vitam utiles," and the book concludes, "expliciunt
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 125
ammoniciones ad spiritualem vitam utiles : Deo
gracias."
From Cologne we cross the Alps to Venice, where
what seems to be the third Venetian edition of the
Imitation appeared in 1486. It begins : " Incipit
liber primus Joannis gerson cancellarii parisiensis.
De imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium vani-
tatum mundi." The books have the usual titles. The
last is also named as usual " de sacramento altaris."
The volume concludes with Gerson's De Meditatione
Cordis. The colophon runs as follows: "Johannis
Gerson cancellarii parisiensis : de contemptu mundi
libri quatuor una cum tractatu de meditatione cordis
felici numine finiunt. Impressum Venetiis impressis
Francisci de madiis M.CCCC.LXXXVI."
The Argentine edition of 1487 is, I think, the first
dated edition in which the work is attributed to a
Kempis. There is, however, very little doubt that
the Augsburg edition may be dated 1471. In this
edition we have on the fly-leaf, in bold black type,
" Tractatus de imitatione christi cum tractatulo de
meditatione cordis." This again disposes of the
theory that the title " De Imitatione Christi" was
not given to the collected work before 1494. In
this edition, after the very full table of contents,
the work begins as follows : " Incipit liber primus
fratris Thome de Kempis canonici regularis ordinis
sancti Augustini." The usual titles are prefixed to
the books. This treatise ends : " explicit liber quartus
et ultimus de sacramento altaris." The volume con-
126 THOMAS A KEMPIS
eludes as follows : " Fratris Thome de Kempis de
imitatione christi : et de contemptu mundi devotum
et utile opusculum fin it feliciter. Incipit tractatus de
meditatione cordis magistri Johannis gerson. . . .
" Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson
de meditatione cordis : Argentine impressus par
Martinum flach Anno domino M.CCCC.LXXXVII. finit
feliciter."
There is another edition of 1487, but this has no
printed place of issue. 1 On the fly-leaf we read in
bold type, " Tractatus de ymitatione cristi cum tracta-
tulo de meditatione cordis." There follows a full
table of contents with folio references a rare con-
venience to the mediaeval reader. The work
begins : " Liber i. Tractatus aureus et perutilis de
perfecta ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu."
The last book is named as usual : " Explicit liber
quartus de sacramento altaris. Incipit tractatus de
meditatione cordis." The volume ends : " Tractatus
aureus et per utilis de perfecta ymitatione Christi et
vero mundi contemptu cum tractatulo de meditatione
cordis finiunt feliciter anno MCCCCLXXXVII."
John Zeiner published an edition in 1487. There
is in the British Museum copy a manuscript note in
an early hand on the fly-leaf. There is a table of
contents with folio references. The treatise begins :
" Liber i. Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta
ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu," and
ends : "explicit liber Quartus de sacramento altaris.
1 British Museum, I. A. 9267.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 127
Incipit tractatus de meditatione cordis." The
volume ends : "tractatus aureus et perutilis de per-
fecta ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu
Cum tractatulo de meditatione cordis finiunt feliciter
Per Johannem zeiner Ulment. Anno. LXXXVII."
This is identical with the previous edition with the
addition of the name of John Zeiner, of Ulm, and
they are successive editions from the same press. 1
A fourth Venice edition was published in 1488.
In the British Museum copy there is a Latin verse
on the fly-leaf in an old hand. On the next leaf we
have "Joannis Gerson de contemptu omnium
vanitatum mundi." This is followed by a table of
chapters, and then stuck on a further fly-leaf is a
tiny woodcut of the Crucifixion. The work begins :
"Incipit liber primus Joannis Gerson cancellarii parisi-
ensis, de imitatione Christi : et de contemptu omnium
vanitatum mundi," and ends : "explicit liber quartus
et ultimus de sacramento altaris. Incipit tractatus
de meditatione cordis Johannis Gerson." The
volume ends : "Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisi-
ensis : de contemptu mundi libri quatuor uno cum
tractatu de meditatione cordis felici numine finiunt.
Impressum Venetiis arte et impensis Bernardini de
Benalus MCCCCLXXXVIII."
The Milan edition of 1488 is of some interest.
The treatise begins with a rubric : " Incipit liber
primus Joannis Gerson cancelarii parisiensis. De
1 John Zeiner also issued in the same year a German translation of
the Imitation.
128 THOMAS A KEMPIS
imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum
mundi," and ends : "explicit liber quartus et ultimus
de sacramento altaris. Incipit tractatus de
meditatione cordis Johannis Gerson." The volume
ends, " Johannis Gerson Cancellarii parisiensis de
contemptu mundi libri quatuor una cum tractate de
meditatione cordis felici numine finiunt. Im-
pressum Mediolani impensis Leonardi Pachel de
Alamania. MCCCCLXXXVIII mensis Julii." Then
follows the index of chapters.
The Paris edition of 1489 begins : " Incipit liber
Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis. De Imita-
tione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum
rnundi," and ends : " explicit liber quartus et ultimus
de sacramento altaris. Johannis Gerson cancellarii
Parisiensis : de contemptu mundi devotum et
utile opusculum finit. Laus omnipotenti Deo.
Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione Cordis a Magistro
johanne de Gersonno." This is followed by a Table
of Chapters of both works, and the volume ends :
' ' Liber M agistri J ohannis Gerson Cancellarii Parisiensi
de Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum
mundi : una cum de meditatione cordis unicuique
religiose ac devoto necessarius. Finit feliciter im-
pressus parisius per Higman Almanum. Invicoclausi
brunelli ad intersignium leonum prope scolas decre-
torum anno domino millesimo quadringentesimo
octuagesimo nono, die vero decima octava januarii."
The Augsburg edition of 1488 calls for some notice.
It begins : " Incipit liber primus Johannis Gerson
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 129
cancellarii parisiensis de Imitatione Christi et de
contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi " ; and ends :
"explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento
altaris Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis de con-
temptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum impre-
sium Auguste arte et impensis Erhardi ratdolt
viri solertis anno domini MCCCCLXXXVIII. sequitur
tractatus de Meditatione cordis a magistro Johanne
de Gerson. . . ."
The Lyon edition of 1489 is very important, since
it attributes the work to a Kempis. On the fly-
leaf we read in bold type : " Tractatus de imitatione
Christi cum tractatulo de meditatione cordis." After
the Table of Chapters we have " incipit liber primus
fratris Thome de Kempis canonici regularis ordinis
sancti Augustini de imitatione Christi et de contemptu
omnium vanitatum mundi." The treatise ends :
"explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento
altaris. Fratris Thome de Kempis de imitatione
Christi : deque contemptu mundi devotum et
utile opusculum finit feliciter. Incipit tractatus de
Meditatione cordis magistri Johannis Gerson. . . .
Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson
de Meditatione cordis Lugduni impressus per
Johannem Trechzel artis impressoriae magistrum
anno nostrae salutis MCCCCLXXXIX. die vero XL mensis
octobris finit feliciter."
The Argentine edition of 1489 has on the fly-leaf
the words, "Thomas de Kempis De imitatione
christi, de contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi.
130 THOMAS A KEMPIS
De interna conversatione. De interna locutione
Christi ad animam fidelem cum quanta reverentia
Christus est suscipiendus. Item Johannes Gerson
de meditatione cordis." A very curious woodcut
is printed on the other side of the fly-leaf. The
work begins : " Liber primus. Incipit liber primus
fratris Thome de Kempis : canonici regularis ordinis
sancti Augustini De imitatione Christi et de
contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi " ; and ends :
"explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento
altaris. Fratris Thome de Kempis de imitatione
christi, et de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum finit feliciter. Incipit tractatus de
meditatione cordis magistri Johannis gerson. . . .
Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson
de meditatione cordis Argentinus impressus. Anno
domini M.CCCC.LXXXIX. finit feliciter."
The Paris edition of 1491 has an illustrated fly-
leaf with the words, "Gerson de Imitatione Christi
et de Meditatione cordis." This is the first case in
which we have the works definitely associated in
this way. The book begins : " Incipit liber primus
Johannis Gerson Cancellarii parisiensis. De Imita-
tione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum
mundi"; and ends : "explicit liber quartus et ultimus
de sacramento altaris. Johannis Gerson Cancellarii
parisiensis de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum finit. Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione
cordis ab eodem Magistro Johanne de Gersono."
The colophon runs : " completum est opusculum
Btrfon. >e imitations b;iftu
TITLK PAGE OF THK PARIS KDITION OF THK TREATISE
"DE IMITATIONK CHRISTI " ISSUED liY THE BROTHERS
MAKNEF IN HH1.
(THK DEVICE OK ENOUILBEKT, JEAN, AND OOUEKKOV UK MAKNEC.)
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 131
exoratumque Parisii per Philippum Pygouchet. In
vico cithare. In locagiis collegii vulgariter nuncupati
de Dainville Anno domini millesimo quadragentesimo
nonogesimo primo die vero ultima mensis martii."
An edition of 1492, imprinted without place of
origin, is interesting. On the fly-leaf is printed :
"tractatus de Ymitatione Christi cum tractatulo
de meditatione cordis." The work begins :
" Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta Ymita-
tione Cristi et vero mundi contemptu " ; and ends :
"explicit liber quartus de sacramento altaris.
Incipit tractatus de Meditatione cordis Johannis
Gerson. . . . Tractatus aureus et perutilis de
perfecta Ymitatione Christi et vero mundi con-
temptu cum tractatulo de Meditatione cordis finiunt
feliciter anno domini MCCCCLXXXXII." It will be
noticed that in this edition, while the Meditation
of the Heart is attributed to its author Gerson, no
mention is made of the authorship of the Imitation.
It is clear from this that there was a doubt at this
time as to the authorship. It was no longer possible
to assert the identity of authorship of the two
associated works The Imitation and The Medita-
tion of the Heart.
The Luneborch edition of 1493 is practically
identical with the Argentine edition of 1489. The
only real difference is the abbreviations of Latin
words. It is of course an important edition, for it
definitely states that a Kempis is the author of the
Imitation ; " Incipit liber primus fratris Thome de
132 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Kempis canonici regularis ordinis sancti Augustini."
The volume includes The Meditation of the Heart
and concludes : " Tractatulus venerabilis Magistri
Johannis Gerson de meditatione cordis Luneborch
impressus per me Johannem Luce, anno domini
MCCCCXCIIL, xxn. die mensis maij finit feliciter."
Another a Kempis edition of about this date is both
undated and without place of issue (I496?). 1 It is
entitled "Tractatus fratris Thome de Kempis canonici
regularis ordinis Sancti Augustini de imitatione
Christi et de contemtu omnium vanitatum mundi.
Cum tractatulo Johannis Gerson de Meditatione cordis
et complures alii tractatus pulcri." This is a kind of
expansion of the Argentine and Luneborch editions.
The Imitation in this edition ends : " Fratris Thome
de Kempis de imitatione Christi et de contemptu
mundi devotum opusculum finit."
The Venice edition of 1496 is of some interest.
In the British Museum copy there is a loose fly-leaf
bearing the words : " Joannis Gerson de contemptu
omnium vanitatum mundi." It appears not to
belong to the book. It will be sufficient to quote
the ending of the volume : " Joannis Gerson cance-
larii parisiensis de contemptu mundi libri quattuor
uno cum tractatu de Meditatione cordis felici numine
finiunt. Impressum venetiis. MCCCCXCVI. die ultimo
Januarii."
The Paris edition of 1496 is more important. It
has a fly-leaf with a very curious woodcut. Above
1 I. A. 10955 (Magdeburg, or Thanner at Leipsic (?), Hain, 9081).
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 133
the woodcut are the words : "de imitatione Cristi et
contemptu mundi magistri Johannis Gerson can-
cellarii parisiensis," and below it the printer's name,
Georgius Mittelhus. On the reverse side of the
fly-leaf is another woodcut representing the Magi
worshipping. The work opens in common form
and ends : " explicit liber quartus et ultimus de
sacramentis altaris. Johannis Gerson cancellarii
parisiensi de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum finit. Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione
cordis ab eodem magistro Johanne de Gersono."
The colophon states that the work of printing was
completed by George Mittelhus at Paris on March
ist, 1496.
The Florentine edition of 1497 bears on the fly-
leaf the words : " Johannis Gerson de contemptu
omnium vanitatum mundi." It begins in the
common form: "Incipit liber primus Johannis
Gerson cancellarii parisiensis," and ends as usual
with the "de Meditatione cordis." It was completed
by Master John Peter de Maganza at Florence, on
November loth, 1497. The Paris edition of 1498
has a fly-leaf with the words " de Imitatione Christi,"
and a woodcut of the Crucifixion. It begins in the
usual form : " Incipit liber primus Johannis Gerson
cancellarii parisiensis de Imitatione Christi," and
ends with the "de Meditatione cordis ab eodem
magistro Johanne de Gersono." The new century
opens with an a Kempis edition issued in 1501 at
Cologne. It follows the common form. On the
134 THOMAS A KEMPIS
fly-leaf are the words : " Liber de Imitatione Christ!
cum tractatu de Meditatione cordis." The edition
contains a woodcut in duplicate, and ends with the
little tract, Doctrina pulcra pro rtligiosis et solitariis.
It begins in the usual form (substituting a Kempis
for Gerson) : " incipit liber primus egregii viri Thome
de Kempis de Imitatione Christi. . . ." There is,
however, a variant in the ending: "explicit liber
quartus et ultimus . . . de Imitatione Christi ab
egregio viro Thoma de Kempis editi." It is curious
to find the word compositus used with respect to
Gerson and editus with respect to a Kempis. It
seems to reflect a feeling that a Kempis was a com-
piler and Gerson an author. The literary world seems
to have felt that if Gerson wrote the work he com-
posed it, but that if a Kempis wrote it he compiled it.
I have referred above to some twenty-six inde-
pendent issues of the Imitation between 1470 and
1501. During the period of thirty years there
were in all about, and probably above, eighty editions
issued. The editions given above are, however,
probably representative, as they are those of
which copies exist in the British Museum. One
and twenty of these editions have some author
named. One edition is referred to St Bernard, with
Jean Gerson as a possible alternative. Seven
editions Augsburg, the two Argentine editions,
Lyon, Luneborch, Cologne, and one unplaced and
undated (Leipsic?) attribute the work to Thomas a
Kempis. But these places are all west of the Alps
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 135
and comparatively unimportant. On the other hand,
thirteen editions (independent of the Brescia edition
that names Gerson as an alternative to St Bernard)
attribute the work to Gerson. These include five
editions issued at Venice, four at Paris, one each
at Louvain, Milan, Florence, and Augsburg. The
great centres of culture and literary movement with
one voice rejected a Kempis and adopted Gerson.
It was not necessary to make inquiry. A book
by Gerson the famous chancellor and theologian
would sell, but the name of Thomas a Kempis
was no voucher of literary merit. The same
principles did not apply in the small towns. The
book was printed there because of a demand for a
work of the particular type and character of the
Imitation. In such a case it was worth while to
ascertain who was the true author. The Augsburg
edition of 1471 gave this information, and it was
emphatically repeated in the volume that issued from
Nuremberg in 1494, giving to the world the col-
lected works including the Imitation of Thomas
a Kempis. The Notabilia concerning the Canon
given on folios Ixxxiiii. and Ixxxv. of the edition con-
clude : " Et quia multos tractatus scripsit et dictavit
in vita, et pauci sciunt quo modo intitulantur vel
vocantur : ideo tabulam de ejus tractatibus et libris
hie intitulare et scribere intendo ut omnes qui legunt
vel audiunt possunt scire quot sunt." The Registrum
gives "Tituli operum librorum venerabilis patris
Thome de Kempis," including of course the four
136 THOMAS A KEMPIS
books of the Imitation. It is unfortunate, however,
that this great edition of the works should have
introduced into the volume writings attributed to
Gerson and to Gerard Groote. The fourth book
of the Imitation is immediately followed by the De
Meditatione cordis of Gerson, without any textual
break. It is not, however, claimed for a Kempis.
The text runs : "explicit liber quartus de Sacramento
altaris. Incipit tractatus de meditatione cordis
Johannis Gerson." The tract is almost regarded
as part of the fourth book. 1 It ends as follows :
" Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta imitatione
Christi et vero mundi contemptu cum tractaculo
de meditatione cordis finiunt feliciter." Since the
editor of the authorised version of the works could
be so foolish as to introduce a work known through-
out Europe as from Gerson's pen into intimate and
physical connection with a work of doubtful author-
ship, no one could complain at the controversy being
obscured. If the works were inseparable, the
Meditation of the Heart was entitled to import its
undoubted authorship into the title-page of the
Imitation. Nothing in fact was done to break
down the French tradition in favour of Gerson, and
that tradition is as strong as ever to-day, though
it is impossible to bring forward in its favour a
single argument based upon the internal or literary
evidence of the Imitation itself.
When such a tradition is abroad, it is hard to kill.
1 It fills folio 273 to folio 280 in the 1494 edition.
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS 137
It rapidly extended from the Continent, though,
as we shall see in another chapter, England had her
own tradition as to authorship, and had in fact
possessed, when the first English edition was issued
in 1502-3, for perhaps sixty years an English version,
still extant, of the Following of Christ. But the
tradition of the French and Italian press was too
strong for any local tradition. So when Dr Atkinson
in 1502 translated into English the Imitation from a
manuscript of the Musica Ecclesiastica type he
only translated three books, and this fact settles the
type the printer gave Gerson's name to the work.
The colophon to the 1 503 edition runs as follows :
" Here endeth the thyrde boke of Jhon Gerson :
Emprynted in London by Rycharde Pynson, in Flete
strete at the Sygne of the George, at the commaunde-
ment and instaunce of the ryght noble and excellent
prynces Margarete moder to our soverain lorde
Kynge Henry the. VII. and Countesse of Rych
mount and Derby. The yere of our lord MD.iii.
The. xxvii. day of June." Atkinson had evidently
no manuscript containing the fourth book. As has
been shown above, such manuscripts are very rare in
England. He clearly had to use a manuscript of
the Musica Ecclesiastica type containing only three
books. But the reading public were aware of the
fourth book, and Princess Margaret herself gave the
public an English version, not from the Latin, but
from an early French version. The fourth book
"was translated oute of frenche into Englisshe in
138 THOMAS A KEMPIS
fourme and maner ensuinge. The yere of our lord
god MDiiii." by the Princess, and was published
in the same year by Pynson. He appears to have
bound up some copies with Dr Atkinson's translation
of the first three books issued the previous year.
Our present point, however, is that the whole work
was issued under the name of Gerson and the
French tradition imposed upon the English
printers. I shall show later that the tradition in
no way affected the position of the English biblio-
philes who persistently attributed the first three
books of the Imitation to Walter Hilton.
MASTER WALTER HILTON AND THE
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION
/ T A HE controversy as to the authorship of the
-* Imitation Tractatus aureus et perutilis
has now been for all practical purposes at rest for
some thirty years. Dr Hirsche's discovery in
1873 that the work is written in a species of rhythm
peculiar to Thomas a Kempis was the last step in
an ancient argument based on internal evidence that
has at last overwhelmed even those who are still
troubled by the really weighty claims of Jean Le
Charlier de Gerson, Doctor Christianissimus. Few
to-day are so critically poor as to do reverence to
that Ignisfatuus of theological literature, Gersen of
Vercelli. All other putative authors have been
ruled out of court. It is true that the claims of
Saint Bernard are still arguable, but the weight of
manuscript evidence with respect to the final passage
of chapter fifty (or chapter fifty-five if that method
of division is adopted) of Book III. bears so heavily
against him that no one to-day will adopt the case
of the Saint. Indeed the Imitation is so clearly a
philosophical phenomenon of the late fourteenth or
early fifteenth century, that there is critical weakness
in attributing it to a much earlier age. Nevertheless
39
140 THOMAS A KEMPIS
controversialists must bear in mind that the work
was attributed to Saint Bernard in the mid fifteenth
century, and that his claims received a volume of
French support that at one time threatened seriously
to compete with the fascination that Gerson the
Most Christian Doctor exercised over those engaged
in finding authors for the anonymous works of that
day. Ludolph of Saxony, the Carthusian ; Ubertinus
de Casalis, head of the " Spiritualists," and named
" The Mystical Antichrist " ; Peter Rainaluzzi of
Corbario, afterwards the Anti-Pope Nicholas V.,
emerged from the mists of the early fourteenth cen-
tury, only to be speedily forgotten ; and with them
may be dismissed Pope Innocent III., whose work
De contemptu mundi was for a time confused with
the Imitation when the latter work was copied or
printed under the former title.
Johannes de Canabaco belongs to a different class,
for he was an author of the fifteenth century and
possessed personal qualities consistent with the
authorship of the Imitation. His works were
current in Europe at the date when the golden
tracts were in the making, and not only do we find
them in the library of the good Duke Humphrey, but
in the monastery where a Kempis laboured. But
there is no evidence that he wrote the Imitation, and
his chief title to fame may well be that his Consola-
tions of Divinity was one of the "little books" that
Thomas read in the "little nooks" at Mount St Agnes.
The case for John a Kempis, the elder brother, was
ct o i fcnj&fiacdc/lwu
tJi0ji \ ^^mtttnflcai
END OF THE INDEX OF THE FIRST HOOK AND PART OF THE FIRST
iAPTKR OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE CALLED "MUSICA ECCLES-
IASTICA:" FROM MS. 475 IN THE LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY. THIS MS
INSISTS OF THE FIRST THREE BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITA-
TIONE CHRISTI" AND BELONGS TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
ON THE FI.V-I.EAK AKCHBISHOF BANCROFT (?) HAS ATTRIMUTED THE WORK TO WALTER HILTON.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 141
likewise based on grounds that have little to do with
evidence. Three names are left. The Imitation
was produced, written, compiled, put it how we will,
by Thomas a Kempis, by Jean de Gerson, or by the
one man yet unmentioned Walter Hilton. It is
true that Walter Hilton, an Augustinian Canon like a
Kempis, is dismissed as summarily as the rest by Mr
Samuel Kettlewell in his pleasing and invaluable
work upon the authorship of the De Imitatione
Christi published in 1877. Mr Kettlewell, however,
has not considered this aspect of the general problem
with the care that it deserves, and in addition to
inaccuracies that might perhaps have been avoided,
he has not placed before the reader all the available
evidence. It will be therefore of interest to English
readers to re-examine Walter Hilton's claims. It is
indeed desirable to do so from another point of
view. As I have said, the controversy has now been
at rest for thirty years. It has been at rest long
enough. The period of repose threatens to exceed
the limits of time laid down by precedent. This
controversy has now in one shape or another
interested the world of literature and moved the
world of theology for more than four centuries and
a half, with occasional pauses or breathing intervals
such as that in which we now find ourselves. It is
time in the interests of literary and theological
polemics for the great cause to be re-opened, though
we are not likely to find again at large the superb
and unreasonable loyalty of a Constantine Caje"tan.
142 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Nevertheless the modern Shakespeare- Bacon logo-
machy shows us that there are spirits abroad
who will risk all on behalf of what they consider
literary justice. The cause of Walter Hilton is a
more worthy one than the cause of Francis Bacon ;
for while it is absurd on a priori grounds to suppose
that Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, it is most
reasonable on a priori grounds to suppose that
Hilton wrote three of the four famous devotional
treatises of Thomas a Kempis. Though it would,
in my opinion, be extremely rash, or extremely
patriotic, to assert that the evidence is capable of
enthroning Hilton and reducing a Kempis to the
respectable level of his other admirable works, yet it
seems to me clear that the evidence does create a
literary problem of some magnitude that deserves
consideration at the hands of experts. That problem
is simply this : what was the relationship between
the Imitation and the English school of theological
enthusiasts and mystics whose work survives
dimly for the serious minded reader of to-day in
Hilton's Ladder of Spiritual Perfection. So far as
the general reader goes, Hilton's name in literature is
forgotten. Mr Saintsbury has not thought fit to give
him a place in his gallery of English authors despite
the number and the literary interest of his reputed
works and his great position in mediaeval theological
literature. If he is forgotten, we need not expect any-
one but German scholars and heroic editors of early
English texts to remember William Flete, living
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 143
in 1380, when English mediaeval scholarship was
approaching its height ; William Exmeuse, Richard
Rolle de Ampulla, John Hilton, Walter Shirlaw,
Lowys de Fontibus of Cambridge, John Pery, and
others.
It is not my present purpose to attempt to pene-
trate into the difficult literary problems that these
English mystic writers present. It will be sufficient
to state a little more fully than has yet been stated
the evidence upon which those who wish to advocate
the English authorship of the Imitation will have to
rely. The question was first raised in England in a
definite controversial form in the year 1707, when
was published " The Christian Pattern, or the
Imitation of Jesus Christ, Vol. ii. Being the genuine
works of Thomas a Kempis. Containing four books,
viz. :
I. The sighs of a penitent soul, or a treatise
of true compunction.
II. A short Christian Directory.
III. Of spiritual exercises.
IV. Of spiritual entertainments, or the soliloquy
of the soul.
Translated from the original Latin, and recom-
mended by George Hickes, D.D., to which is
prefix'd,
A large account of the author's life and writings."
This book is a singular production and worthy of
study. It is recommended by that very learned non-
juror George Hickes, sometime Dean of Worcester,
144 THOMAS A KEMPIS
and that is a guarantee of its literary value. The
account of the controversy as to the authorship
is quite admirably done, and the life of a Kempis is
from the original sources. The curious point is the
text. Mr Kettlewell seems to me to assume, as
any one who had not closely perused the text might
assume, that it is a translation of the four books of
the Imitation. In fact it is nothing of the sort, and
this might perhaps have been anticipated from the
use of the word ''genuine" on the title-page. Mr
Kettlewell, assuming, I think, that the text was a
translation of the Imitation, read carefully all that
is stated with respect to Hilton, and particularly
the assertion at the end of the book that the
argument in favour of Hilton "will no wise invali-
date the authority of the blessed Saint [a Kempis],
from whose more certainly genuine works the
present volume is compiled in English." In fact
the anonymous author, Dr Lee, compiled a new
Imitation from the undoubted works of a Kempis,
in the belief that the Augustinian Canon did not
write the De Imitatione Christi.
It is singular that Mr Kettlewell should have been
misled by Dr Lee. However, partly on this ground,
partly on the ground that no specialist believes in
Hilton (a dangerous form of argument), and partly on
the erroneous assumption that Hilton died in 1433,
Mr Kettlewell dismisses the case with these words :
" It is probable that Walter Hilton had introduced
the ' de Imitatione,' for it was beginning to be well
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 145
known in his day, and this might be the cause of its
being attributed to him, since the author's name has
not been put to the book." Had Mr Kettlewell
thought it desirable to extend his well-known powers
of painful research to the personality of Hilton,
he would have found that this writer died on March
24th 1395, and that therefore if the Imitation "was
beginning to be well known" in England in Hilton's
day, the work was certainly not written by Thomas
a Kempis. However, before dealing with the
question fully, it will be convenient to consider the
views of the writer of 1 707, who says, after consider-
ing with admirable judgment the claims of eleven
candidates for authorship, " but after all there remains
another, who has not yet been taken notice of, as
I find, by any. And this is an Englishman, and
an eminent light of religion in his day : I mean
Walter Hilton" The writer goes on to state the
facts as to Hilton set forth by John Pits in his
account of illustrious English writers published in
Paris in 1619. Pits is erroneous in his facts. Hilton
was not a Carthusian, he did not live in the house
at Sheen called Bethlehem, he did not flourish in
1433. But our editor, in spite of or because of the
errors of Pits, has little doubt of Hilton's claim.
Mr Kettlewell adopts the same errors, and on those
errors, bases his refutation. We must consider the
grounds on which the editor of 1707 came to his
conclusion, for these facts were before Mr Kettlewell.
The editor publishes a letter from the Hon. Charles
146 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Hatton, dated December 2nd 1706, which refers to a
discussion between the two as to Hilton's claim.
Hatton states that fruitless search has been made in
the University libraries for Hilton's treatise De
Musica Ecclesiastica. In default of the manuscript
he thinks it desirable no longer to delay stating
the grounds for believing "Walter Hilton to
have been the genuine author of that justly cele-
brated pious book De Imitatione Christi, which
hath most generally been ascribed to Thomas a
Kempis."
Hatton goes on as follows : " Nay, more colour-
able pretences may be alledg'd in behalf of
Walter Hilton, than have been produc'd in favour
of Thomas a Kempis, whose justification to be
Author of the book de Imitatione Christi depends
chiefly on the authority of an M.S. thereof in
which it is not said that he is the Author, but only
Finitus et completus A.D. 1441, per Manus Thomae
A. Kemp, in Monte S. Agnet. prope Zwoll, which
might have been asserted, if he had only transcrib'd
it Now it is apparent out of Pitseus his Relationes,
Historicce de Rebus Anglicis, and from the Authority
of other Authors, that Walter Hilton flourish'd
before the date of that M.S., for he was famed for
his eminent Piety and learning A.D. 1433, and 'tis to
be observ'd, that the like strain of devotion with
that in the book de Imitatione Christi, runs through
his highly esteemed pious Treatise stil'd Scala
Christianse Perfectionis, of which Walter Hilton is
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 147
undoubtedly the Author : and tho' that be the only
book I cou'd ever meet with compos'd by him yet
Joan. Jacobus Frisius, in his Epitome Biblothecce
Gesnerianae and our countryman Pitseus (as un-
doubtedly Theodorus Pitreius and others who give
an account of the Carthusian Writers, tho' I have
not seen any of them) do enumerate several other
devout books writ by him, and among them one
stil'd, de Musica Ecclesiasticd, which begins Qui
sequitur me non ambulat. . . .
" I shall now only add, that some years ago, being
in conversation with Mr Obadiah Walker, he
happened to cite an Expression out of his favourite
book (as he term'd it) de Imitatione Christi, omitting
the name of T. a Kempis, to whom 'tis most
commonly ascrib'd, which occasion'd a discourse
about the eminent controversie Who was the
author thereof; and upon my remarking to him,
that Joan Jac. Frisius in his epitome of Gesner's
Bibliotheccs, and Joan. Pitseus renumerating the
works of Walter Hilton make mention of a book
compos'd by him, stil'd, de Musica Ecclesiasticd, and
recites the first words thereof, Qui sequitur me
non ambulat, etc., which are the initial words of the
book de Imitatione Christi, and enquiring of him
whether he had ever taken any notice thereof in
those Authors, he not only told me he had, but did
positively aver to me that he had seen, perus'd and
compar'd the M.S. of Walter Hilton, de Musica
Ecclesiasticd, with the book de Imitatione Christi,
148 THOMAS A KEMPIS
most generally ascrib'd to Thomas a Kempis, and
that throughout, it exactly agreed therewith, abating
some literal Errata, and some few Words and Expres-
sions which did not in the least vary the Sense.
Whilst we were thus discoursing, some Persons,
strangers to me, intervening, with whom Mr Walker
declared he had some private concern, I left him,
and to my great regret, never had an opportunity of
seeing him afterwards, which if I had, I should not
have fail'd to enquire of him, where he saw that
M.S. of Walter Hilton? What was the date
thereof? And if he cou'd inform me where it
might now be found ? "
In fact two hundred years ago Mr Hatton stated
the exact problem that we have to solve, if it is
solvable, to-day. When our friend was on the very
brink of the great discovery the intervention of
persons of importance played its wonted part in
literature.
However, Mr Hatton was satisfied in his own
mind. The evidence of Mr Obadiah Walker, the
learned and distinguished Master of University
College, Oxford, was sufficient ; and his positive
averment was supported by the more or less
respectable authority of Pitseus, Pitreius, and Frisius.
As we shall see directly the case as stated by Hatton
is but a bald recital of a much stronger case.
Hatton's correspondent did what he could. He
wrote to Oxford for confirmation, and received the
following statement :
" According to your order we have consulted
Theod. Pitreins, in his catalogue of the writings of
Wai. Hilton he reckons his book de Ecclesiastica
Musica, and cites for his authority Possevinus and
Simlerus. We consulted the Titles of the treatises
of this latter contained in our publick library, and
finding nothing that promised any account of
Hilton ; we had recourse to Possevinus, who attri-
butes Musica Ecclesiastica to Hilton ; Possevin's book
was published about the year 1603, under the Title
of Apparatus Sacer Ecclesiasticorum Scriptorum.
As for the manuscripts there are none either in Merton
or Lincoln College according to the printed catalogue.
In Magdalen College we found one entitled, Musica
Ecclesiastica, the same with the book De Imitatione
Christi, but ascribed to no particular author. The
Bodleian library has two manuscripts with the same
title of Musica Ecclesiastica. One contains only the
first book de Imitat. Christi and no more : the other
contains the whole book de Imitat. etc. except the
first chapter, with a little of the beginning of the
second, which are wanting, but the Author is
mentioned in neither of them. As for the birth and
death of Hilton, neither Possevin nor Petrius say
anything of it ; only the former has this expression,
Aiunt vero eum floruisse Henrico sexto anglorum
Rege which Petreius repeats out of him with this
addition, licet Cartusiam in qua vixerit, non
exprimant."
The conclusion finally come to by the anonymous
150 THOMAS A KEMPIS
writer (who is now identified as Dr Francis Lee) of
whom Hickes thought so highly was, "there is little
doubt but that Hilton must have been the Author, if
not of the whole Four Books at least of one of them,"
but that the work as we have it was " compil'd,
digested and improv'd" by Thomas a Kempis. This
is of the nature of a feminine ending and unworthy
of the masculine force of Mr Obadiah Walker.
However, in an Advertisement at the end of the
volume we are told that there are "several other
arguments yet behind," and though they are not set
out it is clear that the anonymous friend of Dr Hickes
had a full belief, which he was afraid to express, in
the authorship of Walter Hilton.
This was the evidence before Mr Kettlewell, and
he supplemented it by referring to further manu-
scripts entitled Musica Ecclesiastica, including one
at Cambridge, which is a fifteenth century English
version or rendering of the Imitation. As we
have seen he rejected as in duty bound the claims
of the Englishman. No doubt he was right in
so doing, but it is only proper that Hilton's case
should be stated as clearly and fairly as it can be
stated, and judged on grounds quite other than
those that Mr Kettlewell used. I cannot hope to
state the case as it should be stated, but this chapter
may induce some enthusiast to do what I am unable
to perform.
First, then, as to Hilton himself. It is possible
to add a little, though not much, to the useful
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 151
account given in the National Dictionary of
Biography. He was possibly the son of a man of
the same name (see MS. 9259 in Bernard's list of
English MSS., published at Oxford, 1697), not a
particularly illuminating fact. Whether he was in
any way related to the Franciscan John Hilton of
Norwich, a voluminous writer who died in 1376,
is not known. His name is variously given. He
is sometimes called Walter de Thurgarton. Bale, in
his "A Registre of Wryters," * calls him Gualtherus
de Hylton, but the "de" is dropped in his Index of
British and other writers. The most usual name
is Walter Hilton, but we also get Hylton. In the
fifteenth-century Cambridge MS. of Hilton's trans-
lation into English of St Bonaventura's Stimulus
Amoris we have the statement that the translation
was made by " Maister Walter Hilton chanon and
governaire of the House of Thurgarton biside
Newark." 2 He was a man famed for his devotional
zeal. " A ful devoute man " he is called in the
Cambridge fifteenth-century MS. of the Scala per-
fectionis. In the British Museum MS. (Harl. 3852
f. 1 82<$) of the Speculum de Utilitate Religionis Regu-
laris he is described by the phrase Magister Beatus.
Hilton, so far as I am aware, shared with a Kempis
exemption from beatification, and it is remarkable that
this word should have been added to the manuscript.
This very work is called elsewhere Epistola Aurea.
John Bale, Bishop of Ossary, calls him vir pro sua
1 Printed in 1549, London. 2 See also Royal MS. 8.A. vii.
152 THOMAS A KEMPIS
estate eruditus. Thomas Tanner, following John
Pits, declares that he was a Carthusian of Sheen
and afterwards a doctor of Theology and Canon of
Thurgarton. A manuscript in New College seems
to suggest that Hilton was Vicar of St Mary
Magdalen, Oxford. The Dictionary of National
Biography makes it clear that he was an Augustinian.
To sum up, he was a man with the highest reputa-
tion for sanctity, who became the head of the
Augustinian House at Thurgarton. An examination
of his works shows that he wrote as freely in English
as in Latin, and that he translated Latin authors
into English for the use of the faithful. It is
difficult, indeed, to tell whether his works were
originally written in Latin or English, but the
evidence seems in favour of English. Among his
translations were English renderings of Lowys de
Fontibus on Perfection, and Bonaventura's Stimulus
Amor is.
There is some difficulty in settling the canon of
his works, for even so well-known a book as the
Ladder of Perfection is occasionally attributed to
Richard Rolle de Ampulla. The date of his death
is fixed by two possibly independent manuscripts.
The first is a manuscript (Harley, 330 f. 126^) of the
Scala Perfectionis a Latin version by a Carmelite,
Thomas Fishlake, from the original English, and it
concludes with the statement that the work was by
Walter Hilton, Canon of Thurgarton, who died on
March 24, 1395-6. The other is a late Cambridge
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 153
manuscript of the same work, which concludes :
" explicit libellus magistri Walteri Hilton Canonic!
de Thurgarton qui obiit anno domini MCCCXCV
decimo kalendas Aprilis circa solis occasum." If any
further evidence is wanted to show that this is the
probable date of his death it is to be found in the
fact that Adam Horsley, to whom Hilton addressed
his work in praise of the Carthusian order, was an
officer of the Great Exchequer, and was employed
in the county of Gloucester in the year I37O. 1
The date of Hilton's death excludes the explana-
tion that he translated the Imitation. He died
when Thomas a Kempis was fifteen years of age.
The questions that have to be considered are these :
How are we to explain the fact of a persistent English
tradition that Hilton was the author of the Imitation,
the fact that the greatest English bibliophiles of the
sixteenth and seventeeth centuries were absolutely
satisfied that he was the author, the fact that among
the list of Hilton's works there always occurs a
work entitled Ecclesiastica Musica, which is identical
with the first three books of the Imitation, that
this title is exclusively English and appears in no
printed edition of the fifteenth century and in only one
Continental manuscript quod sciam, and that manu-
scripts so entitled occur frequently in England ?
First, we must consider the English literary authorities
that support Hilton. Charles Hatton's letter and
1 See Issue Roll of the Exchequer, 44 Edw. III., pp. 404-5, edited
by F. Devon, 1835 ; and Patent Rolls, i Ric. ii., p. 202.
154 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the Oxford letter of 1706-7 give us the following
data : Petrius, Frisius, Possevinus, and Pits include
the E 'celestas tica Musica in Hilton's works, and
identify it with the Imitation. Obadiah Walker had
carefully considered the question of the authorship
and had no doubt about Hilton's claim. Three
Oxford manuscripts entitled Ecclesiastica Musica
were in fact the Imitation, but had no author's name.
This evidence can be considerably enlarged. Bishop
Tanner is a late but important addition to the literary
authorities that accepted Hilton. John Bale, Bishop
of Ossory, is a still more important addition, for his
opinion is almost overwhelmingly weighty as well
as early. He was born in 1495 only twenty-five
years after the death of a Kempis and died in
1563. In 1540, on the fall of Thomas Cromwell, he
fled to Germany, and did not return until 1552, when
he was nominated Bishop of Ossory. By this date
he had acquired his unique knowledge, and his large
collection, of mediaeval manuscripts. When he was
hunted out of Ireland he fled to Zeeland and after-
wards to Basle, returning to England in 1558. A
year later he became Prebendary of Canterbury.
Bale must have been familiar with both Continental
and English manuscripts of the Imitation, and with
the Continental opinion as to the authorship at
that time strongly in favour of Gerson. Yet he is
absolutely clear on the point. He gives an elaborate
list of Hilton's works with the place where he had
seen each manuscript, and among these he includes :
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 155
" de Musica Ecclesiastica, Li. i. ' qui sequitur me
non ambulat,' Ex Bonham et Wolfio." 1 Bale possibly
refers to the Imitation as the work of Hilton when
he says of him " Gualtherus Hylton, vir pro sua etate
eruditus, inter alia preclarum edidit opus, cui titulum
addidit . . . claruit," A.D. (No year given.)
William Bonham was apparently a bookseller of
whom nothing else is known ; but Reiner Wolfius,
the other source referred to by Bale, was the well-
known London printer and publisher of German
origin, who came to London at Cranmer's invitation
before 1537, and who died in 1573. His copy of
the Ecclesiastica Musica may have come from Leland's
collection. Bale's evidence appears to me to amount
to this, that there was in existence in England in the
first half of the sixteenth century manuscript evidence
which convinced authorities such as Bale, Wolfius,
and probably Leland, that Walter Hilton was the
author of the famous work. Was this the same
evidence that convinced Obadiah Walker ?
We seem to be able to take back the attribution of
the work to Hilton to an even earlier date, though not
with the same certainty that exists in the case of Bale.
We shall have occasion directly to refer to the
Catalogue of the Syon Monastery at Isleworth 2 in
dealing with the MSS. entitled Musica Ecclesiastica,
but for the moment we must note the following point.
1 John Bale's Index of Bishop and other Writers, edited by Reginald
Lane Poole, with the help of Mary Bateson (Oxford 1902), p. 106.
2 Edited by Miss Mary Bateson (Cambridge 1898).
156
In that library was a manuscript entitled Ecclesiastic. i
Musica, given by Johannes West, and numbered in the
Catalogue M. 26. In the imperfect index to the Cata-
logue (made at the end of the fifteenth or beginning
of the sixteenth century) there is given a list of
Hilton's works contained in the library. This list
does not include the Ecclesiastica Musica, but it
refers to various works of Hilton as occurring in the
Codex M. 26, beginning respectively on Folios 41,
51, and 113 of the Codex, and it also mentions the
Scala as included in the same Codex. It seems not
illegitimate from this to assume that M. 26 contained
a set of Hilton's writings, and that the Ecclesiastica
Musica, which is catalogued under M. 26, was at the
date of the catalogue regarded as Hilton's work.
On the other hand, it might be contended that this
catalogue is the origin of the whole matter ; that
this work was regarded as Hilton's, because it was
bound up with Hilton's undoubted works. This
view is supported perhaps by the fact that the other
MSS. of the Ecclesiastica Musica are not included in
the Index of Hilton's catalogued works. It is also
perhaps a fact to be noted that this library contained
a MS. entitled Tractatus de Sacramento Altaris,
against which the author of the Index puts a note
of warning. Now this title De Sacramento Altaris is
the title of the fourth book in the earliest manuscripts
of the Imitation of the book that is not included
in the Ecclesiastica Musica. It is notable that this
fourth book is entitled as if it were a separate work,
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 157
and indeed there seems to be internal evidence to
show that the three books of the Ecclesiastica Musica
and the book De Sacramento Altaris are to some
extent independent works. 1
Codex M. 26, and the Index to the Catalogue,
do seem to show on the whole that the Ecclesiastica
Musica was regarded in the fifteenth century in
England as the work of Hilton. The fact that the
Index does not refer to the other MSS. may be
explained by the fact that it is very imperfect.
Now, the House at Isleworth was founded in 1415,
and it is at present impossible to say at what date sub-
sequently to this John West gave the manuscript.
It was almost certainly in the first half of the fifteenth
century, though possibly the fact that no copy of
the Ecclesiastica Musica seems to occur in Duke
Humphrey's bequests to Oxford of 1439 and 1443
may be adduced against this conclusion. On the
other hand the Codex Librum commonitorium de
Contemptu Mundi, in the bequest of 1443, might
possibly be this very book, for De Contemptu Mundi
is one of the earliest titles of the Imitation, and, as
we shall see, one that occurs in connection with the
title Ecclesiastica Musica, However, I am inclined
to think that this codex, once in the possession of
Duke Humphrey, is the manuscript now in Lincoln
College, Oxford, which begins, " Beati pauperes
spiritu."
However, this may be, there is i&primd facie case
1 But see British Museum MS.<& Sacramento Altaris (Arundel 214).
158 THOMAS A KEMPIS
for the proposition that long before, perhaps half a
century before the death of Thomas a Kempis, the
first three books of the Imitation were current in
England under the title Ecclesiastica Musica, and
with the reputation of having as their author the
saintly Augustinian Canon Walter Hilton. It is
certainly a remarkable fact that such a statement
can be seriously made, and it is one that needs very
definite explanation. But explanation is not made
any easier by the fact that the manuscripts entitled
Ecclesiastica Musica are not only comparatively
numerous, but also possess the peculiar characteristic
of so much of Hilton's work, the co-existence of both
Latin and English manuscript editions. Speaking
for myself only, I must confess that if I knew that
Hilton had flourished at the date that Pits says that
he flourished, namely 1433, I should despair of any
solution. The case would be as conclusive for the
authorship of Hilton as it is for the authorship of
a Kempis. However, Hilton almost certainly died
in 1395-
Mr Kettlewell adds several to the Ecclesiastica
Musica group of manuscripts referred to in the
inaccurate and misleading Oxford letter of 1706-7.
References to manuscripts so entitled are, however,
much more numerous than Mr Kettlewell realised.
Even my own necessarily incomplete examination of
the subject makes this clear, as the following list will
show. It may be that specialists will be able to add
to the number. In making the list it will be con-
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 159
venient first of all to refer to all such manuscripts,
wherever mentioned, keeping in mind the fact that the
first six manuscripts mentioned are possibly included
in the others which are all extant.
The Syon Catalogue gives four with the following
titles :
(1) Musica ecclesiastica (M. 26. given by John
West).
(2) Musica ecclesiastica de Imitacione Christi et
de contemptu mundi. Multi sermones cum aliis.
fo. 48 (M. 86).
(3) Musica ecclesiastica cum aliis (M. 112. Given
by John Lawisby, Vicar of Ware, who died 1490).
(4) Tractatus qui intitulatur Musica ecclesiastica
solitariis et contemplativis utilis fo. 109 (N. 37.
Given by one Pynchbek, who was possibly a Doctor
Pinchbeck who flourished 1457).
With respect to (i) Miss Bateson suggests that it
maybe identical with MS. 475 in Lambeth Library
(see p. 1 60 below).
With respect to (2) Miss Bateson says, " Owing
to this title Hilton has been called the author of the
De Imitatione, cf. M. 26." The Catalogue, however,
does not attribute any of these four MSS. to Hilton.
(5 & 6) John Bale refers to two copies of the De
Ecclesiastica Musica from the shops of Bonham and
Wolfius.
(7) The British Museum (Royal MS. 7 B. viii)
has a fine copy in a Flemish hand which may be
dated 1460-80. It begins : " Incipit liber interne
160 THOMAS A KEMPIS
consolacionis qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica et
dividitur in tres partes principales. Prima pars
continet xxv capitula capitulum primum de imitatione
Christi et contemptu omnium mundi," and ends :
" explicit tercia ultima pars libri interne consolacione
qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica." With this MS.
may be ranked
(8) The Coventry School MS., described for
Bernard's Catalogue of 1697 by the illustrious
Humphrey Wanley. He catalogues it as follows :
" This wants a Title page and author's name, which
is not mentioned in it.
" It is divided into three parts, which are thus
called :
1. Musica ecclesiastica.
2. Admonitiones ad interna trahentes.
3. De interna consolatione.
"It is wrote in parchment, about the time of King
Edw. IV., as I guess by the hand."
Wanley makes no suggestion of authorship, but
Bernard indexes the MS. under Thomas a
Kempis at the very date when Obadiah Walker
made his declaration against the authorship of a
Kempis.
We may next notice the Lambeth Palace Library
MSS. (Numbers 475 and 536).
(9) Folios i to 90 b of MS. 475 comprise a work
(according to the Catalogue, by Walter Hilton), "Qui
Vocatur Musica Ecclesiastica, in three books. This
is followed in the Codex by the treatise De Utilitate
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE
"MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA:" FROM THE MANUSCRIPT IN THE LIBRARY OF
EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
THIS MS. CONSISTS OF THE FIRST THREK BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI, '
AND PROBABLY BELONGS TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. THERE IS A
SECOND MS. AT EMMANUEL CONSISTING OF THE THIRD BOOK ONLY.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 161
Tribulationis, which has always been recognised as
Hilton's, and the juxtaposition of the two works
raises a presumption that the Musica was at the
date of transcription considered to be by Hilton.
What is the date of transcription ? The catalogue
states that the MS. de Utilitate (in the same hand)
is a fourteenth century manuscript, and if this is so
the claims of Thomas a Kempis are finally disposed
of. It seems, however, to be the better opinion
that it is a fifteenth century manuscript, and I should
place it rather late in that century. On the fly-
leaf of the Codex is the signature, Johannes Bark-
ham, A. D. 1612. Under this is written: "In hoc
volumine continetur i Gualteri Hilton Musica
Ecclesiastica sive De Imitatione Christi in tres
partes seu libros divisa, 2. . . ." On the face of
it these words seem strong evidence of Hilton's
claim. In fact they are worth about as much as the
opinion of Pitseus, for they were probably written
by John Barkham, and indeed the words " Gualteri
Hilton " and "de imitatione Christi" must be by a
later hand, probably Dr Sancroft's hand, as they
have been added after the rest of the passage was
written.
This passage is, however, clearly not the origin
of the Hilton case, as Bale had long before ad-
vocated Hilton's claim. I see, moreover, no
grounds for identifying the Codex with M. 26 of
the Syon Monastery Library. Indeed it is
obviously not that Codex which contained works
not in this Lambeth MS.
162 THOMAS A KEMPIS
(10) The Lambeth MS. 536 is on parchment,
and is attributed to the fifteenth century. I should
be inclined to place it earlier than MS. 475. It
may possibly be dated early in the century. The
manuscript begins : " Hiclibellus qui vocatur musica
ecclesiastica omnibus in virtute proficere cupientibus
valde necessaria et dividitur in tres partes." It is
the second MS. in the Codex, and is described in
the catalogue as follows:
"2. Musica ecclesiastica libris III. Incipit, Qui
sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris. Nihil habet
de Musica praeter Titulum, sed agit de praecipuis
virtutibus Christianis. Tres sunt primi Libri de
Imitatione Christi, qui Kempensi vulgo ascri-
buntur, fol. 4."
Three Cambridge MSS. may next be noticed.
(n 12) The Emmanuel College parchment
Codices are indexed as follows :
" 77. De interna Christi locutione ad animam
fidelem " ;
" 83. Augustini Soliloquia, cum Thomae a Kempis
Musica ecclesiastica, item Imprecationes ecclesiae
contra inimicos suos." The manuscripts give no
author's name. The first MS. consists of the third
book only. The second MS. begins qui sequitur
me non ambulat in tenebris and consists of the three
usual books. The work concludes: "explicit liber
interne consolationis et tertia pars Musicae Ecclesi-
asticae." This is followed by six folios of directions
for each day of the week. The college authorities
regard it as a fifteenth century manuscript. It is
I
Of flifamplW of frfcre . cftjntmii. tg
ir iTcrntre of a (pott
nmrnif .. cap itiifiim . i*.
*sf four of fofmitv flirt fiiV
Of rmimuwmon of fiatr. cftpmi
^Of conjitcrflnou of iiiflimce
fu
faf . ca!ii .
Of tl]c ) n$rmcritr
of frnnars .
nianfrs r\3f Ivoe \jmlf ifiimt^nril .
tinD 6c tti^ufrcil -ji-o affr m
of ^citt . Vfcijf re fine (otr out? foHrvap nc
INDEX OF CHAPTKRS 17-25 OF THE FIRST BOOK AND PART OF THE
FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLISH VERSION OF THE TREATISE " MUSICA ECCLESIAST1CA:" FROM
MP. G. c. I. 16, IN THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. THIS MS.
IS IMPERFECT BUT CONTAINS MOST OF THE FIRST THREE BOOKS OF
THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI." IT BELONGS TO THE FIRST
HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 163
apparently in one hand throughout, but the same
hand probably did not write the other works con-
tained in the Codex.
(13) The manuscript catalogued as G. g. i. 16
in the Cambridge University Library is described
in the published catalogue as follows : " a quarto,
on vellum, containing ff. 171 . . . date about 1400.
An English translation of the first three books of
the treatise de Imitatione Christi." If in fact the
manuscript can be dated "about 1400," it disposes
of the claim of Thomas a Kempis almost as effec-
tually as the Lambeth MS. 475 would have disposed
of them had the cataloguer's date been correct.
However, there seems little doubt that G. g. i. 16
is a good deal nearer 1450. The MS. begins:
" Here begynneth the tretes called Musica Ecclesi-
astica " ; and ends after the Oratio Aurea : " Here
ends the boke of inwarde consolacion." This MS.
must be classed with the two following MSS.
(14) An MS., in 1697 in the College of Physicians,
Dublin, is now in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, and has been collated with (13) above and
brilliantly edited for the Early English Text Society
(1893) by Dr J. K. Ingram. It is catalogued by
Bernard as follows :
" The works of Tho. a Kempis in an ancient
hand, in old English, on vellom, containing only
three books, the fourth commonly printed with the
three first, being falsely called his as some think."
This entry reflected a particular class of opinion
at the end of the seventeenth century. While some
164
scholars claimed three books for Hilton and one
only for a Kempis, others, as we see, considered the
de Sacramento Altaris as not belonging to a Kempis
at all.
It should be noted that there is no old English
MS. in the Bodleian.
The Bodleian contains, however, to use Bernard's
descriptions :
(15) " De interna consolatione tractatus imper-
fectus " [this MS. (Laud. 215 (i), isth cent.) has
lost the first chapter of the first book and the last
chapter (59) of the third book. It has only three
books] ; and
(16) " Liber de Musica ecclesiastica ita scilicet, in-
scribitur sed sensu allegorico, agit enim totus de rebus
ad Pietatem spectantibus. Cap i. est de imitatione
Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi "
(Bodley 632).
(17) " Musica ecclesiastica, alias de imitatione
Christi, tribus partibus, scriptus erat liber iste A.D.
1469," et an. octavo, Edward IV. Regis Angliae etc.
per Tho. Kempis " (Arch. Seld. Bodley 93).
Bernard appears to have recognised that (16)
was the Imitation, though he has added a note
similar to that written a hundred years later by the
cataloguer in the Lambeth MS. 536. Perhaps it
should be noted that (17) is of the same date and
class as the British Museum (7) and Coventry
School (8) MSS. The last manuscript that I shall
note is a famous Oxford one, namely :
(18) The Magdalen College MS. (xciii.), Novem-
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 165
ber 29th, 1438. The first book was written by
John Dygoun, a recluse of Sheen ; the other two
books were from the pen of Dygoun, aided by some
anonymous scribe.
It may be that the solution of the mystery is
involved in the origin and history of this manuscript.
I have noted that there were no less than four
copies of the Musica Ecclesiastica in the Library
of Syon Monastery. The Carthusian House at
Sheen called Jesus of Bethlehem was, as Miss
Bateson points out, founded about the same time
as the House of the Monks and Nuns of the
Brigettine Order at Syon, Isleworth (circa 1415),
and " the two Houses frequently acted together."
One may therefore suspect some common origin
of the Magdalen MS. and the manuscript of Syon.
Had Hilton been a member of the Carthusian
Monastery at Sheen, as alleged by Pitseus, we
should bring him into almost direct relationship with
the earliest manuscripts of the Ecclesiastica Musica,
but, fortunately or unfortunately, he died, if the
British Museum and the Cambridge manuscripts
are to be believed, twenty years before the House
at Sheen was founded.
There can be no manner of doubt that Hilton held
the Carthusian Order in great veneration, for there
is at Magdalen a work attributed to him entitled De
utilitate et prcerogativis Religionis etpraecipue ordinis
Carthusiensis (by accident or design in the same
Codex (93) with the copy of the Musica Ecclesiastica) ;
and at Merton there is a manuscript of the same
166 THOMAS A KEMPIS
treatise also addressed to Adam Horsley, a Baron
of the Exchequer. The work was in fact a trumpet-
call to swell the ranks of the Carthusian Order.
This Magdalen manuscript was (probably) once in
Syon Monastery. It certainly seems to me to play
an important part in the mystery that surrounds the
origin of the belief in the Hilton authorship. It is
therefore not impossible that when, in the first
quarter of the fifteenth century, the House at Sheen
secured an anonymous copy of the first three books,
they attributed the work to a man who was already
popularly known as Beatus, and was in fact the most
prolific author of theological treatises of his day.
Meanwhile an embargo was, for some ecclesiastical
reason, laid upon the fourth book assuming of
course that the De Sacramento Altaris of the Syon
catalogue and the fourth book of the Imitation are
the same works. This seems to me a reasonable
explanation of the facts. The only way to reconcile
the claims of Hilton and a Kempis, if Hilton did in
fact write the De Ecclesiastica Musica, is to suppose
that Hilton wrote the work in English and that a
Kempis translated it into Latin ; but this would
assume a knowledge of the English vernacular that
a Kempis could hardly have possessed.
If the House at Sheen did in fact issue a manu-
script in Hilton's name, it is not difficult to under-
stand the very positive position adopted by Bale
and Walker. But the existence of the early English
translations, though in accordance with Hilton's
usual practice, seems to me entirely explicable on
PART OF THK AU'HAHKTICAL INDKX OF THK THIRD HOOK AND
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTKR OF THK FIRST BOOK OF THK TRKATISK
"MUSICA KCCLESIASTICA, ' (DK IMITATIONK CHRISTI), FROM THK MS.
NUMBKRKD :< AT MACDALKN COLLKGK, OXFORD
THK MS. IS DATED NOVKMHEK zgTH : 14^8. IT CONTAINS THE FIKST THKKE BOOKS. THE FIKST
ItOOK IS KKOM THE TEN OK JOHN DYOOUN, A RECLUSE OK SHEEN. THE SECOND AND THIKD
other grounds ; for the Carthusian monks of Sheen,
if they attributed the work to Hilton, would
naturally have followed his practice of issuing an
English as well as a Latin edition.
What is remarkable is the rarity of manuscripts
of the Imitation which are not of the Ecclesiastica
musica type. The House at Sheen was obviously
the only English source of copies in the early
fifteenth century, and this perhaps accounts for the
fact that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, had no
copy. A cursory examination of sources shows eight
manuscripts of the Imitation that are not of the
Sheen type five in the British Museum and three in
the Bodleian. One Bodleian manuscript is very late,
and presumably includes the De Meditatione Cordis
of Gerson, for it is described as being in Jive books.
The British Museum manuscripts are interesting,
and in them, I think, we must look for the source of
the Sheen type. The earliest MS. is the Royal MS.
8, C. VII., and it is, one can scarcely help believing,
very early fifteenth century in date, lying between
the dates 1405 and 1420. It consists of not quite
the whole of the first book. The rest of the MS.
has been lost, but we have no right to assume that
it did not consist of the whole work. The Burney
MS. 314 is certainly also very early fifteenth century,
not later than 1440 and perhaps as early as 1420.
Its particular value is that it is probably the earliest
MS. that attributes the work to Gerson. The
Harleian MS. 3216 is dated 2ist December 1454,
not 1464 as Mr Kettlewell has stated in error. The
168 THOMAS A KEMPIS
additional MS. 11,437, which is probably not later
than 1470, and the Harley MS. 3223 which is dated
1478, both attribute the work to Gerson.
The manuscript of interest in this present discus-
sion is the Royal MS. 8, C. vii. Its date suggests
that it may have been the original from which the
monks of Sheen or Syon copied, and one is tempted
to infer (as an alternative to the explanation pre-
viously suggested) that the remaining copy having
been secured and attributed to Hilton, an attempt
was made to detach the MS. from the Codex, but
that this was done so as accidentally to leave most
of the first book intact.
If the monks of Sheen and Syon were desirous
of appropriating the work of Mount St Agnes to
their own country, they had a large measure of
success. The first edition printed in England by
Pynson in 1503 consisted only of the first three
books. Dr Atkinson had, it is clear, access to a
MS. with only these books, and it was necessary to
supplement the work with Princess Margaret's
translation from the French vernacular version.
Moreover, as we have seen, the keenest bibliophiles
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
entirely deceived. Hence, while it is, as I think,
impossible to believe that Walter Hilton wrote the
Imitation or any part of it, yet the relationship of his
name to the work forms an interesting chapter in
the history of European literature.
Those, however, who wish to prove that the
Imitation was written by an Englishman need not
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION 169
despair. The case for Hilton is a strong one if his
death can be placed a little later. Perhaps it can,
though I confess that it is difficult to get over the
evidence as to Adam Horsley. It would be strange,
however, if the authorship of the Imitation were to
turn on the identity of an English Exchequer official
of the baser kind in the year 1370. Still, even if
Hilton has to be abandoned, there is his School to
consider work enough for a century of polemics.
Meantime I am content to believe that the work
was written at Mount St Agnes about the year
1410. The view is confirmed, as I have shown
above, by the fact that Thomas a Kempis is
definitely connected by Adriaan de But (writing in
1480) with a work, " Metrice description" De But in
fact connects the Musica Ecclesiastica with the name
of the Flemish Augustinian Canon. The musical
marks used by a Kempis for purposes of punctuation
also seem to connect him with this title.
I may perhaps finally note here, before I pass from
the question of the manuscripts, that the work, or part
of it, became popular in Holland at a very early date.
Among the Marshall MSS. at the Bodleian Library
(MS. 124) there is a Codex of about the middle
of the fifteenth century which contains ten short
religious pieces in Dutch. The sixth piece is a
translation of the twelfth chapter of the second book,
and is entitled, " Van den conincliken wegh des
Heilighen Cruce, ende hoe ons selfs cruce sullen
draghen."
THE STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION
/ HPHE material that goes to the making of the four
-* books of the Imitation calls for some analysis.
These devotional works seem the soul of simplicity.
Their fresh springs of aspiration and prayer appear
to gush forth in spontaneity from the ground of the
heart. If any force draws them, it is the affinity
between man and God. The operations of the
mind, the literary instinct of man, the intellectual
building up of a great work seem to have no place
here. Yet in truth art can so closely approach
nature that it is difficult to distinguish their opera-
tions. The author of the Imitation was an artist of
the highest rank, and he built his work, sentence by
sentence, with an indefinable skill, with a con-
structive genius that defies analysis. His height
of art does not simulate, but actually produces the
cry of the child to the Father which is in Heaven.
With an unerring judgment he has gone to the
literary sources and fountains where is to be found
that yearning "of the alone for the Alone," which
he adopts and teaches. Not as a philosopher or as
a creed worshipper has he gone to those sources,
but as a man seeking for words that would touch
the hearts of men, and he has transferred these
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 171
living words into the structure of his work : the
ipsissima verba that living souls had long ago
poured out to the living God, not dead summaries
of what dead men believed and thought. His art
consisted in the inspired borrowing of phrases and
in bringing phrases so borrowed into vital organic
union one with another : inspired selection, inspired
combination, and the spiriting away of all traces of
art. The Imitation was a new work, a book born
into immortality, and yet it contains hardly an
invented phrase. This is indeed the very virtue of
the work. No phrase that time had not proved to
be a living force in the instinctive spiritual life
of man was allowed any place in it. It was in-
tended to represent the spiritual experiences of past
generations, and to bring them into the lives of
generations yet unborn. It was tacitly assumed
that all possible spiritual experiences had been
exhausted since the time of Christ, and that if they
could be crystallised into words, the follower of
Christ would at any rate know the road eternally
set aside for the following of Christ. The words
that time had proved to be alive, words that had
been the life and death cry of unnumbered millions,
the cry of the saint as well as of the sinner, these
words, the author of the Imitation seemed to think,
might well be recombined into the Aoyo? of the
spiritual life, as that life was conceived before the
Dawn of the Renaissance. Hence we see in the
very structure of these little books the spiritual
172 THOMAS A KEMPIS
limitations that they lay down. Spiritual experience
was not exhausted in the beginning of the fifteenth
century, it is not exhausted now. Then, as now, it
was approaching a new place of departure, was
evolving a new method of approaching the Divine.
But Thomas a Kempis, looking out upon the night
of his time, saw nothing but the stars. He gives
us no hint of the dawn. He is living at the end of
the night, not only of his age, but of the Middle Ages,
and the darkness before the dawn is very deep. He
is fulfilling his duty, and he believes that he is stating
the whole duty of man when he crystallises into
perfect literary form the Godward yearning of
humanity through fourteen centuries of time. He
was not even the modernist of his own age. The
mysticism of the fourteenth century is not fully
reflected in his work. It is not possible for the
literary critic to say, this bears beyond all doubt
the mystic stamp of the late fourteenth century.
Competent critics have been prepared to carry
it back to the days of St Bernard without any
sense of literary or spiritual incongruity. The
author felt nothing of the reform movement so
busily at work in his time. No touch of Wiclivism,
no taint of Lollardy appears in the little books, yet
the writer is so immersed in the best thought of all
the Christian ages that there is no touch or taint of
superstition. An unconscious reformer, he adopts
unconsciously as part of his calm spiritual outlook
all that, from his point of view, the Reformation and
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 173
the Counter- Reformation had to teach. It was not
necessary to disorganise or reorganise the civilised
world in order to teach him the unfettered right of
man to approach his Creator. On the other hand,
no social upheaval could have taught him other
lessons that the Reformation had in hand. The
best of the past was his already, but as to the future,
he looked for it, as he would have looked for it in
the days of Gerbert when the thousand years were
about to be accomplished, in another and a heavenly
country.
He made little of the promise of this life ; he
looked eagerly for that which is to come. The
following of Christ was the matter that he had in
hand, and diligently he mapped the journey. The
material wherewith to fill in the ground-plan of his
map he found in the New and Old Testaments, and
he selected it with the aid of the most spiritual
thinkers and dreamers that had lived between his
time and the time of the Apostles. Through a mind
of singular humility and receptive power, a mind
already saturated with the German mysticism of the
Middle Ages, there passed in patient detail the
great book from Genesis to the Revelations of St
John the Divine. With his own neat and unhasten-
ing hand he copied out the Bible from cover to
cover. The mind retained what the mind looked
for, what was already half its own. What did
the Bible mean to Hammerlein ? Did it mean the
message of the Catholic Church ? Perhaps. But
174 THOMAS A KEMPIS
first and foremost it meant that men should follow,
not this or that creed, but Christ. The fourth
book, the de Sacramento Altaris, was a supple-
ment. The three books are an entity without it,
though it can be fitted in, as a Kempis himself
fitted it in, after the second. The author, be he a
Kempis or another, is concerned with life rather than
with doctrine, with life eternal, as exhibited in the
Bible, and seen by the men who followed Christ in
the school of St John of Patmos.
The books are a marvellous mosaic, largely com-
piled from the actual text of the Bible. There are
more than one thousand direct references to the
Bible in the four little treatises. In the first treatise
of twenty-five short chapters there are at least
one hundred and seventy references ; in the
second treatise with its twelve brief chapters, at
least one hundred and three ; in the third and
longest book of sixty-three chapters, there are as
many as five hundred and fifty ; while in the last
treatise containing eighteen chapters we have as
many as two hundred and three. From every
part of the Bible they come in lavish profusion.
There is hardly a book unrepresented. The great
sources of inspiration are first, not the New
Testament, as we might expect, but the Psalms, and
secondly, the Epistles, and then the Gospels. In
the first book the admonitions useful for a spiritual
life there are some seventy-seven passages re-
ferable to the Old Testament, and ninety-three
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 175
passages referable to the New Testament. Of the
former, eighteen are from the Psalms and seventeen
from Ecclesiasticus, whilst we have also references
to Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Kings,
Chronicles, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, the Wisdom of
Solomon, and first book of the Maccabees. There
are twenty - seven references to the Gospels,
namely, eleven to St Matthew, one to St Mark,
seven to St Luke, and eight to St John.
There are sixty-six other definite references to the
New Testament, to the First Epistle of St John,
the Epistle to the Ephesians, the First Epistle of
St Peter, the Epistle to the Romans, the Acts of the
Apostles, the Epistle to the Galatians, the Epistle of
St James, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, the
two Epistles to Timothy, the Epistle to the
Philippians, the Epistle to the Colossians, the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Epistles to the
Thessalonians.
The second book the treatise of admonitions
tending to things internal gives us forty-seven re-
ferences to the Old Testament and the Apocrypha,
of which eighteen are to the Psalms. There
are quotations from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Kings,
Chronicles, Job, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Proverbs, Micah,
Tobit, the Song of Solomon, Joel, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus, and Judith. In the New Testament
there are ten references to St Matthew, eleven
to St Luke, and five to St John. We have
176 THOMAS A KEMPIS
also references to the Epistles to the Romans,
the Hebrews, the Corinthians, the Thessalonians,
the Galatians, the Philippians, and to the Acts,
the Epistle of St James, the First Epistle of St
Peter, and the Revelations. There is no quotation
from St Mark. The author quotes him but rarely.
There are in all only eight quotations from St
Mark in the whole of the Imitation, as against
sixty-seven from St Matthew, fifty from St Luke,
and sixty-eight from St John. The only reference
in the first book is the second paragraph in the first
chapter, where the phrase " Ab omni caecitate cordis
liberari " may be referred to St Mark (iii. 5) and
the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 18). In the third
book we get in chapter vi. a reference immunde
spiritus to St Mark (v. 8), and in the same chapter
another reference Tace et obmutesce to the
previous chapter of St Mark (iv. 39). This same
verse is again referred to in chapter xxiii. verse
21, where St Mark's phrase tranquillitas magna is
used. In the fourth book, chapter iii., we seem to
have references to St Mark (i. 34, and viii. i seqq.\
In the twelfth chapter we have a direct reference to
St Mark (xiv. 14, 15). For some reason the Gospel
according to St Mark did not appeal to the author
of the Imitation in the way that the other Gospels,
the Epistles, and the Psalms appealed to him.
We have forty-three references to the Epistle to
the Romans, sixty-six to the Epistles to the Cor-
inthians, twenty-two to the Epistle to the Hebrews.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 177
When we turn to the long third book we find that
there are three hundred and fourteen references to
the Old Testament and Apocrypha (including one
hundred and thirty-four to the Psalms, twenty-two to
Job, and twenty to Isaiah), ninety-five references to the
Gospels, and one hundred and forty-one to other books
of the New Testament. In the Old Testament and
Apocrypha there are references to Genesis (fifteen),
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Kings,
Job, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel,
Nahum, Tobit, Baruch, Wisdom, Esdras, Judith,
Maccabees. In the New Testament there are
references to the Epistles to the Corinthians, the
Romans, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philip-
pians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians, the
Hebrews. There are thirty-five references to St
Matthew, three to St Mark, seventeen to St Luke,
and forty to St John. There are references to the
Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle of St James,
the Epistles of St Peter, the Epistles to Timothy,
the Epistle of St Jude, and the Revelation of St
John the .Divine. It is noteworthy that in this third
book the references to the Old Testament consider-
ably exceed those to the New, while the references
to the Psalms alone are half as numerous again as
those to the Gospels. The references to the Epistles
are, however, almost as numerous as those to the
Psalms. When we turn to the fourth book we
find that there are about one hundred and thirteen
M
178 THOMAS A KEMPIS
quotations from or allusions to the Old Testament,
of which thirty-five are from the Psalms. There are
some forty-five references to the Gospels eleven to
St Matthew, four to St Mark, fifteen each to St
Luke and St John. The references to the Old
Testament and Apocrypha include the books of
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Kings, Chronicles, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, Proverbs, The Song of Solomon, Hosea,
Ecclesiastes, Habakkuk, Malachi, Ecclesiasticus,
Esdras (i), Wisdom. The references to the New
Testament include the Epistles to the Hebrews,
the Ephesians, the Corinthians, the Philippians, the
Colossians, the Galatians, the Romans, and the
Epistles of St Peter, St John, and St James,
the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, the Acts of the
Apostles, the Revelation of St John the Divine.
These thousand or more direct or indirect refer-
ences to specific passages in the Old and New
Testaments and the Apocrypha of course the
numbers given are only approximate in no way
complete the author's debt to the Bible. Every
phrase is haunted with Biblical reminiscence. One
curious consequence of this is patent to the English
ear. No modern translation of the Imitation wholly
satisfies the expectation of the reader or the hearer.
The roll of an Elizabethan version, of one con-
temporary with the Authorised Version of the
Bible, is the demand of ear and heart. The Biblical
reminiscence is partly lost, unless we hear the
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 179
cadence that belongs beyond divorce to our English
Bible.
The peculiar tenets and the peculiar limitations
of the Imitation are woven into a groundwork of
Biblical phrases, and they take from those phrases
their colour and tone. The chief of these limitations
is that the reader of the Imitation must look at the
Bible as a Kempis and his spiritual predecessors
looked at it, if the full significance of these little
treatises is to be felt. They appeal to our nature,
but not to our whole nature. Save in so far as a
Kempis anticipated the cleansing forces of subsequent
spiritual developments and he did to a considerable
extent anticipate these forces we can only place
ourselves in touch with the mind behind the Imitation
by neglecting the lessons of the Renaissance and
the Reformation, and the even deeper lessons of
modern research into the mysteries of mind and
matter. The Bible, as a Kempis and his spiritual
ancestors read it, is the groundwork of the Imitation,
The modern mind must in many ways read it differ-
ently, and therefore again and again we feel our-
selves out of touch with the Imitation as a whole.
Yet this fact does not materially militate against
the lasting power of the work, for while the books
taken as a whole are wanting in much that belongs
to modern spiritual experience, yet the individual
chapters have not, as a rule, this defect ; they may
well appeal to the entire nature in a particular mood ;
and in fact their appeal to all classes of society
180 THOMAS A KEMPIS
is as powerful to-day as it has been at any time in
the past five centuries.
Into the Biblical groundwork a Kempis weaved
the thoughts of men to whom, as to himself, the
Bible was ultimately the main source of inspiration
and spiritual direction. But these same men were
for the most part familiar with the great thinkers and
writers of the pre-Christian ages. These thinkers
did not appeal at all directly, and with the exception
of Plotinus hardly appealed at all to Thomas a
Kempis. He was not conscious of the debt that
he owed both to Plato and the Neo-Platonists, or of
the influence that Aristotle's philosophy had upon
his own philosophy of life. Once, or at the most
twice, does he quote Aristotle. The only notable
instance is in the opening words of the second chapter
of the first book, where he says, "Omnis homo natur-
aliter scire desiderat sed scientia sine timore Dei
quid importat ? " This is from The Metaphysics
(lib. i., cap. i.). Monsignor Puyol has traced the
quotation to the Latin version of Cardinal Bessarion, 1
where the words used are ' Omnes homines natura
scire desiderant.' Thomas a Kempis immediately
corrects the Aristotelian statement of the natural
aspiration of man with its spiritual equivalent : of
what avail is knowledge without the fear of God ?
Truly, he adds, a humble serf who serves God is
better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting
himself, studies the courses of the stars. We shall
1 Tom. ii. page 1269, ed. Lugd., 1581.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 181
see directly that this is only one of various direct
attacks on the Aristotelian School as represented by
Abelard and others. In chapter twenty-five of the
first book we have the phrase, "subtrahere se violenter
ad quod natura vitiose inclinatur," and Dr Bigg is
inclined to think that perhaps there is here a refer-
ence to Aristotle's Ethics (ii. 9). It may be so, but
it must be remembered that in the fourteenth century
Aristotelian concepts were much in the air, and were
unconsciously adopted by many who had no sym-
pathy with Aristotle as presented by the Schoolmen.
The Augustinian Canon may have obtained both
passages direct from Bessarion, but it is more pro-
bable that they were drawn from some monastic
commonplace book. This was almost certainly the
case, as Dr Bigg has pointed out, in the solitary
instance where Seneca is quoted. This is in the
sixth paragraph of chapter twenty of the first book,
where we read, " Dixit quidam : quoties inter
homines fui, minor homo redii."
This is a paraphrase of a passage in Seneca's
Seventh Epistle: "Avarior redeo, ambitiosior,
luxuriosior, immo vero crudelior et inhumanior,
quia inter homines fui."
We have several quotations from the Latin poets,
but there is only one doubtful reference to the
deified Virgil. The first quotation is from Ovid's
De Remedio Amoris (lib. ii. 91), and occurs in the
twenty-first paragraph of chapter thirteen in the
first book. The passage runs :
182 THOMAS A KEMPIS
" Unde quidam dixit :
Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur
Quum mala per longas convaluere moras."
It is a note that a Kempis strikes often. He that
is whole needeth no physician, therefore resist the
beginnings of sin. The remedy comes too late when
the sin is well rooted. In the eleventh chapter of
the same book he sounds the same warning : " Resiste
in principio inclinationi tuae, et malam dedisce
consuetudinem, ne forte paulatim ad majorem te
ducat difficultatem."
It was perhaps with a gleam of the latent humour
which is ever peeping out in this most serious call to
humanity that the saintly canon went to Ovid for
the purpose of driving home the lesson. In the
thirty-third chapter of the third book we seem to
find, Dr Bigg has pointed out, a further reference to
Ovid. The passage runs in Dr Bigg's version : " It
is rare to find one who is wholly free from the mole
of self-seeking " ("et raro totus liber quis invenitura
naevo propriae exquisitionis "), and Dr Bigg tells us
that " there is probably a reference to Ovid. Tristia
v. 13, 14: " Nullus in egregio corpore naevus
erit." This view is, however, very doubtful, for the
identification turns on the use of the word naevus.
Now the Codex Aronensis an excellent text as
edited by Monsignor Puyol, whatever we may think
as to its alleged authorship has no such word. It
has nervus, which, if used, as it is colloquially used in
the Latin comedies, to mean a prison, fits in well
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 183
with the word liber, and makes a simpler text than if
the word naevus is used. It is difficult also to see
why the expression should be translated " the mole
of self-seeking." It is not so much self-seeking as
personal impulse in opposition to acting under the
inspiration of the divine will. " The prison of wilful
impulse " seems nearer to the meaning of the mystical
writer.
The shadowy reference to Virgil occurs, according
to Gence, towards the end of the ninth chapter of the
third book. There we have the statement, " Vincit
enim omnia divina caritas, et dilatat omnes animae
vires." This certainly recalls, by way of a common-
place book doubtless, the famous words of the tenth
eclogue (69), " Omnia vincit Amor." Chaucer, a con-
temporary of a Kempis, it will be remembered, quoted
them also.
We have in chapter fifty-four of the third book
one possible reference to Horace. The passage
runs : " Omnes quidem bonum appetunt, et aliquid
boni in suis dictis vel factis praetendunt : ideo sub
specie boni multi falluntur." Monsignor Puyol refers
this to the phrase " decipimur specie recti " in the
De Arte Poetica (v. 25). This seems somewhat far
fetched, but the idea is the same, and it is possible
that here again we have a commonplace - book
version.
The only other Latin authors from whom a Kempis
quotes are Pliny and Lucan. In chapter twenty-
five, of book three, we have the passage that tells us
184 THOMAS A KEMPIS
where true peace is to be found. " In surrendering
thyself with all thy heart to the divine Will : not
seeking thine own in great matters or in small, in
time or in eternity ; so that with unchanged counten-
ance thou abide in thanksgiving, amid prosperity and
adversity : weighing all things with equal balance "
(" omnia aequa lance pensando "). Dr Bigg refers
this to Pliny (i. 7) : "Is demum profecto vitam aequa
lance pensitabit, qui semper fragilitatis humanae
memor fuerit" There is a likeness of phrase that
is possibly not accidental, and may again be referred
to the commonplace - book. Dr Bigg is also
inclined to find a reference to Pliny (i. 10, 49) in
the sentence at the end of chapter twenty-seven of
the same book : " Quia haec magna sapientia est,
non moveri omni vento verborum nee aurem male
blandienti praebere Sirenae, sic enim coepta pergitur
via secure." The similarity can hardly be accidental.
The reference to Lucan's Pharsalia is apparently
quite direct (1.135). 1 1 is a famous phrase, ' ' the shadow
of a great name." It occurs in chapter twenty-four of
book three : x " Non sit tibi curae de magni nominis
umbra et non de multorum familiaritate, et de privata
hominum delectione." Hirsche, however, thinks
that the phrase is borrowed, probably from the first
of St Bernard's sermons on the Circumcision, where
we read " non est in eo [Jesu] magni nominis umbra,
sed veritas." 2
1 It is also used by a Kempis in his Chronicles.
2 See the Paris edition of 1494.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 185
In addition to these direct quotations we find
in the Imitation one or two classical proverbs.
Thus in chapter twenty-four of the first book we
have " in omnibus rebus respice finem " ; and at the
end of chapter twenty-six of the third book we have
" inter haec quaeso manus tua me regat et doceat,
ne quid nimium fiat." These may once more be
referred to a commonplace - book. The classical
references are, it is clear, sparse and obscure enough.
They are mere driblets from the classical reading,
now growing sadly narrow, of the religious in the
Middle Ages. They give no hint whatever of the
Renaissance, and their form is evidence enough,
if evidence of this type were needed, that Thomas
a Kempis was absolutely unconscious of anything
of the nature of a Revival of Letters. They also
seem to me to indicate that the book was actually
written at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Had it been later, we might perhaps have expected
more references. Had it been earlier, we cer-
tainly should have had an abundance of quota-
tions, for the early thirteenth century had a large
acquaintance at any rate with polite letters. All
that we actually get are echoes of echoes, the
murmur of culture that reverberated fainter and
more faint till it was lost in the remotest monasteries.
When we turn from classical to mediaeval literature
we find, not indeed an abundance of quotations,
but a pervading atmosphere of that literature from
end to end of the Imitation. St Augustine and St
186 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Bernard are the two great sources from which a
Kempis drew, or rather let me say the two great
influences under which he worked. But the influence
of the Schoolmen, when their philosophy melts into
faith, can also be traced. Thus it is just possible
that a Kempis, in chapter fifteen of the third book,
has been influenced by Scotus Erigena: "In manu
tua ego sum, gyra et reversa me per circuitum."
("I am in thy hand : spin me forward or spin me
back "). Dr Bigg thinks that there may be here a
reference to the Vulgate version of Ecclesiastes (i. 6),
to which the Subtle Doctor also refers in the words
" Gyrans gyrando vadit spiritus et in locum suum
revertitur." The Vulgate version runs : " Gyrat per
meridiem, et flectitur ad aquilonem : lustrans universa
in circuitu pergit spiritus, et in circulos suos
revertitur." Whether a Kempis had or had not
the text of John Scotus in mind the passage is an
interesting and characteristic example of his method.
The Scriptural idea, almost the very words of
Scripture, are used, but both are applied to new uses
and are organically introduced into a new connection.
Dr Bigg has detected two references to St
Thomas Aquinas, both in the thirteenth chapter of
the fourth book. The first is the passage, " O, quam
suavis est spiritus tuus, Domine, qui ut dulcedinem
tuam in filios demonstrares, pane suavissimo de
Caelo descendente illos reficere dignaris " " Oh
how sweet, Lord, is Thy Spirit ; who to show forth
Thy loving-kindness toward Thy children, dost deign
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 187
to refresh them with the bread of sweetness which
cometh down from Heaven." Bigg and Hirsche both
refer the passage to the Angelic Doctor. 1 Hirsche
further notes that a Kempis employs the same
quotation in the Three Tabernacles. The passage,
however, is in fact a combination of passages from
the Book of Wisdom and St John's Gospel. Thus
in the twelfth chapter of Wisdom we have " Dulce-
dinem tuam, quam in filios habes, ostendebat," 2 and
in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St John (verse
50) we have, "Hie est panis de Caelo descendens."
Here again then we have an instance of Biblical
phraseology and ideas brought into a new and a
living connection. The combination appears, how-
ever, in this case to have been made by the great
mind of Aquinas, and to have been adopted by a
Kempis. This well illustrates what has been said
above as to the Augustinian's use of the Bible and
of living phrases drawn from it, or from commentators
upon it. The phrase, the form is the thing, though
no one would more stoutly have denied the insinua-
tion than the worthy Canon, sitting " little book " in
hand in his "little corner," and enjoying a life of letters
in a way and to an extent that few other men have
done. H is phrase, " M ulta verba non satiant animam "
(i. 2), does not exclude the supposition that he believed
in the spiritual efficacy of " the few best words in the
best order." A word in due season how good it is.
The Angelic Doctor is again quoted in the same
'/ Off, Sacr. vesp. ad magnificat. a See also cap. xvi. 21.
188 THOMAS A KEMPIS
chapter: 1 " Quae est enim alia Gens tarn inclyta
sicut plebs Christiana." Aquinas took the form of
this direct from Deuteronomy : 2 " Quae est enim alia
gens sic inclyta ? " The phrase is adopted by a
Kempis, and developed and expanded. If there are
no such people as the people of Christ there can be
no creature so beloved as the Christian soul, fed in
the sacrament by God Himself.
Turning from Aquinas to other mediaeval writers,
we find (according to Dr Bigg) two possible
references in chapter four of the second book to
two Latin hymns. The chapter opens with the
phrase " Duabus alis homo sublevatur a terrenis,
simplicitate scilicet, et puritate." Does this allude
to the hymn Ecquis binas columbinas Alas dabit
animce? Certainly the trick and jingle of words in
this mediaeval hymn were likely to catch the mind
of Thomas a Kempis, which was peculiarly suscep-
tible to any interplay between sound and sense. It
is also suggested that the later sentence in the same
chapter " si rectum cor tuum esset, tune omnis
creatura speculum vitae, et liber sanctae doctrinae
esset " is drawn from the hymn by Alain de Lille
beginning :
" Omnis mundi creatura
Quasi liber et pictura
Nobis est et speculum."
Certainly the idea and the phrasing is very similar,
and in neither case has the image or the phrase
1 Off. Sacr. Lect. 5. 2 iv. 8.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 189
been traced to the Bible. A Kempis, a continual
student of books, must have gathered phrases from all
quarters, and it is probable that most of the passages
that have no scriptural authority will be found to
be echoes of striking words in the devout literature
of the Middle Ages. It is, however, noticeable that
the service books supplied the writer with very
little material other, of course, than scriptural
material. In the fourth book, De Sacramento Altaris,
we have four references to the Gelasian Sacra-
mentary, 1 and one reference in chapter fifty-seven of
the third book. We have also at the end of chapter
fifty-five of the third book the Oratio for the sixteenth
Sunday after Pentecost : " Tua ergo me Domine
gratia semper praeveniat et sequatur, ac bonis
operibus jugiter praestet esse intentum." This is, of
course, the English collect for the seventeenth
Sunday after Trinity: "Lord we pray that Thy
grace may always prevent and follow us, and make
us continually to be given to all good works, through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."
The sentence immediately preceding this collect
is a good instance of the manner in which a
Kempis selected his phrases from various biblical
sources. It runs : " Quid sum sine ea, nisi aridum
lignum, et stipes inutilis ad ejiciendum." The text
is unsettled. The autograph of 1442 has stips, while
the Codex Aronensis has stipes. Dr Bigg suggests
that stirps is the only possible reading, while Hirsche
1 See caps, i and 3, Biggs Edition. See also lib. Hi. cap. 48 and
lib. i-u. cap. 3.
190 THOMAS A KEMPIS
prefers to retain slips. Slips is, however, an
impossible reading. It is a rare Latin word with
which a Kempis could hardly have been familiar,
and its meaning a gift or profit is incompatible
with the context. Stipes the reading of the Codex
Aronensis seems at first sight the best reading, for
it means, in classical Latin, a log, and this fits in
with and carries on the conception of lignum, which
conveys the idea wood rather than tree. On the
other hand lignum is translated tree when used in
St Luke's Gospel (xxiii. 31), where in the sentence
" For if they do these things in a green tree what
shall be done in the dry ? " the word dry is the
rendering of aridum lignum. If lignum is intended
to mean tree rather than wood, then stirps is a more
reasonable reading than stipes, for it means the
stock or trunk of a standing tree. The passage
would then run : " Without it [truth] what am I but
a dry tree and a trunk, fit only to be cast away ? "
This view is confirmed by a passage from Isaiah
(xiv. 19), which was almost certainly in the mind
of a Kempis when he wrote the sentence. It runs
as follows : " Tu autem projectus es de sepulcro tuo
quasi stirps inutilis pollutus." Here we have the
very phrase stirps inutilis, while the connection
with tree is emphasised by the fact that the phrase
velut lignum aridum, with that meaning, occurs in
Ecclesiasticus (vi. 3). Of course the difficulty may
have arisen in consequence of the practice pursued by
a Kempis of playing with words. He may have written
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 191
stips, having the idea of a valueless reward in his mind,
while he still desired to carry on the conception of
dead wood or a dead tree (conveyed by the word lig-
num), by the words stipes or stirps. The literary artist
who plays with words habitually runs the danger of
such a slip. The really interesting point, however,
is that there we get a combination of phrases from
Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah, and St Luke a combination
that brings out all the peculiarities of the literary
methods pursued by the author of the Imitation.
There are still other sources to be considered
before we turn to St Bernard and St Augustine.
We have in chapter nine of the second book the
account given by St Maximus of Turin of the
martyrdom of St Laurence and Pope Sixtus under
the Emperor Valerian in 258 A.D. 1 The value of
the reference is in the light it throws on the works
read by a Kempis. The choice of such an obscure
illustration by an obscure writer would seem to
indicate a mind steeped in the less obvious literature
of the Middle Ages. But that a Kempis had any
knowledge of the Apocalypse of Peter can perhaps
hardly be inferred from his statement of the doctrine
so fully developed by Dante, that each sin is punished
by the thwarting of the desire that lies behind the
sin. But the twenty-fourth chapter of the first
book shows that a Kempis was fully familiar with
the doctrine " In quibus homo peccavit, in illis
1 See Bigg's edition of The Imitation, p. 117 (.) a d Horn. I. de
Sancto Laurentio ; also Lives of the Saints, August 10.
192 THOMAS A KEMPIS
gravius punietur." This doctrine is clearly taken
from the eleventh chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon : l
" Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall
he be punished " (" per quae peccat quis, per haec et
torquetur"). Dante and a Kempis needed no
apocalyptic Gospel to teach them the lesson that the
unhappy Francesca framed in deathless words, for it
lies deep in the humanity of all men
" Ed ella a me : Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria." 2
Dr Bigg has pointed out the resemblance between
a passage in the fourth chapter of the fourth book
and one in the Celestial Hierarchy (i. 13) of the
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagus. If this was used, as
it very probably was, by a Kempis, it was taken from
the ninth-century version of Scotus Erigena. Thomas
a Kempis writes : " Et si necdum totus coelestis et
tarn ignitus ut Cherubim et Seraphim esse possum,
conabor tamen devotioni insistere, et cor meum
praeparare, ut vel modicam divini incendi flammam,
ex humili sumptione vivifici Sacramenti conquiram."
This idea springs from the conception of Dionysius :
" Deinde easdem sanctissimorum Seraphim edoctus
est deiformes virtutes, sacra quidem ipsorum cog-
nominatione, quod est ignitum." Dante 3 expresses,
drawing his conception rather from Dionysius than
Gregory, exactly the idea of a Kempis. The cherubim
1 Ver. 16 (Vulgate, ver. 17). 2 L'Infemo (canto v., 11. 120-23).
3 II Paradiso, canto xxviii., 11. 25-27, 98-102.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 193
and seraphim are an intense " cerchio d'igne " circling
immediately round the flaming heart of the universe.
So intense is their light, so sublime their vision, that
Beatrice likens them to God Himself. To the
knowledge of God and the love of God as repre-
sented by the Cherubim and the Seraphim the
Disciple cannot attain. But by endeavouring to
attain a state of true devotion, and by preparation of
the heart, he can reach some measure of knowledge
and love a tiny flame of that divine fire which forms
the central light of things. A Kempis is as terse
as Dante himself, and feels as deeply the mediaeval
sense of almost physical illumination which the
realism of the Pseudo-Dionysius, Gregory, Scotus
Erigena, the first father of Scolasticism, and Anselm,
its second father, created in their efforts to identify
the worlds of reason and revelation.
Anselm himself indeed appears to have contri-
buted one direct idea to the Imitation. In chapter
thirty-eight of the third book we have the passage :
" Qui [Deus] nil inordinatum reliquit in sua
creatura." Dr Bigg, with much reason, compares
this with the passage from the Cur Deus Homo : l
" Deum vero non decet aliquid in suo regno inor-
dinatum dimittere." The idea is certainly that of
Anselm. It is also noticeable that the conception
of the natural freedom of the sons of God, "qui
stant super praesentia et speculantur aeterna," is a
conception used by Dante in the canto (vii.) of the
1 i. 12.
194 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Paradiso where the influence of Anselm is apparent
beyond doubt. Can a Kempis have been acquainted
with the Comedy ? It is certainly a temptation to
suggest that he had read the Paradiso. The
famous line in the third canto
E la sua volontate e nostra pace
is a continual motive in this structure of ecclesiastical
music. A notable instance one instance among
many of an elaborate use of the deep feeling under-
lying the line, is to be found in the Prayer at the end of
the fifteenth chapter of the third book. It is a prayer
for the complete fulfilment of God's will which declares
that the unity of will must bring unity with God, and
that such unity alone is peace. " Tua voluntas mea
sit et mea voluntas tuam sequatur semper, et optime
ei concordet. Sit mihi unum velle et nolle tecum, nee
aliud posse velle et nolle, nisi quod vis, et
nolis. . . . Da mihi super omnia desiderata in te
quiescere, et cor meum in te pacificare. Tu vera
pax cordis, tu sola requies, extra te omnia sunt dura
et inquieta. In hac pace, in idipsum, hoc est, in
Te uno summo et aeterno Bono, dormiam et re-
quiesciam." If a Kempis did not know the work of
Dante, he must at any rate have followed out the
same line of contemplative thought, and must have
been a child of the same spiritual ancestors. For it
is not only in the solitary line quoted, but in the
whole of Piccarda's speech that the resemblance is
apparent. She says : l " Brother, the quality of love
1 Mr Philip Wicksteed's translation.
iVV * ^
,.^<
C^ftil! Dctiout anu goftelp tceatvfc of tlje 3Impf a
cum anD fo'Iottipnge tl)e bletteD We of oure mode
fomano tcanflate into
ot puxe
Dement of tlje full excellent ^jmcefTe ^argatetc
mooecto out ^oueca^ne Ip#c i>pnge ^encp tf^e.-
tii*atiD Counted of i^pc^mount ano Berbp.
WOODCUT--A PIETA FROM THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF THE
TREATISE "DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI' ISSUED IN LONDON BY
RICHARD PYNSON, 1503.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 195
stilleth our will, and maketh us long only for what
we have, and giveth us no other thirst. Did we
desire to be more aloft, our longings were discordant
from His will who here assorteth us, and for that,
thou wilt see, there is no room within these circles,
if of necessity we have our being here in love,
and if thou think again what is love's nature. Nay,
'tis the essence of this blessed being to hold our-
selves within the Divine will, whereby our own wills
are themselves made one. So that our being thus,
from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm,
is a joy to all the realm as to the King, who draweth
our wills to what He willeth ; and His will is our
peace ; it is that sea to which all moves that it
createth and that nature maketh." Here is set forth
the great end of the Contemplative, the physical and
spiritual goal at which the Augustinian Platonism
aimed, and in the contemplation of which the most
modern thinkers find the reconciliation of philosophic
contradictions. It was realised as a living fact by
Dante in the year 1300, and again by a Kempis a
century later. As the struggling spirit comes within
sight of the goal, we seem to hear Human Know-
ledge saying (in the words of the Moral Play 1
" Now hath he made ending ;
Methinketh that I hear angels sing
And make great joy and melody,
Where Everyman's soul shall received be."
1 Everyman^ line 890 ... (F. Sidgwick's edition. H. H. Bullen,
London, 1903).
196 THOMAS A KEMPIS
If a Kempis had not studied the works of Dante,
the extraordinary resemblance of thought and even
of form must be due to the common indebtedness
to St Bernard, who profoundly influenced the mind
of each of these consummate artists. Mr Philip
Wicksteed has pointed out that in Bernard's treatise
On loving God it is his "consistent doctrine that
the blessedness of heaven is found in the complete
absorption of the soul in God, self-consciousness
being, as it were, replaced not by unconsciousness
but by God-consciousness." With St Bernard as
with Dante and a Kempis, it is body, soul, and spirit
the entire man that must yearn for self-recognition
in the recognition of God. " Oh how true," says St
Bernard, " did he speak who said that all things work
together for the good of them that love God ! To
the soul that loveth God, its body availeth in its
infirmity, availeth in its death, availeth in its resurrec-
tion ; first for the fruit of penitence, second for
repose, third for consummation. And rightly doth
the soul not will to be made perfect without that which
it feeleth hath in every state served it in good things." 1
In this place it will be convenient to refer to the
quotation at the end of chapter fifty of book three
from Saint Bonaventura's Legenda S. Francisci. It
is natural that a Kempis should have been a student
of both these personalities, for the fact fits admirably
in with the whole tone of the Imitation, and particularly
1 // Paradiso, canto xiv., Mr P. H. Wicksteed's note on lines 64-6,
pp. 177-9 (J- M. Dent, London, 1899).
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 197
with the precise aspect of the work that I am now
considering. St Francis was an unlearned man
whose whole gospel was the gospel not of faith, but
of love. Mr Wicksteed has finely pointed out that
Francis embraced poverty "for pure love of her;
that is to say, from a sense that the more we have,
the less we can be, and a passionate joy in coming
into naked contact with God and nature." 1 This
joy was one that Bernard shared, a joy that seemed
to dominate his whole nature, and a Kempis was
not far behind Francis and Bernard in their aspira-
tion for personal relationship with God. Bonaventura,
a contemplative nearer to Hammerlein's time, like-
wise joined in this desire, and set forth the priceless-
ness of such a relationship in his Stimulus Amoris.
Bonaventura says of Francis, "He studied, as
Christ's disciple, to become vile in his own, and in
other men's eyes, remembering how it had been said
by our great Master, That which is highly esteemed
amongst men is abomination in the sight of God.
He was wont, too, to repeat a saying, What everyone
is in Gods sight, that is he and no more" 2 It was this
latter phrase that a Kempis incorporated into his
work : " nam quantum unusquisque est in oculis tuis,
tantum est et non amplius, ait humilis sanctus
Franciscus." This sentence lays stress on the necessity
of oneness of will between created and Creator, and
is full of the spirit of St Bernard. It is curious,
1 // Paradise, note to canto xii.
2 Bigg's edition of the Imitation, note, p. 300.
198 THOMAS A KEMPIS
therefore, that it was this very passage that dissipated
the claims of St Bernard to the authorship of the
Imitation. That it must do so is of course obvious,
for Francis lived and Bonaventura wrote long after
Bernard's death. But this fact was not noticed
when the claim in favour of the Bernardian author-
ship was put forward. The manuscripts of the
Miisica Ecclesiastica type with which I have
especially dealt in another chapter omitted the
words "ait sanctus Franciscus " and so possibly
confused the issue and enabled the advocates of St
Bernard to allege that the words had been improperly
introduced. It is certain that the work was attributed
in comparatively early manuscripts to St Bernard ;
but the fact that the very earliest manuscripts, such
as the Burney Codex 314 in the British Museum,
contain the words " ait humilis sanctus Franciscus,"
entirely disposes of his claim.
The reference to St Francis is indeed strong
evidence in favour of the authorship of a Kempis, for
the Augustinian in his little book entitled Manuale
Monachorum a tract containing short sermons or
addresses considered suitable for the professed and
in structure extremely like many of the shorter chap-
ters of the Imitation * deals with the humility of St
Francis. This chapter (v.) is entitled "de magna humi-
litate Sancti Francisci," and runs as follows : "Hie
est qui contempsit vitam mundi quid fecit humilem
et sanctum Franciscum tarn devotum et deo dilectum
1 Cf. also the chapter from The Garden of Roses, Appendix ii. hereto.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 199
in hac vita, et tarn altum in gloria. Vere profunda
humiltas sua, et quia inter omnia beneficia divina et
exercitia cotidiana passionem Christi et sacra vulnera
doloris ei immensi amoris plena in mente portavit
recoluit condoluit gravissime ponderavit amarissime
flevit et ardentissime amavit. Nam magna gratia
confertur humilibus et passionem Christi cotidie
recolentibus. Verus enim humilis non se reputat
nee elevat de bonis quae facit sed omnibus viliorem
se estimat et cunctis inferiorem veraciter confitetur.
Hie propria mala sua inspicit et plangit et aliorum
bona videns congaudet pro quibus Deum laudat et
benedicit, orans ut sui misereaturet a malis liberet."
In this characteristic passage is to be found both
the spiritual and literary note of the Imitation. The
conclusion of the fiftieth chapter might well be the
conclusion of this little sermon. Yet it is not wonder-
ful that the early copyists and printers attributed the
work to St Bernard. It is saturated with his thoughts
and phrases in combination with those of St
Augustine. It will be useful first to consider some
of the references to Augustine and then to pass to
the influence of Bernard. In the third chapter of
the first book, the chapter de Doctrina Veritatis, Dr
Bigg sees in the opening sentence, " Felix quern
veritas per se docet, non per figuras et voces
transeuntes, sed sicuti se habet," a direct reference
to the memorable and inspired passage in the
Confessions of St Augustine where the Saint and his
mother Monica, as they leaned together one evening
200 THOMAS A KEMPIS
against a ledge of a window in the house at Ostia,
passed from sweet converse into a vision of the
presence of God. The passage must be quoted, as
the spirit of it certainly underlies not only the
Augustinian's doctrine of truth, but the whole of
his mystical revelation of the Way.
"If the tumult of the flesh were hushed ; hushed
these shadows of earth, sea, sky ; hushed the heavens
and the soul itself, so that it should pass beyond
itself and not think of itself; if all dreams were
hushed, and all sensuous revelations, and every
tongue and every symbol ; if all that comes and
goes were hushed They all proclaim to him that
hath an ear : ' We made not ourselves : He made us
who abideth for ever ' But suppose that, having
delivered their message, they held their peace, turn-
ing their ear to Him who made them, and that He
alone spoke, not by them but for Himself, and that
we heard His word, not by any fleshly tongue, nor
by an Angel's voice, nor in the thunder, nor in any
similitude, but His voice whom we love in these His
creatures Suppose we heard him without any inter-
mediary at all Just now we reached out, and with
one flash of thought touched the Eternal Wisdom
that abides above all Suppose this endured, and
all other far inferior modes of vision were taken
away, and this alone were to ravish the beholder,
and absorb him, and plunge him into mystic joy,
might not eternal life be like this moment of com-
prehension for which we sighed ? Is not this the
MVSEYM
BRITA&
WOODCUT REPRESENTING THE ADORATION OF
THE MAGI : FROM THE PARIS EDITION OF THE
TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI" ISSUED
IN 1496 BY GEORGIUS MITTELHUS.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 201
meaning of ' Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ' ?
Ah, when shall this be ? Shall it be when ' we shall
all rise, but shall not all be changed ' ? " l
We may doubt if Bernard, Dante, Francis,
Bonaventura, a Kempis, or any mediaeval dreamer
ever rose to this height, ever realised as Augustine
realised the spiritual fact, as opposed to the philo-
sophic dream or the theological conception, of the
" flight of the alone to the Alone." What Plotinus
conceived, Augustine felt, and thus crowned the
philosophy of Alexandria, subtly compounded of
Greek and Hebrew thought, with a personal realisa-
tion of its profoundest speculative surmise. It is
true that such experiences were claimed in the
Middle Ages, that Bernard himself was declared to
have conversed in the flesh with God, seeing Him in
His very essence (per essentiani) while yet alive.
Dante tells us that Bernard in this world tasted of
the Peace of God by contemplation :
" Che in questo mondo,
Contemplando, gusto di quella pace." (Par. Canto xxxi.)
But Bernard's words that follow, though written
by Dante, leave us cold compared with Augustine's
almost inarticulate picture of the vision that eludes
him. It is something more than art. It is
positive experience a story that Enoch or Elijah
returning might have told. The vision of direct
intercourse with God loses the appearance of reality
in the Middle Ages, and is cold indeed in the mind of
1 Dr Bigg's translation (Methuen & Co., London).
202 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Anselm, who conceives a colloquy in the presence
of God as to the duty of obedience to God ! It was
only the fourteenth century revival of mysticism in
England and the Netherlands that made it possible
for a Kempis to conceive even in a measure the
intense reality of the Augustinian vision.
The next reference to Augustine an indirect
one is in chapter three of the third book, where a
Kempis uses a quotation from Jeremiah (xxiii. 24)
which is, as Dr Bigg has pointed out, a favourite
text with St Augustine : " Thou givest all, fillest all."
In book one, chapter two, of the Confessions we have
the same quotation : " Whither can I fly beyond
heaven and earth, that my God who hath said I fill
heaven and earth [coelum et terram ego impleo]
should thence come into me."
It is noticeable that the short passage "Tu solus
bonus es, Justus et sanctus, Tu omnia potes, omnia
praestas, omnia imples," is reminiscent of Luke
(xviii. 19, Nemo bonus nisi solus Deus\ Maccabees
(lib. ii. i. 24, Solus Justus], Kings (lib. i. ii. 2, Non
est sanctus, ut est Dominus], Job (xlii. 2, omnia
potes], Timothy (Ep. i. v. \*j , praestat nobis omnia],
and Jeremiah (xxiii. 24, Coelum et terram ego
impleo]. Art and serene patience could no further
go. Yet this was the manner and method of the
artist in all his work. He built with the patience
and success of the coral insect. That dignity of
patience which he recommended to others he more
than upheld himself.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 203
I turn from this somewhat minor illustration of
literary methods to the deep keynote both of the
Imitation and the Confessions. The latter opens with
the cry, " Thou hast created us unto Thyself, and our
heart finds no rest until it rests in Thee." That is
the end of the following of Christ, whether the way
be mapped by Augustine or a Kempis. In the
twenty-first chapter of the third book there is a
passage that is obviously drawn, as Hirsche has
pointed out, from this cry of Augustine : " Quoniam
quidem non potest cor meum veraciter quiescere,
nee totaliter contentari, nisi in te requiescat." These
are almost the very words of Augustine : " inquietum
est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te." It is no
chance selection of phrase. The chapter is built
round the idea and is entitled, " That we are to rest
in God above all goods and gifts." Up to this
point it seems at first sight singularly original.
There are two possible references to the Psalms :
" Quis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbae, et volabo,
et requiescam?" (liv. 7), and, " Gustate et videte
quoniam suavis est Dominus" (Ps. xxxiii. 9). Other-
wise we have no direct Biblical references. On the
other hand, the cross references between this chapter
and the rest of the first three books are extremely
numerous, and prove that it is as artificial as any
book in the treatises. At least one other passage
is traceable to Augustine : "All beside Thyself is
small and unsatisfying whatsoever Thou bestowest
on me or revealest of Thyself or promisest, if Thou
204 THOMAS A KEMPIS
art not seen nor fully obtained." Hirsche compares
this with "satis ostendis, quam magnam creaturam
rationalem feceris, cui nullo modo sufficit ad beatam
requiem quidquid te minus est. " l
In the forty-ninth chapter of the third book we
have, as Dr Bigg points out, a further reference to
Augustine (vii. 17). It is interesting, as it is taken
from the Wisdom of Solomon (ix. 15), and is also
contained in the Confession. The passage in the
Imitation runs : " Give great thanks to the heavenly
goodness : which treats thee with such condescen-
sion ; which visits thee with mercy ; arouses thee
to fervour ; sustains thee with power : lest through
thine own weight thou sink down to earthly things."
The passage in the Confessions is curiously parallel :
" I could not stand still to enjoy my God, but was
swept up to Thee by Thy beauty, and again torn
away from Thee by my own weight, and fell back
with a groan into the world of sense ; and the
weight was carnal use and wont." The Latin of
the significant phrase in the Imitation is " ne
proprio pondere ad terrena labaris," while in the
Confessions it is " moxque diripiebar abs te pon-
dere meo." The idea is of course common enough.
It is beautifully used by Dante in the third canto
of the Paradiso describing the departure of Pic-
carda :
" e cantando vanio
Come per acqua cupa cosa grave."
1 Confessions (xiii. 8).
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 205
But both in Augustine and a Kempis the use is
somewhat artificial. 1 It obscures the conception of
God's universality both of position and influence " if
I go down to hell Thou art there also," Psalm 1 39 and
lacks the logical sequence so passionately developed
by Dante the results that follow from any attempt
to fly from the enveloping presence of the Almighty.
It is not, however, by particular passages that
we test the influence of the monk of Hippo. The
debt of a Kempis to Augustine is in a sense in-
tangible, not to be measured by literary quotations
or verbal borrowings. It is, if one may say so, a
philosophic rather than a Christian debt. He
borrows the cry wrung by the heart from the in-
telligence of the created being, whether Christian
or not, to the Creator. It is the cry of the Greek
rather than of the Hebrew, the cry of the man who
found the answer to his cry in the Gospel of the
disciple whom Jesus loved. Augustine in fact be-
queathed to a Kempis the Plotinianism of Victorinus
Afer. It is possible to think that it was of Victorinus
as revealed by the Confessions (viii. 2) that a Kempis
wrote in the forty-eighth chapter of the third book :
" Blessed is the man who for Thy sake, Lord, gives
all created things leave to depart ; who does
violence to nature ; and through fervour of the
spirit crucifies the lusts of the flesh ; that so with
* Cf. Eckhardt's sentence : " Deadly sin is also a sickness of the
faculties, when a man can never stand up alone for the weight of his
sins, nor ever resist following into sin " (Light, Life, and Love : W. R.
Inge, p. 9).
206 THOMAS A KEMPIS
serene conscience he may offer a pure prayer unto
Thee : and may be worthy to stand among the
choirs angelical, where no earthly thing can find a
place of those that are within or those that are
without." Here is a note not altogether Christian
here, but altogether Plotinian. He is not entirely
a Christian, even in the mind of a Kempis, "qui
naturae vim facit." The non-natural world of
Alexandrian philosophy, the city of God which in
this very chapter a Kempis apostrophises " O
Supernae Civitatis mansio beatissima ! " has for the
most part been brought into accord with Christian
doctrine as revealed by the New Testament to
the mediaeval mystic. But a Kempis is never
primarily a naturalist, he does not instinctively
think, with the greatest of the schoolmen, that the
world of nature and the world of revelation have
the same ultimate contents. The mysticism of the
Alexandrian Greek presents to him at every turn
a God who is aloof and alone, approachable only
along the narrow way of Christ. A Kempis was
an Augustinian in heart as well as in habit an
Alexandrian born a thousand years too late yet
because he was too late, he is immortal, for the
spiritual struggle of the millennium that separates
him and Augustine is reflected in every page of the
Imitation. The fact remained, and not even a
Kempis could ignore it, that the passage of a
thousand years had brought men no nearer to the
Plotinian vision of That Which Is ; that men had
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 207
wandered in the wilderness and found no pathway
to God. The morasses of sin and disbelief were
still impassable. It was necessary to come down
to earth and build a causeway across them that
should be broad and clear and well fitted for the
Following of Christ. A pathway to reality was
needed that the simplest soul could follow. The
flight to the Alone had failed. In its place and
with the same Plotinian ideal, a Kempis substituted
a life-long journey, slow and toilsome, over the
marshes of time in the very footsteps of the Man of
Nazareth : " qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris,
dicit Dommus (i. i) ; nam via tua via nostra, et per
sanctam patientiam ambulamus ad te, qui es corona
nostra. Nisi tu praecessisses et docuisses, quis sequi
curaret?" (iii. 18).
The great spiritual and literary force that so
largely modified the outlook of a Kempis was
the influence of St Bernard. In one sense St
Bernard may almost be said to be the author of the
Imitation, for had it not been for his influence the
work of the Augustinian Canon must have shared
the fate of the rest of the voluminous mystic litera-
ture of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.
It was from a prolonged study of St Bernard's
writings that a Kempis acquired his peculiar
literary note and his deathless appeal to the human
heart. The direct and indirect references to the
works of St Bernard in the Imitation are numerous,
but apart altogether from such references, the
208 THOMAS A KEMPIS
manner of the great Abbot of Clairvaux dominates
the style of the treatises, and his peculiarly direct
human spirituality, as opposed to the vague yearn-
ings of the Alexandrian school, is visible everywhere.
A few quotations from St Bernard l which I selected
in the almost certain belief that they occurred in the
Imitation, but which in fact do not occur, will illus-
trate this. They appeared to me so obviously
phrases belonging to the Imitation, that I have
been surprised at the failure to find parallel
passages. I believe, however, that many students
of the Imitation would attribute them to that work.
1. Fideli homini totus mundus divitiarum est
(in vita Malachi).
2. Sit ergo in corde justicia : et justicia quae
ex fide est. Haec enim sola habet gloriam apud
Deum (in vigilia nativitatis Domini, Sermone i).
3. Malum voluptas corporis : bonum vero afHictio
est (Sermone 3).
4. Quidni dimmitatur in pace, qui Christum
Dominium habet in pectore : ipse enim est pax
nostra, quae per fidem habitat in cordibus nostris
(in purificatione Mariae, Sermone i).
5. Licet multos frangat adversitas, tamen multo
plures extollit prosperitas (Dominicae Palmarum,
Sermone 2).
6. Credimus quae minime sufficimus comprae-
hendere (in feste Pentecostes, Sermone i).
7. Periculosa habitatio eorum qui in mentis suis
1 See Epistles and Sermons, 1494; Theologia Dim Bernhardi, 1581.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 209
sperant : periculosa quia ruinosa (Sermon i. in
explanatione de Psalmi Qui habebat].
8. Bonum mihi, Domine, tribulari, dummodo
ipse sis mecum, quam regnare sine te, sine te
gloriari (Sermone 17).
9. Vae nobis si exultaverimus, nisi in Christo
et pro Christo (Sermone de verbis libri sapientiae).
10. Quid aliud, quam vita aeterna, tota affec-
tione, divinam in omnibus sequi voluntatem (Ser-
mone de subjectione nostrae voluntatis).
1 1. Quidam sapiens ait : melior est in malis factis
humilis confessio, quam in bonis factis superba
gloriatio [Gregory] (cap. 2, Sermone de donis
Spiritus Sancti).
12. Quisquis patientior, eo probatur esse pru-
dentior (ibid. cap. 7).
13. Scientia secularis, quae quidem inebriat, sed
curiositate, non caritate implens, non nutriens : in-
stans, non aedificans : ingurgitans non comfortans
(Sermone 9 in Cantica).
14. Si scribas, non sapit mihi, nisi legero ibi
Jesum. Si disputes aut conferas, non sapit mihi,
nisi sonuerit ibi Jesus. Jesus mel in ore, in aure
melos, in corde jubilus. Sed est et medicina
(Sermone 15).
15. Grata ignominia crucis ei, qui crucifixo
ingratus non est (Sermone 25).
1 6. Peccavi peccatum grande, turbatur conscientia,
sed non perturbabitur, quoniam vulnerum Domini
recordabor (Sermone 61).
210 THOMAS A KEMPIS
1 7. Magnum bonum quaerere Deum (Sermone 84).
1 8. Ubi amor est, labor non est, sed sapor
(Sermone 85).
19. Si te Christus agnoscit in bello recognoscet
in coelo (Epistle 3).
20. Dei sunt munera, tam nostra opera, quam
ejus praemia (Tractatu de Gratia et libero arbitrio).
21. Felix (ut quidam sanctorum ait) necessitas,
quae cogit in melius (Tractatu de praecepto et
dispensatione).
22. Voluntas facit usum (in epistola ad fratres de
Monte Dei).
23. Cum quo Deus est, nunquam minus solus est,
quam cum solus est (ibid.}.
24. Vere solus est, cum quo Deus non est
(in epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei).
25. Quanto amplius vivimus, tanto plus pec-
camus, quanto vita est longior, tanto culpa nume-
riosior (in Meditionibus, cap. 2).
26. Omne tempus, in quo de Deo non cogitas,
hoc te computes perdidisse (ibid. cap. 6).
27. Notitia peccati ( initium est salutis (ibid.
cap. n).
28. Non nocet sensus, ubi non est consensus
(in tractatu de interiori domo, cap. 19).
29. Multi quaerunt scientiam, pauci vero con-
scientiam (cap. 21).
30. Qui sibi displicet, Deo placet (cap. 28).
31. Qui sibi vilis est, Deo carus est (cap. 29).
32. Qualis haberi vis, talis esto (cap. 45).
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 211
33. Sit tibi quoque Jesus semper in corde et
nunquam imago crucifixi ab animo tuo recedit. Hie
tibi sit cibus et potus, dulcedo et consolatio tua, mel
tuum et desiderium tuum, lectio tua et meditatio tua,
oratio et contemplatio tua, vita mors et resurrectio tua.
34. Ignorantia nox est, fides vero dies (see
Clement and Theologia Divi Bernhardi).
All the ideas contained in these passages, and in
many others which occur throughout the epistles
and sermons, are reflected in the Imitation, while
the alliterative and often almost punning style is
so closely akin to that of a Kempis that it is at
first sight almost indistinguishable from his. But
when we pass to phrases actually adopted from
Bernard by a Kempis, we see at once how great
is the indebtedness both of idea and style. Dr
Bigg has collected in footnotes to his valuable
translation some of the more important references,
and I shall follow these here. In the second chapter
of the first book a Kempis has transferred from his
Little Alphabet of a Monk the phrase ama nesciri et
pro nihilo reputari in the passage " si vis utiliter alta
scire et discere, ama nesciri, et pro nihilo reputari."
The words ama nesciri are St Bernard's, 1 and formed,
we are told, a favourite phrase among the Brothers
of Common Life. In any case it exactly expresses
their ideal.
In the fifth chapter of the same book we have the
passage " Omnis Scriptura Sacra, eo spiritu debet legi
1 Mabillon's edition (i. 782).
212 THOMAS A KEMPIS
quo facta est." This is identified by Hirsche with
a sentence in an epistle of William, Abbot of St
Theodoric, given by Bernard : l " quo enim spiritu
scripturae factae sunt, eo spiritu legi desiderant."
Hirsche again suggests that the passage in the
seventh chapter, " Non nocet ut omnibus te supponas,
nocet autem plurimum si vel uni te praeponas," is in
thought suggested by St Bernard. 2 The whole of
chapter twenty of the first book may be compared
with the Golden Epistle of St Bernard. In the
first chapter of the second book we have a passage
compounded in a most complex fashion from Isaiah,
St John, Micah, and St Bernard. It runs : " Cui
sapiunt omnia prout sunt, non ut dicuntur aut
aestimantur, hie vere sapiens est, et doctus magis
a Deo quam ab hominibus." Hirsche has pointed
out that the beginning of this passage is from a
phrase in a sermon of St Bernard : 3 "est enim sapiens
cui quaeque res sapiunt ut sunt." This origin is of
course perfectly obvious, but the conception of
absolute being independent of opinion or thought
did not originate with St Bernard. He was
only the vehicle of such conceptions to a Kempis.
The rest of the sentence according to Puyol
is compounded from the words doctos a Domino
(Isa. liv. 13), Docibiles Dei (John vi. 45), and Docebit
nos de viis suis (Micah iv. 2).
In chapter twelve of the second book we get a
long passage based on the first sermon by Bernard
1 Ibid. ii. 214. 2 In cantica sermone, 37. 3 Ad div. xviii.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 213
on the Annunciation of the Virgin : " Do thou set
thyself to endure tribulations and count them the
greatest comforts ; for the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to deserve the glory which is to
come, even if thou alone couldst endure them all."
It is interesting to compare the Latin of this passage
with the quotation from Bernard indicated by
Hirsche : " Tu vero pone te ad sustinendum tribula-
tiones, et reputa eas maximas consolationes, quia
non sunt condignae passiones hujus temporis ad
futuram gloriam quae revelabitur in nobis pro-
merendam, etiamsi solus omnes posses sustinere."
The passage in the Sermon on the Annunciation
runs: "Jam vero de aeterna vita scimus, quia non
sunt condignae passiones hujus temporis ad futuram
gloriam, nee si unus omnes sustineat." Of course,
both passages are based on the Epistle to the
Romans (viii. 18) : " For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed to usward " ; but
the rest of the extract from the Imitation is clearly
from Bernard's sermon. Two other parallel passages
will perhaps suffice. They are the last of those
indicated by Dr Bigg. One occurs at the opening
of the thirty-third chapter of the third book : " Fili
noli credere affectui tuo, qui nunc est : cito mutabitur
in aliud, "Son, trust not to the feeling which is with
thee now : it will quickly be changed into another."
Bernard has practically the same sentence : " Noli
nimis credere affectui tuo, qui nunc est." Monsignor
214 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Puyol sees in this a reference to the idea contained
in the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 20), " Vanitati
creatura subjecta est non volens." Whether this is
so or not the conception of St Bernard is developed
in the thirty-ninth chapter : "Fili mi, saepe homo rem
aliquam agitat, quam desiderat, sed quum ad earn
pervenerit aliter incipit sentire, quia affectiones circa
idem non sunt durabiles, sed magis de uno ad aliud
impellunt." The conclusion of the whole matter is
tersely stated : " Non ergo minimum est, etiam in
minimis se relinquere."
The last parallel I shall note is in the chapter on
Divine Love. 1 " Magnus clamor in auribus Dei est
ipse ardens affectus animse quae dicit : Deus meus !
amor meus ! tu totus meus, et ego tuus," says a
Kempis. This is certainly an echo from St
Bernard's sixteenth sermon on Psalm ninety : " siqui-
dem in Dei auribus desiderium vehemens clamor
magnus : e regione autem remissa intentio vox
submissa." But the fifth chapter has also much in
common with the German mystics who immediately
preceded a Kempis. It recalls Eckhardt's declara-
tion that the lover of God is God's prisoner, but the
more a prisoner the more free; love "suffers nought
to come near her, that is not God nor God like.
Happy is he who is thus imprisoned ; the more
thou art a prisoner, the more wilt thou be freed." 2
On the other hand a Kempis declares that love
1 Lib. iii. cap. 5.
2 Light) Life, and Love, by W. R. Inge (Methuen & Co.), p. 14.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 215
"carries a burden which is no burden. . . . The
lover flies, runs, and rejoices : he is free and cannot
be held. He gives all for all, and has all in all ;
because he rests in One Highest above all things.
. . . My God, my Love : Thou art all mine, and I
am all Thine." Both writers at any rate draw from
a common source, from the Song of Songs, and it is
not perhaps unreasonable to feel that Eckhardt had
some direct personal influence upon the rapture of
the Augustinian.
Eckhardt too held firmly the doctrines upon
which a Kempis based his faith the doctrine of
humility and the doctrine of love, the whole
Franciscan creed. Eckhardt, in his familiar style,
tells of the colloquy between the great teacher and
the faithful beggar in which, answering the question
as to what he would do if God threw him into hell,
the beggar replied, " Even if He threw me into hell,
I should still have two arms wherewith to embrace
Him. One arm in true humility, which I should
place under Him, and with the arm of love I should
embrace Him." l
We find again that Eckhardt and a Kempis both
derived from Augustine the full idea of rest in
God. Eckhardt, writing of sin, declares that
"deadly sin ... is an unrest of the heart. Every-
thing can rest only in its proper place. But
the natural place of the soul is God. As St
Augustine says, ' Lord, Thou hast made us for
1 Light, Life> and Love, by W. R. Inge, p. n.
216 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Thyself, and our heart is restless till it finds rest in
thee.' " It is difficult not to think that this inspired
to some extent the twenty-first chapter of the third
book : "Above all and in all, O my soul, thou shalt
rest in the Lord alway : for He is the eternal Rest of
the Saints. . . . For my heart cannot truly rest, nor
be entirely contented, unless it rest in Thee, and
pass above all gifts and all creatures."
But it was not from Meister Eckhardt, the
Plotinus of the thirteenth century, that a Kempis
learnt his mysticism, though some influence may
perhaps be traced. Eckhardt and a Kempis drew
from a common source with different results.
Eckhardt evolved a non-Christian philosophy of
life, a Kempis compiled a handbook of the Way.
Eckhardt absorbed the philosophic element of
Augustine's writings as they passed through the
medium of his mind, while a Kempis absorbed the
Christian element. They meet only in those trans-
cendental heights where the dualism between Creator
and created is abolished, where religion realises the
dogmatism of philosophy.
It is different, when we turn from Eckhardt to
Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek. It is probable that
those writers affected the actual structure of the
Imitation in a way that cannot be attributed to the
Meister, though it might be said with some force
that since the mysticism of Eckhardt was ultimately
responsible for so spiritual a treatise as the Theologia
Germanica there would be nothing strange if he
jmitarioecrifH
<f rotitcttipfu tmitidt ffli
WOODCUT ON THP; REVERSE OF THE FLY-
LEAF WHICH HAS THE WOODCUT OF THE
MAGI. PARIS EDITION OF THE TREATISE
"DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI " ISSUED IN 1496
HY OEORC1IUS MITTELHUS.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 217
actually inspired the Imitation. The debt of a
Kempis to Plotinus through Augustine is, however,
so clear that it is not necessary to seek his inspira-
tion in a writer who, in the year 1 400, was no longer
read by or even known to the faithful Catholic.
Tauler strikes the familiar note of the Imitation
when he tells us that the two mortal sins are pride and
inordinate affection, and the two immortal virtues are
humility and absolute submission to God, inordinate
affection, so to speak, for Him. The sixth chapter of
the first book (De Inordinatis Affectionibus) strikes
this very note : "Resistendo igitur passionibus inveni-
tur pax vera cordis, non autem serviendo eis." The
next chapter completes the rule of life : " Jugis pax
cum humili, in corde autem superbi zelus et indignatio
frequens." It can scarcely be a coincidence that the
conception of an earthly battle without which life itself
could not reach the highest should be clearly ex-
pressed both by a Kempis and Tauler. In chapter
eleven of the first book we read: "If we would
strive like brave men to stand in the battle, surely
we should see the help of the Lord come upon us
from Heaven. For He is ready to succour those
that strive and trust in His grace : who giveth us
occasion to fight in order that we may conquer."
The first sentence is very complex in origin. It
recalls the passage from the Ephesians (vi. 13),
" Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God,
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all to stand ; " the opening of the
218 THOMAS A KEMPIS
hundred and twenty-first psalm," " my help cometh
from the Lord"; and the twentieth chapter (17) of
the Second Book of Chronicles : " Stand firm and thou
shalt see the help of the Lord upon you." The Latin
of the text is woven from the Latin of these three
passages ; but the text itself seems to me to be
inspired by Tauler's paradox 1 that " nothing in the
world is so necessary for man as to be constantly
assailed ; for in fighting he learns to know himself,"
and by the picture of the conflict in the seventy-fifth
sermon : " Know of a truth that if thou wouldst truly
overcome the evil spirit, this can only be done by a
complete manful turning away from sin. Say then
with all thy heart : Oh, everlasting God, help me
and give me Thy Divine grace to be my help, for it
is my steadfast desire never again to commit any
deadly sin against Thy Divine will and Thine honour.
So with thy good will and intention thou entirely
overcomest the evil spirit, so that he must fly from
thee ashamed." 2 To what extent Suso influenced the
structural form and general conception of the Imita-
tion is not clear. Yet when his Servitor explains to
his spiritual daughter the order of events by which
the spirit should seek to return to God, we seem to
find an order of spiritual development followed by
a Kempis in his autograph edition of the Imitation.
" First of all," says Suso, " we should disentangle
ourselves absolutely from the pleasures of the world,
manfully turning our backs upon all vices ; we should
1 Sermon 104. 2 Inge : Light, Life, and Love, p. 20.
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 219
turn to God by continual prayers, by seclusion, and
holy exercise, that the flesh may thus be subdued to
the spirit. Next, we must offer ourselves willingly
to endure all the troubles which may come upon us,
from God, or from the creatures. Thirdly, we must
impress upon ourselves the Passion of Christ cruci-
fied ; we must fix upon our minds His sweet teach-
ing, His most gentle conversation, His most pure
life, which He gave us for our example, and so we
must penetrate deeper and advance further in
our Imitation of Him. Fourthly, we must divest
ourselves of external occupations, and establish
ourselves in a tranquil stillness of soul by an
energetic resignation, as if we were dead to self, and
thought only of the honour of Christ and His
heavenly Father. Lastly, we should be humble
towards all men, whether friends or foes."
Here we have what might almost be called
a groundplan of the four tracts concerning the
Imitation of Christ. Suso's first division almost
coincides in scheme with the first book ' the admoni-
tions useful for a spiritual life.' The later chapters
of this book and the second book cover Suso's
second division. His third division coincides with
the book De Sacramento Altaris the book which in
the earliest manuscripts is placed fourth, but which a
Kempis places third in his autograph copy. The
long third book the Book of Internal Consolation
could hardly be better described than in Suso's
own words concerning the fourth stage, by which we
220 THOMAS A KEMPIS
return to God. " We must divest ourselves of ex-
ternal occupations, and establish ourselves in a
tranquil stillness of soul by an energetic resignation,
as if we were dead to self, and thought only of the
honour of Christ and His heavenly Father." The
latter chapters of the fourth book, and in particular
chapter fifty, set forth Suso's fifth division the
doctrine of humility. Personally I feel convinced
that Thomas a Kempis framed his work on the
ground plan devised by Suso. It appears to me
that no coincidence of ideas could account for such
a coincidence of structure. Suso had in his mind
the pathway to spiritual reality, the return to God of
the spirit which he gave. He actually states that
this return can only be secured by " the Imitation "
of Christ, and he traces a "Way" of which the
whole of the Imitation is but an elaboration worked
out by the greatest eclectic that the world of literature
has known. The physical shape of the Imitation, so
to speak, was determined by Suso, though its detail,
its internal literary form, and its general atmosphere
have little in common with the not entirely healthy
composition of that writer.
Thomas a Kempis is most indebted to Suso, with
respect to the details of construction, in the book that
has attracted the least attention the De Sacramento
Altaris. This is in some considerable measure based
on Suso's Meditation on the Passion of Christ. For
Eternal Wisdom a Kempis has substituted The Voice
of the Beloved, while the Servitor becomes The Voice
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION 221
of the Disciple. But a Kempis has a restraint
and a dignity not to be found in Suso, and though
apparently adopting from time to time the very
phrases of the Meditation, yet constructs a work
that is quite independent and self-contained. It is
perhaps noticeable that in the Meditation occurs
the phrase "the Imitation of Thee is grievous to a
slothful and corruptible body."
If, however, Suso supplied the groundplan of the
Imitation, as I cannot but believe, it is certain
that Ruysbroek, in his Adornment of the Spiritual
Nuptials and other works, supplied checks, modi-
fications, and fundamental ideas. Ruysbroek's division
of life into " the active life, which is necessary to all
who would be saved," "the inner life, exalted and
loving, to which many men arrive by the virtues
and by the grace of God," and " the superessential
and contemplative life, to which few attain and
which few can taste, because of the supreme
sublimity of this life," is almost definitely adopted
by a Kempis. We see this growth of spiritual
virtue specifically inculcated. All are necessary to
the full life, the complete life, the life which is an
imitation, a following, of the life of Christ.
Ruysbroek is the corrective of the non-Christian
contemplative ideas adopted from Plotinus and
perhaps Eckhardt, and of the super-Christian and
unreal physical imitation of Christ put forward
by Suso. The direct and healthy influence of
Ruysbroek gives the finishing grace and the intel-
222 THOMAS A KEMPIS
lectual directness that lifts the Imitation so far
above all other works of devotion.
But when all is said and done, when we have traced
the direct influences that moulded the shape and
structure of the four tracts, when we have analysed
the material that goes to the making of the actual
chapters, when we have taken into consideration the
atmosphere of theology and philosophy, of devotion
and opinion that had drifted down the ages into the
age of a Kempis and had penetrated into the minds
of the simple community that was all his life, we
are not really in touch with the literary secret that
makes the Imitation a living force to-day, and will
still make it a living force when this day has been
long forgotten. We may dissect the human body,
we may analyse its structure and ascertain its com-
ponent parts with a nicety significant of the age
in which we live, but we shall get no nearer to the
vital spark nor capably surmise the origin of life.
It is not hard to tell the sources of the material that a
Kempis used, but it is impossible to discover how he
built his material into a work that serenely smiles at
the envy of time. The mystery of the Imitation of
Christ is not its authorship but its existence. It is
to-day what Zeiner called it in the year 1487,
Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta Imitatione
Ckristi.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION
A X 7HEN we turn from the structure to the con-
* * tent to the theological, philosophical, and
social scheme of doctrine of the Imitation we find
that, diverse as are the sources from which the writer
draws, they have been sought out with definite spiritual
and intellectual ends in view. The structure of this
beautiful mansion of words is one aspect of the work ;
the spirits of faith, hope, and charity that built it and
inhabit it are another. The content of the Imitation
is a consistent scheme of doctrine by which holy
living and holy dying are to be brought home to the
heart of every man.
The first point that we have to note is that
Thomas a Kempis will have nothing to do with the
scholastic formalism, which was the intellectual
armour of the Middle Ages. He himself was not
brought up in the traditional school of learning.
Such education as he had was the new education, and
though echoes of Scholasticism, of Neo- Aristotelian-
ism have crept into his mind, the methods of thought
in which Gerson and the other great doctors of that
age were brought up had no place in his intellectual
training. Thomas a Kempis was in no sense a
Nominalist, while he shows distinct traces of the
223
224 THOMAS A KEMPIS
mystic Realism that followed the reaction from the
extreme scholasticism of Duns Scotus. He was a
child of the Brothers of Common Life, and belonged,
so far as his mental outfit went, to the New Age and
not to the old. If he had comparatively little of the
New Learning, he had none of the Old, and in his
mind the sublety of the Schoolmen received some-
thing like its true value. If he did not appreciate
its intellectuality, he at any rate realised its useless-
ness. He looked at it absolutely from without, and
that, indeed, is to my mind a final and conclusive
argument against the Gerson authorship of the
Imitation. Gerson was essentially a Doctor, a lover
of the mental process for its own sake, even though
he realised the need of simple education and simple
faith if the world were ever to be reformed. But
Gerson necessarily looked at Scholasticism from
within, even if he strove to fling aside its cumbrous
armour. Thomas a Kempis had no such armour,
and felt a certain Davidian contempt for it. Its
efficacy was not apparent to him, and he saw that all
who wore it were spiritually hampered at every turn.
Therefore he not only does not attempt to use it but
deprecates its use with all his simple might.
It will be useful to extract from the books
of the Imitation instances of this contempt for
the ponderous obsolete weapons of his age and
Church. Consider the first book the ' admonitions
useful for a spiritual life.' Here we have protest
after protest against mere philosophical thought.
THE FIRST AND SECOND AND PART OF THE THIRD CHAPTERS OF
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE "DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI "
FROM THE ADDITIONAL MS. 11,437 (BRITISH MUSEUM)
THE MS. IS UNDATED BUT MAY I!E PLACED BETWEEN THE LIMITS 1465 AND 1470
WITH SOME CONFIDENCE. IT CONTAINS ONLY THE FIRST TWO BOOKS.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 225
" Truly profound words do not make a man holy
and just : but a virtuous life makes him dear to
God." l " Every man naturally desires to know ; but
what avails knowledge without the fear of God ?
Better surely is a humble peasant that serves God :
than a proud philosopher that studies the course of
heaven and neglects himself. ... If I understood
all things in the world, and were not in charity,
what would it help me, in the sight of God, who
will judge me according to my deeds ? Cease from
an inordinate desire of knowledge : for therein is
found great destruction and deceit. Gladly would
those who know seem learned and be called wise.
There be many things : which to know doth little
or nothing profit the soul. . . . Many words do not
satisfy the soul. . . . The more and the better thou
knowest : the more severely shalt thou be judged un-
less thy life also be more holy. Be not therefore
vain of any art or science ; but rather fear for
the knowledge that is given thee. Be not overwise ;
but rather confess thy ignorance. Why wilt thou
prefer thyself before any ; since there be many more
learned than thou, and more skilful in the law ? If
thou wilt know or learn anything to profit : love to
be unknown and to be little esteemed." 2
The whole of this chapter on " the humble conceit
of ourselves" is aimed at vain learning, and the
suggestion that it might have been written by
Gerson in his still retreat at Lyons, is answered
1 Cap. i. Cap. 2.
p
226 THOMAS A KEMPIS
by the fact that the phrase " ama nesciri et pro
nihilo reputari " is used elsewhere by a Kempis, and
was a phrase in common use by the Brothers
of Common Life.
The third chapter contains a direct onslaught
on Scholasticism, obviously an attack from without
and not a revolt from within. " Happy the man
whom truth teaches by itself, not by fleeting figures
and words : but as it is in itself. Our opinions and
our sense often deceive us : and see but little. What
profit is there in lengthy quibbling about dark and
hidden things ; when we shall not be reproved at the
day of judgment because we know them not ? It is
great folly to neglect things that are profitable and
necessary, and take needless pains for that which is
far fetched and hurtful. We have eyes and see not ;
and what have we to do with genera and species ?
et quid nobis de generibus et speciebus ? "
This passage should be compared with the Voice
of the Beloved speaking against vain and secular
knowledge in the Book of Internal Consolation. 1
" The time will come when the Master of Masters,
Christ the Lord of Angels, shall appear, to hear the
lessons of all, that is, to examine the conscience of
every one ; and then will He search Jerusalem with
candles : and the hidden things of darkness shall be
laid open, and the logic of tongues shall be hushed.
I am He who in one instant lifts up the humble
mind, to understand more reasonings of eternal
1 Lib. iii. c. 43.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 227
Truth, than if one had studied ten years in the
Schools. I teach without noise of words, without
confusion of opinions, without pride of emulation,
without fence of logic." The further reference in
the same chapter is rather obscure : " There was
one who by loving me in his inmost soul, learned
divine truths : and spoke marvels. He made greater
progress by forsaking all things, than by studying
subtle niceties." The writer of the Imitation doubt-
less refers to himself, and though the phrasing might
appear to have some application to Gerson, it is
inconceivable that the humble suppliant of Lyons
could have written in so uplifted a manner. Still it
must be admitted that this chapter is written by one
who had some contact with scholasticism. No doubt
Kempis must have become familiar with the
mannerisms of the mediaeval scholar. That he was
a tireless student is a well-known fact of his life, and
this is consistent with the references to scholastic
learning that so frequently occur. We have further
very definite references in the third chapter of the
first book. "It wearies me often to read and hear
many things : in Thee is all I want and desire. Let
all Doctors hold their peace, let all creatures keep
silence in Thy sight ; speak thou alone to me ... no
speculation of ours is without some darkness ....
Truly when the day of judgment comes we shall not
be asked what we have read but what we have done ;
nor how well we have spoken : but how religiously
we have lived. Tell me where now are all those
228 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Doctors and Masters with whom thou wast well
acquainted whilst as yet they lived and flourished
in learning ? Now others possess their livings : and
perhaps never think of them. In their lifetime they
seemed to be something ; and now they are not
spoken of. O how quickly passes the glory of the
world. O that their life had been answerable to
their learning : then had their study and reading
been to good purpose. How many perish through
vain learning in this world, who take little care of
the service of God."
This is perhaps the most elaborate protest of
a Kempis against the vain learning of the Schoolmen,
but we have many other references. " We ought as
willingly to read devout and simple books, as deep
and profound. Let not the authority of the writer
move thee, whether he be of small or great learning,
but let the love of pure truth draw thee to read.
Search not who said this, but mark what is said." 1
11 Who is so wise, that he can fully know all things ?
Be not therefore too confident in thine own opinion,
but be even glad to listen to the thought of others." 2
" Throw aside subtleties ; read thoroughly such
books, as rather stir compunction, than furnish
occupation." 3 " Then [at the day of judgment]
shall a clean and good conscience more rejoice a
man, than learned philosophy." 4 "So when we have
perused and searched all : be this the final conclusion.
1 Lib. i. cap. 5. 2 Lib. i. cap. 9.
3 Lib. i. cap. 20. 4 Lib. i. cap. 24.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 229
That through many tribulations, we must enter into
the Kingdom of God." 1
The author of the Imitation turns from the
worship of worldly wisdom with an imperative re-
pugnance. It is stale and unprofitable, accomplish-
ing nothing either for the world or for the individual.
It is not even a shadow of the pattern laid up in
heaven. It has no relationship to the heavenly
wisdom. But despite this attitude towards the
learning of the schools of a Kempis he offers us
nevertheless a definite and precious mystical philo-
sophy. He was, " a profound and blameless mystic "
who gathered up into his work the serener elements
of ancient and mediaeval mysticism. The serene
quality of his mind, its perfect balance, and its
singularly human outlook has made some very
profound students of Christian mysticism name him
a "semi-mystic." It is with great respect that I
differ from that view, but I am compelled from the
evidence of the text to realise that a Kempis had all
the elements of mysticism in his nature, if we take
that nature to be adequately set forth in the four
books of the Following of Christ. This is perhaps
best seen by drawing from the text its definite body
of doctrine. The whole object of the work is
specified in the first chapter. It is to set up "the
doctrine of Christ " against " the sayings of all philo-
sophers." What is the doctrine of Christ that we
1 Lib. ii. cap. 12. See also lib. iii. cap. 31 and lib. iii. cap 34. (The
wise men of the world ... are poor in Thy sweet wisdom.)
230 THOMAS A KEMPIS
have to follow, who is this Christ that we have to
imitate ? Is it the doctrine of Holy Church, the
Christ of Holy Scripture ? Yes and No.
The doctrine is the doctrine of Holy Church
supplemented by that mystical appreciation of
eternal and ever-present mysteries which is the very
life of the invisible Church. The Christ is the
Christ of Holy Scripture viewed through the
atmosphere that fourteen centuries of mysticism had
woven round the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He
is more than the Christ of history. It is not the
mere record of an earthly visitation that we have
to follow : " The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing. Study therefore to
withdraw thy heart from the love of the visible, and
to give thyself over to the invisible." l The heart must
not only be withdrawn from outward things but the
things of the mind also. Love of the visible and
love of knowledge are bracketed together. We
must turn from the Word of Things and the Word of
Thoughts to the Eternal Word the origin of all
Things and Thoughts. The Word is Christ and
God, the unifying principle in creation. 2
This is Christian Neo-Platonism of a type which,
as Mr Inge has pointed out, 3 " tended to identify the
Logos, as the Second Person of the Trinity, with the
Nou?, 'Mind' or 'Intelligence,' of Plotinus, and
rightly." Mr Inge, however, points out that the
1 Lib. i. cap. i. 2 Lib. i. cap. 3.
3 Chtistian Mysticism^ p. 94.
WOODCUT IN THE EDITION OF THE TREA-
TISE "DE IMITATIONE CHRIST1 " ISSUED
FROM VENICE IN 14W.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 231
Plotinian Logos must be distinguished from the
Johannine Logos, which is both immanent and
transcendent, in that it represents not so much
a personality as a "'Law' regarded as a vital force."
The actual words used by a Kempis may be com-
pared with those used by Erigena (quoted by Mr
Inge) on the same subject. Erigena says, "Certius
cognoscas verbum Naturam omnium esse," while a
Kempis states with more completeness and with a
fuller expression of the mystic doctrine involved,
"ex uno Verbo omnia, et unum loquuntur omnia,
et hoc est Principium quod et loquitur nobis," (i. 3).
Thomas a Kempis, if we take into account the fact
that he was a Christian and Plotinus was not, follows
Plotinus up to a certain point with extraordinary
closeness. He is not satisfied with the views of
Erigena, the great Plotinian of the West. The
point that a Kempis as a mystic and also a practical
thinker had to consider was the elaboration of a
method that should enable the Christian to turn
from the things of the flesh and the things of the
mind so as to come within the life-giving influence
of the Eternal Word. Plotinus had the same
difficulty, and up to a point solved it in the way
adopted by a Kempis. To Plotinus and & Kempis
alike it was false mysticism and false philosophy
simply to ignore these things. They must be used,
not ignored. Simple absorption in the Word was
not the end aimed at. The Asiatic Nirvana has no
attraction for the Western mind. We have our earth
232 THOMAS A KEMPIS
here, our human nature, which must have a meaning
and a use in the scheme of things. Mr Inge has
dealt clearly with this position of Plotinus. " The
' lower virtues,' as he calls the duties of the average
citizen, are not only purgative, but teach us the
principles of- measure and rule, which are divine
characteristics. This is immensely important, for it
is the point where Platonism and Asiatic mysticism
finally part company." Mr Inge goes on to point
out that in Plotinus they do not in fact part company.
Plotinus passes on to another logical conclusion which
renders his philosophy worthless to a workaday
world. But the Christian mystics grasped the posi-
tion at once and left Asia to its dreams. A Kempis
declares : " This should be our business, to conquer
ourselves " (i. 3), and forsake our own will. In order
to do this both outward things and inward thoughts
have to be used. Like all the great mystics, a
Kempis was essentially practical. The use of
worldly wisdom 1 and the love of pure truth 2
are the means first recommended. To live truly and
to think truly are the base of the whole matter.
The mystic's ladder of perfection, like Jacob's ladder,
has its base on earth. The greater part of the first
book of the Imitation, after the initial doctrine of the
All-creating, All-pervading Word has been definitely
stated, is occupied in creating a base on which the
Scala Perfectionis can be set up. But this basis
of holy living is merely a means to a consummate
1 Lib. i. cap. 4. 2 Lib. i. cap. 5.
end. Thomas a Kempis held as strongly as any
Syrian monk of the fifth century one aspect of the
doctrine laid down by the so-called " Hierotheus,"
the master of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
"To me," says Hierotheus, "tome it seems right
to speak without words, and understand without
knowledge, that which is above words and knowledge.
This I apprehend to be nothing but the mysterious
silence and mystical quiet which destroys conscious-
ness and dissolves forms. Seek, therefore, silently
and mystically, that perfect and primitive union with
this Arch-Good." Thomas a Kempis disclaims this
Asiatic apprehension of what the approach of God
meant. It did not mean the destruction of con-
sciousness and the dissolution of form. He felt, in-
deed, that all knowledge was contained in the Eternal
Word as well as all truth. But this universal solvent
of ignorance and darkness was to be found not by
losing the Ego in Christ but by moulding the Ego
on the pattern of Christ. Thus, beginning with a
mystic conception of Christ, the personality is led to
justify the faith in this conception by an approach
to the life of Christ as set forth in Holy Scripture.
The Christ of the mystic is ultimately justified by
the imitation of the Christ of history. It is the
process of the scientific mind transferred to the
spiritual sphere. Ages of religious experience
coloured by philosophic inquiry slowly evolved a
hypothesis that seemed to render possible the
intimate approach of the solitary soul ot man to the
234 THOMAS A KEMPIS
seemingly solitary but all-pervading and all-loving
Soul of Things ; that seemed to make " the flight of
the alone to the Alone " a fact, and a fact that does
not involve the loss of personality or of the sense
of responsibility. Such an hypothesis was one
among innumerable hypotheses. How could its
truth be tested? The Imitation of Christ is the
answer of the mystic ; the imitation or the following
of the Christ of history proves, he says, that the
hypothesis of mysticism is the only true solution of
the mystery of the spiritual life. Faith begins by
an experiment which leads to a hypothesis and con-
cludes with an experience which is a demonstration.
It may be said that the demonstration is not complete,
inasmuch as the following of Christ is a counsel of
perfection to which no man can attain. The reply to
such a criticism is that the perfect following of Christ
would in fact be a complete demonstration, since ex-
perience shows that the nearer the approximation of
the individual to the life of Christ the more nearly is
the hypothesis confirmed. There is nothing in the
experience of humanity to show that there is any
stage of approximation that denies the hypothesis.
It is in very truth never contradicted in spiritual
experience any more than the hypothetical law of
the inverse square is contradicted in physical experi-
ence. To a reasonable mind the solution of the
apparently irreconcilable dualism (the conception of
which is almost innate in every human mind) is
brought about by an experience which reasonably
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 235
demonstrates the mystical hypothesis that haunted
the minds of the deepest thinkers even in days
before there was a Christ to imitate, and made Him,
when He came, the inevitable pattern once laid up in
heaven, but now brought down to earth for all
peoples in all ages to imitate. That the imitation
is in nearly all cases desperately remote need not be
a cause for despair, since, when all is said and done,
every man in the world is impelled, even against his
will or perhaps his knowledge, dimly to feel after
Christ. The beginning of the experience which is a
demonstration is to be found there as surely as one
can foresee in the cave scrawlings of the troglodytes
the frescoes of Michael Angelo. Therefore the
imitation of Christ throughout the darkness of the
Middle Ages was the fundamental idea of the in-
visible and mystical Church, and therefore Thomas
a Kempis, in his four books concerning the imitation
of Christ, lays down the rules of human conduct
and human thought that made the growth of the
experience which is a demonstration, possible.
Having in the first book laid down the doctrine
of the Word, he sets forth his admonitions useful for
a spiritual life. First, earthly desires, the desires of
the flesh great and small, must be resisted, not obeyed. 1
Resistance to desire must be followed by humility.
" Unfailing peace is with the humble," 2 and peace is
a necessity of the Inner Way. Familiarity with
men is inexpedient : " Soli Deo et Angelis eius opta
1 Lib. i. cap. 6. * Lib. i. cap. 7-
236 THOMAS A KEMPIS
familiaris esse (i. 8)." Earthly obedience and subjec-
tion is to be desired. Speech must be carefully
watched and guarded. Peace must be sought by
minding our own affairs and looking rather to eternal
than to temporal things. We shall thus have " some
experience of heavenly contemplation." * Good con-
duct is the great source of the necessary peace.
Earthly crosses are good, for they make man turn
rather to God than to man. Temptation must not
only be shunned but fought with the weapons of
patience and humility. In order to crush out all
self-interest in dealing with others one must con-
sciously seek from God the judicial mind. Every-
thing that is done must be done well and done
charitably : " Multum facit, qui multum diligit.
Multum facit qui rem bene facit." 2 We must not
only be judicial in dealing with others but singu-
larly charitable : " how seldom we weigh our
neighbour in the same balance with ourselves." 3
In the little chapter on the Monastic Life we have,
set out in a phrase, the high Christian note : " Thou
earnest to serve, not to govern." The way to imitate
Christ cannot, however, be shown only by precepts.
We must see how others followed Him and learn the
way from them. " The Saints and friends of Christ
served the Lord in hunger and thirst, in cold and
nakedness ; in labour and weariness, in watchings
and fastings, in prayer and holy meditations, in
many persecutions and reproaches. . . . All day
1 Lib. i. cap. n. 2 Lib. i. cap. 15. 3 Lib. i. cap. 16.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 237
they laboured, and in the night they found time for
long prayer, although while they laboured they
ceased not from mental prayer. They spent all
their time with profit ; every hour seemed short
waiting upon God." 1 Concerning those saints and
friends of Christ we are told in a singularly beautiful
phrase, " Mundo erant alieni, sed Deo proximi et
familiares amici." To imitate them is to imitate
Christ. But imitation is the result of an inward
process : " According to our purpose shall be the
course of our growth . . . the purpose of the just
depends not upon their own wisdom but upon God's
grace." 2 This mystical process is a manifestation
of the Eternal Word within the subject. It is a
logical as well as a spiritual development from the
hypothesis. It is also a beginning of the experience
that is to justify the hypothesis. But this purpose
must be rendered possible by the behaviour of the
whole man. " We must search into and set in order
both the outward and the inward : because both are
of importance to our progress." The mystic adds
significantly : " Never be wholly idle : but either be
reading or writing or praying or meditating or
endeavouring something for the common good."
Here the fundamental distinction between Eas-
tern and Western mysticism stands out in absolute
clearness.
A fresh stage is reached with the twentieth
chapter of the first book. The golden virtues of
1 Lib. i. cap. 18. 2 Lib. i. cap. 19.
238 THOMAS A KEMPIS
solitude and silence are taught, the separation of the
inner self from the world. "In silence and in still-
ness the religious soul grows and learns the mysteries
of Holy Writ : there she finds rivers of tears, wherein
she may wash and cleanse herself night after night ;
that she may be more familiar with her Creator. . . .
Whoso therefore withdraweth himself from his
acquaintance and friends, God will draw near unto
him with His holy Angels. . . . Shut thy door
behind, and call unto thee Jesus thy Beloved. Stay
with Him in thy cell : for thou shalt not find so
great peace elsewhere." Here is the true mystic
note the ripening of the actual experience, the
reception of the Eternal Word. But the practical
mind suddenly checks ecstasy. The men of the
Middle Ages knew how dangerous it was. Perfec-
tionism finds no support from the true mystic.
Therefore the rapture of divine intercourse is sud-
denly checked by a call for compunction of heart.
The spirit of compunction alone can welcome the
Lord of All in the sanctuary of the human heart.
Moreover, in that sacred chamber there must be a
voice declaring that the world is well lost for Christ.
" Woe to them that love this miserable and corrup-
tible life." x Christ cannot again come down to us.
We with the Saints of God must spiritually ascend
to him. "Their whole desire was borne up to the
lasting and invisible." In this chapter Thomas a
Kempis, in his renunciation of the world and his
1 Lib. i. cap. 22.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 239
mystical ascension to the higher life, largely follows
St Bernard. In the Golden Epistle the Saint of
Clairvaux tells us i 1 " If thou wylt fynde his grace
and be trewly solitarye two thynges be necessary to
the. The fyrst is that thou so withdrawe thyself fro
al transitory thynges that thou care no more for
them than if there were none such and that thou
sette thyself at so vyle a price in thyne owne syght
that thou accompt thyselfe as naught, believing
al men to be better than thou arte and more to
please God." In the same Epistle he tells us : " Have
these three thinges alwayes in the mynde, what
thou hast been, what thou art and what thou
shake be." So far as this life is concerned all
stages are worthless. As he says elsewhere : 2
" futura non exspectat, praeterita non recogitat, prae-
sentia non experitur." A man must, to use the
words of Tauler in his sermon on John the Baptist, 8
" flee and separate himself from all that is temporal
and transitory," though Tauler adds with the caution
of the true mystic, " God does not grudge man the
necessaries of life."
We have not fully prepared the mystic " grund " or
basis from which the new life is to be upbuilt, and
neither do we see in their true proportions things
past, present, and to come until we have meditated
upon death. That is the only fact in the human
1 Godfrey's English Version (1535 ?). 2 Sermon 80.
8 See W. H. Mutton's valuable collection of Tauler's sermons, en-
titled The Inner Way, p. 96.
240 THOMAS A KEMPIS
future that requires consideration, that must be pro-
vided against : " Thou oughtest so to order thyself
in all thy deeds and thoughts as if to-day thou wert
doomed to die. . . . If to die be dreadful, to live
long may perhaps prove more dangerous. . . . Study
so now to live, that at the hour of death thou mayest
rather rejoice than fear. . . . Keep thyself as a
pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth." "In omnibus
respice finem." Time, Death, and Judgment these
three, and the greatest of these is Judgment. For
that we must be ready. The love of God which
passeth all understanding alone can make us fit to
meet the Judge. If we are spiritually one with
Him there is nothing to fear. We shall acquiesce in
all His works. " For he that loves God with all his
heart fears neither Death nor Punishment nor Judg-
ment nor Hell : for perfect love gives fearless access
to God." x Therefore in the last chapter we have a
final practical exhortation for the zealous amend-
ment of our whole life. " Remember always the
end and that time lost never returns."
The first book therefore does two things : it
states the mystic doctrine or hypothesis and shows
how in each soul there can be prepared that mystic
" Grund " on which alone the ladder of perfection
can be raised. The function of time in the economy
of grace is the giving of an opportunity for the
preparation of an approach to God. The Christ of
history had given a perpetual object-lesson in such
Lib. i. cap. 24.
'O TO WHOM SHALL I MAKE MY MOAN
FOR TO GO WITH ME, IN THAT HEAVY JOURNEY.
O GHOSTLY TREASURE, O RANSOMER AND REDEEMER,
OF ALL THE WORLD, HOPE AND CONDUCTOR."
EVERYMAN, LI. 463-4, 59-'-
WOODCUT FROM THE ARGENTINE EDITION OF 1489. THIS EDITION
ATTRIBUTES THE WORK TO THOMAS A KEMIMS. THE LINES FROM
"EVERYMAN" ARE NOT GIVEN IN THAT EDITION, BUT ARK CON-
TEMPORARY WORDS.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 241
an use of time. An intuitive or at any rate mystic
conception of Christ as the necessary bridge be-
tween man and the Supreme Force outside man is
necessary in order so to prepare the soul of man
that it may be possible for the imitation of Christ to
begin. When the soul is so prepared it can make
its "Grund" and then raise the ladder that Christ
Himself had raised and ascended. That appears
to be the position of a Kempis and of many other
mediaeval mystics.
The second book of the Imitation takes the
reader into another region. In the first book The
Outer Life, the life of the world, is the subject of
discourse, and the pupil is taught how to use that
life as a means, through spiritual admonitions, of
apprehending a doctrine and securing a demonstrative
experience. With the end of the first book the
pupil in the school of Christ is supposed to have
secured the machinery of spiritual ascent. The
second book deals with the ascent itself. The
outer life cannot ascend. It can only assist the
inner life, the real being to ascend, and become
united to God. The second book sets forth admoni-
tions drawing to the Inner Life. The first chapter
describes this life, the indwelling of the Word.
" Christ will come unto thee and show thee His
own consolation, if thou prepare for Him a worthy
abode within. All His beauty and glory are from
within, and there He delights Himself. Frequent are
His visits to the inward man . . . make therefore
Q
242 THOMAS A KEMP1S
room for Christ : and deny entrance to all other.
When thou hast Christ thou art rich and hast
enough ; . . . neither shalt thou ever have rest
unless thou be inwardly united to Christ. ... A
lover of Jesus and of truth, who truly lives the
inner life and is free from inordinate affections,
can freely turn himself unto God, and lift himself
above himself in spirit, and rest in fruition. He
that tastes all things as they are, not as they are
said or thought to be, is truly wise and taught
of God rather than of men." 1
This doctrine of reality, of an Inner Life, that is
one with the Eternal Word and " tastes all things as
they are," is brought home by a new series of
admonitions teaching the higher virtues. Absolute
humility is enjoined : " Think not that thou hast
made any progress unless thou feel thyself inferior
to all." 2 Next to humility is the duty of making
and keeping peace the whole duty of altruism.
This can only come by endurance. "He that can
best tell how to endure, will keep greater peace.
That man is conqueror of himself and Lord of the
world, the friend of Christ and heir of Heaven." 3
Humility and altruism must be accompanied by
simplicity and purity the wings that lift a man up
from earth. This must go side by side with self-
criticism and the avoidance of the fault of criticising
others. "He that well and rightly considered his
own works would find no cause to judge hardly of
1 Lib. ii. cap. i. 2 Lib. ii. cap. 2. 3 Lib. ii. cap. 3.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 243
another." 1 Beside the virtues must be found that
" glory of a good man," the testimony of a good
conscience accompanied by the love of and familiar
friendship with Christ, and gratitude for the grace
of God. The few who have these golden virtues of
the Inner Life are fit to tread the King's way of the
Holy Cross. It is an experience without human
sweetness to lighten it. Yet " there is no other
way to life and true inward peace." The ecstasy
of the mystic will be proved along this road this
desolate desiccate passage from earth to heaven.
" The higher a man hath mounted in the spirit the
heavier crosses he will often find : because the
punishment of his exile increases with love." 2 Rich
must be the spiritual compensations for a system of
renunciation that not only permits no manner of
earthly comfort, that not only strips humanity of the
humanities, but makes the burden of existence less
tolerable as it increases in holiness. With some
such utilitarian comment even an earthly saint who
was not a mystic might be tempted to receive the
Malleolian doctrine of godliness in this life. Many
attacks levelled at the position developed the
logical position of Thomas a Kempis would have
been withheld had it been realised that he was
writing essentially as a mystic and not as a spiritual
economist, that he was describing the evolution of a
subjective experience rather than the manner of the
outward man. It is the Inner Life that he is
1 Lib. ii. cap. 5. 2 Lib. ii. cap. 12.
244 THOMAS A KEMPIS
describing, and probably no one will be found to
deny that the holier a man is, the more profoundly
discontented he must be with the value of that life.
The punishment of his exile indeed, one may pre-
sume, is never so intense as on that day when the
pilgrim and sojourner at last takes ship for the
heavenly country which he claims to be his home.
If he is troubled by nothing else, he is troubled by
the want of that faith which is an intense, an essential,
part of an intellectual existence, a necessary part of
the machinery of a mysterious world. But a Kempis
claims that the growing miseries which belong to
the subjective experience of treading the way of the
Holy Cross are in fact spiritual fruits, for they
demonstrate the growing nearness and dearness of
God. He speaks of a man who "would not choose
to be without grief and tribulation, because he believes
that he shall be dearer unto God " (ii. 12). Such a
spiritual experience cannot, no subjective experience
can, be translated into words. But the fact that all
the mystics, ancient and modern, can unhesitatingly
assert this position, proves that the spiritual ex-
perience of which & Kempis treats has a real
meaning, however difficult, indeed however im-
possible, it may be for the average everyday
professor of Christianity to realise it. An experience
is not necessarily absurd because it appears ex-
travagant. Counsels of perfection are sometimes
realised by the most unlikely pupils.
A Kempis in fact appreciates the apparent absurdity
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 245
of his position. " It is not man's nature," he says, " to
carry the Cross, to love the Cross, to chasten the
body and bring it into subjection, to flee honours,
cheerfully to suffer reproaches, to despise himself, and
wish to be despised, to endure misfortune and loss, and
to desire no prosperity in the world. If thou look
to thyself thou canst of thyself do nothing of the
kind " (ii. 12). But the aim of the true mystic is the
creation or revelation of a second nature which,
without change of the personality, is perfectly attuned
to the Eternal Word. The entire process of the
imitation of Christ is to attain or bring to light this
second nature and therewith " Paradise upon Earth."
The Inner Life must come to know itself and the
Kingdom of God, of which it forms a part. The
second book of the Imitation begins with the dogma,
" The Kingdom of God is within you," and ends by
showing that this kingdom is the Paradise which
the Inner Life can attain. The whole experience is
subjective, but it is only possible when the outer
or objective life is lived according to the highest
standard known to the natural man.
Dr Bigg, following the Autograph edition, places
the book De Sacramento Altaris third in the order of
the books. No other early manuscript does this,
but it is certainly the right order from the mystical
point of view. Dr Bigg says on this question, " The
author knew best how to secure the impression
which he wished to produce, and there is a special
reason for that arrangement which he himself pre-
246 THOMAS A KEMPIS
ferred. From the time of Dionysius the Areopagite
mystical writers divided the spiritual life into three
stages : Purgation, Illumination, and Consumma-
tion. The first two treatises deal upon the whole
with that moral and spiritual discipline without
which no man can be a true follower of Christ ; the
third, on the Sacrament, points to the Eucharist as
the means of union with Him who is the Light of
the World ; the fourth, of Internal Consolation, tells
of the presence of Christ in the soul, of life in the
spirit, of the mystic vision, as a Kempis understood it."
We may take it therefore that the book concerning
the Sacrament deals with the means by which the
inner self is united to the Eternal Word. It is part
of the spiritual machinery that lifts the inner life
up to the Inner Kingdom of God. The Sacrament
is to continue a former metaphor, the ladder the
Jacob's ladder of the soul by which the ascent is
made. It is worth noticing that here, as in the
ladder of Jacob's dream, the action begins on the
earth. Jacob saw the Angels ascending and descend-
ing, and in the same way in the case of the Sacrament
the approach to God comes from earth first. The
idea of union with God indicated in this book and
drawn direct from St John begins with a deliberate
act of ascent in answer to the call of the Word. But
the whole book deals with the spiritual mechanism
of union with God. It is not until we reach the
long " Book of Internal Consolation " that we see the
full mystical significance of the Imitation of Christ.
!
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF BOOK III (THE BOOK OF INWARD
CONSOLATION) OF THE TREATISE " MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA :" ENGLISH
VERSION. FROM THE MANUSCRIPT IN THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY
COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
THIS MS. CONTAINS THE FIRST THREE BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI "
IN ENGLISH. IT BELONGS TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 247
Here we have the Inner Life dwelling in the Inner
Kingdom of God. Here in the first chapter we
have God speaking, not from without but from
within. " Blessed is the soul which hears the Lord
speaking within her. . . . Blessed indeed are those
ears that listen ... to the Truth which teaches
within. Blessed are the eyes which are shut to
the outward, but open to the inward. Blessed are
they . . . that prepare themselves more and more by
daily exercises for the receipt of heavenly secrets."
The second chapter tells us that the truth speaketh
inwardly without noise of words. " Speak therefore,
Lord, for Thy servant heareth : for Thou hast the
words of Eternal Life." The Indwelling Word
throughout the book speaks to the Inner Man.
"My words are Spirit and Life, not to be weighed
by the understanding of man." 1 "Let the Eternal
Truth delight thee above all things." 2 The
wonderful chapter on Divine Love is a curious echo
of the Song of Songs after it had passed through
the minds of generations of mystics. " Enlarge me
in Love ; that with the inner mouth of my heart I
may taste how sweet it is to love, and to be melted
and bathed in love" (lib. iv. cap. 5).
The extraordinary ecstasy of this chapter is
immediately checked in the manner customary with
a Kempis. The lover is told what are the notes
of a true lover, and is warned to beware of the
wiles of the ancient enemy. Many warnings follow:
1 Lib. iv. cap. 3 (in autograph MS.). 3 Lib. iv. cap. 4.
248 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the need of hiding grace under the garb of humility ;
of self-depreciation in the sight of God ; of continual
reference of all things to God ; of renunciation of
the world and self-dedication to God. The In-
dwelling Word takes up again the admonitions of
the first and second books. The Augustinian has
clearly in his mind the dangers of Perfectionism.
The fear of falling back into worldliness is ceaselessly
before his eyes. The disciple is warned against
desire of every kind, and obedience to the example
of Jesus Christ is almost harshly demanded. " Oh
Dust, learn to obey." 1 He must learn in a harsh
school that comfort is to be found in God alone, and
that " my heart cannot truly rest nor be entirely
contented unless it rest in Thee." 2 In the twenty-
third chapter the Inner Voice speaks once more to
the disciple, telling him of four things that bring
much peace : " Study, son, to do the Will of another
rather than thine own. Choose always to have less
rather than more. Seek always the lowest place
and to be inferior to every one. Wish always and
pray, that the will of God may be wholly fulfilled
in thee. Behold such a man enters the land of
peace and rest."
The mystic position is kept ever before the
reader's mind intermingled with admonitions and
warnings. " A man ought therefore to rise above
all creatures and perfectly to forsake himself and
stand in ecstasy of mind and see that Thou the
1 Lib. iv. cap. 13. 2 Lib. iv. cap. 21.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 249
Creator of all things art in nothing like the creature.
. . . Unless a man be lifted up in spirit and freed
from all creatures and united wholly unto God,
whatsoever he knows, whatsoever he possesses is
of no great weight. . . . Nature regards the outward
things of man : grace turns itself to the inward.
The one is often disappointed : the other trusts in
God and is not deceived." l " True heavenly
wisdom seems very mean and small, and almost
forgotten among men . . . yet it is the pearl of
price which is hidden from many." 2 " O Everlast-
ing Light, surpassing all created luminaries : dart the
beams of Thy brightness from above and penetrate
all the corners of my heart. Purify, beatify, beautify
and vivify my spirit with all its powers : that I may
cleave unto Thee with transports of jubilation. O
for the coming of that blessed and desirable hour,
when Thou wilt satisfy me with Thy Presence and
be unto me all in all." 3 " Let this be thy aim, this
thy prayer, this thy desire, that thou mayst be
stripped of all that is thine, and naked, follow Jesus
naked ; mayst die to thyself ; and live eternally to
Me." 4 The disciple must seek " the lot and freedom
of the sons of God, who stand above things present
and contemplate things Eternal." 6 " If thou
couldest perfectly annihilate thyself and empty
thyself of all created love, then should I overflow
into thee with great grace." 6 " O home most blessed
1 Lib. iv. cap 31. 2 Lib. iv. cap 32. 8 Lib. iv. cap 34.
4 Lib. iv. cap 37. 6 Lib. iv. cap 38. 8 Lib. iv. cap 42.
250 THOMAS A KEMPIS
in the City above. O cloudless day of Eternity
which no night obscures, whose never setting sun
is the Truth supreme ; day ever joyful, ever secure
and never changing into its contrary. O that that
day had dawned and that all these things of time
had come to an end." 1 "There shall thy will be
ever one with Mine, shall not desire any outward
or personal gain. There ... all things thou canst
desire shall be there together present and refresh
thy whole affection and fill it up to the brim." 2
The perfect victory is to triumph over ourselves.
" For he that keeps himself in such subjection, that
his senses be obedient to reason, and his reason in
all things to Me, is truly conqueror of himself and
Lord of the World." 3 The fifty-fourth chapter
contrasts in great detail Nature and Grace, and
shows that Grace is that second nature with which
the Inner Life must be clothed. " This Grace is a
supernatural light and a special gift of God and
the proper seal of the elect and pledge of eternal
salvation ; it raises up a man from earth to love the
things of heaven, and from being carnal makes
him spiritual. The more, therefore, Nature is held
down and subdued the greater Grace is infused :
and every day by new visitations the inward man is
reshaped according to the image of God." 4 We
slowly move to the conclusion of the whole matter.
Man is made unto the image of God and the Inner
1 Lib. iv. cap. 48. 2 Lib. iv. cap 49.
3 Lib. iv. cap 53. 4 Lib. iv. cap 54.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 251
Life will re-create the likeness that the Outer Life
has obscured. In a curious passage a Kempis
speaks of " Natural Reason " being a spark buried
in ashes and "encompassed about with great dark-
ness," but yet able to discriminate between the true
and the false, between the inner and the outer life.
" Hence it is, O my God, that I delight in Thy law
after the inward man." * But Grace, the second
nature, is the only moving force, and it must be used
if we are to imitate Christ and thus resume the
image of the heavenly : " Grant me grace to imitate
Thee." 2 The fulfilment of imitation is seen in the
lives of the saints : " For being ravished above self
and drawn out of love of self, they plunge wholly
into love of Me : in whom also they rest in fruition.
Nothing can turn them back or hold them down ;
for being full of the eternal Truth, they burn with
the fire of unquenchable charity." 3 It is but rarely
that a Kempis so vividly, in language so Dantesque,
describes the mystic rapture.
But here we are at the culmination of his whole
philosophy, which would abolish the dualism of
things and give to the illuminated seer the un-
speakable fact of personal intercourse with God.
If St Bernard saw God face to face as the Middle
Ages believed, such a consummation could be attained
by the humblest of God's Saints. Yet such a con-
summation is the dream of a philosophy and not of a
religion. It is the goal of a long line of philosophic
1 Lib. iv. cap 55. 2 Lib. iv. cap 56. 3 Lib. iv. cap 58.
252 THOMAS A KEMPIS
thought that threads its way through the minds of
the thinkers who through many centuries had turned
their eyes from this corruptible world, from this
" land of the shadow of death " (as a Kempis calls it
in the exquisite Aurea Oratio that concludes the
Imitation], to "the home of everlasting day." It is
the mystic's philosophy high and noble, the
philosophy that having formulated an hypothesis
shows the way to an experience that must confirm
the hypothesis. If we imitate the Christ of history
we shall find the mystic Christ, the Eternal Word
which shall reconcile, without merger, the personality
of man to the personality of God. The same con-
ception had illuminated the mystics of all the
Christian centuries. It was the need of such a con-
ception that brought Greek philosophy into intimate
union with Christian faith. But it was not until a
Kempis had finished his immortal work that the
conception was stated in such a form that it could
appeal to almost every type of mind, and make the
simple peasant as well as the great philosopher
realise that Christianity is philosophy at its highest
exhibited in action.
The Imitation within a few years from its comple-
tion stood alone. It was the aloe flower that
centuries of bitter devotional introspection had
produced. The dim yearnings of more than fifteen
hundred years for the way of a Messiah, for an
imitable reconciler of man and God, for Christ and
things Christlike yearnings that rose bitterly in
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 253
the wilderness of time long before the awful
bitterness of the Garden ; yearnings that did not
cease during the hollow splendours of the Empire
or amidst its decadent glories ; that echo in the
darkness of the succeeding centuries and through
the twilight of sacerdotal Rome : these helpless cries
to the far realms of help find their full expression
here. When Christ was raising Lazarus in Bethany,
Philo was proclaiming the Logos in Alexandria, and
declaring that " only he who dies to himself can live
to God." Seventy years after, when John in Patmos
was describing the new heaven and the new earth,
Plutarch was formulating the Logos as he read it,
daemonic and dynamic, leading man up from himself
to God. Two centuries later, Plotinus enunciated
that " ecstasy of unutterable feeling," that " Flight of
the alone to the Alone," which only could bring
men into union with God and so abolish the dualism
between the old heaven and the old earth. Even
Aurelius had been touched by the same doctrine in
the previous generation : " Live with the gods," he
cries. " And he lives with the gods who continually
displays to them his soul, living in satisfaction with
its lot, and doing the Will of the inward spirit, a
portion of his own divinity which Zeus has given to
every man for a ruler and a guide. This is the
intelligence, the reason that abides in us all." If
Chrysostom the golden-mouthed was glad to scourge
men into reconciliation, his contemporary Augustine
was content for the things of this world and the
254 THOMAS A KEMPIS
knowledge of them and all reasoning about them to
vanish out of sight. " Happy is the man who knows
Thee, yet not these," for he " possesseth all things
by his union with Thee." In the sixth century, when
the author of the City of God had been dead a
hundred years and night had fallen, we find Severinus
Boethius attempting the reconciliation of God and
man, justifying the ways of God to man in an age
when the ways of man in the heart of civilisation
were capable of no justification whatsoever. He
dreamed, amidst the shows of things, of an eternity
possessing "the whole plenitude of an unlimited life
at once," and Christianised ex post facto by Dante
he rests from martyrdom and exile in the charmed
circle girt with eternal music where Albert of Cologne
and Thomas of Aquino dwell. In the same age the
founder of the Benedictines established the cloisters
where his disciples
" Fermar li piedi e tennero il cor saldo" (Par. xxii. 51),
ever contemplating the central light and the sphere
where the perfect patterns are laid up.
The cleansing midwinter night of the early Middle
Ages has closed round Christendom, and while the
midnight bell is sounding the Contemplatives keep
watch upon the heaven where they would be. The
Venerable Bede, he who shared with Roger Bacon
the title of the Admirable Doctor, dictated the
learning of Europe while he unfolded the mystical
threefold meaning of the Holy Books, made
Grammar the divine key of the Word, and was
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 255
present at all sacred offices, " lest the angels joining
in the Church's worship should miss his presence
there." His disciple Alcuin, waving aside the cares
and controversies of his toilsome life, put forward in
the de Fide Sanctae Trinitatis his ultimate faith. All
of Augustine, much of Plutarch is there. The dualism
between things created and the increate and creative
Spirit was overcome by the daemonic and moving
agency of angels until the coming of One who is
both God and man, whose footsteps trace the path
of peace to God, who eternally reconciles the finite
and the infinite, and thus satisfies the inborn craving
of man for the Absolute. Alcuin's school, and in
particular his great follower Rabanus Maurus, carried
on his theological tradition, the Augustine tradition
of the relationship of God and man. That tradition,
moreover, received new strength from the support
given to it by a famous contemporary of the Abbot
of Fulda, Johannes Scotus Erigena. The Holy
Sophist enunciated a doctrine of creative ideas
which, proceeding from God, are wholly good, which
as realised in the material universe are tainted with
evil, but become again perfectly good by the
death of self and the ultimate re-union with God.
" Precious," he says, " is the passage of purified souls
into the intimate contemplation of truth which is the
true blessedness and eternity." Plutarch, Augustine,
and Boethius almost entirely inspired his position as
a Contemplative. To them all true philosophy and
true religion were in the end indistinguishable.
256 THOMAS A KEMPIS
The tenth century gives us no speculative name
save that of the famous Gerbert, l whose physical
investigations anticipated the work of Roger Bacon,
who declared that the proper study of mankind is
man, but who nevertheless seems to place around
the apparent universe a speculative world into which
man could only see, which he could only enter and
enjoy by the aid of faith. Such a thinker, a man
profound and pious, who was regarded by his own
age (while it awaited, during the four years of his
reign, the destruction of the visible world) as a
magician, occupies a place in the catenary of the
Contemplatives. To him, as to Bacon and even
many modern thinkers, the dualism of the universe
would disappear if the ultimate mystery of matter
could but be solved. That mystery is a fit subject
of contemplation, since it may declare the unity about
which so many generations had ignorantly philo-
sophised. The ideal and universal whole cannot be
realised until the parts themselves have been explored
in complete and final detail and correlated with the
whole. Idealism even in the mind of Plato fell
short of its goal because it could not complete such
a relationship. In the case of the mediaeval Neo-
Platonists, the failure of idealism grew more and
more apparent as the religious cry for its success
grew more and more urgent. The pathway of
Christ needed to be the pathway of reality. In the
mind of the theologian it tended to become a
1 Pope Sylvester II. (999-1003).
grammarian's maze. There were two ways of
clearing the thorny ground there was Abelard's
way, and there was Gerbert's way the doubt that
kills and the doubt that makes alive again. Gerbert
turned to the investigation of the parts while he
recognised the ideal existence of the whole. To
have shown the possibility of such an attitude was
his contribution to man's conception of the relation-
ship of man and God. He saw things dimly, but
he also saw them whole. Abelard doubted that
he might enquire not into the facts of nature but
into the opinions of men. To him things remained
material and God immaterial. His logic could
supply no keystone to the arch of nature.
For the moment Gerbert stood alone. To the
people he was a magician, and after his death his
apparent use lay in the fact that his tomb sweated
and his bones rattled as a frequent presage of the
death of rapidly succeeding popes. Two centuries
and a half were destined to pass before his magic
robes were resumed by the Admirable Doctor of
Oxford and Paris. Meanwhile the theologians still
stood gazing up into heaven. But a new ethical
note began to personify the Platonic goodness
and to individualise the Christ of the schoolmen.
The dispute as to the sanctity of Alfege raised a
definite issue. He died for the people, not for the
faith. But Anselm justified his canonisation in
one striking phrase, "Who dies for justice, dies
for Christ." Lanfranc was convinced and the
258 THOMAS A KEMP1S
following of Christ acquired for all ages a wider,
a more individualistic meaning. But the philosophic
link between the infinite and the finite was not less
real to Anselm than to his forerunners. He was,
as Maurice has shown, a Platonist at heart. There
is a supreme Good which is God. By this Good we
are made : " for this Good every man should strive
with his whole heart, and whole soul, and whole
mind, by loving it and longing for it." But Anselm
is more than a Platonist. With St Augustine he
calls to God to reveal himself; with Boethius he
contrasts the environments of time and eternity ;
with Alcuin he admits that God can be referred to
no species, though it is his property always to have
mercy, but claims that that is an argument for the
personal existence of the Supreme Good. He seems
to say that we may reason from the particular to the
general, even if the general be beyond our finite
conception. We may think that the unthinkable is
the logical goal of a rising scale of things finite.
Belief is therefore not unreasonable and, as he
declares in his Monologue on the Essence of the
Divinity, "it is fitting, therefore, for the same
human soul to believe this supreme. Essence and
those things without which it cannot be loved, that
by believing it may stretch towards it."
Abelard breaks for a moment the chain of
the Contemplatives. One of the greatest of the
logicians, he was a follower neither of Plato nor
of Aristotle. " By doubting we come to inquiry "
j
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 259
did not exhaust the difference between him
and the holders of the Augustinian tradition. He
was intellectually a nominalist of the most logical
type, more logical than his school. There is no
underlying unity in his conception, no ultimate
reality reconciling Man and God. His cold logic
dispenses with the mystery of the Universe. He
does not stand looking up into heaven, neither does
he peer into the physical mystery of the earth. By
inquiry he never came to doubt the reality of either
God or matter, for he never inquired into the exist-
ence of either, though he reasoned about both. His
was a Logic of Assent that, assuming the existence
of one by faith and the other by sight, found no
mystery in either, but merely terms of logical import.
Maurice points out that he acknowledged, as a
thinker (whatever he may have acknowledged as a
man), no " spiritual bond between the Divine Creator
and himself." It seems to the present writer that
Thomas a Kempis deliberately singled out Abelard
(the author of de Generibus et speciebus) for attack :
he and his school of arrogant, narrow, pure thought,
stood out as the eternal opponents of the contem-
plativism that was crystallised in the Imitation.
St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) did even
more than St Anselm to bring down the heaven of
mysticism into the heart of man and to make it the
source of a practical faith. He is the direct fore-
runner of a Kempis. It was a sound literary, a
sound philosophic instinct that made a copyist of the
260 THOMAS A KEMPIS
fifteenth century attribute the Imitation to him. We
find in his sermons and letters the very spirit, even
the very literary note of the Imitation. But if the
Doctor Mellifluus was the father in literature of a
Kempis, pointing the way in which the wisdom of the
Fathers and the Doctors could be epigrammatised
and crystallised into immortal form, many other forces,
as we have already seen, contributed to the thought
of the Dutch recluse.
Hugo of St Victor (1097-1141), the German who
came to the School of Paris, elaborated a doctrine of
spiritual reality that gave a new basis to mysticism.
Faith, he taught, is the initial good, since in some
measure it makes us realise the actuality of God,
the realisation of whom is the highest good. A life
of faith is the precursor of an eternity of contempla-
tion. But he recognised the practical side of things.
The world must be a better world if any individual
life is to fulfil itself. " The integrity of human life
requires for its fulfilment science and virtue."
Peter Lombard (1100-1160), the Master of
Sentences, completed the didactic formularism of
St Bernard and the practical mysticism of Hugo of
St Victor. He was an intellectual and spiritual
descendant of Augustine. He carried verbal
analysis to its extremest limits, but never lost sight
of the doctrine that we are what we are by the
Grace of God. But his verbosity justified the jest
of his contemporary, John of Salisbury, levelled at
the mediaeval doctors, " there is no getting away from
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 261
Genera and Species." A Kempis adopts this very
position.
The influence of Joachim the Cistercian (1130-
1202) on a Kempis cannot be overlooked. He
preached a new dispensation, " the Everlasting
Gospel," when man would become spiritually perfect
and therefore spiritually free. It was a new but a
legitimate step in the cult of mysticism. The
spiritual aspiration of Joachim is a marked feature
of the Imitation. Richard of St Victor (f. 1173),
" who was in contemplation more than man,"
carried forward that intense contemplation of the
Trinity that distinguished the mystics and doctors of
the twelfth century. The Aristotelian reaction
of the thirteenth century, despite the anathemas
of the Vatican, brought a new force into mysticism.
To Aristotle, God was the Alpha and Omega of a
Universe which in its natural structure was sharply
divided from him. But this acute dualism was in a
measure resolved by a more than Platonic idealism.
Aristotle conceived of a Scala Naturalis in which
each of the finite creatures is " regarded as seeking
for the divine, but able to realise it only within the
limits of its own form. Aiming at eternity, it is
confined within the conditions of an individual
existence which is finite and perishable, though it
attains to a kind of image of eternity in the con-
tinuity of the species. It attains it, however, in a still
higher way, in so far as its own limited life is made
the basis of a higher life ; till in the ascending scale
262 THOMAS A KEMPIS
we reach at last the rational life of man, who at least
in the pure activity of contemplation, can directly
participate in the eternal and divine." But the
real difficulty that makes the dualism the gap
between divine intelligence and the material changing
world is not explained. To the analyst with human
limitations this blur on a scheme of idealism is
inevitable. On the other hand, " the general
tendency of Plato is to generalise and to unify, to re-
fer each sphere of phenomenal existence to some idea
which he regards as the source of all its reality, and
the principle through which alone it can be under-
stood ; and, ultimately, to carry back all these ideas
to the Good or the divine reason, as the principle of
all being and of all thought." With Plato "the uni-
versal is the real " ; with Aristotle " the individual is
the real." In their higher sense, there is no ultimate
antagonism between these propositions, since a uni-
versal "means a general principle, viewed as expres-
sing itself in different forms or phases, each of which
implies all the others and the whole ; and an individual
is just such a whole or totality, viewed as determined
in all its forms or phases by one principle." 1
But the Middle Ages and the schoolmen did not
attempt to find idealism in Aristotle himself. They
solved the dualism that Aristotle appears to present
by the application of Christianity. H ence we find that
though for a time purely contemplative creations,
1 The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, by Edward
Caird, vol. i. pp. 262, 267, 277.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 263
such as the De Contemplatione of Innocent III. (i 160-
1216), influenced the mystics, we must look for
practical results in the foundation of the great orders
by St Dominic (1170-1221) and St Francis (1182-
1226). The Seraphic Father gave a new missionary,
a speculative and individual, zeal to the Church. We
find that its new thinking force was to be derived
from the work of Albertus Magnus of Cologne
(1193-1280), the Universal Doctor, and his pupil
Thomas of Aquino (1225-1274) the Angelic Doctor.
In that age came two other notable figures : Roger
Bacon (1214-1294) the Admirable Doctor, and
Bonaventura (1221-1274) the Seraphic Doctor.
These men formed a remarkable galaxy of thought,
inspiration, and contemplative power. Albert of
Cologne and Roger Bacon both lay under the same
suspicion that Gerbert suffered. To investigate
nature, to endeavour to proceed from the particular
to the universal was their office and their glory.
Such men were necessarily Aristotelians in the
best sense. The only true method of reconciliation
between God and this world was to find a natural
and a metaphysical as well as a spiritual bond of
union ; to find in the ladders of nature and thought
the union between man and God. The Angelic
Doctor was of another type of mind the mind
rather of Abelard than Hugo, but of Abelard with
a keener faith. Aquinas deliberately entertained
doubt that he might come to inquiry, and he came
to inquiry that he might approach God by every
264 THOMAS A KEMPIS
intellectual avenue. He was in no sense an
Augustinian. He did not believe in patterns laid
up in heaven. Pure intelligence was the pathway
to reality. If man is to realise God at all, he seems
to say, he must do it in the mind and not in the
heart. Such a doctrine must have been repulsive in
the extreme to a Kempis. He preferred to be on
the side of Seraphs. But all these influences directly
and indirectly bore upon the content of the Imitation.
More often than not the influence was indirect, and
came to a Kempis by way of the German and
Flemish mystics, Eckhardt, Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroek,
who seemed, as we have seen, to offer for his selection
the thoughts of many ages on the ultimate mystery
that underlies the relationship of God and man.
When we turn from the theological and philo-
sophical aspects of the Imitation to its doctrines of
social life, we find on examination something quite
different from the superficial view often taken of
this side of its content. It may readily be admitted
that it is possible to take a series of quotations from
the Imitation which would appear to show that its
author knew nothing of the promise of this life and
was merely inspired with an egotism entirely re-
pellant to the modern mind an egotism that is not
less an egotism from the fact that it substitutes love
of the Creator for the love of the created. Quota-
tions can, however, like statistics, prove anything.
The tenets of some Christian sects show how the
spirit of the Bible can be obscured or even wholly
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 265
hidden by the selective process, and I cannot but
think that in the case of the Imitation the same mis-
take has happened. The work falls naturally into
two parts : the philosophic part, which preaches the
doctrine of a subjective Inner Life based on a philo-
sophic hypothesis and to be approximately realised
in an experience that realises the sermon on the
Mount and lives the life of Christ ; and the social
part, which exhibits a daily Outer Life which all men
may, without unreasonable dreams of perfection,
live and rejoice in. Before detailing some of the
more serious criticisms that have been levelled at
the Imitation, it will be convenient to draw from the
three books which form what is known as the
Ecclesiastical Music, the doctrines of social life as
conceived by Thomas a Kempis. The briefest ex-
amination shows that selfishness of any sort was at
least as abhorrent to a Kempis as it is to his critics.
So far as the Inner Life goes he is, it is true, an
individualist of the most unbending type. He
knew that all the great decisions of life depend on
the individual, and that a profound sense of in-
dividual responsibility is the basis of all ethical, all
spiritual progress. But in relation to the outer
life, the life of common day, he is in fact a socialist
rather than an individualist. He preaches from
end to end of his work the most practical form of
altruism. A series of quotations will show this
better than comment can do. " To make no
account of ourselves, and to think always well
266 THOMAS A KEMPIS
and highly of others is great wisdom and per-
fection. . . . We all are frail but thou shalt
esteem none frailer than thyself." l "Be not
ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ
. . . think not thyself better than others. ... If
thou hast any good believe better things of others,
that thou mayest preserve humility. It hurts not
to debase thyself under all men : but it hurts much
to prefer thyself even to one." 2 " Keep company
with the humble and simple, with the devout and
virtuous : and commune with them of those things
that may edify." 3 " To refuse to yield to others,
when reason or a cause requires it, is a sign of
pride and obstinacy." 4 "We so willingly talk
because by mutual speech we seek mutual comfort
and desire to ease the heart over-wearied by manifold
anxieties. . . . Our spiritual progress is not a little
helped, by devout communing of spiritual things :
especially when men of like mind and spirit be met
together in God." 5 "If thou didst but mark how
much peace unto thyself and joy unto others thou
shouldst procure by behaving thyself well, I think
thou wouldest be more careful of thy spiritual pro-
gress." 6 "Often take counsel in temptation and deal
not roughly with him that is tempted, but give him
comfort, as thou wouldest wish to be done to thyself." 7
1 Lib. i. cap. 2. 2 Lib. i. cap. 7. 3 Lib. i. cap. 8.
4 Lib. i. cap. 9. 6 Lib. i. cap. 10. 6 Lib. i. cap. n.
7 Lib. i. cap. 13. Dr Bigg points out that John Dygoun, the fifteenth
century copyist of Sheen, writes opposite to this tender pastoral, Nota
nota bene.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 267
" Turn thine eyes upon thyself : and beware thou judge
not the actions of others. In judging of others a man
labours in vain ; often errs and easily sins." 1 " He
does much that loves much. He does much that
does a thing well. He does well that serves the
community rather than his own will." 2 "We are
glad to see others perfect : and yet we mend not
our own faults. We will have others severely
corrected : and will not be corrected ourselves. . . .
We will have others restrained by laws : but will
not in any way be checked ourselves. And thus it
appears how seldom we weigh our neighbour in
the same balance with ourselves. If all men were
perfect what should we have to suffer from others
for God's sake ? But now God hath so ordered it,
that we may learn to bear one another's burdens ; for
no man is without fault, no man without his burden :
no man sufficient for himself, no man wise enough
for himself ; but we ought to bear with one another,
comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish
one another." 3 The whole duty of human altruism,
the whole doctrine of human solidarity, is con-
tained in these pregnant phrases. Here is no selfish
mystic, absorbed in the contemplation of his own soul
and his own ultimate perfection. Man must lean upon
man if he is to lean upon God, is the specific teaching
of the great Augustinian. ' ' Still have an eye to thyself
first and admonish thyself especially before all thy
beloved friends. ... A good man finds cause
1 Lib. i. cap. 14. 2 Lib. i. cap. 15. 3 Lib. i. cap. 16.
268 THOMAS A KEMPIS
enough for mourning and weeping. For, whether
he consider his own or his neighbour's estate, he
knows that none lives here without tribulation." 1
" Man's happiness consists not in abundance of
temporal goods but a moderate portion is enough
for him." 2 " Whilst thou art in health thou mayest do
much good." 3 "A great and wholesome purgatory
hath the patient man . . . who prays cheerfully for his
gainsayers : and from his heart forgives offences ;
who delays not to ask forgiveness from others : who
is quicker to pity than to wrath. . . . Here we have
some pause from toil, and enjoy the comfort of our
friends." 4 "Hope in the Lord and do good saith
the Prophet, and inhabit the land : and thou shalt
be fed in the riches thereof. ... Be careful also to
avoid and conquer those faults especially which
often displease thee in others. Gather some profit
to thy soul everywhere. . . . Thou wilt always re-
joice at eventide if thou spend the day fruitfully." 5
When we turn to the second book the book of
the Inner Life we find the same high doctrine
of Christian altruism, of devotion to duty and to
others. " An inward man . . . finds no hindrance
in outward labour, or business necessary for the
time ; but as things fall out so he accommodates
himself to them." 6 "Think not that thou hast
made any progress unless thou feel thyself inferior
to all." 7 " First, therefore, be severe towards
*Lib. i. cap. 21. 2 Lib. i. cap. 22. 3 Lib. i. cap. 23. * Lib. i. cap. 24.
5 Lib. i. cap. 25. 6 Lib. ii. cap. i. 7 Lib. ii. cap. 2.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 269
thyself, and then mayest thou justly be severe also
towards thy neighbour. Thou knowest well how to
excuse and colour thine own deeds, but thou wilt
not admit the excuses of others. It were more
just that thou shouldest accuse thyself, and excuse
thy brother. If thou wilt be carried, carry also
another." l Perhaps in no single phrase does a
Kempis so adequately set forth his own social
views as in the words, " si portari vis, porta et alium."
In this phrase is contained the whole statement
of the outer life, upon which depends that inner
life which is the confessed aim and end of every
mystic. This idea is consistently developed : "If
thou intend and seek nothing else but the pleasure
of God and the good of thy neighbour, thou shalt
enjoy perfect internal freedom." 2
He goes on to declare in a remarkable and
mystical sentence that the progress of the world
is a positive responsibility of each individual. If
the world is evil, it is in fact a reflection of the
onlooker's heart. "If thy heart were right, then
every creature would be a mirror of life, and a book
of holy doctrine." If the heart sees evil, it is evil.
To the pure in heart all things are pure. If each
man will see that his own heart is right, all will soon
be very well with the world. " He that well and
rightly considered his own works, would find no
cause to judge hardly of another." 8
" Without a friend thou canst not live well ; and
1 Lib. ii. cap. 3. 2 Lib. ii. cap. 4- 3 Lib. ii. cap. 5.
270 THOMAS A KEMPIS
if Jesus be not above all a friend to thee, thou wilt
be very sad and desolate . . . love all for Jesus ;
but Jesus for Himself." l
Here we have again the conception of human
solidarity with Christ as the uniting link of all
human relationship. But the friendship of Christ
is the supreme fact : " learn to part even with a
near and dear friend for the love of God." 2 The
man who wrote that knew what friendship was.
The idea is carried on in the phrase, "If thou wilt
carry the Cross cheerfully, it will carry thee," 3 the
counterpart with respect to Christ of the injunc-
tion with respect to the human friend. "If thou
wilt be carried, carry also another." 4 These two
sentences bring out the universality of the doctrine
of vicarious effect, which is another form of the
doctrine of human solidarity. Every good and
every evil deed done by man is endured or wel-
comed by every man in the world, is endured or
welcomed even by the risen Christ Himself. To
charge the author of such a doctrine with selfish-
ness is to misunderstand the meaning of great
ethical principles. It would be as reasonable to
charge the Founder of Christianity with selfishness.
It will serve no useful purpose to pursue further an
analysis intended to show that a Kempis was an
1 Lib. ii. cap. 8. 2 Cap. 9. 3 Lib. ii. cap. 12.
4 Lib. ii. cap. 3. Compare " Thy love for thy friend should be
grounded in me" (Lib. iv. cap. 42). " Come brothers march togeth
Jesus will be with us" (Lib. iv. cap. 56).
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 271
altruist and not a spiritual hedonist, l but some
quotations from the book of Internal Consolation
may be given to show something of his outlook
on the workaday world. He certainly felt that
the things of earth were to be used. " Behold
heaven and earth which Thou hast created for the
service of man wait upon Thee : and daily perform
whatever Thou hast commanded." 2 " Learn to be
content with little and find delight in simple
things." 3 " Use temporal things : desire eternal." 4
" All that we have in soul and in body, and what-
soever we possess without or within, naturally or
supernaturally are Thy benefits and proclaim Thee
bountiful, merciful and good, from whom we have
received all good things." 5 " Behold, meat, drink,
raiment, and other commodities for the sustenance
of the body, are a burden to the fervent spirit.
Grant me to use such refreshments moderately,
not to be entangled with excessive desire. It is
not lawful to cast away all things, because nature
must be sustained." 6 We are to become one with
the Sons of God who "draw the temporal things
to serve them well in such ways as are ordained
by God and appointed by the Great Work-master,
who hath left nothing in His creation without due
order." 7 " Thou art flesh, not angel." 8
1 See also the following references, Lib. iv. cap. 13, cap. 23, cap. 27,
cap. 36, cap. 42, cap. 54, cap. 56, cap. 58.
2 Lib. iv. cap. 10. 3 Lib. iv. cap. n. 4 Lib. iv. cap. 16.
5 Lib. iv. cap. 22. 6 Lib. iv. cap. 26. 7 Lib. iv. cap. 38.
8 Lib. iv. cap. 57.
272 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Thomas a Kempis, in fact, presents, as all true
mystics present, a perfectly sane view of the outward
life. It is only if we forget this fundamental view
and attach to the outward life the mystical conception
of the Inner Life as set forth by a Kempis and his
school that there is any temptation to accuse the
mystic of spiritual hedonism and selfishness. From
all we know of a Kempis we have reason to believe
that in his quiet way he thoroughly enjoyed his life.
He did not in any way spurn the pleasures of the
book or of the table, or of companionship, but he
took good care that life should not be entirely com-
posed of those things, that they should, in fact,
only be admitted in so far as they tended to en-
courage a high spiritual outlook on the life to be.
One could not, it is quite certain, take this view
of a Kempis and of the De Imitations Christi if one
accepted the judgment of certain critics. Consider
in the light of the foregoing quotations the criticism
of Dean Milman. After some interesting and
valuable remarks on the merits and influence of the
Imitation, this distinguished historian proceeds :
"But 'the Imitation of Christ,' the last effort of
Latin Christianity, is still monastic Christianity. It
is absolutely and entirely selfish in its aim, as
in its acts. Its sole, single, exclusive object, is the
purification, the elevation of the individual soul, of
the man absolutely isolated from his kind, of the
man dwelling alone in the solitude, in the her-
mitage of his own thoughts ; with no fears or hopes,
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 273
no sympathies of our common nature : he has
absolutely withdrawn and secluded himself not only
from the cares, the sins, the trials, but from the
duties, the connexions, the moral and religious fate
of the world. Never was misnomer so glaring, if
justly considered, as the title of the book, the
' Imitation of Christ.' That which distinguishes
Christ, that which distinguishes Christ's Apostles
that which distinguishes Christ's religion the Love
of Man is entirely and absolutely left out. . . .
The 'Imitation of Christ' begins in self terminates
in self. The simple exemplary sentence, ' He went
about doing good,' is wanting in the monastic gospel of
this pious zealot. Of feeding the hungry, of clothing
the naked, of visiting the prisoner, even of preaching,
there is profound, total silence. The world is dead
to the votary of the Imitation, and he is dead to
the world, dead in a sense absolutely repudiated by
the first vital principles of the Christian faith.
Christianity, to be herself again, must not merely
shake off indignantly the barbarism, the vices, but
even the virtues of the Mediaeval, of Monastic, of
Latin, Christianity." l
Such a criticism will be read with absolute amaze-
ment by anyone who has considered fairly and with
an unbiassed mind the quotations from the Imitation
set out above. There is a temptation to feel that the
late Dean of St Paul's had never really considered
1 The History of Latin Christianity, by Henry Hart Milman, D.D.,
Dean of St Paul's, Book xiv. cap. 3 (3rd ed., 1872, vol. ix. pp. 163-5).
s
274 THOMAS A KEMPIS
the precepts of the De Imitatione Christi, but had
assumed that it was the last effort of Latin Chris-
tianity, whatever that may mean, and had adopted
a theory of its contents that fitted in with the
theory of a decadent Church. The answer to Dean
Milman's criticism is the text of the Imitation, and
such phrases as si portari vis, porta et alium. No
critic who had realised the meaning of that sentence
could say that " the Love of Man is entirely and
absolutely left out " from the work in which it occurs.
Moreover, the historian of Latin Christianity shows
how entirely he misapprehended the place of the
Imitation in the history of religion when he declared
that it was " the last effort of Latin Christianity."
Even from Dean Milman's point of view it would
have seemed reasonable to suppose that that last
effort was the educational activity of the Jesuits in
the Far East and the Near West. But the Imitation,
even if we are so destitute of the literary faculty as
to suppose that it was written by Jean le Charlier de
Gerson, had no relation to Latin Christianity, if by
that term we mean the Christianity of Avignon and
Rome. It was the product of Germanic Christianity
by which I mean the Invisible Church that was
preparing the Reformation in England and West
Central and Northern Europe. Absolutely the
only reason for calling the work an effort of Latin
Christianity is that it was written as were the great
treatises of Luther in Latin. But England, Holland
and France had vernacular versions early in the
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 275
fifteenth century, and for long ages it was in England
actually believed by the best critics that the work
was written by an Englishman in English. The
mystic element in the work, and the fact that it was
written by a monk, no doubt give colour at first
sight to the idea that the Imitation was a product of
the Latin Church, but the idea vanishes when it is
realised that the Latin Church was at the best a step-
mother to true mysticism, and that monasticism
provided the chief elements of revolt from and
reformation in that Church.
However, Dean Milman's views have been widely
accepted. Moreover, his statement " that this book
supplies some imperious want in the Christianity of
mankind, that it supplied it with a fullness and felicity,
which left nothing, at this period of Christianity,
to be desired, its boundless popularity is the one
unanswerable testimony," shows that he recog-
nised some of the intrinsic merits of the work. The
same cannot be said of another distinguished writer
of the same generation. W. M. Thackeray, in a
letter dated Christmas Day 1849, summed up his
view of the book in his incomparable manner.
" The scheme of that book," he wrote, " carried
out would make the world the most wretched,
useless, dreary, doting place of sojourn. There
would be no manhood, no love, no tender ties of
mother and child, no use of intellect, no trade or
science a set of selfish beings, crawling about,
avoiding one another, and howling a perpetual
276 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Miserere'' l The mid-nineteenth century, against
the materialism of which Thackeray tilted with all
his noble might, stood out in extraordinary contrast
to the ideal world painted by a Kempis. Social
conditions in England were at that time at their
very worst. Eighty per cent, of the people were
without education, were ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed.
That world might with some justice have been
described as containing "a set of selfish beings,
crawling about, avoiding one another, and howling
a perpetual Miserere" Extremes meet, a curious
meeting, especially when we realise that the mystic
ideals of a Kempis were, in fact, a path of spiritual
escape from the soul-destroying and awful social
conditions of the Middle Ages.
The views held by Milman and Thackeray about
the Imitation were, however, most unusual among
distinguished thinkers. It is true that Dr Johnson,
if we may believe his early biographer. Sir John
Hawkins, 2 " was for some time pleased with Kempis'
tract De Imitatione Christi, but at length laid it
aside, saying that the main design of it was to
promote monastic piety and inculcate ecclesiastical
obedience"; but in fact Johnson's views about the
Imitation were very different. He may have
objected to certain chapters, but the work was a
very real fact in his life. In the year 1778,
when he was sixty-nine, he observed to Boswell,
1 Letters of W. M. Thackeray (London, 1887), p. 96.
2 Life of Johnson (1789), p. 544.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 277
" Thomas a Kempis must be a good book, as the
world has opened its arms to receive it. It is said
to have been printed in one language or others, as
many times as there have been months since it first
came out. I always was struck with this sentence
in it, ' Be not angry that you cannot make others
as you wish them to be, since you cannot make
yourself as you wish to be."' 1 He seems to have
been a constant reader of the Imitation, and accord-
ing to Crokers Boswell (p. 884), he told on his
deathbed a curious story of himself in relation to the
Imitation. He said to Mr Hoole, " About two years
since I feared that I had neglected God, and that
then I had not a mind to give Him ; on which I set
about to read Thomas a Kempis in Low Dutch,
which I accomplished, and thence I judged that my
mind was not impaired, Low Dutch having no
affinity with any of the languages that I knew." 2
In another version he stated that he only read a
part of this translation. He was in the habit of
speaking on the subject of various editions, it seems,
for on Monday, May I7th 1784, Boswell dined with
him and raised the question : " When I mentioned
that I had seen in the king's library sixty-three
editions of my favourite Thomas a Kempis, amongst
which it was in eight languages, Latin, German,
French, Italian, Spanish, English, Arabic, and
1 Boswell's Life of Johnson (Hill edition, vol. iii. p. 226). The
passage is from lib. i. cap. 16, " Si non potes te talem facere qualem
vis, quomodo poteris alium habere ad bene placitum tuum ? "
2 Miscellanies (Hill), vol. ii. p. 153.
278 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Armenian, he said he thought it unnecessary to
collect many editions, which were all the same,
except as to paper and print ; he would have the
original, and all the editions which had any varia-
tion in the text." The Imitation was in fact very
popular in the eighteenth century. In Fielding's
novel Joseph Andrews, we find in chapter iii. the
passage : " He [Joseph Andrews] told him [Parson
Adams] likewise that ever since he was in Sir
Thomas' country he had employed all his leisure in
reading good books ; that he had read the Bible,
the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a Kempis, and
that he had also studied a great book" Baker's
Chronicle. It would be a lengthy task to set up
against the views of Dean Milman and Thackeray
those of the many great thinkers who used and
loved the Imitation and saw nothing either absurd,
impossible or selfish in its attitude. The famous
Leibnitz, in one of his letters, sums up the whole
position : " The Imitation of Christ is one of the
most excellent treatises that have been composed.
Happy is he who puts its contents into practice and
is not satisfied with merely reading them." Bernard
le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), the famous
essayist, a nephew of Corneille, has a curious and
felicitous passage about the book " le plus beau
qui soit parti de la main des hommes, puisque
1'Evangile n'en vient pas." There is a striking and
characteristic passage in J. F. de la Harpe (1739-
1 Letter -s, p. 77.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 279
1803), describing the emotions that arose from
casually reading the Imitation as he lay in prison.
An excitable and impressionable essayist he was
under sentence for libel it is perhaps not surprising
that the work should have had certain emotional
effects on him. The interest in the passage is that
it shows one of the many different types of mind
that are affected by the book. "J'avois sur une
table T Imitation ; et Ton m'avoit dit que dans cet
excellent livre je trouverois souvent la reponse a mes
pensees. Je 1'ouvre au hasard, et je tombe, en
1'ouvrant, sur ces paroles : me void, mon fils ! je
viens a vous parce que vous mavez invoque". Je n'en
lus pas davantage : 1'impression subite que j'eprouvai
est au-dessus de toute expression, et il ne m'est pas
plus possible de la rendre que de 1'oublier. Je tombai
la face centre terre, baigne de larmes, etouffe de
sanglot, jetant des cris et des paroles entrecoupdes.
Je sentois mon cceur soulag et dilate, mais en
meme temps comme pret a se fendre. Assailli d'une
foule d'idees et de sentiments, je pleurai assez long-
temps, sans qu'il me reste d'ailleurs d'autre souvenir
de cette situation, si ce n'est que c'est, sans aucune
comparaison, ce que mon cceur a jamais senti de
plus violent et de plus delicieux ; et que ces mots :
me void, mon fils ! ne cessoient de retenir dans mon
ame, et d'en ebranler puissamment toutes les facultes."
F. R. de Lamennais (1782- 1854), quoting this passage,
says : " Que de graces cachdes renferme un livre dont
un seul passage, aussi court que simple, a pu toucher
280 THOMAS A KEMPIS
de la sorte une ame longtemps endurcie par 1'orgueil
philosophique ! " l But he adds significantly : " Qu'on
ne s'y trompe pas, cependant : pour produire ces
vives et soudaines impressions, et meme un effet
vraiment salutaire, 1' Imitation demande un coeur
prepare." It is interesting to turn from these
French writers to English critics of even higher
rank. Thomas Carlyle felt the extraordinary charm
of the book, though he shows a characteristic scorn
for one of its commentators. In 1833 he sent to
his mother from Edinburgh a copy of the Imitation,
with an introduction by Chalmers. The latter he
declared was "wholly or in great part a dud" Of
the book itself he says, " None, I believe, except the
Bible, has been so universally read and loved by
Christians of all tongues and sects. It gives me
pleasure to think that the Christian heart of my
good mother may also derive nourishment and
strengthening from what has already nourished and
strengthened so many." 2 On the farther side of
Milman and Thackeray in point of time, we have
this striking testimony. On the hither side of these
writers we have an even more distinguished man
writing in subdued tones of the Imitation. Mr
Gladstone, in a letter dated March 5th 1861, wrote,
" I always think Thomas a Kempis a golden book
for all times, but most for times like these ; for
1 Limitation de Jtsus Christ, traduction nouvelle par M. 1'Abbd F.
de Lamennais (Paris, 1844, i2th Ed.), p. 5.
2 Fronde's Life, vol. ii. p. 337.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 281
though it does not treat professedly of sorrow, it is
such a wonderful exhibition of the Man of
Sorrows." A year later (April 4th 1862), he writes :
" I must at some time try to explain a little more
my reference to Thomas a Kempis. I have given
that book to men of uncultivated minds, who were
also Presbyterians, but all relish it. I do not believe
it is possible for any one to read that book earnestly
from its beginning, and think of Popish or non-
Popish, or of anything but the man whom it
presents and brings to us." x On the whole I think
the world will be prepared to accept the tribute of
Carlyle and Mr Gladstone rather than the criticism
of Thackeray and Dean Milman. Mr Gladstone's
reference to the acceptableness of the book to un-
cultivated minds may well be balanced by its equal
acceptableness to minds of the subtlest modern type
to Frenchmen such as Comte and Renan, to
Englishmen such as De Quincey and Matthew
Arnold. We are fortunately in a position to know
exactly what the Imitation meant to the latter
thinker. His Note- Books, as edited by Mrs Wode-
house, show that over this great and subtle mind the
work of a Kempis cast a spell that was as lasting as
it was all-embracing. I shall conclude this volume
by setting forth in detail the references to the
Imitation entered year by year in the workaday
note-book of the great poet- critic.
Matthew Arnold's Note-Books contain in brief his
1 Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 186.
282 THOMAS A KEMPIS
philosophy of life as set forth in the aphorisms of
favourite writers. The author from whom he quotes
most frequently and most continuously is Thomas a
Kempis, whose thoughts are frequently supplemented
by quotations from the New and Old Testaments and
the Apocrypha. In Mrs Wodehouse's little volume
there are extracts from the first, second, or third
books of the Imitation under the years 1857, 1859,
1863, 1868, 1873, 1878, 1883, and 1888. The fourth
book, the tract De Sacramento Altaris a work very
definitely separated from the other tracts, and
omitted altogether from many manuscripts of the
fifteenth century and from all the curious class of
manuscripts, mostly English, entitled Musica Ecclesi-
astica is not represented in the Note- Books. Its
formal theology and attitude differing from that of
the other tracts excluded it from Arnold's lists of
books to be read. He was in search of the philo-
sophy and not the theology of life, and one may
perhaps believe in view of its exclusion from the
Note-Books that his critical gift recognised, as many
transcribers of the fifteenth century recognised, a
different hand in a work in which, according to the
first printed edition, "specialiter tractatur de
venerabili sacramento altaris." The quotations from
the other books cover a period of over thirty years
and are numerous. There are in all about a hundred
extracts. It is difficult to tell the exact number, as
none of the Imitation quotations are referred to their
source, but I have verified nearly ninety and there
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 283
are others that could probably be traced without
much difficulty. It is a matter of considerable
critical interest to notice the passages that seemed
to carry special weight in Arnold's mind. The
Imitation has appealed to various types of literary
thinkers. To Leibnitz it was a work of the first
magnitude. He considered it " one of the most
excellent treatises that have been composed. Happy
is he who puts its contents into practice and is not
satisfied with merely reading them." To Dr
Johnson it appealed with peculiar force and
illuminated his dying hours. Renan felt its power
and praised its anonymity. To George Eliot it was
a mirror of the soul. Arnold did not write about
it, but he used it as persistently as the humblest
devotee. Here, he seems to say over and over
again in his Note- Books, is the philosophy of life
that conquers all things even death.
The key of this philosophy he found in the phrase
semper aliquid certi proponendum est (lib. i. cap. 19).
Life must always have a definite purpose. He
writes it first in his Note-Book for 1857 the year
of his election as the professor of poetry at Oxford
that and the further phrase from this chapter
secundum propositum nostrum est cursus profectus
nostri. The aliquid certi to him was a necessity, find
it where he could. It alone could shape the course of
life. The phrase is repeated over and over again in
the Note-Books. We find it in 1857, 1859, 1863,
twice in 1868 and in 1883. In 1873 it is omitted,
284 THOMAS A KEMPIS
but we have in its place the phrase Homo remissus
et suum propositum deserens varie tentatur (i. 13).
Matthew Arnold at this date had perhaps lost the
aliquid certi of earlier years. He had formally
abandoned much that had once seemed essential.
An enthusiasm for humanity, for work, for the
perfect personal life definitely replaced certainties
that had become uncertain.
The year 1868 is the year in which the Following
of Christ (to use the early English title) is most
voluminously quoted in the Note- Books. In that
year we find set out some twenty-two quotations
from the first book, eight from the second, and
seventeen from the third say some fifty in all.
The year was one of great intellectual activity and
great personal sorrows. It opened with the death
of his little son Basil and closed with the death
of his eldest son. In it appeared his Report on
Continental Universities and Schools. He also
seems to have been closely engaged in thinking out
the theological position that he began to develop in
1870. The various books actually read in that year
point to this conclusion. They included, besides
the three books of the Imitation, Romans, The
Synoptic Gospels, Aristotle s Ethics, George Herbert's
Poems, Wordsworth, Smiths Discourses, Robinson's
Sermons, Her kens Ideen, Reimers Goethe, Ldgende
Dorde, Renan on St Paul, Proverbs, and The Psalms
after Ewald.
The quotations from the Imitation for this year
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 285
form a continuous and complete philosophy of life.
They begin with the fundamental aphorism semper
aliquid certi proponendum est. Then follow two
quotations from the chapter De Doctrina Veritatis
(i. 3), that carry on the doctrine of the aliquid certi.
Bonus et devotus homo opera sua prius intus disponit
quae forts agere debet. But inward determination is
useless without inward conquest. Therefore it is
asked and declared, " Who strives more sternly than
he who strives to conquer himself? This is our
main affair : to overcome ourselves and daily to
become stronger than ourselves and move forward
toward better things " (i. 3). But a goal and a deter-
mination to gain it, even if coupled with the conquest
of self, is useless without work. Idleness is the great
enemy. Nunquam sis ex toto otiosus, sed aut legens,
aut scribens, aut orans, aut meditans, aut aliquid
utilitatis pro communi laborans (i. 19). But there
are other sides of life beside that of accomplishment.
The conquest of passion, the overcoming of tempta-
tion, the leading of a good life may be perhaps
included in that conquest of self which is essential
to the accomplishment of anything. But life includes
goodness for its own sake, inward peace that has no
utilitarian purpose, and faith in God which transcends,
in the hour of bitter grief, all human consolations.
We find on these themes a remarkable list of
passages from the Imitation. " By resisting passions,
not by obeying them is found true peace of heart "
(i. 6). " He who is unjust and unpurposeful has
286 THOMAS A KEMPIS
many temptations" (i. 13). The soul must fling
itself beyond the need of human consolations : " A
man should so rest in God that it would be needless
for him to seek many human consolations" (i. 12).
" If we were but more dead to ourselves and less
involved in earthly things, we should then be able
to taste divine things " (i. 1 1 ). Personal goodness
will give us this power. Resiste in principio inclina-
tioni tuae, et malam dedisce consuetudinem (i. u).
"If in each year we were to root out one vice,
quickly we should become perfect men " (i. 1 1 ).
And then follows the passionate cry, " O, if thou
didst but realise how much peace for thyself, how
much joy for others, thou wouldst gain by the nobler
life " (i. 1 1 ). This personal goodness is related both
to the perfect life, whose pattern is in heaven, and to
the active life that looks to the aliquid certi of this
world. But it is only by continual watchfulness
that any noble standard can be attained. "In the
morning make thy plans, in the evening examine
thy conduct how thou hast done this day in word,
deed, and thought" (i. 19). But if attained, it
abolishes selfishness : " The good man envies no
man since he loves no private joy" (i. 15). The
soul needs must seek the highest : Tu intende illis,
quae tibi praecipit Deus (i. 20), but must seek in
secret : Nemo secure apparet, nisi qui libenter latet
(i. 20). The spiritual life does not consist in
outward manifestation and power. It must grow,
like the cared- for seed, in secret. Melius est later e
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 287
et sui curam agere, quam se neglecto signa facere
(lib. i. 20).
Arnold then turns again to the necessity of a fixed
and definite purpose in life. It is true that the man
with a purpose may fail, but the man without a
purpose must fail : Si for liter proponens saepe deficit,
quid ille, qui raro aut minus fixe aliquid proponit ?
(i. 19). Watchfulness, he repeats, is ever necessary;
we must never slumber. How can there be peace
or rest till the heart is holy ? " Woe to us if we
yearn for rest, as if peace and safety were with us,
when as yet no sign of true holiness appears in our
lives " (i. 22). We must watch and pray : vigilandum
est et orandum, ne tempus otiose transeat (i. 10). We
must yearn for the nobler life and cry utinam per
unum diem bene essemus conversatiin hoc mundo (i. 23).
We must die to ourselves in order that we may live
unto God : quanta quisque plus sibi moritur, tanto
magis Deo vivere incipit (ii. 12). When at last we
have found peace, we can bestow it upon others :
Pone te primus in pace, et tune poteris alios pacificare
(ii. 3). But peace is not found in the world, except
by helping others. Talk will not do it : vellem me
pluries tacuisse, et inter homines non fuisse. To
help others is the way to spread the truce of God :
Siportari vis, port a et alium . . . sunt, qui seipos in
pace tenent, et cum aliis etiam pacem habent (ii. 3).
Arnold did not take Milman's view as to the pure
selfishness of Haemmerlein's philosophy. Altruism
was at least one aspect of it : si portari vis, porta et
288 THOMAS A KEMPIS
alium. Arnold quotes this more than once. He
might have supplemented it by a passage from the
same book : Diligantur homines propter Jesum (ii. 8).
Arnold's quotations go on to declare that there is
only one way that the peace-seeker can tread the
thorny way of the Cross : " The only way that leads
to life and a quiet conscience is the way of Holy
Cross where we die daily" (ii. 12). The one thing
needful for a man is to cast away all self-love and
to leave himself out of all count : quid illud summe
necessarium ? ut homo omnibus relictis se relinquat et
a se totaliter exeat, nihilque de private amore retineat.
The further we tread the thorny way the harder
it becomes. To rise grows harder and harder, for
the standard of abnegation rises too : et quanta
altius quis in spiritu profecerit, tanto graviores
cruces semper inveniet ; quia exilii sui poena magis
ex amore crescit (ii. 12). From these transcendental
regions of Christian mysticism described in the famous
chapter De Regia Via Sanctae Cruets a chapter
that brings into focus the whole mysticism of the
early Middle Ages the great critic turns, with an
instinctive grasp of the frailties of human nature, to
expose the dangers that so often threaten those who
attempt to tread the path of mystic religious
revivalism, and thereby become, in the sinister
eighteenth-century meaning of the phrase, enthusiasts.
He sets forth the warning that a Kempis takes from
Ecclesiasticus, " Beware of reaction and the desires
of the flesh " : post conciipiscentias tuas ne eas et a
L-
*-
WOODCUT FROM THK PARIS KDITION OK THK TRKATISK "DK 1MITA-
TIONE CHRISTI." ISSUKU IN 1 18.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 289
voluntate tua avertere (iii. cap 12). Return to the
aliquid certi, to the definite purpose with which you
set out : Forte serva propositum et intentionem rectam
ad Deum (iii. 6). The inward consciousness of
doing right, Arnold seems to feel with Martineau,
is the ultimate test of earthly and spiritual effort :
suaviter requiesces si cor tuum te non reprehenderet
(ii. 6). He adds : " Possess a good conscience and
ever joyful shalt thou be" (ii. 6). Truth dwells
within us, and from Truth we can draw perfect con-
solation : Beatum et verum solatium, quod intus a
veritate percipitur (iii. 16). The internal Will must
come into accord with the external Will : " Thy will
may it be mine and may mine follow Thine always
as in perfect harmony" (iii. 15). This doctrine of
the Inner Will and the Inner Fountain of Truth is
almost exactly that developed along other lines of
spiritual thought by Martineau. It is perhaps
singular that the Following of Christ should possess
a successive power of revelation that could meet the
spirituality of Martineau without breaking with the
Roman tradition. It is, however, just this power
that insures the book's immortality. It has a
message of consolation for the noblest of each
successive age.
The result of the union between the internal and
external will is the ennobling of the personal life.
"In the tearing away of all the lowest delights
appears thy blessing" (iii. 12). We shall rise above
the praise and glory of the world in this union of the
290 THOMAS A KEMPIS
inward will, drawing its strength for union from the
inward Truth, with the Creator : Non totus mundus
eriget, quern veritas sibi subjecit ; nee omnium
laudantium ore movebitur, qui totam spem suam in
Deo firmavit (iii. 14). The words of the world
fall unheeded : "if thy pathway is directed from
within thou wilt not greatly heed words that fly past
thee from without " (iii. 28). Spiritually armed you
can overcome all opposition. " Manfully you must
pass through all things and use a strong hand to
clear the way " (iii. 35). " To him that conquers is
given the heavenly manna, but to the slothful there
remain many miseries" (iii. 35). So we come back
again to the insistence on work. But the doctrine
of the aliquid certi, and of tireless toil, is now
supplemented by the union between the inward and
the outward realities. A sacred Tabernacle where all
doubts can be solved has been discovered, therefore
in qudlibet causa intra cum Moyse in tabernaculum
ad consulendum Dominum (iii. 38). That being
certain, we can return to the motive underlying all
spiritual philosophy. Arnold therefore again gives
us the aphorism : semper aliquid certi proponendum
est. This certainty will be reached by work, it will
be the reward of work : Age, quod agis ; fideliter
labor a in vinea medi ego ero merces tua (iii. 47).
But, it is again pointed out, outward show and the
seeking after praise are hinderers of inward peace :
" how sure a plan is it for the preserving of heavenly
grace to fly from the phantasm of earthly things, to
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 291
avoid those outward shows that seem to be a source
of wonder" (iii. 45). Instead lay hold on God,
being downcast by no burden : Fili, sta firmiter et
spera in me (iii. 46) ; " break not, my child, under
the burdens that thou hast, for my sake, taken upon
thee " (iii. 47). Bear all, cheerfully, manfully : eternal
life is worthy of all things : Scribe, lege, canta, geme,
tace, ora, sustine viriliter contraria ; digna est his
omnibus et majoribus proeliis vita aeterna (iii. 47).
Then death itself is swallowed in victory even in
this life : leva igitur faciem tuam in coelo / (iii. 47)
and the soul, triumphant in the dust, cries out :
"Thou, Lord, Thou alone amongst all are perfect
in faithfulness and beside Thee there is none other
such " (iii. 45). With these last words from the
Following of Christ did Arnold complete his year
of quotations and that philosophy of life which he
phrased in the rhythmic Latin of 4 Kempis. Without
peering with rude eyes into the inner life that stands
partly revealed by these note-books, we may say
that his philosophy gave him power to withstand
the slings and arrows of untimely death. His
eldest son had been taken away and yet he wrote
with the Augustinian, Tu, Domine, tu solus es
fidelissimus in omnibus, et praeter te non est alter
talis; and with Baruch (iv. 23), "for I sent you out
with mourning and weeping ; but God will give you
to me again with joy and gladness for ever."
The year 1868 was clearly one of stress and
storm, of sorrow, disappointment, accomplishment,
292 THOMAS A KEMPIS
and increasing purpose. Perhaps its most important,
if its least salient, result was the formation, or rather
the completion, of a philosophy of life that enabled
the poet-critic henceforth to move through the world
with a certain unimpairable serenity. As the years
go by, we see the old maxims repeated with assured
conviction of their truth. " If thou desirest to be
carried, carry another " ; " According as a man dies
to himself, so shall he begin to live unto God " ;
"He who is ungirt and unpurposeful suffers many
temptations"; "True inward peace is found not
by obeying but by resisting the passions " ; "In
the wrenching away of every base delight will
appear thy blessing." But there are also new
maxims : " Thou wilt rejoice at eventide if fruitfully
thou spendest the daylight" (i. 25). "Strive like a
man; let good root out evil" (cert a viriliter ; con-
suetudo consuetudine vincitur, i. 21). The note of
detachment from the world is perhaps deepened.
There is a sad quotation from the chapter de
Meditatione Mortis : " Sooner than thou thinkest
men will forget thee " (i. 23) ; and one hardly less sad
from the third book : "In the deep of thy judgments
on me all vain glory is vanished" (iii. 14).
When we reach the year 1878 we find a cheerier
mood and a mind less in revolt than was the case
ten years before. Ecce labora et noli contristari
he cries and adds, Gaudebis vespere si diem expendas
fructuose (i. 25). The doctrine of charity and self re-
velation is largely set forth. "In the same spirit that
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 293
thou lookest upon others shall they look upon thee "
(i. 25). In words that recall the famous saying of
St Francis he cries : " Thou art but what thou art ;
words cannot make thee better than thou art by
the witness of God" (ii. 6). "None but the
servants of the Cross find the way of blessedness
and perfect light " (iii. 56). " He indeed is great
who hath great love " (i. 3). These three passages,
one from each of the books, come together. They
certainly are strong evidence of the unity of con-
ception that binds the three books. The passage
from the third is a parallel to the passage from the
second quoted in 1868 : " Non est alia via ad vitam
et ad veram internam pacem, nisi via sanctae crucis
et quotidianae mortificationis " (ii. 12). The passage
from the second book is very closely paralleled by
the quotation from St Francis at the end of
the fifteenth chapter of the third: "for what
every one is in Thy sight, that he is and no more,
saith humble St Francis." The passage from the
first, vere magnus est, qui magnam habet cantatem,
is paralleled over and over again in all three.
Matthew Arnold next turns to the Doctrine of the
Way, giving two remarkable quotations from the
third book : " If thou continuest in My Way thou
shalt grasp the Truth, and the Truth shall set thee
free and thou shalt lay hold on the life eternal " (iii.
56). " I am the way, the truth, the life " : sine via non
itur, sine veritate non cognoscitur, sine vita non vtvitur
(iii. 56). The essential music of the Ecclesiastica
294 THOMAS A KEMPIS
Musica sounds through these phrases and draws the
mind to the subtle truths that they convey.
The critic turns from the ideal to the workaday
world again with the familiar aphorism twice before
repeated : " Never be altogether idle, but either be
reading or writing or praying or meditating or per-
forming some act of usefulness for the community "
(i. 19). Then again he turns to the doctrine of the
Way and repeats the quotation given above (Non est
alia via ad vitam . . . ) from the second book, and this
is followed by a repetition of the cry quoted in 1868 :
" O, if thou didst but realise how much peace for
thyself, how much joy for others thou wouldst gain
by the nobler life ! " (i. 1 1 ). Then we have four
quotations from the last chapter of the first
book that have not been given before : " Without
anxiousness and carefulness thou shalt not acquire
excellence " ; "If thou givest thyself over unto zeal
thou shalt find great peace and feel the lightening of
thy labour. The eager and careful man is ready
for all things." " Keep watch upon thyself, awaken
thyself, admonish thyself; and whatever be the
attitude of others, neglect not thine own life " ; " The
more thou restrainest thyself, the farther shalt thou
go." This is followed by three quotations from the
eighth chapter of the second book : " Without a friend
thou canst not live well, and if Jesus be not to thee
a friend above all friends, sad wilt thou be indeed
and desolate " ; " Be humble and peace-making and
Jesus will be with thee " ; " Be devout and calm and
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION 295
Jesus will abide with thee." But these aspirations
are hard to attain : " We reprove small things in
others, while greater acts in ourselves we pass over "
(ii. 5). The old conclusion is arrived at : "In the
wrenching away of all base delights will appear thy
blessing" (iii. 12). When we reach the year 1883 the
quotations have grown sparser, but the old note is
still predominant : Pone te primo in pace et tune
poteris alios pacificare (ii. 3). " All is vanity save the
loving of God and the serving of Him alone " (i. i) ;
" Thou Lord, Thou alone amongst all art perfect in
faithfulness, and beside Thee there is none other
such " (iii. 45). The old certainty seems to be return-
ing, for the Critic turns again to the old fundamental
proposition, Semper aliquidcertiproponendumest, and
adds the sentence, scias pro certo, quia morientem te
oportet ducere vitam (ii. 12) the sentence that
introduces the oft quoted aphorism, " According as
a man dies to himself, so shall he begin to live unto
God." And later in the same year we find two
quotations from the attack towards the end of the
third book on the natural man : " Nature is full of
greed, loves what is personal and her own, receives
freely rather than gives freely ; Grace is gentle and
loves others, lives an unseeking life, judging it better
to give than to receive " (iii. 54). " Nature is speedily
overcome by want and trouble " (iii. 54).
When we come to the few quotations in the last
year of Arnold's life we find the old themes still pre-
dominant : Resiste in principio inclinationi tuae, et
296 THOMAS A KEMPIS
malam dedisce consuetudinem (i. 1 1 ). " Begin perfectly
to conquer thyself and to walk sturdily in the Way of
God. Then thou wilt think less of those things that
before seemed to thee weighty" (ii. 4). " He truly
is wise that discerns things as they really are " (ii.
i). "The spiritually minded man can speedily take
courage, for his whole being is not devoted to out-
ward things " (ii. i). Arnold's last quotation is from
the same chapter : We must die unto ourselves if we
would not be displeased and troubled : Ideo multa
tibi displicent et saepe conturbant, quia adhuc non es
perfecte tibi ipsi mortuus.
The philosophy of life that Thomas a Kempis
taught is maintained to the last. It is in fact
summed up in a paradox the paradox that has
meant everything to the Christian mystic in all
ages he that would lay hold on personal im-
mortality must lay aside self. Matthew Arnold
realised and makes us realise that so far from the
philosophy of Thomas Haemmerlein being a selfish
philosophy, it is in fact the cult of selflessness and of
the highest altruism. " Put on the new man : and
be changed into another man." So spake the
mysterious Hermit in the market-place of Cologne
to Gerard Groote ; and so speaks Groote's disciple
to all who care to listen in the thronged market-place
of this "corruptible" world.
APPENDIX I
THE
DE MEDITATIONE CORDIS
OF
JEAN LE CHARLIER DE GERSON
CHANCELLOR OF PARIS
[The present text of this tract is based upon the Leipsic (?) edition printed
t>y Thanner (?), undated, the Milan edition of 1488, an edition of 1492,
without named place of origin, and the text contained in the Nuremberg
edition of the works of Thomas a Kempis, issued in 1494. The De Meditations
Cordis appears to have been first printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zel between
1467 and 1472 (British Museum, I. A. 2802). The text of this Editio princeps
differs in many small particulars, and in the last chapter differs entirely from
the text here printed. The Editio princeps includes other works by Gerson
(on the Seventh Psalm, etc). The work was printed again at Louvain (?) in
1480 (?) in a volume (British Museum, I. A. 43906) containing other tracts of
Gerson, such as the De Simplificatione Cordis. It was subsequently issued
with numerous editions of the De Imitatione Christi between 1485 and 1526,
and 1570 and 1575. There appears to be no modern edition. As an internal
test of the authorship of the Imitation the reader should contrast the style of
this work with the passage in Appendix II. from the pen of Thomas a Kempis,
and should compare both with the De Imitatione Christi.}
INCIPIT TRACTATUS VENERABILIS MAGISTRI
JOHANNIS GERSON CANCELLARII PARISIENSIS
DE MEDITATIONE CORDIS
CAP. I.
Meditatio cordis mei in conspectu tuo semper. Felix certe
qui cum propheta potest ex sententia dicere verbum istud deo.
Sed videamus in primis quid sit meditatio cordis, non pro carnali
solo sed spirituali corde. Est autem meditatio vehemens cordis
97
298 THOMAS A KEMPIS
applicatio ad aliquod investigandum et inveniendum. Et haec
applicatio fortis habet difficultatem quae quandocunque major
est quandocunque minor. Quod ut intelligatur presupponatur
ex creditis et ab experientia, cor nostrum conditum esse et tres
habere species oculorum mentales oculos rationales oculos
sensuales. Et ex illis est utrobique unus oculus in cognitionem
alius in affectionem. Fundatur haec distinctio in altera quod
dicimus hominem habere portionem seu faciem rationis duplicem,
quorum superior vertitur ad leges eternas, altera ad temporales,
neutra tamen in actu suo dependet ab organo corporeo. Sub
istis est ratio demersa corpori quae sensualitas appellatur.
Primus oculorum vocatur ab aliis oculus mentis, alter oculus
rationis, tertius oculus carnis.
CAP. II.
Fuerat ab initio bene conditae rationalis naturae talis ordo
ordinisque tranquillitas, quod ad nutum et merum imperium
sensualitas rationi inferiori et inferior ratio superior! serviebat,
et erat ab inferioribus ad superna pronus et facilis ascensus,
faciente hoc levitate originalis justitiae sublevantis sursum corda
quemadmodum naturaliter ignis sua levitate sursus fertur. At
vero postquam adversus dominum supremum ingrata proditio
demeruit auferri justitiam hanc originalem subintroiit pondus
gravissimum concomitans peccatum, quod miseram et captivatam
animam trahere non cessat ad infima, tanquam circumligatad sit
funibus, catenis et compedibus vincta, in mendicitate et ferro.
Sic quidem mirabili immo miserabili confusione facta est ordinis
prioris perversio, quod in homine sic merso tenebris et carcere
caeco conturbatus est in ira triplex utrimque oculus per im-
perfectionem in sensualitate per obnubilationem in inferiori
rationis perfectione et per quamdam excaecationem in superior!
rationis portione.
CAP. III.
Habemus ecce causam primam difficultatis quam in meditatione
sentimus, quam in habendis semper ad dominum oculis experimur.
Facit hoc penalis ilia gravedo deorsum jugiter impellens quemad-
modum videre est sensibiliter in aqueductu qui tota facilitate
APPENDIX I 299
defluit in(f )ima. 1 Continetur aut vel sursus levatur non nisi cum
violentia, non aliter cor ad infima pronum leviter effluit hac illacque
veluti sine retinaculo vel labore quum " facilis descensus Averni,"
ait poeta, " sed revocare gradus superasque evadere ad auras, hoc
opus, hoc labor est."
CAP. IV.
Perscrutemur consequenter ex praedictis naturam seu proprie-
tatem meditationis, quoniam ex hoc ipso quam necessaria nobis
ad deum tendentibus existat videbimus. Diximus autem et
repetimus quod meditatio est fortis et vehemens applicatio vel
attentio animi ad aliquod investigandum vel inveniendum fructuose.
Addimus fructuose ne meditatio vergat aut in suspicionem aut in
curiositatem aut in melancolicam stoliditatem. Dicamus ergo
complectentes quod meditacio est vehemens et salubris animi
applicacio ad aliquid investigandum vel experimentaliter cogno-
scendum. Ponimus hoc ultimum propter naturam ipsius affec-
tionis quae diversa sortitur nomina proportionaliter ad condicionem
cognitionis. Non enim potest aliter affectio cognosci quam ex-
perimentaliter ab eo qui per earn afficitur. Quam experimentalem
affectionis cognicionem non potest earn habens in alterum verbis
quibuslibet infundere nisi similiter affectus sit alter ille. Quoniam
solus novit (sicut in Apocalypsi scribitur) qui accipit. Propterea
vocatur manna absconditum. Exemplum est perspicuum in illo
qui novit dulcedinem mellis solum per doctrinam. Sic medicus
sanus noscit infirmitatis dolorem. Haec autem dulcedo a gustante,
hie dolor ab aegrotante aliter longe cognoscuntur.
CAP. V.
Perpendamus ex his quam profunde senserit propheta naturam
meditacionis dum ait "in meditatione mea exardescet ignis,"
utrumque enim complexus est, et lumen in intellectu et ardorem
in affectu. Quam vero sit difficile quod ignis devotionis spiritu-
alis exardescat flatu meditacionis fiet notum considerantibus
ignem materialem cum quaeritur a lignis aquosis viridibus luto
respersis elici. Suffla quantum potes, iterum atque iterum multo
conatu resuffla, emerget plurimus ab initio fumus conturbans
oculos, vix emicabit scintilla quae mox evanescet. Disperges
1 In the Editio princeps this reads "in yma." The correct MS. reading
was probably " in infima."
300 THOMAS A KEMPIS
forsitan iratus congesta prius ligna, si non in longanimitate
praestiteris : Quam longanimitatem appellamus hie meditationem
aut meditationi conjungendam.
CAP. VI.
Meminimus aliquas nos scripsisse doctrinas vel industrias
nedum latino sed Gallico sermone super habenda meditacione
tali. Licet fortassis uteremur aliis terminis in tractatulo de
mistica theologia, parte ea quae praxim ejus docet, et in altero
de monte contemplacionis edito, in altero rursum de mendicitate
spiritual! compilato. Denique tanta reperitur difficultas, tanta
per diversitatem hominum varietas, in practicando doctrinam
verae sanctaeque meditacionis, quod an silere vel aliquid scribere
consultius sit videor egomet mihi ipsi quandoque sub dubio
fluctuans.
CAP. VII.
Dum enim recogito quod absque meditacionis exercitio nullus,
secluso dei miraculo speciali, ad perfectionem contemplacionis
dirigitur aut pervenit, nullus ad rectissimam Christianae religionis
normam vir se componit, audeo zelans ardeoque studium sanctae
meditacionis suadere. At vero, dum totiens expertus pericula
sedulus recogito difficultatem et arduam raritatem perveniendi
quo trahere meditatio nititur, ego quasi torpens et stupidus efficior.
Quaesierit aliquis quo pacto sic venit quod nimium frequenter
expertum est studium meditationis converti dilabique in morbum
melancolicae passionis propter immoderacionem, vel propter super-
biam dari in reprobum sensum diabolycae illusionis.
CAP. VIII.
Manducamus exemplis id quod dicimus : scimus vinum in
jocunditatem et hominis salutem conditum esse. Sic enim scrip-
tura, sic ratio loquitur. Videmus tamen ex abusu potantium, prae-
sertim dum febrium discrasia laborant, quod potus vini, alioquin
salubris, causat vel aegritudinis augmentum vel maniam et
furorem aut quandoque mortem. Nos autem filios omnes Adam
quis aegrotos quis febricitantes esse pessimis animae febribus
negaverit? Quibus utuntur in nauseam et amaritudinem optima
divinorum eloquiorum verba, quibus in fel convertitur suavissi-
mus divini verbi panis. Heu miseros heu quam ex intima
APPENDIX I 301
consideracione talis miseriae conclamavit apostolus "Infelix,
ego, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?" Subjungit,
" Gratia Dei per Jesum Christum."
CAP. IX.
Quid agimus ergo? Quid abimus precipites per abrupta
viciorum ? Ibimusne post desideria cordis nostri et in adinven-
tionibus nostris pessimis, desperati, sine lege, sine freno, sine
ordine? Num quidem sufficient nobis cogitationes instabiles,
sordidae, fluxae, somniorumque simillimae, quae non consola-
tiones vel edificationes allaturae sunt, sed desolacionem, mesticiam,
et ruinam, oblectantibus se in eisdem? Respondebimus ne-
quaquam id fieri debere, sed adsit discretio moderatrix in omni-
bus, quam non securius habere post divinam gratiam poterimus,
quam per sedulum et securum alterius experti, nosque diligentis
et agnoscentis, consilium.
CAP. X.
Clamat Aristoteles, vocem experientiae loquens, quod ars et
vita sunt circa difficilia, ut ars pingendi, ars scribendi, ars
cytharizandi ; virtus caritatis, virtus fortitudinis, virtus sobrietatis ;
hoc verum sic intelligendum est, quod ab initio virtus et ars
multas in acquisitione sua patiuntur difficultates, dum vero fuerint
conquisitae facilia sunt eis. Omnia pingit faciliter pictor exerci-
tatus in arte ; sic de scriptore, sic de cytharizante, videmus, ita ut
dixerit idem Aristoteles quod ars perfecta non deliberat, tarn
sibi facilis est actus suus. 1
CAP. XI.
Utamur ista comparatione dum de meditatione loquimur ;
attendamus quod in trahendo passim lineas picturae vel scrip-
turae difficultas nulla est, sicut nee in discussione digitorum
per cytharae chordas. Invenimus similiter in cogitatione ; non
enim difficulter aut laboriose nunc hoc nunc illud prout occur-
rerit cogitatur. Sed quod nullus inde resultet effectus vides in
sic pingente sic scribente et sic cytharizante, ita neque prorsus in
1 In the Editio princtps (Cologne, 1467-72) the "Nona Consideratio "
comprises chapters ix. and x. as given in the above text. The edition is
divided into seventeen " Considerationes," each of which has its own title.
302 THOMAS A KEMPIS
sic cogitante : immo cum se talibus cogitationibus vagis oblec-
taverit, ut dicit Seneca, tristis remanebit. Porro laboriose,
studiose, et attentissime, cum mira tarditate pingendo, scribendo,
et cytharizando, fit quandoque ut bene et celeriter ista fiant.
CAP. XII.
Quorsum ista? Nimirum ut ostendamus queumadmodum de
cogitatione nullus unquam proficiet aut emerget in meditationem ;
quanto minus in contemplationem. Ex meditatione vero quae
summam habet difficultatem, si bona fide, simplici, et discreta,
diligenter exerceater, perveniemus ad hanc perfectionem, quod
absque ulla difficultate fiet apud nos fructuose quod summo
meditationis studio conquirere voluimus. Ita denique tran-
sibit meditatio in contemplationem ; non enim differt meditatio
a contemplatione nisi penes facile et difficile, quum utrobique est
fructus aliter quam in cogitatione.
CAP. XIII.
Describitur autem contemplatio quod est liber et expeditus
mentis intuitus in res perspiciendas usquequaque, et hoc quoad
contemplationem quae respicit intellectum ; porro quoad con-
templationem quae constitit in affectu et in praxi, describit earn
Hugo quod est per sublevantem mentis jubilum mors quaedam
carnalium desideriorum. Hoc est gustare quam suavis est
Dominus ; quern gustum sequitur alia longe cognitio : quoniam
fuerit intellectualis solum visio vel quaedam auditio per fidem
aut per scripturam.
CAP. XIV.
Meditabitur ecce aliquis, gemens et suspirans ut columba,
dicet cum propheta, " meditatus sum nocte cum corde meo, exer-
citabar et scopebam spiritum meum." Facit hoc anxie difficulter
et laboriose recogitando, nunc omnes annos suos in amaritudine
animae suae, nunc judicia Dei quae sunt abyssus multa in coelo
sursum et in abyssis deorsum, et ita de reliquiis circa quae
versatur meditantis attentio vehemens, ut ea quae meditatur vel
cogitat limpidius vel firmius in affectum suum trahat, efficiet
tandem ut haec omnia tanta felicitate recogitet et sapiat. Quam
APPENDIX I 303
facilis est ipsa cogitatio decent nos exempla praedicta si dubi-
tamus, non enim plus laboris habent scriptor, pictor, cytharista,
bene agendo quod optima didicerint, quam vagus et vanus aliquis
ab initio discurrens sine arte et ordine per lineas picturae vel
scripturae aut per cytharae chordas.
CAP. XV.
Addendum est ad praemissa nihilominus quod vir est aliquis
ita perfectus in arte sua quin assidue possit ad aliqua vel
cognoscenda vel agenda proficere qualia necesse est ut non
habeat cum labore. Multo magis hoc verum est in ipsa de qua
loquimur meditatione quae novos veritatis aut devotionis fetus
jugiter parere student. Sed non deest parturitionis dolor
propter illud maledictum, spiritualiter intellectual, "in dolore
paries filios tuos " : non meminit tamen passurae propter
gaudium quod natus est sibi novus cognitionis et affectionis
sanctae fetus in animi sui mundum.
CAP. XVI.
Venit autem ab initio frequentius ut dum aliquis nondum
purgatus a viciis satagit meditari ut columba, meditatur quasi
vetus simia dolos [et] odia, meditatur sicut canis rabiosa
" silentia rodens," juxta verbum satirici, meditatur quasi sordida
sus, dum foedissimas in animo versat reversatque cogitationes.
Quid porro de blasphemii spiritu, quam abominabilis, quam
horridus non nunquam resurgit, territans meditantem, loquens
adversus Deum sanctos sanctasque ingentia quae nee fari licet ?
Jaciuntur infidelitatis jaculae, baratrum desperationis aperietur.
Experimentum quoque manifestat quam recte jusserit sapiens
"fill, accedens ad servitutem Dei, praepara animam tuam ad
tentationem " Sequitur praesidium certissimum " sta in timore :
beatus enim vir qui semper est pavidus."
CAP. XVII.
Pavidus vero semper quo modo beatus quaeret aliquis dum timor
additur timori scrupulus scrupulis pusillanimitas pusillanimitati,
praesertim cum non adest assidue conciliator dux et permon-
strator itineris arti et recti : si vero talis qui rarus est inventus
304 THOMAS A KEMPIS
forte fuerit cum otio novum meditantem instruendi quantum
libuerit, felix quidem erit ipse novus tiro. Si tamen protinus
absque ulla trepidatione paratus est credere concilio, sed O
quoties bone Jesu, quoties hesitabit et idem repetet iterum
iterumque, quasi falli reformidans, quaeret idem, denique non
utetur erga dantem sibi concilium doctrina Jacobi, quae est ut
postulet in fide nihil haesitans. Scripsi quaedam super hujus-
modi scrupulis tractatulo de praeparatione ad missam ; aliquid
similiter de cautelis contra spiritual blasphemiae durissimum :
adversus quae remedium optimum est contemnere nee curare
quin potius irridere. Neque super his solicite confiteri, nisi
forsitan in principio pro cautela ad habendum concilium.
De scrupulis vero teneatur haec regula, quod adversus eos
agendum est, si ita prudens aliquis et expertus conciliator
dicta verit, mandaverit, aut jusserit, nee aget in hoc contra
consciam suam demeritorie, dum illam ad concilium sapien-
tiorum per rationis libertatem ab animo suo mutat et disponit,
quamvis assidue sensualitatis remurmuratio forte sentiatur;
alioquin nunquam net in pace Deo locus cordis. Rursus
advertendum quod, sic dicente Aristotele, omnis nostra cognitio
venit a sensu, iterum necesse est omnem intelligentem phantas-
mata speculari. Sic originatur meditatio nostri cordis a sensi-
bilibus quae figurata sunt et colorata et caeteris accidentibus
temporis et loci circumvoluta. Hinc sunt meditationes con-
scriptae hinc imagines pictae vel sculptae hinc generaliter fit
istud psalmistae, " meditatus sum in omnibus operibus tuis et in
factis manuum tuarum meditabar," quae utique facta vel opera
sunt corporalia. Nihilominus debet assurgere meditans et
ultra progredi, veluti per scalam aliquam, ex visibilibus ad
invisibilia: sicut dicit Apostolus, "quoniam invisibilia Dei, ex
his quae facta sunt intellecta, conspiciuntur, sempiterna quoque
virtus ejus et divinitas." Propterea, docens nos a corporalibus
ad spiritualia migrare, dicebat, "et si Christum secundum
carnem cognovimus, nunc tamen secundum carnem non cognos-
cimus."
CAP. XVIII.
Advertendum vero quod meditaturis duplices inter caeteras
tenduntur insidiae, una dum petunt concilium super occurrentibus
scrupulis in meditatione sua, praesertim mulier a viro ; altera
APPENDIX II 305
dum sunt in actu meditationis. Fit in primo casu crebrius et levius
quam a multis credi potest aglutinatio quaedam animorum velata
pallio sanctae devotaeque dilectionis. Quae primo confabula-
tionibus sub tipo quaerendi concilii quaeritur ; de hinc anima
veluti confricata calescit et sensim igne caeco carnalis amoris
carpitur et uritur, nee intelligitur primo donee tandem ad risus
leves ad facetos blandosque gestus perventum est Avertat Deus
a servis suis quod reliquum silemus. " Timeo " inquit apostolus
" ne dum spiritum coeperitis came consumamini." Scripsi jam
pluries talia consequenter ad Augustinum, nominatim in tracta-
tulo de probatione spirituum. Incurrunt aliud periculum medita-
tiones dum in solis phantasiis, dum solis imaginibus corporeis
se tradunt, et toto corde vehementer incumbunt; fit perinde
quod meditans dum transire satagit in contemplationem collabatur
ad melancolicam seu phantasticam lesionem, ita tandem ut imagines
iterum versatas in imaginativa virtute pro rebus ipsis exterioribus
accipiat; et sic evenit in somniantibus dum dormiunt. Non
aliter istis in vigilia contingit, quorum verba et opera nulla inter
se conectione nullum ordinem servant ubi neque est principium
neque finis ubi, sicut vulgo dicitur, neque est caput neque cauda,
sed de gallo fit saltus ad cygnum, ita ut vigilantes sonaniare
videantur, de quolibet dicunt vulgares, " ilz resuent on font en
resuerie." Porro timent non timenda sperant non speranda, nunc
gaudio dissolvuntur nunc subito maerore tabescunt ; quales
egent amplius fomento Socratis quam monitione sapientis.
Explicit Johannis Gerson Cancellarii Parisiensis de Meditatione
Cordis. 1
APPENDIX II
Liber Ortuli Rosarum Thomae Kempis Capitulum XVI. de amort
Christi et odio mundi.
Manete in dilectione mea. Vox Christi vox dulcis ad audiendum,
salubris omnibus ad obediendum. Amor Christi jocunditas mentis,
paradisus animae; excludit mundum, vincit diabolum, claudit infer-
num, aperit coelum. Amor Christi et mundi contrarii sunt et nihil
1 The I ;th Contideratio of the Editio frincefs is entirely different.
306 THOMAS A KEMPIS
commune habent, nee simul commorari possunt. Amor Christ!
currus helye [helii ?] ascendens in coelum ; amor mundi quadriga
dyaboli trahens ad infernum. Amor sui lesio sui : oblivio mundi
inventio celi. Plus nocet blanda locutio ficti amici : quam dura
correptio hominis justi. Cogitatio dolosi fingit mendatia ; mens
justi recte procedit in causis. Non evadet scandalum, qui alteri
infert scandalum. Rector et cognitor omnium Deus non diu
patitur oviculam suam errare et balare, sed aut baculo timoris
feriens revocat, aut amoris oculo intuens ad consciam reducit.
Ubi pax et concordia : ibi Deus et omnia bona. Ubi lis et
dissensio : ibi diabolus et omnia mala. Ubi humilitas : ibi
sapientia. Ubi superbia : ibi radix maliciae. Vince superbiam :
et invenies pacem magnam. Ubi dura verba : ibi laeduntur
charitatis viscera. Ubi solitudo et silentium : ibi quies
monachorum. Ubi labor et disciplina : ibi perfectus religios-
orum. Ubi risus et dissolutio : ibi fugit devotio. Ociosus et
verbosus raro compunctus, raro a delicto purus. Ubi prompta
obedientia : ibi laeta conscientia. Ubi fabulatio longa : ibi operis
negligentia. Ubi propria exquisitio : ibi caritatis defectus. Ubi
doctrina Christi viget : ibi salus animae crescit. Ubi fratrum con-
cordia : ibi dulcis melodia. Ubi mediocritas servatur : ibi virtus
concordiae diutius perseverat. Ubi discretio in corripiendo
culpas aliorum custoditur : ibi nemo juste conqueri debet nee
facile praelato indignari. Inquit quidam " omnibus adde modum :
modus est pulcherrima virtus." Ubi patientia : ibi magna hostis
victoria. Ubi turbatio intrat : ibi pax cito de domo recedit.
Claude oris ostium et pondera verba tua antequam loquaris. Ubi
fides et veritas ibi pacis securitas. Ubi dolus et nequitia : ibi
stulta cogitatio et caeca prudentia. Ubi caritas : ibi spiritus
sanctus. Ubi levis suspitio : ibi frequens indignatio. Ubi
veritatis cognitio : ibi recta cordis laetitia. Ubi ficta narratio :
ibi saepe amici deceptio latet. Ubi humilis confessio : ibi facilis
veniae impetratio. Ubi terrena sapientia deficit : ibi divina pro-
tectio amplius est invocanda. Quicunque malitiose injusta prae-
tendit, ipse malum finem consequetur. Pax multa bene agenti
et ad patientiam se preparanti. Vae impio in malo et ficto in
bono, quoniam nemini plus nocet iniquitas sua quam ipsa sibi.
Ubi duplicitas : ibi inconstantia et multa nequitia. Bene simplici
et justo sine dolo, quoniam Deus cum eo dirigens omnia opera
ejus itinere recto. Qui verbum suum male servat quis facile ei
APPENDIX II 307
credet ? qui autem verbum suum in melius mutat, verbum veritatis
non infringit. Delectabile est bona audire, sed laudabile magis
opere exercere. Optima collatio vitae emendatio ; fructus bonae
collationis abstinere a peccatis et proficere in virtutibus. Fructus
devotae orationis unire cor suum cum Deo in fervore sancti spiritus.
Ille devote orat qui omnia vana a se excludit. Qui imaginem
crucifixi sibi praeponit, Diabolica phantasmata cito repellit. Pulchra
animae imaginatio passionis Christi jugis recordatio. Qui sacra Jesu
vulnera quotidie pensat mentis suae vulnera mitigat purgat et
curat. Qui omnia terrena tanquam lutum vilipendit nee honores
desiderat, cordis mundiciam acquirit et ideo libere vacare potest.
Ille Deum summe laudat et honorat qui se ipsum profunde
humiliat et defectus suos caute considerat gemit et plorat.
Magnus clamor in auribus Dei 1 vera contritio cordis ex ore
humilis pectoris. Quidquid boni facis ad laudem Dei facias.
Qui virtutes suas et aliorum quaelibet opera bona simpliciter et
integre pure et libere ad laudem et honorem Dei refert, totum
Deo ascribendo, nil meritis suis nee viribus attribuendo, sed ab
omnibus se spoliat et denudat, superbiam invidiam et vanam
gloriam funditus calcat et necat. Eterna namque gloria et honore
se privat qui in se et non in Deo solo summo bono gaudet.
Ideoque beata virgo Maria pro maximis donis sibi collatis in suo
devotissimo cantico jubilans dicit " exultavit spiritus meus in Deo
salutari meo." " Qui se aliquid esse putat cum nihil sit se ipsum
seducit " ait apostolus Paulus, qui in tertium caelum raptus 2 non
est ex hoc elatus, sed quidquid boni fecit, docuit, et dictavit, hoc
totum fideliter Deo attribuit, dicens " Gratia Dei sum id quod
sum." 3
1 Compare de Imitations Christi, lib. iii. cap. 5 : " Magnus clamor in
auribus Dei est ipse ardens affectus animae quae dicit : Deus meus ! amor
meus ! Tu totus meus, et ego tuus ! " This identity of phrase (hitherto un-
noticed) is remarkable (see p. 214 above).
2 Com pare de Imitatione Christi, lib. ii. cap. 12: " Etiamii raptui fuerii
in tertium coelum cum Paulo."
1 Nuremberg Edition, 1494, of the works of Thomas a Kempis, fol. 157*.
INDEX
ABELARD, 181, 257-9, 263
Adam of Usk, 9 (n.)> 38-40
Adrian V. (Pope), 21.
Age of Thomas a Kempis, 103-5
Agnes, Mount St, 83, 88-92
Alain de Lille, 188
Albertus Magnus, 66, 254, 263
Alcuin, 255
Alexander III. (Pope), 59-60
Alexander V. (Pope), 30-1
Alfege, St, 257
Ambrose, St, 115
Anagni, Popes resident at, 6
Andronicus, Emperor of the East, 5
Anne of Savoy, 5
Anselm, St, 66, 193-4, 257
Aquinas, Thomas, 66, 67, 186, 188,
254, 263
Aquisgranense Capilulare, 53
Aristotle, 180, 181, 262
Arnold's, Matthew, Note-books, 28 1 -96
Aronensis, Codex, 182, 190 (and
Introduction)
Arundel, Archbishop, 65
Augsburg edition of the Imitation
(1471?), 119, 125
Augustine, St, 115, 185, 186, 199
et seq., 215, 253
Aurelius, Marcus, 253
Avignon, 4, 7, 8, 12, 14, 17
BARLAAM, Bernard, the Calabrian,
5, 20
Babylon of the West, Avignon, the, 8
Bacon, Roger (The Admirable
Doctor}, 67, 254
Bale, John, Bishop of Ossory, 151, 154,
159, 161
Basle, Council of, 13
Bellere, Jean, printer, of Antwerp
(<* 1595), 96
Benedict XI. (Pope), 7
Benedict XII. (Pope), 5, 7
Benedict XI II. (Pope), 17,22,27-8,35
Bernard, St, 71, 124, 139, 140, 172,
186, 197, 201, 207-16, 251, 259, 260
Bernardus de Benalus, Venetian
printer of 1488, 127
Berri, Due de, 27
Bessarion's, Cardinal, edition of
Bernard, 180-1
' Bible, the Imitation and the, 176-9
Black Death, 2, 72
Blois, Henry de, 57
Bodleian MSS. of the Imitation,
117-8, 122, 164, 169 (also List)
Boethius, Severinus, 254
Boheme, the rector of Deventer
Grammar School, 86
Bonaventura, St, 67, 151, 152, 197,201
Bonham, William, bookseller, 155
Boniface VIII. (Pope), 6, 21
Boswell, 277
Bridget of Sweden, St, 10-13, 51
Britannicus, Jacobus, printer, of
Brescia, in 1485, 123-4
British Museum MSS. of the Imita-
tion, 106-17 (also List)
Brothers of Common Life, 64, 81-3,
85-93 99-10
Burgundy, Duke of, 29, 44
But, Adriaan de, Flemish chronicler,
98, 169
CABOCHE the Burgundian, 33
Cajetan, Constantine (advocate of the
claims of Gersen of Vcrcelli), 141
(and Introduction)
Calor T Canor, and Dulcor, 71, 91
Canabaco, Johannes de, 140
Cantacuzene, the Emperor of the
East, 5
Carisiaca, Synodus, 54
Carlyle, Thomas, 280
Catharine of Siena, St, 10, I3-I4 S 1
Celestines at Lyons, 46
Chalons-sur-Saone, Council of, 54
Charlemagne, 5
109
310
INDEX
Charles VI., 19, 29
Chaucer, 83, 183
Cherubim and Seraphim, 193
Chrysostom, 253
Clement V. (Pope), 7
Clement VI. (Pope), 5, 7
Clement VII. (Pope), 7, 17, 18, 21, 22
Clive, Theodoric, 99, 100
Cloves-hoo, Council of, 58
Colini, Johannes, a Metz printer,
in 1481, 120-1
Constance, Council of, 36-45, 51,
1 12-3
Constantine, the Emperor, 5
Constantinople, 3
Contemplatione, De, 106-7, 262
Cur Deus Homo (Anselm), 193
DANTE ALIGHIERI, 194, 195, 196,
20 1, 204
David of Augsburg, 69
Dionysius Areopagus, 192, 233
Dominic, St, 263
Third Order of St, 13
Dundee, education in, in the Middle
Ages, 62
Duns Scotus, 67, 224
Dygoun, John, the Scribe of Sheen,
165, 266
ECKHARDT, Meister, 69, 73, 75, 205
(n.), 215, 216, 264
Elijah, 201
English Mysticism, 68
Enoch, 201
Erigena, John Scotus, 186,192,231,255
Eugenius II. (Pope), 54
Everyman, 195
Exmeuse, William, the English
mystic, 143
FIELDING, Henry, 278
Filioque Clause, the, 4
Fishlake, Thomas, English mystic, 152
Fitzstephen, William ("History of
London," 1180), 60
Flack, Martin, Argentine printer in
1487, 126
Flete, William, the English mystic
(1380), 142-3
Florentius of Deventer, 51, 86-9
Fontenelle, B. le B. de, 278-9
Fontibus, Lowys de, the English
mystic, 143, 152
Francis, St, 196-9, 263
Franciscus de Madiis, Venetian printer
in 1486, 125
GALLIPOLI, capture of, by the Otto-
mans, 3
Geersem, 117
Geneva, mediaeval education at, 62
Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.), 173,
256-7, 263
Gerlac, John, 102-3
Gersem, 117
Gersen of Vercelli, 117 (and Intro-
duction)
Gerson, Jean le Charlier de, 2, 8, 15-
51, 112, 224, 225, 227
Gladstone, William Ewart, 280-1
Glasgow, education in, in the Middle
Ages, 62
Gloucester, mediaeval education at, 64
Gospel," " the Everlasting, 261
Grabon, Matthew, at the Council of
Constance, 43
Greek Church, 4, 9
Gregory the Great (Pope), 115, 192
Gregory IX. (Pope), 21
Gregory XI. (Pope), 7, 12, 15,21
Gregory XII. (Pope), 17, 28, 35
Groote, Gerard, 51, 77-83, 296
HAEMMERLEIN (Thomas a Kempis),
83, 87, 91, 173. 197, 287
Hampole, Richard Rolle of (see Rolle)
Hatton, Hon. Charles, 145-150
Hickes,George,the Non-juror, 143, 150
Hierotheus, 233
Higman, Almanus, Parisian printer
in 1489, 128
Hilton, John, 143, 151
Hilton, Walter, 73,97, 113, 139-69
Hirsche, Dr, and the authorship of the
Imitation, 139, 184, 187, 189, 212
Horsley, Adam, 153, 166, 169
Hugo of St Victor, 66
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 140,
IS7
Hus, John, 34, 42-3
Hutton, Rev. A. W.,74
Imitation, the, MSS. and editions of
(see Lists)
Immaculate Conception, doctrine of,
16-9
Ingram, Dr I. K., the editor of the
mediaeval English version of the
Imitation, 163
INDEX
311
Inge, Rev. W. R., 75, 230-3
Innocent III. (Pope), 140, 262
Innocent VI. (Pope), 5, 7, 17, 21
Innocent VII., 28
Innocentia Puerili, Gerson's tract De,
24
JEANNE D'ARC, 15, 46, 52
Jerome, St, 115
Joachim the Cistercian, 261
John XXII. (Pope), 7
John XXIII. (Pope), 31-41
Johns Gospel, St, no
Johnson, Samuel, 276-8
KEMPEN, the town of, 84
Kempis, John a, 83, 99, 100, 118,
122, 140
Kempis, Thomas a, 83-103, 135 (and
see Parts IV. and V. passim)
and the Renaissance, 172
and Scholasticism, 223-5
Kirchheim Manuscript (1425) of the
Imitation, 96
Ladder of Spiritual Perfection, Hil-
ton's, 142
Lanfranc, 257
Lateran, Fourth Council of, 54 (n.), 55
Third Council of, 54 (n.), 60
Latin Fathers, the four, 115
Laude Scriptorum, De, Gerson's, 49
Laurence, St, 191
Lawisby, John, 159
Lee, Francis, 150
Leland, John, 155
Leo III. (Pope), 54
Leonardus Pachel de Alamania,
printer of Milan in 1488, 127-8
Little Alphabet of a Monk, 211
Lollardy, 65, 72, 80, 172
Lombard, Peter, 66, 260
London education in the Middle Ages,
61
Loslein, Peter, printer of Venice,
1483, 121
Louis, St, 19
Ludolph of Saxony, 140
Lucan, 183, 184
Luce, Johannes, printer of Lune-
borch in 1493, 131-2
Lyons, Gerson at, 50, 51
MAGANZA, John Peter de, Florentine
printer in 1497, 133
Magister Sf alarum, 56-60
Malleolus (Thomas a Kempis), 243
Manuscripts of the Imitation (see Lists)
Margaret, Princess, edition of
Imitation, 1504, 168
Mark, Gospel of St, little used by
Thomas a Kempis, 176
Martineau, James, 289
Master of Masters, Christ the, 226
Maurice, Emperor of the East, 37
Maximus of Turin, 191
Mechthild of Magdeburg, 73
Meditatione Cordis, De, 49, 122-136,
and Appendix I (text of)
Milman, H. H., 273-5
Mittelhus, Georgius, Parisian printer
in 1496, 132-3, 201, 217
Montesson, Jean de, 16-19
Musica Ecdesiastica, 139-169
NEO-FLATONISM, Christian, 230
Netherlands, Mysticism in the, 202
New learning, i, 2
Nicolas I. (Pope), 54
Nicolas V. (Pope), 140
Nirvana, 231
ORLEANS, Due de, 27
Ottoman Turks, 3
Ovid, 181-183
Oxford, 65
schools at, 56
PAL^EOLOGUS, John, 5
Manuel, 6
Paris, Theological Faculty of, 17
University of, 16, 27, 65
Passion of Our Lord, MS. of, 108
Paul's School, 63
Pery, John, 143
Peter, Apocalypse of,\<)\
Petit, Jean, 29, 33, 44, 47, 52
Petrarch, 5, 7
Philip the Fair, 6
Philo, 253
Pierre d Ailly, 16, 17-19, 37
Pisa, Council of, 29, 30, 40
Pitreius, Theodorus, 149
Pits, John, bibliophile, 145-6, 147,
148, 165
Plato, 262
Pliny, 183-4
Plotinus, 201, 206-7, 217, 230-2,
253
312
INDEX
Possevinus, 149
Prague, 34
Priviligiati, the, 71, 76
Pseudo-Dionysius, 233 (see Dionysius)
Purgation, illumination, consumma-
tion, 246
Puyol, Monsignor, 180, 182, 183
Pygouchet, Philip, Parisian printer in
1491, 130-1
Pynson, Richard, London printer in
1503. 137
QUADRIVIUM, 16, 53
Quincey, de, 281
RABANUS MAURUS, 255
Rainaluzzi, Peter, 140
Ratdolt, Erhardt, printer of Augsburg
in 1488, 129
Revelations of St Bridget, 110-12
Richard II., King of England, 34
Richard, "hermit," 70
Richard of St Victor, 66, 72, 261
Rienzi, 9
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 69-72,
83, "3
Romanum, Concilium, 54
Ruysbroek, John of, 75, 216, 221-2,
264
Sacramento Altaris, De, treatise, 156-
7, 166, 219-20, 245-6
Salisbury, John of, 260
Sancroft, Abp., and Hilton's claim,
161
Schism, the Great, 7, 17, 27-45
Scotus, Duns, 67, 224
Scotus Erigena (see Erigena)
Seneca, 181
Sergius II. (Pope), 54
Sermon, Gerson's vivat rex, 25
Sheen, Monastery of, 155-9, 165-6
Shirlaw, Walter, the English mystic,
H3
Simlerus (bibliophile), 149
Sisters of Common Life, Si, 92
Sixtus (Pope), 191
Subutai, the Tartar general, 3
Suso, Henry, 75, 216, 218-21, 264
Sweden, the New Mysticism in, i,
10-13
Syon, Monastery of (see Sheen)
TAULER, John, 74, 75, 217, 218,
239, 264
Terence, MS. of, in
Thackeray, W. M., 275-6, 281
Theodolfi Capitulare, 53
Theologia Germanica, 216
Theological Consolations, 45, 46
Thomacelli, Pietro, 27
Thurgarton, Walter de (Hilton), 151
Timour, 6
TraM de Mendicitt Spirituelle, Ger-
son's, 22-3
Trechzel, Johannes, printer of Louvain
in 1489, 129
Trent, Council of, 19
Trivium, 16, 53
Turin, Council of (858), 54
UBERTINUS de Casalis, 140
Ulpho, husband of St Bridget, 10
Urban V. (Pope), 5, 7, 12
Urban VI. (Pope), 7, 15, 17, 80
VALERIAN, the Emperor, 191
Victor, Hugo of St, 66. 260, 263
Victor, Richard of St, 66, 261
Victorinus Afer, 205-6
Virgil, 183
Vorniken, William, 91, 99
WALKER, Obadiah, 147, 150, 155,
160
Wenceslaus, King, 33-4
West, Johannes, 156, 157
Westfalia, John de, printer at Louvain,
1486, 124
Wicksteed, Mr P., 194, 196-7
Wiclif, 34, 72, 172
William, Abbot of St Theodoric,
211-12
Windesheim, 91, 93
Wolfius, Reiner, 155
Ymitatione Christi, De, 126, 131
ZABARELLA, Cardinal, styles Gerson
Super-excellens Doctor Christiani-
tatis, 45
Zeiner, John, printer of Ulm in 1487,
126-7, 222
Zwolle, the town of, 81, 83, 89, 99
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FICTION
37
Methuen's Shilling Novels
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ENCOURAGED by the great and steady sale of their Sixpenny Novels, Messrs. Metbuen hare
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The first volumes are
Balfour (Andrew). VENGEANCE IS
MINE.
Burins-Gould (S.). MRS. CURGENVEN
OF CURGENVEN.
DOMITIA.
THE FROBISHERS.
Barlow (Jane), Author of 'Irish Idylls.
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WEST.
A CREEL OF IRISH STORIES.
THE FOUNDING OF FORTUNES.
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THE CHARMER.
THE SQUIREEN.
Burton Gl- Bloundelle).'
SALT SEAS.
THE CLASH OF ARMS.
DENOUNCED.
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A WINTER'S
FI RF*
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THE FOUNDERED GALLEON.
C?iHo N rd T (M P rs': W. K.). A FLASH OF
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Cornf ord (L. Cope). SONS OF ADVER-
Crane (Stephen). WOUNDS IN THE
RAIN
Denny (C. E.). THE ROMANCE OF
B BLACK WOLF'S
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ANGELS.
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DESERT
A VOYAGE OF CONSOLATION.
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Fenn (G. Manvllle). AN ELECTRIC
SPARK.
Flndlater (Jane H.). A DAUGHTER OF
STRIFE.
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Forrest (R. E.). THE SWORD OF
AZRAEL.
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Gallon (Tom). RICKERBY'S FOLLY.
Gerard (Dorothea). THINGS THAT
HAVE HAPPENED.
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Glanvllle (Ernest). THE DESPATCH
RIDER.
THE LOST REGIMENT.
THE KLOOF BRIDE.
THE INCA'S TREASURE.
Gordon (Julien). MRS. CLYDE.
WORLD'S PEOPLE.
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DAVID CORSON.
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S H I P
Hales (A. Q.). JAIR THE APOSTATE.
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TON.
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FANCY FREE.
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SWAMP.
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FICTION
39
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THE KLOOF BRIDE.
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A CHANGE OF AIR.
THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT
ANTONIO.
PHROSO.
THE DOLLY DIALOGUES.
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NO TALES.
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DAVID.
Le Queux (W.). THE HUNCHBACK OF
WESTMINSTER.
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WAY.
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TORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON.
Lyall (Edna). DERRICK VAUGHAN.
Malet (Lucas). THE CARISSIMA.
A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION.
Mann (Mrs. M. E.). MRS. PETER
HOWARD.
A LOST ESTATE.
THE CEDAR STAR.
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LEY'S SECRET.
A MOMENT'S ERROR.
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JACOB FAITHFUL.
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THE GODDESS.
THE JOSS.
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GRIFF OF GRIFFITHSCOURT.
SAM'S SWEETHEART.
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Norris(W. E.). HIS GRACE.
GILES INGILBY.
THE CREDIT OF THE COUNTY.
LORD LEONARD.
MATTHEW AUSTIN.
CLARISSA FURIOSA.
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SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE.
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THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD.
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I CROWN THEE KING.
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CHILDREN OF THE MIST.
Ridge ( W. Pett). A SON OF THE STATE.
LOST PROPERTY.
GEORGE AND THE GENERAL.
Russell (W. Clark). A MARRIAGE AT
SEA.
ABANDONED.
MY DANISH SWEETHEART.
Sergeant (Adeline). THE MASTER OF
BEECHWOOD.
BARBARA'S MONEY.
THE YELLOW DIAMOND.
Surtees (R. S.). HANDLEY CROSS.
Illustrated.
MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR.
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ASK MAMMA. Illustrated.
Valentine (Major E. S.). VELDT AND
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Walford (Mrs. L. B.). MR. SMITH.
THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER.
Wallace (General Lew). BEN-HUR.
THE FAIR GOD.
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