The assumed author of The Imitation of Christ,
after the Bible the most popular spiritual work in
Christian history, Thomas à Kempis was a 15thcentury
writer of devotional works, sermons, and
saints’ lives, and a member of the Augustinian
order of Canons Regular. Thomas is considered the
outstanding representative of the late medieval
spiritual movement known as Devotio Moderna
(Modern devotion).
Thomas was born Thomas Hemerken in the
town of Kempen in the Rhineland, from which he
took the surname “à Kempis.” His father was a
blacksmith and his mother a schoolmistress who
probably gave the young Thomas his earliest education.
In 1393 he began studying in Deventer in
the Netherlands, at a school established by the
Brethren of the Common Life. This group,
founded by the Dutch mystic and priest Geert (or
“Gerard”) de Groote (1340–84), was a community
of secular priests and lay persons who, though they
took no vows, focused on their interior spiritual
lives through meditation, reading, and education.
The Brethren were instrumental in popularizing
the Devotio Moderna, a movement that discounted
the highly intellectual, scholastic theology of the
13th and early 14th centuries and limited the importance
of external rituals of the church in favor
of meditation and the inner life. After spending
some time living among the Brethren, Thomas
surprisingly chose to join the Augustinian order
rather than stay with the Deventer community.
Thomas entered the monastery ofMount St.Agnes
near Zwolle in 1399, shortly after his brother John
had become prior of the monastery.
Thomas spent the rest of his life in the
monastery at Mount St. Agnes. He was professed
in 1407 (after an unexplained delay of eight years)
and ordained a priest in 1413 or 1414.He served as
a scribe in the monastery, copying many manuscripts,
including one of the Bible. He served twice
as subprior and was, for some time, master of
novices.He is also known to have written a number
of works, including a collection of Sermones ad
novicios (Sermons to novices), biographies of both
Geert de Groote and of his successor, Florentius
Radewijns (whom Thomas had known during his
years with the Brethren of the Common Life), and
the Chronica Montis Sanctae Agnetis, a history of
the monastery at Mount St. Agnes. He also wrote
two mystical treatises (The Little Garden of Roses
and The Valley of the Lilies), and several works of
devotional counsel, the best known of which is Soliloquy
of the Soul (a practical spiritual guide in the
manner of the Brethren of the Common Life).
Thomas died at Zwolle in 1471, having lived well
into his 90s.
The Imitation of Christ was first issued anonymously
in about 1425. An early manuscript from
about 1441 cites Thomas à Kempis as its author,
but over the years some have disputed Thomas’s
authorship, suggesting St. BERNARD, St. BONAVENTURE,
Pope INNOCENT III,Walter HILTON, and even
Thomas’s brother John as possible authors.Others
have suggested that Thomas composed the text of
the Imitation of Christ from manuscripts originally
composed by Geert de Groote. But there seems no
good reason to doubt Thomas’s authorship. The
doctrine of the book is clearly in line with the beliefs
of the Brethren of the Common Life, and
Thomas’s other writings are consistent with the
content of the Imitation.
The book is written in a colloquial Latin style,
and is intended to instruct the reader in Christian
perfection, focusing on Christ as the model of behavior
and stressing, particularly, self-renunciation
and the superiority of following Christ over all the
learning one can obtain. It is divided into four
books dealing with, first, freedom from desire for
worldly goods, meditation and preparing the soul
for prayer, the comfort of prayer life, and the importance
of the sacrament of communion in the
spiritual life of the Christian. In the many manuscripts
of the Imitation of Christ, the four books do
not always occur in the same order; nor do all manuscripts
contain all four books. The text was translated
into German by 1434, into French by the
1440s, and into English in 1502. The Imitation of
Christ has since been translated into hundreds of
languages and gone through thousands of editions.
Thomas à Kempis’s text and the spirituality of the
Brethren of the Common Life continue to inspire
readers to this day.
Bibliography
Becker, Kenneth Michael. From the Treasure-House of
Scripture: An Analysis of Scriptural Sources in De
imitatione Christi. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols,
2002.
Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ in Four
Books: A Translation from the Latin. Translated by
Joseph N.Tylenda.Rev. ed.New York:Vintage, 1998.