Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Thomas à Kempis was born in Kempen, Germany, some forty miles north of Cologne, toward the end of 1379 or the beginning of 1380. His family name was Hemerken; his father, John, was a blacksmith and his mother, Gertrude, was a schoolmistress. Thomas’ early education was had in his native town, but in 1392, at age thirteen, when it was time to go elsewhere to further his studies, he was sent to Deventer in the Low Countries, where Jan, his older brother by some fifteen years, had studied. At the time of Thomas’ arrival there, his brother, who in 1390 had earlier entered the Brethren of the Common Life, was then a canon at their monastery in Windesheim. Hence, Thomas first visited his brother and informed him of his plans to study at Jan’s alma mater. Since the school in Deventer was operated by the Brethren, Thomas, on leaving Windesheim, carried with him Jan’s letter recommending him to Florens Radewijns (ca. 1350-1400), Master of the Deventer school.
Radewijns was one of the early followers of Geert Groote (1340-1384), founder of the Brethren and of the popular religious movement known as Devotio Moderna (New Devotion). When the piety and spiritual life of the Catholics in the Low Countries began to wane and the people became somewhat slovenly in the practice of their faith, Groote’s movement succeeded in renewing devotion in the hearts of his people. Though the movement became known as Devotio Moderna, there was actually nothing modern, new, or novel about it, rather it was basically a program of renewal or revitalization of the faith. When Groote died in 1384, Radewijns succeeded him as head of the movement and as superior of the Brethren in Deventer. It was under the latter’s supervision that Thomas was educated.
Thomas’ course of studies at Deventer lasted seven years, from 1392 to 1399, and upon completing his program of instruction, Radewijns suggested that Thomas visit his brother Jan, who in 1398 had been elected the first prior of the newly founded monastery of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine at Mount Saint Agnes, near Zwolle. Since Thomas had associated with the Brethren in Deventer, he was familiar with their manner of life and their spirituality, so it is not at all strange that he should have requested to become a member of his brother’s religious community. In 1399, Jan gladly accepted Thomas as a candidate. Following monastic custom, he was now known as Thomas of Kempen or, as the Latin would have it, Thomas à Kempis. He spent the next seven years, from 1399 to 1406, participating in the community’s life, sharing their hours of work and prayer, and perfecting his calligraphy, thus developing his ability to copy liturgical and devotional books.
On the feast of Corpus Christi in 1406, which fell on June 10 of that year, Thomas was formally accepted as a member of the Congregation of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and was clothed with the congregation’s distinctive white habit. In 1408, he pronounced his religious vows and subsequently was ordained a priest in 1414—he was then thirty-four years of age. Thomas twice served as subprior of the community; he was first elected to that office in 1425 and again in 1448. As subprior, he was not only the prior’s assistant, but he also fulfilled the important office of Master of Novices. It is quite probable that the four treatises that form his celebrated The Imitation of Christ were written during his first term as subprior.
Thomas spent his entire religious life at Mount Saint Agnes, except for a three-year period, 1429 to 1432, when the community went into exile to neighboring Friesland. The see of Utrecht had become vacant in 1423 and a dispute arose as to who was to become the new bishop. When Pope Martin V’s appointee was not accepted by the people, the pope placed the diocese under an interdict in 1428. As a result all public celebrations of Mass and the dispensing of the sacraments were forbidden. Because the canons at Mount Saint Agnes chose to be loyal to the pope and to observe the interdict, they refused to yield to the capricious demands of the local citizenry for the sacraments. Hence the monks, in their search for peace and quiet, voluntarily went into exile. This they did in June 1429.
The monks returned to their monastery in 1432, but Thomas was not to return until sometime later. Since his brother Jan, then superior of the House of Bethany in Arnhem, had fallen seriously ill, Thomas left Friesland in September 1431 to assist him in his illness. There he remained until his brother’s death on November 4, 1432. Upon Thomas’ return to Mount Saint Agnes, he served as community procurator, but in 1448 he was again elected subprior.
From 1425 to 1439, during his years at Mount Saint Agnes, Thomas made a copy of the entire Bible in five volumes, which is now preserved in the Darmstadt Library. In addition to his beloved The Imitation of Christ, he produced some three dozen devotional works. The favorites are: Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ, the second part of which is here presented to the reader, The Soul’s Soliloquy, On the Three Tabernacles, The Little Garden of Roses, The Valley of Lilies, On Solitude and Silence, and Sermons to Novices. He likewise wrote biographies of the founders of the Devotio Moderna: Geert Groote and Florens Radewijns. At the time of his death Thomas was near completing his Chronicles of the Canons Regular
of Mount St. Agnes. The date of his death is usually given as July 25, 1471. He was then ninety-two years of age, had spent sixty-five years in religion, and was a priest for fifty-eight years. He was buried in the monastery’s east cloister. His remains were removed in 1672 to the church of Saint Joseph in Zwolle, then transferred in 1892 to that of Saint Michael, but when the latter was replaced by a newer church of the same name, the remains were taken there in 1965.
On the Passion of Christ according
to the Four Evangelists
At the very beginning of his The Imitation of Christ, Thomas reminds the reader that in order to become a follower of Christ one must imitate his life, and to accomplish this he adds: “Let it then be our main concern to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ.”1 It is impossible to imitate Christ without first knowing him, and the best way of getting to know him is by meditating on his life as it is described in the four Gospels. Thomas firmly believed that whoever “meditates devoutly on the most holy life and Passion of our Lord will find all that he needs to make his life worthwhile. In fact, he has no need to go beyond Jesus, for he will discover nothing better. If Jesus Crucified would come into our hearts, how quickly and perfectly we would be instructed in the spiritual life.”2
Thomas is here undoubtedly speaking from his own experience in using the Gospels as subject matter for his prayer and meditation. When he penned the above citations, he had already spent some twelve years as a religious,3 and during those years much of his prayer was on the Gospel accounts of our Lord’s life. It was several years after Thomas had completed the Imitation that he wrote his Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ. The date of its composition is uncertain, however. It was most probably written during the years when he was the community’s subprior and Master of Novices. The purpose Thomas had in composing this work was similar to that of the Imitation, namely, the spiritual benefit of his fellow monks at Mount Saint Agnes.
Prayers and Meditations is divided into four parts. The first deals with the period from our Lord’s Incarnation to the Last Supper and is entitled, “Devout Meditations on the Life and Benefits of Jesus Christ the Savior, together with Thanksgiving”; the second is “On the Passion of Christ according to the Four Evangelists”; the next is “On the Resurrection of Christ and His Appearances”; and finally “On the Ascension, Pentecost and Other Matters”.Only the second part of this work, namely those chapters dealing with Christ’s Passion, is here translated, not only because this part attracted the translator more than the others, but also because this may well have been the author’s favorite part. That Thomas had great devotion to Christ’s Passion is clearly stated in the obituary written by a contemporary and appended to Thomas’ final work dealing with the history of their monastery. This unknown author wrote: “The thought of the Lord’s passion filled his heart with love.”4
Up to the present, only four English translations of the Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ have been published. The first appeared in Paris in 1664.5 The volume gave Thomas Carre as the translator, his true name however was Miles Pinkney (1599-1674), a Catholic priest, who, for some forty years, had been chaplain to the exiled English Canonesses Regular of Saint Augustine in Paris. Carre had previously translated Thomas’ Imitation in 1636, as well his Sermons of the Incarnation and Passion and Soliloquies in 1653.6
The second translation is that of Henry Lee (fl. 1751-1767?).7 The volume appeared in 1760, with a second edition in 1762, and Lee readily admits in his preface that he has taken liberties in translating the work. For example, he omitted sections and chapters that he thought offensive to his fellow Protestant coreligionists (i.e., those dealing with the invocation of the saints and with Mary) and enlarges on others emphasizing the Protestant interpretation of the Scriptures. So greatly did he change Thomas’ text that a later translator remarks: “The outcome of Mr. Lee’s system of ‘translation’ is that only about three-tenths of his book come from Thomas à Kempis, the rest being Mr. Lee’s.”8
The third translation is that of the Archdeacon Wright and Samuel Kettlewell (1822-1893), which appeared in 1892 with a second edition in 1894. They undertook the project of retranslating Thomas’ work because of their dissatisfaction with the Lee translation. In his preface Kettlewell notes: “. . . [I]n this case, so much of the translator’s reflections and references to Scripture are added, that it is difficult to tell what really is Lee’s and what belongs to Thomas à Kempis.”9 These translators likewise omit passages where Thomas refers to the invocation of the saints, as well as our chapters 26 and 34. Their explanation for these omissions is: “Any words sanctioning some corruption or error prevalent in the Pre-Reformation Church, are carefully excluded.”10
The next translation is that of William Duthoit (1835—?)11 which appeared in 1908. This version is definitely faithful to Thomas’ work, but is now almost one hundred years old and somewhat Victorian in style. Where Thomas expresses his thought in very concise and succinct Latin, Duthoit often prefers to express the same in an extended paraphrase, undoubtedly to make it easier for the reader to understand.
The translation that we now present to the reader is “On the Passion of Christ according to the Four Evangelists”, the second part of Thomas à Kempis’ work entitled Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ. Though it is only a part of the whole, nevertheless, it is more than half of the volume. The translation was made from the critical edition of Thomas’ works by Michael Joseph Pohl (1835-1922).12 At the same time, the translator had the Wright / Kettlewell and Duthoit translations on his desk. He has attempted to keep to Thomas’ concise and compact style, as well as to preserve the author’s penchant for parallel phrasing.
Thomas takes it for granted that the reader has some familiarity with the Passion accounts as found in the four Gospels, that is, Matthew 26:1-27:65, Mark 14:32-15:47, Luke 22:1-23:56, and John 18:1-19:42.13 He reviews various episodes of Christ’s Passion in thirty-five meditations and begins each with a colloquy to Christ, followed by a reflection. It is in these reflections that one encounters echoes of the Imitation.
Like all other meditation books, this one is not to be read at one sitting, rather it is to be prayed chapter by chapter. It would be most helpful for the reader first to read a portion of Thomas’ text, visualize the scene under consideration, and then quietly and unhurriedly reflect on the same. Make Thomas’ prayer your own. Join with him when he addresses the Lord and listen to him when he speaks to you, the reader.
Though these meditations were primarily written for his fellow monks and have references to monastic customs, these latter should prove no obstacle to the attentive reader, for such matters will become clear from the context or are explained in the footnotes.
Finally, the prayer of the translator is that these meditations on the Lord’s Passion fill the reader’s heart with greater love for Christ, in the same way as the love of Christ’s Passion once filled that of the author.
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross