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 a 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.




THE IMITATION OF CHRIST