2. In PeRsonAL DEVOTIONS
Chapter Two
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
. Having the Spirit of Christ
. Authorship
1. THomas X Kempis
2. GERHARD GROOTE
a) Brethren of the Common Life
b) His Spiritual Diary
Editions, Translations, Style
. Inspiration of This Writing
Purpose of the Author
Say Be
Synopsis of The Imitation
1. THE First Book: ADMONITIONS USEFUL FOR A SPIRITUAL LIFE
2. THE SEconpD Book: ADMONITIONS TENDING TO THINGS INTERNAL
3. THE THIRD Book: THE INWARD SPEAKING OF CHRIST TO A FAITHFUL SOUL
4. THE Fourtu Book: CoNcERNING THE SACRAMENT. Summary of This Introduction. The Imitation—A Personal Book
Suggested Uses of The Imitation
1. For Group Stupy
2. In PeRsonAL DEVOTIONS
A person will never be satisfied with The Imitation, though it were read a thousand times over; for those general principles are the seeds of meditation, and the stores they contain are never exhausted.
JOHN WESLEY
(The Christian's Pattern, Wesley's translation and abridgment of The Imitation, is the first of Wesley's major writings and the first book published by the Methodist Book Concern in America.) chapter two the imitation
Of CNRIST
Naving the Spirit of Christ
Some time ago, in a sermon in my home church, the pastor quoted, to illustrate a trenchant point, "What availeth it a man to reason high secret mysteries of the Trinity, if he lack meekness, whereby he displeaseth the Trinity?' (p. 3).
That sentence comes bodily from a very old book, with all the timeliness of today's latest pronouncements on the essentials of Christianity. It is to be found at the first of that remarkable fourteenth or fifteenth century writing we know as The Imitation of Christ. Immediately preceding it, we read, It is oftentimes seen that some persons, who often hear the Gospels of Christ, have little sweetness therein: and that is, for that they have not the spirit of Christ.
Wherefore, if we will have the true understanding of Christ's Gospels, we must study to conform our life to His life as nigh as we can(p. 3).
Almost it could be said that the entire meaning of the book is here epitomized.
1 AJ quotations from The Imitation of Christ, unless otherwise indicated, are from A Cardinal Edition, C-104, and are identified only by the number of the page on which they appear, as in this instance. All are used by permission of the publishers, Pocket Books, Inc.
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
The quotations at once suggest proof of the fact that this book is miscalled ''an imitation.'' Rather, it describes the following of Christ, the conforming of one's life to his, and the despising of all earthly vanities if he, in his fullness, is to be realized in the individual. One of the author's acute phrases, "from vanity to verity" (in another translation) , might be a subtitle. In some manuscripts the work is called Musica Ecclesiastica (church music). Willard L. Sperry thinks that it may have been intended to be sung in plain song as a supplement to the Psalter. A revival of such use would be an interesting modern experiment in sacred music and would, I believe, yield large spiritual dividends. a o ' . ' authorship
Many traditions cluster about the authorship of this book, which for five crowded and turbulent centuries has been a dominant factor in the devotional life of Christian men and women. Dr. Sperry writes that the book "makes no direct assertion as to its authorship.""" A manuscript, now in the Royal Library at Brussels, concludes: 'Finished and completed in the year of our Lord
1441 by the hands of Brother Thomas von Kempen at Mt. St. Agnes near Zwolle.'"® However, in other libraries are twenty-two manuscripts of an earlier date, including, it is reported, fragments of a Dutch dialect translation as early as 1423.
? Willard L. Sperry, Strangers and Pilgrims (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1939), p. 62. Used by permission.
Douglas V. Steere, Doors Into Life (New York: Harper & Bros 1948), p. 30. Used by permission. : z
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
thomas 3 kempis
Thomas 4 Kempis, an Augustinian monk, is known _to have been a copyist of manuscripts as well as an author, and it is quite within the range of probability that he acted as such in reproducing the 1441 manuscript. Rufus Jones reminds us that Thomas 2 Kempis used almost exactly the same words at the conclusion of the copy of the Darmstadt Bible that he made to be read in his monastery at Mount St. Agnes in Holland.
Much evidence, internal and external, but as yet no certainty, points to Gerhard Groote as, at least, the principal author of this great classic of the Christian faith. It may have been a compilation made by Thomas 2 Kempis of his own writings, Groote's, and those of others of the Brethren of the Common Life. Persons familiar with Thomas' other productions say that they have little of the divine fire which irradiates The Imitation.
GERNARO GROOTE
Groote was a Hollander who had won high honors at the universities of Aachen, Paris, Cologne, and Prague. Born in 1340, he lived a brilliantly successful life as a canon lawyer, professor at Cologne, and holder of two or more lucrative benefices in the Church. Douglas Steere, writing of him in Doors Into Life, states: "He found himself in his middle thirties . . . with a Midaslike power that turned all that he touched into a personal triumph....'* Then, suddenly, he came face to face with the fundamental pointlessness of his worldly
4 Ibid., p. 27.
eAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
successes and had to choose between the inward and the outward in Christian living. By some good grace of God, . he chose the inward. dn im dika
In 1376 he entered the Carthusian monastery at Munnikhuizen and for three years endured the severe discipline of that order. It soon became evident, however, that Gerhard Groote did not have a monastic vocation. He was a born preacher, in a world where there was much evil to preach against, in the Church and out of it. Leaving the monastery, he flung himself and his great talents into leading his Dutch compatriots back from the ignorance, superstition, and flagrant sin of the fourteenth century to the simplicity and personal compulsion and cleansing power of Christianity as Jesus had exemplified and taught it. In such preaching he was, as always, outstandingly successful. "Given a special license to preach . . . he moved the people of Holland as no preacher has done in their history to repent and to give themselves with a new devotion to Christ." 5
Such a man inevitably became a target for the hatred and fear of a corrupt clergy and hierarchy, and for the machinations of some of the monastic orders that were powerful and morally decadent. He endangered the status quo of religion; he must be silenced. In 1383, the Bishop of Utrecht summarily revoked his license to pteach. One can trace in The Imitation, especially in Book Three, the travail of an ardent soul thus stopped in mid-career, repudiated by an authority he considered it his duty to obey. It may be that Gerhard did not actually write the words we read there, but the probability
5 Ibid., p. 28.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
seems very strong. (See also treatment of this matter later in this chapter.)
Brethren of the common life
Elton Trueblood, in a slender volume,® has noted as one of the heartening signals of this twentieth difficult century, the springing up of lay religious groups wherein earnest men and women, living and studying together for a week or a month or some longer period, prepare thus to return, with quickened spiritual force and new understanding, to proclaim Christ in their workaday worlds. Similar fellowships developed in Holland as outgrowths of an initial group, the Brethren of the Common Life, which, according to Douglas Steere, was founded by Groote."
These brethren were not mendicants but earned their living as copyists or as school teachers. They were not originally "religious" in any cloistered sense; indeed many of them lived and worked in their own homes.
This brotherhood, under Groote's dynamic leadership, firmly emphasized education with a spiritual basis, and, establishing their own schools, profoundly influenced the course of education in northern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Breaking the stranglehold of scholasticism, they became in some measure precursors of the new thought world of the sixteenth century. Men who became great educators and religious reformers are believed to have been their pupils, among them Nicholas of Cusa, the great Erasmus, and Alex-
6 Signs of Hope (New York: Harper & Bros.,1950), pp. 75-96.
7 Steere, op. cit., p. 27.
«AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
ander Hegius, the classicist. The first fresh, free airs of the Renaissance and the Reformation were just beginning to blow. The learning of ancient Greece, long lost to semibarbarous Europe, was to appear in a great intellectual revival after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Columbus was to discover America in 1492; Luther, to start, a few years later, the freeing of men's spirits from ecclesiastical domination. It is recognized that Erasmus' publication of the New Testament in Greek, one hundred thirty-two years after Groote's death in 1384, started the chain of intellectual and religious reactions on which much of our modern thinking is based. Having been silenced as a preacher by the Bishop of Utrecht in 1383, Gerhard, it would seem, worked an even more amazing miracle in the schools. his spiritual dlary
Within recent years the Nederlandisch text of Groote's Spiritual Diary has been translated and published. It is said that, with a few changes, rearrangements, and omissions or additions, it is the same as The Imitation. If this is true, it goes far toward establishing the fact that Groote's brief life may be crowned with yet another laurel, for "his book" has been a major spiritual force ever since his death. F. M. Drake writes of The Imitation as "an imperishable mark upon the devotion of the Church for all ages." ®
Actually, no one knows, for sure, who wrote The Imitation. It may have been Gerhard. It may have been & F. M. Drake, Masters of the Spiritual Life (New York: Longmans Green & Co., 1916), p. 64. Used by permission. ar
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
Thomas (born about 1380, died 1471). It may have been a composite production. In any case, it is a result of the work and thought of the Brethren of the Common Life, for Thomas 4 Kempis (Thomas Hammerken from the town of Kempen, near Dusseldorf, Germany) was educated in their schools.
It really matters not at all whose human hand set down the words. From beginning to end, it is clear that the Spirit of God was guiding the writer. Of course, the author unavoidably wrote within what Rufus Jones calls "the framework of his time' and used its religious idiom and ideology. But beneath this surface he wrote fundamental religious truth and, so writing, brings his reader face to face with Christ himself. He accepted as a matter of course many things Protestants can no longer accept: certain dogmas, creeds, monastic customs. Nonetheless Christ is in this book, and we meet him there. Medieval the volume certainly is, yet strangely and forever modern and universal.
If The Imitation is, in fact, the outgrowth of Thomas a Kempis' editing of Gerhard Groote's Spiritual Diary, it is a remarkable "long-distance" collaboration, for Groote died while Thomas was yet a child. Both men must have undergone a soul-shaking personal religious experience, a phenomenon not too common in the spiritually impoverished age in which they lived. Both knew and revered monastic discipline, but both recognized clearly and emphatically its limitations and placed high above its rules and regulations the immediate demands
- of God upon man as an individual. Both were practical mystics, with a common-sense attitude surprisingly simi-
AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
lar to that of the great Quaker, Rufus Jones, who has so deeply influenced religious thinking in our own day. Written, it would seem, in cloistered solitude, the book can still meet the needs of all kinds of people, even in the busiest secular surroundings.
Editions, Translations, Style
The first printed edition, which was in Latin, is believed to have appeared in 1471, fourteen years after Johann Fust published his Psalter, which is reputedly the first printed book with a complete date.
The Imitation has been translated into fifty different languages and is estimated to have passed through 6,000 editions. The first translation into English was published by Wynkyn de Worde in London in 1504, the first three divisions, or "Books," having been "Englished" from the Latin by William Atkynson, and the fourth, from the French by Princess Margaret, mother of Henry VII of England. In 1556 appeared Richard Whitford's translation, edited by E. J. Klein and republished by Harper and Brothers in 1941. Edward Hake's version appeared in 1567 and T. Rogers' in 1580, both in London. In the seventeenth century, at least four translations into English were made; in the eighteenth, four, one of them by John Wesley. The 1800's produced seven, and the 1900's at least three. The Widener Library at Harvard University is the proud possessor of many hundreds of translations and editions. The Huntington Library, the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, the British Museum, and the Bodleian, all treasure editions and valuable manuscripts ancient and modern. It would
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
seem that it has been truly said that no book except the Bible has been so widely distributed or so deeply influential as this simple—at moments childlike—treatise about the ways of God in the soul of man. That The Imitation has been for five hundred years a steady, consistent seller, its myriad editions bear conclusive proof.
The style is alive and compelling, even in translation. Sentence after sentence comes bodily from the Bible— it is said that more than six hundred biblical references and quotations are in The Imitation. Indeed, entire chapters are but quotations interwoven in quaint and thoughtprovoking sequences which point a moral and stimulate the reader to new research and clearer understanding.
Thomas De Quincey said:
The enormous popularity of the De Imitatione Christi is . ..a vicarious popularity of the Bible. At that time. . .the Bible was a fountain of inspired truth everywhere sealed up, but a whisper ran through the western nations of Europe that the work of Thomas 4 Kempis contained some slender rivulets of truth silently stealing into light from that interdicted fountain.°
One is fascinated by the likenesses and the subtle differences among the various English versions. I have read, side by side, for example, the 1504 translation and that of Whitford, which came three or four decades later. The former states: "Wherefore let our sovereign study be in the life of Jesus Christ'; the latter: "Let all the study of our heart from henceforth be to have our meditation wholly fixed in the life of Christ' (p. 3). Again, 9 Sperry, op. cit., p. 65.
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
"] desire rather to know compunction than its definition" as compared with, "I had rather feel compunction of heart for my sins than only to know the definition of compunction" (Whitford, p. 4). I personally prefer the arresting simplicity and bareness of the style of the 1504 translation, yet it is clear that the same underlying meaning is conveyed—and sharply—by the two versions. The abounding virility of the original is such i etet as to re-create, even in translations, the sense intended by the author. In Chapter 5 of Book One, the author wrote that the holy Scripture "should be read with the same spirit that it was first made''(p. 10). Certainly it is almost by a miracle that his translators have accomplished the perpetuation of his spirit.
Whatever the divergences in wording, or in the background of the translator, one inescapable Person dominates all the forms in which this great book comes. It may well be that the author, alone with his manuscript, adopted as his undeviating rule Paul's words: "I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified' (1 Cor. 2:2). Surely he was inspired to write down that knowledge in meaningful Latin prose that has overcome the barriers of language and still comes straight home to the human heart as it searches for God.
InspiRation of This Writing
Oftentimes the author seems to be setting down, as it occurred, the direct speaking of God to his own soul as, in silence and solitude, he awaited His coming. "Our Lord saith" is a phrase frequently repeated.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
Our Lord Jesus Christ will come to thee...If thou wilt make ready for Him in thy heart a dwelling-place. .. . Betwixt Almighty God and a devout soul there are many. ghostly { spiritual} visitings, sweet inward speaking, great gifts of grace, many consolations, much heavenly peace, and wondrous familiarity (pp.66-67).
My Son, saith our Lord, hear My words and follow them, for they be most sweet, far passing the wisdom and cunning of 'all philosophers and wise men of the world
My Son, saith our Lord Jesus, walk before Me in truth, and seek Me always in simpleness and plainness of heart
Sentences, phrases, even entire chapters are prayers, asking for light, for grace, for correction.
Teach me, Lord, to fulfill Thy will, and to live meekly and worthily before Thee, for Thou art all my wisdom. . ..(p. 110).
In such prayers, in direct quotations from Scripture, and in running commentary on the divine word, lie both the surprising force and the enduring charm of Thomas' style. It is not, consciously, a literary style at all. Rather, words and ideas well up like a living spring from the depths of a man's friendship with God. The writer is sturdy-minded and discerning, keenly aware of human foibles and frailties and of the temptations and sins which challenge Christians, whether inside monastery walls or out in the secular world. He is one who, in an experience that he does not describe in this book, has been mastered by love for the Lord Jesus; his constant aim is to renew, strengthen, and amplify this experience
AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
5 ai "alles gee te in the daily doings of his own life and in the lives of his readers. With ardent simplicity and with joyous affection for Christ, his beloved, he writes, self-forgetting and hence all the more able vividly to portray his Friend and to communicate a sense of that Friend's transforming power.
Purpose Of the author
In J. B. Phillips' translation of I Timothy 4:7 occurs the phrase, 'Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit'*° or, as Weymouth puts it, "Train yourself for godliness." The Imitation is, from beginning to end, a humble man's effort to keep himself spiritually fit and to encourage himself and others to train themselves in the stern disciplines which are essential to attainment of godliness, achieved by no other means. He was fully aware, as was Paul, that the process takes time and longcontinued, soul-searching struggle To such struggle, Thomas' book is one of the surest stimuli ever produced in all the devotional history of religion. Writing of it some years ago, in World Outlook," I made a comment which for me still holds in full force and effect: When my spirits are in the doldrums, perception dulled, usually high hopes inert and sagging, I turn to this little book. ... By some strange alchemy, it starts currents of vitality within me. Spiritual skies clear, mental vision sharpens, and I embark, happily confident, toward an under- 30J. B. Phillips, Letters to Young Churches (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1951), p. 142.
11 Florence Hooper, "A Little Blue Book—And a Christian World Tomorrow," World Outlook, May 1945, p. 27.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
standable and desirable future. Again and again, this book has so affected me, me and tens of thousands of other Christian people, through full five centuries.
That, after all, is the essential thing to remember about Thomas 2 Kempis' style: it accomplishes, often and often, the miracles of the Spirit for which he prayed as he wrote. Not, indeed, a negligible accomplishment for a modern preacher to strive after, as he fashions sermons for his flock!
This is an uncompromising book: "The ghostly enemy sleepeth not, neither is the flesh yet fully mortified... ." (p. 89)... . it is no little thing to win or lose the kingdom of heaven" (p. 208). But it is just as truly a joyous one, For [as Thomas remarks} ''after winter cometh summer; after the night cometh the day; and after a great tempest sheweth again right clear and pleasant weather'
It is no hopeless and unrewarded quest to which he prompts man's soul. 'He rideth safely whom the grace of God beareth and supporteth' (p. 85). He is rich in the ''familiar friendship of Jesus' (p. 80).
Synopsis of the Imitation
It is difficult to classify The Imitation as to literary form. It is divided into four parts or "books," each of which is, in turn, made up of brief, essay-like chapters treating directly and urgently of some phase of Christlike development toward which a man must use his best endeavor.
«AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
the fi Rst BOOK admonitions useful FoR a spiritual life
The keynote of Book One—and of The Imitation as a whole—is set by the title of the first chapter: '"Of the Imitation or Following of Christ, and of the despising of all vanities of the world." Right through to the twenty-fifth and final chapter of Book One, 'Of the fervent amending of all our life..." this section. emphasizes the easily-forgotten facts that '"'a good life maketh him {a man} beloved with God" (p. 3) ; and ''they that fol- " low their sensuality hurt their own conscience....''(p. 4).
'The more cunning [ability] thou hast . . . the more grievously shalt thou be judged for the misusing thereof (p.5).
The author is not in the least afraid of plain, positive admonition. Man is sinful, and his only hope of improvement and of escape from the pains and penalties of sin, here and hereafter, lies in the pursuit of godliness. Godliness is just another name for the quality of life produced when a sinner, recognizing his wickedness and his own insignificance, turns with all his heart to "God above all created things" and finds in this new relationship power to replace his badness with the goodness which is God himself.
Trust not thyself, but all thy trust set in God... that giveth all things, and that desireth to give Himself above all things(p. 14).
But we be occupied with our passions, and be much busied with transitory things. . . .(p. 19).
To refuse to yield to "inordinate affections," to flee rash
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
judgments and manfully to resist temptations of every sort, to such soul-strengthening exercises Thomas exhorts. Vividly, he sets forth the ways in which the early Christians became friends of God: In them shined all perfection of virtue, true meekness, simple obedience, charity, patience, with other like virtues and gracious gifts of God(p. 32).
With all the fervor of his Christ-filled heart, he urges himself and all others to: Leave vain things to them that will be vain, and take thou heed only to those things that our Lord commandeth thee. Shut fast the door of thy soul, that is to say, thy imagination, and keep it warily from beholding of any bodily thing, as much as thou mayest: and then lift up thy mind to the Lord Jesu, and open thy heart faithfully to Him, and abide with Him...for thou shalt not find so much peace without (pp. 42-43).
Thou mayest well be ashamed that thou hast not conformed thyself to Him more than thou hast done(p. 62).
Time lost cannot be called again. Without labour and diligence thou shalt never get virtue(p. 64).
Sombre sayings, those; and then, like sunshine: "He that followeth me," saith Christ, our Savior, "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John
8:12). the second Book admonitions tending to things internal
The outline and purpose of Book Two may best be inferred from its chapter headings, five of which are:
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
"Of, inward conversation" [''The kingdom of God is : within you, saith Christ our Saviour' }(chap. 1), "Of the love of Jesus above all things' (chap. 7), "Of the familiar friendship of Jesus' (chap. 8), "Of the small number of the lovers of the Cross" (chap. 11), and "Of the way of the Cross, and how profitable patience is in adversity' (chap. 12). Another translation of the title of the final chapter of Book Two is "Of the King's highway of the Cross,' which has become famous.
I keep wondering, as I read this section of The Imitation, if Thomas had been deeply pondering our Lord's teaching in the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. At so many points the two run parallel in thought. The "'inward" man, according to Thomas, is one whose patience is crowned by steadfastness in suffering for and with Christ; whose whole existence flows toward God always and under every problem or provocation.
A man meeketh himself for his offences ... and reconcileth himself to them whom he hath offended. [And him} God defendeth and comforteth; to him He inclineth
Himself and sendeth him great plenty of His grace. ... him also He... lifteth... up to glory(p. 71).
He first sets himself in peace and so may then "the better pacify others" (p. 72).
A good peaceful man turned all things to the best (p. 72). [For a man} to live peaceably with evil men, or with froward men that lack good manners and be untaught, or with those that be also contrarious unto us, is a great grace and a manly deed .. .(p. 73).
"Plainness" [purity} and "cleanness" [simplicity }
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
also characterize the person who gives himself to "inward things."
Plainness is in the intent, and cleanness is in the love. The good, true, and plain intent looketh toward God, but the clean love taketh assay {testing}, and tasteth His sweetness. . . . If thou intend well, and if thou seek nothing but God and the profit of thine own soul, and that of thy neighbour, thou shalt have great inward liberty of mind.
.. . A clean heart pierceth both heaven and hell(p 74).
Thomas is very sure that no one can be good in Christ's sense of the word who does not stop blaming others for their sins and turn, instead, to an honest study before God of his own shortcomings. He does not mince words. The sins he denounces are not the "parlor sins" of a self-styled '"'nice people," easily dismissed as not too damning. They are, rather, evils that corrode the inmost soul; love of a temporal and material good; refusal of individual accountability to God; failure to recognize one's actual depravity and, turning from it, to lose oneself in God.
It is a great achievement, according to Thomas, "to be well conversant with Jesus' (p. 83).
Thy Beloved is of such nature that He will not admit any other love, for He will have alonely {all} the love of thy heart, and will sit therein as a king in his proper throne (p. 79).
If through negligence thou lose Him, what friend shall thou then have?...In Him and for Him both enemies and friends are to be beloved, and for them all we ought meekly to pray to Him, that so He may be beloved and honoured of all His creatures (pp. 83-84).
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
Always stand strongly after the will of God, and turn all things that shall come to thee to the laud and praisings of His Name(p. 84).
There is none more rich, none more free, nor any of more power than he that can forsake himself and all passing things, and that truly can hold himself to be lowest and vilest of all others(p. 94).
As this surrendered man, at first unwilling and hesitant —'For it is not in the power of man gladly to bear the cross, to love the cross . . . to flee honours, gladly to sustain reproofs . . ."(p. 98)—begins to take his initial, faltering steps on the King's highway, he finds "'strength from heaven" given him and 'the world and the flesh... made subject''(p. 98) to him. Power rises from within him to attempt obedience to Jesus' hardest saying, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me(Matt. 16:24). the third Book the inward speaking of christ to a faithful soul
This is by far the longest of the four books. God himself—''not Moses or any other of the Prophets''(p. 106) —must speak.
They speak fair, but if Thou be still, they kindle not the heart .. . They shew the way, but Thou givest comfort to walk therein(p. 106). Speak then to me to the... amendment of all my life past (p. 107).
Men must "learn not to fly on their own wings but to hope and trust under my [God's] feathers" and "to live e iC OO 3 eo
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
before God in truth and in meekness."? To estimate oneself by the exacting standards of the holy God is essential, even though, as is sure to be the case, a true estimate shows a frightening state of affairs that call for thorough repentance and purposeful prayer for cleansing. a 2 For of that vice whereby a man loveth himself inordinately, well-nigh dependeth all that ought groundly to be destroyed in man. And if that be truly overcome, anon shall follow great tranquillity and peace of conscience. But for as much as there be but few that labour to die to themselves .. . they lie still in their worldly comforts, and may in nowise rise up in spirit above themselves (p. 227).
The joyous results of listening to God and then im- — plicitly obeying him spill over into chapters of pure happiness: '"Of the marvellous effect of the love of God" (chap. 5); "That it is sweet and delectable to serve God, and to forsake the world" (chap. 10) ; "How our Lord God savoureth to His lover sweetly above all things and in all things" (chap. 34). But Thomas never lets his readers think that the way to such joy is easy. '"The desires of the heart ought to be well examined and moderated" (cf. title of chap. 11, p. 131). Man must suffer and obey. He must fight stalwartly against the pride which always threatens to possess him. 'The very true solace and comfort is in God alone' (p. 140) and "all our study and business of mind ought to be put in God" (p. 141). We "should forsake ourselves, and thrust all covetise [lust } out of our heart' (p. 177). The - 12 These two quotations are from Everyman's Library edition of The Imitation of Christ, 1937, Pages 111 and 101. (Cf. p. 121 of the Cardinal Edition.)
«AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
conclusion of the whole matter is the unforgettable prayer with which the book closes: Defend and keep me amidst the manifold dangers of this corruptible life; and through Thy grace direct me by the way of peace into the country of everlasting clearness. Amen (p. 246).
Several sections of Book Three depict a soul desolate, disappointed, persecuted, "'set little by," humbled and failing before his fellows. Note especially the chapter entitled: 'How a man that is desolate ought to offer himself wholly to God" (chap. 50). Here and elsewhere, the attentive student will glimpse a suffering servant of God almost in despair, yet meeting with poise and in the obedience of Jesus the injustice of those in authority
over him, struggling, heartbroken, but still confident in Almighty Power and Love. Can this man be Gerhard Groote? Gerhard Groote in the dismay into which he was plunged when the Bishop of Utrecht revoked his license to preach? It is worthwhile to peruse carefully these chapters which he may have written 'from the depths of his overthrowing" and to witness in them the. triumph, in his whole personality, of the Indwelling God. the fourth Book concerning the sacrament
Book Four, climax of The Imitation, treats of the prerequisites, the manner, and the life-changing results of a man's communion with God in Christ. In fifty pages or so, alive with vivid consciousness of his own unworthiness, with passionate love and with ardent seeking after
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
the Divine, the author discusses the inmost nature and the life-giving efficacy of the Holy Communion when entered upon with reverence and humility. The poignantly appealing prologue reads: Come unto Me, saith our Lord, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life(p. 250).
Note the biblical, completely non-ecclesiastical, language, surprising, it seems to me, in a literary product of the time and the conditions under which Thomas—or was it Gerhard ?—-wrote this book.
In these chapter headings—''With how great reverence Christ is to be received" (chap. 1), "That the great goodness and charity of God is given to man in this blessed Sacrament" (chap. 2), '"That it is very profitable oft to be houseled" [to receive the Holy Sacrament} (chap.3), '"Of the inward remembrance and exercise that a man ought to have afore the receiving of the Body of Christ'' (chap. 6), 'That he that shall be houseled ought to prepare himself thereto with great diligence" (chap. 12), 'That a devout soul should greatly desire with all his heart to be united to Christ in this blessed Sacrament" (chap. 13)—and in the text itself lurk, if one looks for them, all sorts of theological problems that have convulsed the Church in past times. But it is clearly evident that to the mind of the writer they are
AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
not present. His one eager, burning desire is to bring his readers and himself into ever more complete and increasingly renewed fellowship with his Lord. He assumes this sacrament as a rite of the church polity which he knows and follows, a rite of the mediaeval Church. But all that he says about it and about its possible effect on a man's inner life applies equally to any twentieth century Christian, Protestant or Catholic, ritualist or non-ritualist. By some amazing simplification he uses the particulars of his time and place as avenues into the universal. So that, whatever the form or lack of form with which those who truly seek Him may worship, they do actually, now as then, receive what Thomas calls ''the nourishing of immortality' (p. 251). No need to argue about a fact. "In this Sacrament," he says, 'spiritual grace is given, and the virtue that was lost in their soul is repaired, and the beauty that was deformed through sin returneth again' (p. 255).
Of the wonder opened for every man, he writes: Thou sayest: Come ye all unto Me. But that Thou, Lord, hadst said it, who would believe it to be true? (p. 252).
Of the difficulty of honestly and meekly and undividedly entering into this most demanding of all relationships, he says: Seldom am I gathered together in Thee, and more seldom am I purged from having my mind overmuch on worldly things (p. 253).
Keep thou mine heart,and my body immaculate, that in a glad and a pure conscience I may ofttimes celebrate Thy mysteries and receive them to my everlasting health cae (p. 259) - elt aA ae, |:
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
My soul coveteth to receive Thy body, my heart desireth to be united with Thee(p. 260).
Stir up my heart unto a full beholding of Thee, and deliver me from the great sloth and idleness in which I have been in time past(p. 262).
Our Lord saith:
If thou wilt that I come to thée and dwell with thee, cleanse thee of all the old filth of sin, and cleanse also the. habitation of thine heart, making it pleasant and fair. Exclude the world and all the clamorous noise of sin; sit solitary as a sparrow alone upon the housetop, and think upon all thy offences with great bitterness of heart (p. 286).
Prepare thyself unto devotion before thou shalt be houseled ... also diligently... keep thyself therein after the receiving of the Sacrament (pp. 287-288).
I am He to Whom thou must give all, so that from henceforth thou live not in thyself but only in me(p. 288).
Summary Of This IntRoduction
I have developed at some length the foregoing synopsis of the content of The Imitation because such a summary or interpretation seems to be a necessary prelude to an initial study of this book. The language of most of the translations is archaic; many words are used with meanings just enough different from those to which we are accustomed to cause a real possibility of misunderstanding. When one is thoroughly familiar with the volume as a whole, these verbal difficulties lose their importance in the bright radiance of its presentation of
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
spiritual truth. Furthermore, the vocabulary and the ideology are, in great part, conditioned by the fact that the writer was a fourteenth or fifteenth century Christian with an ascetic, monastic, background. One must learn by frequent, careful reading and rereading to eliminate those ideas of his that are contrary to, or distortions of, biblical truth or of later Christian experience. Meanwhile, however, it will, I think, be a help to the student to have a preview with brief comment from one who is a present-day lay Protestant. The synopsis should be carefully considered before the book itself is read, not because this summary is one with which the reader will eventually agree fully, but because it will serve as a guide through what may appear at first a maze of unfamiliar ideas and expressions. the Imitation — a personal Book
The Imitation is essentially a personal book. It deals with the intimate, inward spiritual life of the individual and speaks little, if at all, of Christian social action, of community welfare, of missionary enterprise or, indeed, of the Church itself as a force in society. Because of this lack of expressed social concern, it has been attacked as the voice of one who has alienated himself from the world and its complex life.
In this criticism I do not now concur, as I observe the effect upon my own religious outlook of the decade of intensive use of The Imitation as a devotional help. In the beginning I was disturbed by its failure to stress or even to mention unselfish Christian group activities, or the outreaching toward humanity in need, which are
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
basic in New Testament thought and in modern religious concepts. But I have come to recognize that the author does not mention these things because he is so completely convinced that they must, to have lasting value, be the outgrowth of the purification of the individual soul, and not its prelude. Only he who knows God well enough to be possessed by his Spirit and under his guidance can serve others with power and assurance. Take as authoritative the experiences of our Lord. Solitary fasting and victory over temptation in the wilderness preceded the opening of his ministry. A night of prayer, alone on a mountainside, determined his choice of the Twelve. The unutterable spiritual isolation of Gethsemane issued in the complete sacrifice of himself, for others, on the cross of Calvary. No one is strong to serve Christ in the hurly-burly of the world who has not, through solitude and prayer, become really acquainted with him. He only is qualified to be a "brother of the common life" who is first a brother of the Lord.
Do not misunderstand me. Any form of religious observance, no matter how valuable in itself, may lead to overindulgence and to excess. One who prays long hours alone may be thrilling himself, neglecting his real duty and not serving God at all. But the odds are against this result, for God is present at the interview, and his spirit is mighty to convict of sin and to bring about the amendment of the sinner. That Thomas recognizes the danger of too constant withdrawal, however, there are many proofs in The Imitation. Note particularly the chapter, "That it is good that a man give himself to meek bodily labours, when he feeleth not himself disposed to high
AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
works of devotion" (p. 220). Frequently one finds the author's practical good sense running athwart the natural currents of the monastic life and its ascetic practices. Leaving such practices aside, one has, I think, in our overwhelmingly "outward" epoch little to fear from solitary seeking after the Divine, and very much to gain in vital power to serve. Men need so desperately the Christ we can then mediate to them.
SuGGEested Uses OF the Imitation
fOR GROUP study
Because The Imitation is, as we have seen, intensely personal in its orientation, it would seem at first thought to be a book for private devotional reading only, and not for group study. Further consideration, however, suggests that it can be used with telling effect as a study book for Woman's Societies or for circles, for Wesleyan Service Guilds, and even for special study groups having more time for detailed research. The synopsis given earlier in this chapter might well be the basis for the initial study by all members of the class or circle. Then, the many questions that will surely arise from it could profitably be discussed under the guidance of the group leader. Among these questions there will be many requiring additional information. Such problems could be made the basis for papers to be written after inquiry and investigation of historical and other sources. For example, persons to whom words are a delight as well as a puzzle might be assigned comparisons of Thomas' use of words (as found in the translation, of course), with our present-day English meanings and connotaa a
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
tions. Take, for instance, the word ''creature'" as found in The Imitation and parallel it with today's usage.
Another subject, fascinating in itself and, in addition, serving to acquaint the student ever more fully with the content of the book, is this: Do all the chapters seem of equal value? If not, try to discover why. There are times when The Imitation seems tiresomely repetitious both in phraseology and in ideas. Study it with a view to ascertaining whether the iterations are mere repetition or whether they may be fresh ways of stating the same facts, or exhortations, or warnings, iterations that have cumulative effect and hence have force in psychological emphasis.
Class discussion might center at one session about the very important question: Is The Imitation in agreement at all points with the recorded life and teachings of our Lord? If not, where, how, and why does it diverge from the Gospel accounts? Much could be learned from consideration of the historical background of the period during which The Imitation was probably composed. For example, remembering that Gerhard Groote lived from 1340 to 1384 and Thomas from 1380 to 1471, one finds it interesting to recall that Geoffrey Chaucer lived from 1340 to 1400 and that his poem, '"The Love Unfeigned," closely parallels parts of The Imitation. Petrarch, in Italy (1304-1374), wrote three essays significantly titled "Concerning Contempt of the World," "Concerning the Solitary Life," and "Concerning True Wisdom." Perhaps Thomas was not so far out of the current of the thought of his time, after all! In 1429, when he was forty-nine, Joan of Arc raised the siege of
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
Orleans, and in 1431 she was burned at the stake. The battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415, when Thomas was thirty-five. His long life covered, in whole or in part, the reigns of three English kings (Henry IV, V, and VI) and the childhood of a fourth, Henry VII. Why does he mention none of this in his book?
Sidelights on the value of The Imitation in helping to mold the religious development of great men and women would be gained by the compilation of a list of some of those who have acknowledged their debt to it. For instance, it is said that a well-marked copy was found in Edith Cavell's cell after her execution. Lively discussion will be stirred by the questions: Could a modern man have written this book? Give reasons for your answer. Has it present-day significance? How? Does it meet or fail to meet modern ethical, social, and religious standards? Show how it serves—or fails to serve—contemporary religious needs. Discussion and even controversy in the class will be all to the good, for they will set class members to thinking, comparing, and revising their own religious practices and points of view.
IN peRsONal SEVOTIONS
Thus the class sessions should be very valuable, but it is abundantly evident that they are only preliminary to a vital use of The Imitation. It is intended for the individual, alone in search of God, and should be so employed after group consideration has provided background and clarification. Because, properly understood, this book can transform one's entire life, its comprehension is a matter of profound import. In a way it is a
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dangerous volume; it has such revolutionary implications for one's everyday living.
Its thesis—neither more nor less than unity of a human soul with the Divine as revealed in Jesus Christ— demands unconditional devotion of all energy and ability to him. With remarkable application of practical means to intense and passionate religious devotions, the author uncompromisingly insists that God shall have first place in every smallest detail of living. A vista is opened down the path of such self-surrender, which shows this as the only way to spiritual understanding and to efficient service to others, as well. A rough road, this; not easy for Jesus himself on earth, much less for us, his "little servants.'
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How does one achieve this union? Thomas says: "Exercise thyself daily in the life and passion of our Lord." Let him be the gauge by which every thought, every activity, every hope is measured. 'Like as iron put in the fire loseth his rust and shall be made bright, so a man turning him wholly to God is freed and taken from sloth and changed into a new man.'**(Cf. p. 74.) Will this union affect more than one's own character? Will oneness with Christ help meet the problems of the world ? How? These questions and others as weighty will arise and demand honest and reverent thought. New insights gained should be practiced. Sins realized and repented of should, by the grace of God, be conquered.
Thus it will come to pass that the Divine Spirit, through this old book, will renew in yet another life the miracle of transformation so often wrought before.
13 Everyman's Library edition.
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