The treatise “Of the Imitation of Christ” appears to have been
originally written in Latin early in the fifteenth century. Its exact date and
its authorship are still a matter of debate. Manuscripts of the Latin version
survive in considerable numbers all over Western Europe, and they, with the
vast list of translations and of printed editions, testify to its almost
unparalleled popularity. One scribe attributes it to St. Bernard of Clairvaux;
but the fact that it contains a quotation from St. Francis of Assisi, who was
born thirty years after the death of St. Bernard, disposes of this theory. In
England there exist many manuscripts of the first three books, called
“Musica Ecclesiastica,” frequently ascribed to the English mystic
Walter Hilton. But Hilton seems to have died in 1395, and there is no evidence
of the existence of the work before 1400. Many manuscripts scattered throughout
Europe ascribe the book to Jean le Charlier de Gerson, the great Chancellor of
the University of Paris, who was a leading figure in the Church in the earlier
part of the fifteenth century. The most probable author, however, especially
when the internal evidence is considered, is Thomas Haemmerlein, known also as
Thomas à Kempis, from his native town of Kempen, near the Rhine, about forty
miles north of Cologne. Haemmerlein, who was born in 1379 or 1380, was a member
of the order of the Brothers of Common Life, and spent the last seventy years
of his life at Mount St. Agnes, a monastery of Augustinian canons in the
diocese of Utrecht. Here he died on July 26, 1471, after an uneventful life
spent in copying manuscripts, reading, and composing, and in the peaceful
routine of monastic piety.
With the exception of the Bible, no Christian writing has had so wide a vogue
or so sustained a popularity as this. And yet, in one sense, it is hardly an
original work at all. Its structure it owes largely to the writings of the
medieval mystics, and its ideas and phrases are a mosaic from the Bible and the
Fathers of the early Church. But these elements are interwoven with such
delicate skill and a religious feeling at once so ardent and so sound, that it
promises to remain, what it has been for five hundred years, the supreme call
and guide to spiritual aspiration.
