Strange, indeed, it seems that the authorship of a work so popular and so widely noted, and of compara- tively recent origin, should ever have been a subject of doubt and long controversy. Shortly after the decease of Thomas a Kempis a violent dispute arose between the Canons Regular of St. Augustine and the Benedictines, the former claiming De 1 initatiojie Christi as the work of Thomas a Kempis, the latter asserting it to have been the production of the celebrated John (Jerson (q. v.), chancellor of the University of Paris, who died in 1429. These two persons were generally cited as its authors until the beginning of the 17th centurv, when the Spanish Jesuit Manriqucz discovered a MS. which credited it to John Gersen, or Gesen, abbe of Verceil in the early part of the 13th century. Since that time (1604) three competitors have divided the voices of the learned — not alone individuals, but public bodies, uni- versities, religious orders, the Congregation of the In- dex, the Parliament of Paris, and even the French Academy; and the assertors of these respective claims have carried into the controversy no trifling amount of polemical acrimony. So much lias been written on the theme, especially by French and Netherland antiqua- ries, that its pamphlets and books would make up quite a little library. Among the French writers the ten- dency of opinion has been to give the merit of this cele- brated production to John Gerson. " Kempis," argued Messieurs Barbier and Lcroy, "was an excellent copv- ist; his copy of the Bible — the labor of fifteen years- was thought a masterpiece of calligraphic art; and so he was merely employed in transcribing the work of Gerson," basing their inference mainly on the name and date of an ancient MS. of the De Imitatione preserved in the library at Valenciennes. (German writers, on the other hand, liavc always been decidedly in favor of as- signing tlie work to Thomas a Kempis, and since the discovery by bishop ]Malon of a MS. in the lilirary at Brussels, bearing the name of Thomas a Kempis as au- thor, the Belgians have joined the Germans. The proofs in favor of Thomas a Kempis are thus stated by M. Ernest (iregoire (in Hoefer, Nouv. Bioij. Gen. xxvii, 545 sq.).
A. The direct Testimom/ of his Contemporaries. — 1. John Buschius, canon regular of tJie monastery of Win- desheim (1420-79), positively declares in his ( hronicle of that convent that Thomas wrote the Imitation, As he
knew him intimately, and had often occasion to see him, his testimony is important. They were of the same congregation, and Buschius was in the principal con- vent, where was held the general chapter, in which Thomas, as subprior, took part. Moreover, he resided there for fifty-one years, only one league and a half from Mount St. Agnes, where Thomas lived at tlie same time. It was said by some that the passage re- ferring to Thomas was afterwards added in the chroni- cle; but a well-authenticated deed, drawn up in 17G0, testifies tTiat the MS. of the chronicle written by Busch- ius's own hand contains the passage written in the same hand, with the same ink, and in full, without erasure, insertion, or parenthesis. The same has been proved concerning a ]\IS. copy of the Chronir/e of Windesheim, written in 1477, and another written in 1478, which was sold at Cologne in 1823. 2. Hermann of Uyd, ^vho wrote in 1464 a description of the convents belonging to the Canons Regular of Windesheim, states as positively as Buschius tliat Thomas, with whom he was personally acquainted, wrote the Imitation. 3. Gaspard Pforzheim, at the end of his German translation of the first three books of the Imitation, written in 1448, declares that it was the work of Kempis. 4. The author of an anony- mous biography of Kempis, written before the year 1488, counts the Imitation among the works of Thomas. His testimony is the more valuable, as he had expressly gone to jNIount St. Agnes to learn all the ]iarticulars concern- ing Kempis from those who had lived with him. 5. Albert of Hardenberg, a disciple of the celebrated Wes- sel, who was himself a disciple of Thomas, wrote the following decisive passages: "The reputation of the excellent brother Thomas a Kempis attracted many people to him. About that time he was MTiting the book of the Imitation oj" Christ, commencing Qui sequi- tiir me. Wessel used to say that this book first rendered him zealously pious, and decided him to become better acquainted, and even familiar, with master Thomas, so that he actually, embraced monastic life in the same convent of St. Agnes ;" again : " The monks of ilount St. Agnes have shown me several writings of the very pious Thomas a Kempis, of whom they have preserved, among others, the trul_v estimable work of the Imita- tion of Jesus Christ, to which A^'essel owed his taste for theologj-. The reading of this \\ork had decided him, while jx't quite young, to go to Zwoll to study belles- lettres, and to enjoj' the friendship of the pious Thomas a Kem])is, who was then canon of St. Agnes. Wessel had the highest regard for liim, and preferred dwelling there rather than anywhere else." 6. John jMauburne, a canon regular, who was a novice of jMount St. Agnes under Renier, which latter had lived there six years with Thomas .a Kempis, quotes, in his Eosetum spiritn- alium exercitiorum, printed in 1491, three passages of the Imitation, naming Kempis as its author. In his Catalogue des hommes ilhistres de la conf/ret/alion de Win- desem (Windesheim) he names three books of the Imi- tation, separately, as the work of Thonias.