Thomas à Kempis’s works as a whole fit into the writings of this group of disciples of Gerard Groote, just as his Imitation of Christ fits into the rest of his works. He simply is the best writer they had, as the Imitation is the best thing he ever wrote. If none of the many manuscripts of the Imitation bore his name, as nearly all of them do; and if none of the contemporaries who knew him had certified to his authorship of it, as so many of them do; and if none of the printed editions bore his name, as twenty-one of the fifteenth century and forty of the sixteenth do, we still would have been obliged to ascribe it to him. No other century than his could have produced it. It reflects the ideas of no other group than that of the disciples of Gerard and Florens. The very title, De Imitatione Christi, et de Contemptu Omnium Vanitatum Mundi, expresses the twofold aspect of the moderna devotio of which Gerard and Florens were the sponsors. Among those disciples there is no one but the author of the Soliloquy of the Soul and the Valley of Lilies, to whom we could give it. It differs no more in point of worth from Thomas’s other books than does the Pilgrim’s Progress from Bunyan’s other writings, Grace Abounding always excepted.
While it is by his formal hymns Thomas à Kempis acquires his right to a place here, it is true at the same time that the Imitation itself is a great Christian poem, not only in substance but in form. A Belgian, who was his contemporary, says he had written the book metrice, or in rhythm and rhyme. As it was printed always as prose until our own times, this statement was somewhat puzzling, as was the title, Musica Ecclesiastica, found in some of the manuscripts. But Rev. Karl Hirsche, Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, has vindicated both expressions by showing that Thomas has followed such models as the sequence, Victimae paschali, in the composition of his work. And he has given us an edition based on Thomas’s autograph of the year 1441, in which this peculiarity is made visible.[15] It is true that this way of writing what we may call rhymed and rhythmical prose is not confined to Thomas or to the Imitation among his works. Among others Jan van Schoonhooven, a Belgian disciple of Jan Rusbroek’s, uses this form frequently; and Pastor Hirsche has pointed out its frequency in others of Thomas’s works. But in no other book approaching the Imitation in length is the restriction of rhythm and rhyme so steadily accepted. As an instance, take this brief passage from the fifth chapter of the third book:
“Amans volat, currit, et laetatur;
Liber est, et non tenetur
Dat omnia pro omnibus,
Et habet omnia in omnibus;
Quia in uno summo super omnia quiescit
Ex quo omne bonum fluit et procedit.
Non respecit ad dona
Sed ad donantem se convertit super omnia bona.