RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kempis
and completed in 1441 by the hands of brother Thomas a, Kempis, at Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle " (cf. Pohl, ii. 461). If this be a genuine writing the manuscript is an autographic copy. The text of the Imitation is written on older paper than the other documents comprised in the codex. It also contains corrections which are found in the first Dutch translation of 1420. For these reasons Spitzen, Funk and others place this text of the Imitation between 1416 and 1420.
The literary controversy over the composition began in 1604 when Dom Pedro Manriquez, in a work on the Lord's Supper issued at Milan, declared the " Imitation " to be older than Bonaventura, basing his statement upon an alleged 2. Gersen's quotation from it by that schoolman. Claims. In 1606 Bellarmine in his De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis stated it was already in existence in 1260. About the same time the Jesuit Rossignoli found in a convent at Arona near Milan a manuscript without date bearing the name of the Abbot Giovanni Gersen as its author. The house had at one time belonged to the Benedictines, and the Benedictine Cajetan, secretary of Paul V., defended the abbot's claim in his Gersen restitutus (Rome, 1614) and later in his Apparatus ad Gersenem restitutum. Cajetan also announced the discovery of a manuscript in Venice containing the statement, "Not Johannes Gerson but Johannes abbot of Vercelli wrote this book." Gersen's claims were attacked by the Augustinian Heribert Rosweyde in his Vindiciae Kempenses (Antwerp, 1617), and so cogently that Bellarmine withdrew his statement. The Congregation of Propaganda, urged by the Benedictines, gave permission for the book to be printed in Rome and elsewhere under the name of Gerson. A revival of the assertion of the Italian's authorship was started by the Piedmontese nobleman, Gregory, in his Istoria delta Vercellese letteratura (Turin, 1819). He was confirmed in his view by a manuscript of the " Imitation " purchased in Paris in 1830, containing the statement that in 1550 it was the property of an Italian Girolamo d'Avogadri. The family Avogadri had its ancestral seat near Vercelli, and an old diarium, which Gregory found, contained under the date of Feb. 5, 1347, the record of the transmission of a book called the " Imitation of Christ." Gregory issued his manuscript (Paris, 1833), and in his Histoire du livre de I'Imitatione (Paris, 1842) he defended the alleged authorship of the abbot of Vercelli. He was thoroughly answered by J. B. Malou, bishop of Bruges, in his Recherch.es historiques et critiques sur le veritable auteur du livre de I'Imitation Christi (Tournay, 1848; 3d ed., Paris, 1858). The Italian origin again found a vigorous advocate in Coelestin Wolfsgruber (ut sup.). The abbot's claim has at present little or no standing; and it has been shown that the details of his life are simple conjectures. Funk pronounces him a fiction. A monument was dedicated to the Italian's memory at Vercelli in 1884.
After the decision of the Congregation of Propaganda the matter of the authorship was taken up with spirit in France. A careful examination of the manuscript copies of the Imitation was made,
but with uncertain result. Richelieu in his splendid edition of 1640 issued the work without name of
author, but in 1652 the French Parlia-
3. Gerson's ment ordered the work issued under the
Claims, name of Thomas a Kempis. Mabillon
made a fresh examination of manuscripts at three gatherings (1671, 1674, 1687), the case being decided against Thomas a Kempis. Dupin, in his edition of Gerson's works (cf. 2d ed., 1728, vol. i., pp. lix.-lxxxiv.), made a comparison of Gerson's writings with the " Imitation " and showed that it was possible that Gerson was the author of the latter, but closed his discussion with the statement that it is not possible to come to a final decision between the claims of Gersen, Gerson, and Thomas a Kempis. The controversy again broke out with the edition of 1724 made by the Benedictines Erhard and Mezler, who ascribed the authorship to Gerson as also did Vollardt in his edition (Paris, 1758). A strong reply was made by the Augustinian E. Amort of Polling, Bavaria, who defended with much learning the claims zl Thomas a Kempis in his Informatio de statu controversiae (Augsburg, 1728), and especially in his Scutum Kempense seu vindiciae IV librorum de Imitatione Christi (Cologne, 1728). The editions of De Sacy (Paris, 1853) and Caro (ib., 1875) leave the authorship undecided. After the claims of Thomas a Kempis seemed to be very generally acknowledged, still another stage in the controversy was opened by P. E. Puyol (1898, ut sup.), who gave a description of 348 manuscripts and annotated the variations between fifty-seven of them. His conclusion was that the text of the Italian manuscript is the more simple and consequently the older. He has been followed by Kentenich; Puyol's work may lead to a more careful comparison of the texts of the Imitation. The claim that Gerson is the author of the " Imitation of Christ " is based upon editions and manuscripts made before 1500 bearing his name and upon probabilities drawn from Gerson's style and mystical temper of thought. The manuscript upon which chief stress used to be laid is at Valenciennes and is dated 1462. It contains Gerson's sermons on the Passion of Christ and a book called Internelle Consolation. Onesime Leroy in his Etudes sur les mysteres et sur le divers manuscrits de Gerson (Paris, 1837), and in his Corneille et Gerson dans I'Imitation de Jesu Christi (Paris, 1841), drew the conclusion that all these works must be by the same author. It was later shown from a manuscript in Amiens dated 1447 that the work Internelle Consolation was a translation of the Imitation made by Hesden from the Latin. The similarity between Gerson's writings and the " Imitation " was amply refuted by J. B. Schwab in his life of Gerson (Wtirzburg, 1858, pp. 782-786). Gerson in his judgment would have required the endowment of a wholly new tongue to write the work. The first edition of Gerson's works (1483) does not contain it. Again, the lists of the chancellor's writings given by his brother John (1423) and by Canesius (1429) do not mention it. The author was by his own statement a monk (iv. 5, 11, iii. 56), and Gerson was not a monk. The attachment of Gerson's name to the book can be explained only by the considera-
Kempis Kendriok