THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
meant for monastics and recluses. Behind and within all its reflections runs the council of selfrenunciation. The life of Christ is presented as the highest study possible to a mortal. His teachings far excel all the teachings of the saints. The book gives counsels to read the Scriptures, statements about the uses of adversity, advice for submission to authority, warnings against temptation and how to resist it, reflections about death and the judgment, meditations upon the oblation of Christ, and admonitions to flee the vanities of the world. Christ himself is more than all the wisdom of the schools and lifts the mind to perceive more of eternal truth in a moment of time than a student might learn in the schools in ten years. Excellent as these counsels are, they are set in the minor key and are especially adapted for souls burdened with care and sorrow and sitting in darkness. They present only one side of the Christian life, and in order to compass the whole of it they must be supplemented by counsels for integrity, bravery and constancy in the struggle of daily existence to which the vast mass of mankind, who can not be recluses, are called. The charge has even been made that the piety commended by the "Imitation" is of a selfish monkish type. It was written by a monk and intended for the convent; it lays stress on the passive qualities and does not touch with firmness the string of active service in the world. That which makes it acceptable to all Christians is the supreme stress it lays upon Christ and the possibility of immediate communion with him and God. The references to medieval mistakes or superstitions are confined to several passages, viz., the merit of good works and transubstantiation (iv. 2), purgatory (iv. 9), and the worship of saints (i. 13, ii. 9, hi. 6, 59). In other works, however, Thomas a Kempis exalts Mary as the queen of heaven, the efficient mediatress of sinners, and to her all should flee as to a mother. She should be invoked. He also gives prayers to Mary (cf. the De tabernaculis, and Hortus rosarum, Pohl's ed., ut inf., i. also iii. 357, vi. 219, 235 sqq.).
III. Disputed Authorship of the "Imitation of Christ " : To some extent national sentiments have entered into the controversy which for 300 years
has been waged over the authorship
i. General of the "Imitation," France and Italy
Survey. contending for the honor of furnishing
the author as against the Netherlands. The weight of opinion is in favor of Thomas a Kempis. Among the recent treatments of the subject are: K. Hirsche, Prolegomena zu einer neuen Ausgabe der Imitatio Christi (Berlin, 1873, 1884, 1894), containing a copy of the Latin text of the manuscript dated 1441; C. Wolfsgruber, Giovanni Gersen, sein Leben und sein Werk De Imitatione Christi (Augsburg, 1880); L. Santini, I diritti di Tommaso da Kempis (2 vols., Rome, 1879-81); S. Kettlewell, Authorship of the " De Imitatione Christi" (London, 1877; 2d ed., 1884); V. Becker, L'Auteur de V Imitation etles documents Neerlandais (The Hague, 1882) ; also Les dernier s traveaux sur I'auteur de l! Imitation (Brussels, 1889); H. S. Denifle, Kritische Bemerkungen zur Gersen-Kernpis Frage, in ZKT (1882- 1883); O. A, Spitzen, Thomas a Kempis als schrijver
tier na,volging (Utrecht, 1880), also Nouvelle defense en reponse du Denifle (1884); F. X. Funk Gerson und Gersen, also Der Verfasser der Nachfolg'e Christi, both in his Abhandlungen (ii. 373-444 Paderborn, 1899); P E. Puyol, Descriptions bibliographiques des manuscrits et des principales editions du livre De Imitatione Christi (Paris, 1898); Paleographie, classement, ginealogie du livre de Imitatione Christi (1898), and L'Auteur du livre De Imitatione Christi (2 vols., 1899-1900); G. Kentenich, Die Handschriften der Imitatio und die A utorschaft des Thomas, in ZKG, xxiii. 18 sqq., xxiv. 504 sqq.; J. E. G. De Montmorency, Thomas a Kempis, his Age and his Book, New York, 1906; and L. Schulze, in Hauck-Herzog, RE, xix. 719-733. For other works, see the bibliography below. Pohl gives a list of thirty-five persons to whom the authorship has at one time or another been ascribed, among them Thomas a Kempis, Jean Charlier de Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris, Giovanni Gersen, the reputed abbot of Vercelli, Italy, St. Bernard, Bonaventura, David of Augsburg, Johann Tauler, Heinrich Suso, and even Innocent III., the last chiefly on account of the second part of the title of the " Imitation," recalling Innocent's work on the contempt of the world. The only claimants worthy of attention are Thomas a Kempis, the Chancellor Gerson (d. 1429), and the Abbot Giovanni Gersen, who is said to have lived about 1230. The uncertainty arises from several facts: (1) a number of manuscripts and printed editions of the fifteenth century have no note of authorship; (2) the rest are divided between these three men and St. Bernard; and (3) the manuscript copies show important divergences. The matter has been made more perplexing by the forgery of names and dates in manuscripts of the " Imitation " since the controversy began, these forgeries, however, being largely in the interest of Gerson and Gersen. A reason for the absence of an author's name in so many of the manuscripts is to be found, if Thomas a Kempis was indeed the author, in his wishing to remain unknown according to his maxim Ama nesciri, Love to be unknown. Of the Latin editions belonging to the fifteenth century, Pohl gives twentyeight as accredited to Gerson, twelve to Thomas, two to St. Bernard, and six anonymous. Or, to follow Funk (p. 426), forty editions of that century ascribed the work to Gerson, eleven to Thomas, two to St. Bernard, one to Gersen, and two are anonymous. Spitzen gives fifteen as ascribed to Thomas a Kempis. Most of the editions containing Gerson's name were printed in France; a few were issued in Italy and Spain. The editions of the sixteenth century show a change. There, thirty-seven Latin editions ascribe the authorship to Thomas a Kempis, twenty-five to Gerson. As for the manuscripts, all of them dated before 1450, the dates of which are probably genuine, were written in Germany or the Netherlands. The oldest is included in a codex preserved since 1826 in the royal library of Brussels. The codex contains nine other writings of Thomas besides the "Imitation." It is dated 1441, containing the note, in Latin, finitus et completus MCCCCXLI per manus fratris Th. Kernpensis in Monte S. Agnetis prope Zuvllis, " Finished