"MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES."

(Vol. viii., p. 552.; Vol. ix., p. 87.)

1. If your correspondent H. P. will again examine my communication on this subject, he will find that I have not overlooked the view which attributes the De Imitatione to John Gerson, but have expressly referred to it.

2. If Gerson was the author, this will not prove that in quoting the proverb in question, Piers Ploughman quoted from the De Imitatione, as H. P. supposes. The dates which I gave will show this. The Vision was written about A.D. 1362, whereas, according to Du Pin, John Gerson was born December 14, 1363, took a prominent part in the Council of Constance, 1414, and died in 1429. Of the Latin writers of the fifteenth century, Mosheim says:

"At their head we may justly place John Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, the most illustrious ornament that this age can boast of, a man of great influence and authority, whom the Council of Constance looked upon an its oracle, the lovers of liberty as their patron, and whose memory is yet precious to such among the French clergy as are at all zealous for the maintenance of their privileges against papal despotism."—Ecc. Hist., cent. xv. ch. ii. sec. 24.

3. Gerson was not a Benedictine monk, but a Parisian curé, and Canon of Notre Dame:

"He was made curate (curé, parson or rector) of St. John's, in Greve, on the 29th of March, 1408, and continued so to 1413, when in a sedition raised by the partizans of the Duke of Burgundy, his house was plundered by the mob, and he obliged to fly into the church of Notre Dame, where he continued for some time concealed."—Du Pin, History of the Church, cent. xv. ch. viii.

It is said that the treatise in question first appeared—

"Appended to a MS. of Gerson's De Consolatione Theologiæ, dated 1421. This gave rise to the supposition that he was the real author of that celebrated work; and indeed it is a very doubtful point whether this opinion is true or not, there being several high authorities which ascribe to him the authorship of that book."—Knight's Penny Cyclopædia, vol. vi. art. "Gerson."

Was there then another John Gerson, a monk, and Abbot of St. Stephen, between 1200 and 1240, to whom, as well as to the above, the De Imitatione has been ascribed? This, though not impossible, appears extremely improbable. Is H. P. prepared with evidence to prove it?

Du Pin, in the chapter above quoted, farther says, in speaking of the De Imitatione Christi:

"The style is pretty much like that of the other devotional books of Thomas à Kempis. Nevertheless, in his lifetime it was attributed to St. Bernard and Gerson. The latter was most commonly esteemed the author of it in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Afterwards some MSS. of it were found in Italy, where it is attributed to one Gerson or Gessen, to whom is given the title of abbot. Perhaps Gersen or Gessen are only corruptions of the name of Gerson. Notwithstanding, there are two things which will hardly let us believe that this was Gerson's book; one, that the author calls himself a monk, the other, that the style is very different from that of the Chancellor of Paris. All this makes it difficult to decide to which of these three authors it belongs. We must leave Thomas à Kempis in possession of what is attributed to him, without deciding positively in his favour."

J. W. Thomas.

Dewsbury.

This saying is quoted twice, as follows, in The Chronicle of Battel Abbey from 1066 to 1177, translated by Mr. Lower, 8vo., London, 1851:

"Thus, 'Man proposes, but God disposes,' for he was not permitted to carry that resolution into effect."—P. 27.

"But, as the Scripture saith, 'Man proposes, but God disposes,' so Christ suffered not His Church to want its ancient and rightful privileges."—P. 83.

Mr. Lower says in his Preface, p. x.:

"Of the identity of the author nothing certain can be inferred, beyond the bare fact of his having been a monk of Battel. A few passages would almost incline one to believe that Abbot Odo, who was living at the date of the last events narrated in the work, and who is known to have been a literary character of some eminence, was the writer of at least some portions of the volume."

It is stated at the beginning to be in part derived from early document and traditional statements.

E. J. M.

Hastings.