The Imitation of Christ: Who Really Wrote It?

Chapters

1. 0:00 Who wrote it?
2. 0:36 The book and its title
3. 1:40 The IJssel towns
4. 2:11 Geert Grote and the Modern Devotion
5. 2:55 Thomas of Kempen, the copyist
6. 4:12 A book without a name
7. 4:43 Jean Gerson
8. 5:15 1616: Abbot Gersen
9. 6:24 One word: aliquid or alta
10. 6:40 The codex of 1441
11. 7:46 The signature
12. 8:15 "By the hands of": a copyist's formula
13. 8:49 What the codex shows
14. 9:52 The witnesses
15. 10:51 The verdict
16. 11:08 The reading: Book One, chapters two and five
17. 14:51 Love to be unknown
18. 15:11 Thomas's death, and his bones
19. 16:14 Into print
20. 16:33 Who really wrote it
21. 16:54 Next: Lent

Transcript

Who wrote it? 0:00

Who really wrote The Imitation of Christ? For years it was copied by hand, and passed from house to house, with no author's name. One copy, finished in 1441, ends with a signature. And for two centuries, scholars argued over what that signature proves.

So who wrote it, and why did no one say? We read the codex he signed, page by page in its facsimile, beside an edition of the manuscript that started the quarrel. And the book itself turns out to have an opinion about the question.

The book and its title 0:36

In 1910 the Catholic Encyclopedia called it, with the exception of the Bible, perhaps the most widely read spiritual book in the world. It is four short books of counsel, written in Latin, on the inner life.

The first chapter opens with a line from the Gospel of John: He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. Its heading reads: Of the imitation of Christ, and of contempt of all the vanities of the world. That heading is the name the whole book came to carry.

Its voice is plain and direct. If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, it asks, what should all this profit thee without the love and grace of God? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, save to love God, and Him only to serve.

It has little patience with learning for its own sake. Of a surety, it says, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.

The IJssel towns 1:40

In October 2011 the International Space Station crossed Western Europe at night, over the Low Countries. Six centuries earlier, this book was born here, in a few towns along the river IJssel.

Deventer, Windesheim and Zwolle lie a short journey apart on the IJssel. Kempen, the town the book's most likely author came from, lies to the south, near the Rhine. And Brussels, where his signed copy is kept today, lies further south still.

Geert Grote and the Modern Devotion 2:11

The story starts with a man of Deventer, Geert Grote, born there in 1340. In 1373, after recovering from an illness, he gave up his church incomes, and began to preach a simpler, more inward faith.

His followers lived together in common, in Deventer, and came to be called the Brothers of the Common Life. Their way of life was called the Modern Devotion, in Latin, Devotio Moderna.

Grote died in 1384, in the forty-fourth year of his age. His successor, Florens Radewijns, founded a house of canons regular at Windesheim, near Zwolle. Its first church was consecrated in 1387.

Thomas of Kempen, the copyist 2:55

Thomas was born around 1380, in Kempen, in the diocese of Cologne. His parents, John and Gertrude, were of the artisan class, and the family name, Hemerken, probably means little hammer. At about thirteen, he set out for the schools of Deventer.

In Deventer he was taken in by Florens Radewijns, and he stayed seven years. In old age he wrote the lives of Grote and of Radewijns himself.

In the autumn of 1399 he asked to join the canons of Mount Saint Agnes, a house near Zwolle, where his own brother John was prior. He was clothed as a novice only in 1406, and ordained a priest in 1413.

He stayed on that hill for the rest of his life, more than seventy years, and was twice elected subprior. Above all, he copied: treatises of the Fathers, a missal for his community, and the whole Bible, in four large volumes.

At the end of that Bible, in 1439, he wrote a short note in Latin: Finitus et completus, per manus fratris Thomae Kempis. Finished and completed, by the hands of Brother Thomas Kempis. Remember that formula.

A book without a name 4:12

In those same years, the Imitation began to travel. The Catholic Encyclopedia dates its first appearance to 1418, anonymous. It was copied by different scribes, and some of the oldest copies carry no author's name at all.

So readers supplied one. Over the years the book was given to Saint Bernard, to Saint Bonaventure, to Pope Innocent the Third, to Henry of Kalkar, to the English mystic Walter Hilton, and even to Thomas's own brother John.

Jean Gerson 4:43

The most famous candidate was Jean Gerson, born in 1363, chancellor of the University of Paris before he was thirty. In Italy and in France, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, manuscripts and printed editions of the book often carried his name.

But, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, not a single manuscript in his lifetime, or for thirty years after his death, gives the book to him. The oldest dated copy with Gerson's name is from 1460.

1616: Abbot Gersen 5:15

Then, early in the seventeenth century, a third name appeared. At Arona, in northern Italy, a Jesuit found an undated manuscript whose heading gave the book to an abbot called John Gersen.

In 1616 a Benedictine scholar, Constantino Gaetano, published it under Gersen's name, and made him a Benedictine abbot of Vercelli. If that was true, the book belonged to his own order, and was centuries older than Thomas.

The reply came the next year. In 1617, a declaration stated that the Arona manuscript had been brought there by a man named Majoli, more than a hundred years after Thomas died. And in 1912, the Catholic Encyclopedia wrote that the very existence of Abbot Gersen was yet to be proved.

By then the quarrel had become a contest between religious orders, Benedictines for Gersen, canons regular for Thomas. In 1671, and again in 1674, scholars met in Paris to set the manuscripts side by side. The argument went on into the nineteenth century.

One word: aliquid or alta 6:24

Even the words differ. Where the codex Thomas signed reads, if thou wilt know anything with profit, the edition of the Arona manuscript reads, if thou wilt know high things. In Latin, one word: aliquid, against alta.

The codex of 1441 6:40

Now, the codex itself. It is in the Royal Library in Brussels, numbered 5855 to 5861. It is tiny: about ten centimetres by seven, a hundred and ninety-three leaves of paper and parchment.

It holds the four books of the Imitation, in an unexpected order: one, two, four, three. Then comes a run of shorter devotional works, all in the same small hand.

At the front of the volume, Thomas listed what it holds, not by title but by first words. He that followeth me. The kingdom of God is within you. Of the Sacrament. I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me. In his hand, the four books are four little books.

It has not come down untouched. Two of its leaves, in the third book, were lost and written out again in the sixteenth century. Charles Ruelens, keeper of manuscripts in Brussels, noted it in the introduction to the facsimile we read.

The signature 7:46

Near the end of the volume, in the same hand, there is a note. Finitus et completus anno Domini 1441, per manus fratris Thome Kempis, in monte sancte Agnetis prope Zwollis.

Finished and completed in the year of the Lord 1441, by the hands of Brother Thomas Kempis, on Mount Saint Agnes, near Zwolle. That is our translation. It is the signature the whole argument turned on.

"By the hands of": a copyist's formula 8:15

But listen to the formula. By the hands of: it is what a copyist writes, and it is the same note he put at the end of the Bible he copied in 1439. A note like that proves who held the pen. It does not prove who wrote the book.

The translation we read from in this episode is William Benham's. And in his preface, Benham makes exactly this point. Thomas, he writes, added the same note as at the end of the Bible, and thence arose the erroneous notion that he was its author.

What the codex shows 8:49

So what do the defenders of Thomas point to? First, where the note stands. It does not follow the Imitation. It comes at the very end of the volume, after shorter works that no one disputes are his.

Second, the pages themselves. Throughout the codex there are erasures, the scratch of a penknife on the parchment, and corrections marked with a red line, in all four books.

In the eleventh chapter of the second book, there is a whole sentence not found in copies written earlier. And the books have been put in a new order. A mere copyist, Samuel Kettlewell argued in 1877, would not take such liberties.

Then there is the sound of it. Karl Hirsche found a peculiar rhythmical punctuation running through the whole codex; set out in lines, the words in many places rhyme. And the Catholic Encyclopedia lists habits of style shared with Thomas's undisputed works, Dutch idioms among them.

The witnesses 9:52

Third, witnesses. Johannes Busch, a canon of Windesheim, finished a chronicle of his order in 1464, seven years before Thomas died. Recalling a visit of 1424, he names Brother Thomas of Kempen, who composed many devout books, and among them, Of the Imitation of Christ.

The other side answered that those words were a later insertion, and the two sides argued over Busch's text too. But Busch is not alone.

A brother named Herman, from a house near Halle, wrote that in 1454 he had spoken with the subprior of Mount Saint Agnes, Thomas, the brother who compiled the books of the Imitation. Compiled is his word.

And a manuscript dated 1425, from Kirchheim, now also in Brussels, says the treatise was put out by Thomas of Kempen, of Mount Saint Agnes, and copied, it says, from the author's own hand.

The verdict 10:51

None of these proves it alone. Together, they are why most scholars today give the book to Thomas. In 1910 the Catholic Encyclopedia called his claim completely vindicated. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is more careful: probably.

The reading: Book One, chapters two and five 11:08

But the book had already answered the question its own way. Two of its early chapters, read now without comment, in William Benham's translation. Book One, chapter two: Of thinking humbly of oneself.

There is naturally in every man a desire to know, but what profiteth knowledge without the fear of God? Better of a surety is a lowly peasant who serveth God, than a proud philosopher who watcheth the stars, and neglecteth the knowledge of himself. He who knoweth himself well is vile in his own sight, neither regardeth he the praises of men. If I knew all the things that are in the world, and were not in charity, what should it help me before God, who is to judge me according to my deeds?

Rest from inordinate desire of knowledge, for therein is found much distraction and deceit. Those who have knowledge desire to appear learned and to be called wise. Many things there are, to know which profiteth little or nothing to the soul. And foolish out of measure is he who attendeth upon other things rather than those which serve to his soul's health. Many words satisfy not the soul, but a good life refresheth the mind, and a pure conscience giveth great confidence towards God.

The greater and more complete thy knowledge, the more severely shalt thou be judged, unless thou hast lived holily. Therefore be not lifted up by any skill or knowledge that thou hast; but rather fear concerning the knowledge which is given to thee. If it seemeth to thee that thou knowest many things, and understandest them well, know also that there are many more things which thou knowest not.

Be not high-minded, but rather confess thine ignorance. Why desirest thou to lift thyself above another, when there are found many more learned and more skilled in the Scripture than thou? If thou wilt know and learn anything with profit, love to be thyself unknown and to be counted for nothing.

That is the highest and most profitable lesson, when a man truly knoweth, and judgeth lowly of himself. To account nothing of one's self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom. Even shouldest thou see thy neighbour sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself.

Chapter five: Of the reading of Holy Scripture. It is Truth which we must look for in Holy Writ, not cunning of words. All Scripture ought to be read in the same spirit in which it was written. We must rather seek for what is profitable in Scripture, than for what ministereth to subtlety in discourse. Therefore we ought to read books which are devotional and simple, as well as those which are deep and difficult.

And let not the weight of the writer be a stumbling-block to thee, whether he be of little or much learning, but let the love of the pure Truth draw thee to read. Ask not, who hath said this or that, but look to what he says. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Without respect of persons God speaketh to us in divers manners.

Our own curiosity often hindereth us in the reading of holy writings, when we seek to understand and discuss, where we should pass simply on. If thou wouldst profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not desiring to win a character for learning. Ask freely, and hear in silence the words of holy men; nor be displeased at the hard sayings of older men than thou, for they are not uttered without cause.

Love to be unknown 14:51

Love to be thyself unknown. In the Latin of the codex, ama nesciri. The words are older than the book: Saint Bernard had used them in a Christmas sermon. And Karl Hirsche, who edited the Latin in 1874, noted that among the Brothers of the Common Life the saying had almost become a proverb.

Thomas's death, and his bones 15:11

Thomas died at Mount Saint Agnes in July 1471, on the feast of Saint James the Less, after Compline. The house chronicle records that he was in the ninety-second year of his age, and that he had written out the entire Bible the monastery used.

The monastery did not outlive the Reformation. In 1577 the codex was carried out of its ruins and brought to Antwerp. In 1672 his remains were dug up and taken to Zwolle, and since 2006 they rest in the church of Our Lady there.

A monument raised for him in 1897 carries a line in Latin: to the honour, not the memory, of Thomas of Kempen, whose name is more lasting than the monument. Oh how quickly passeth the glory of the world away, his book had said.

An old portrait, possibly authentic, gives him a motto, half Latin and half Dutch. Everywhere I have sought rest, and found it nowhere, save in little nooks with little books.

Into print 16:14

The book went to print in Augsburg, in an undated edition, and never stopped. Kettlewell counted twenty-two editions in the fifteenth century alone that give it to Thomas. In 1726 a young John Wesley met it, and wrote that inward religion now appeared to him in a stronger light than ever before.

Who really wrote it 16:33

So who really wrote The Imitation of Christ? Almost certainly Thomas, who copied it, corrected it, and signed it the way he signed what he copied. And the book never asked to be his. Love to be thyself unknown, it says. Ask not, who hath said this or that, but look to what he says.

Next: Lent 16:54

Next time: Lent, and how long it really lasted, in the words of a pilgrim we met at Sinai, Egeria, who found that in Jerusalem the fast before Easter was kept for eight weeks.

Description and sources

The book grew out of the Modern Devotion along the river IJssel: Geert Grote of Deventer, the Brothers of the Common Life, the canons of Windesheim, and a copyist named Thomas Hemerken of Kempen, who spent more than seventy years at Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle. It circulated without a name and was given to Bernard, Bonaventure, Jean Gerson and, from 1616, to an abbot Gersen whose existence has never been proved. The signature of 1441 is a copyist's formula, the same note Thomas put at the end of a Bible he copied in 1439, and our own translator, William Benham, called the attribution an erroneous notion. The episode weighs the rest of the evidence: where the note stands, the erasures and red-lined corrections, the reordered books, Johannes Busch's chronicle, Brother Herman and the Kirchheim manuscript of 1425, and reads Book One, chapters two and five, in Benham's translation.

PRIMARY SOURCES

• Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. W. Benham (London, 1886), Book I, chs. 1-5, and preface pp. xi-xii. https://archive.org/details/imitationofchris00benhrich
• The Imitation of Christ, being the autograph manuscript of Thomas a Kempis, reproduced in facsimile, with an introduction by C. Ruelens (London: Elliot Stock, 1885). https://archive.org/details/imitationofchris00ruel
• De imitatione Christi libri quatuor, textum ex autographo Thomae, ed. C. Hirsche (Berlin, 1874). https://archive.org/details/deimitationechri00kemp
• De imitatione Christi libri quatuor, ad fidem codicis aronensis, ed. P. E. Puyol (Paris, 1886). https://archive.org/details/deimitationechri00imit
• J. van den Gheyn, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque royale de Belgique, vol. 3 (Brussels, 1903), nos. 2188-2189, pp. 336-337. https://archive.org/details/cataloguedesmanu03brusuoft
• S. Kettlewell, The Authorship of the De Imitatione Christi (London, 1877). https://archive.org/details/authorshipofdeim00kett
• The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes, trans. J. P. Arthur (London, 1906), pp. 142-143. https://archive.org/details/chronicleofcanon00thom
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Imitation of Christ (1910), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674c.htm ; Thomas a Kempis (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14661a.htm ; Brethren of the Common Life, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04166b.htm
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Thomas a Kempis. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-a-Kempis
• B. Pierik, Translatio Reliquiarum Thomae Kempensis, Terebinth (2006), pp. 36-37. https://terebinth.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Terebinth-2006-3.pdf
• KBR, Brussels, ms. 5855-61, catalogue record. https://opac.kbr.be/BNTL/doc/SYRACUSE/18369828/
• J. Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, section 3. https://ccel.org/w/wesley/perfection/perfection.html
• The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure (London, 1919), p. 57. https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageofethe00mccliala

ARCHIVE PLATES — public-domain documents, with author, date, archive and licence.

• Autograph of 1441, facsimile ed. C. Ruelens (London, 1885), Book I, ch. 1. Internet Archive | public domain

... and 67 more plates, each credited on screen in the video and listed in this project's manifest.

Ancient Paths Faith reads the Christian contemplative tradition, East and West, from the primary source: the life, the rule, the letter, the codex.

About the material. Prints, paintings and manuscripts: Rijksmuseum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Basel University Library and other public collections, all public domain or CC0, credited on screen. Film: the International Space Station over Western Europe, NASA, 2011, public domain. Book pages: Internet Archive scans of public-domain editions, including the 1885 facsimile of the autograph of 1441. The Imitation is read from William Benham's translation. Every diagram is drawn in code from the sources listed. Nothing in this video is AI-generated imagery.

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