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The Bible excepted, no other book in Christendom has circulated so widely as ‘The Imitation.’ Prepared during one of the darkest hours in European history, between the dead or dying Middle Ages and the alluring dawn of the delusive Renaissance; and as the picturesque Michelet writes: ‘L’Imitation de Jésus Christ, le plus beau livre chrétien après l’Evangile, est sorti, comme lui, du sein de la mort. La mort du monde ancien, la mort du moyen âge, ont porté ces germes de vie.’
The most precious of the early manuscripts is the famous Antwerp Codex written by Thomas himself, with the subscription Finitus et completus anno domini MCCCCXLI per manus fratris Thome Kempensis in Monte Agnetis prope Zwolles. Before the war there were still in existence sixty dated manuscripts of the fifteenth century, and about thirty undated ascribed to that century.
Although the evidence is overwhelming in favour of Thomas à Kempis as the author, after his death other claimants to that great honour were put forward, the most notable being Jean Gerson, Chancellor of Paris.
page 90 note 1 ‘naturaliter sciro desiderat.’
page 90 note 2 ‘profecto humilis rusticus.’
page 90 note 3 Trans. by Corneille:
‘Un païson stupide, et sans expérience.
Qui perce jusqu’aux cieux sans refléchir sur soy.’
Qui ne sçait que t’aymer, et n’a que foy.
Vaut mieux qu’un Philosophe enflé de la science.
page 90 note 4 ‘omnia quæ in mundo sunt.’
page 90 note 5 ‘multa verba.’
page 90 note 6 ‘sunt multa plura quæ nescis.’
page 90 note 7 ‘ama nosciri.’
page 91 note 8 ‘non deberes te tamen meliorem æstimare.’
page 91 note 1 ‘quam bene dootus.’
page 91 note 2 ‘omnia ad bonum convertit.’
page 91 note 3 ‘considerat quid alii facere tenentur.’
page 91 note 4 ‘Si portari vis.’
page 91 note 5 ‘laudabile nimis virileque factum.’
page 91 note 6 ‘aliis sunt graves.’
page 92 note 1 ‘quæ sub sole fiunt.
page 92 note 2 ‘scio qualiter cum unoquoque sit.’
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