We cannot pass over this period of what we may call national Latin literature—that is, when the literatures of all nations were written in Latin—without noticing the history of one book which has ever stood out prominently from the mass of mediaeval productions, not only from its intrinsic excellence, but from the unfathomable mystery connected with its authorship. We allude to the treatise De lmitatione Christi, popularly attributed to Thomas à Kempis. His claim rests chiefly upon the fact that the first printed copy was made from a manuscript written by him and signed "Finitus et completus Anno Domino, 1441, per manus patris Thomae Kempis in monte S. Agnetis prope Swoll." But there is in this subscription no evidence of authorship; it was the usual formula appended to copies. Kempis was an inveterate copyist, and it will be a sufficient proof of the untenable nature of this argument if we mention that a copy of the Bible made by him is subscribed in a similar manner—"Finitus et completus Anno Domini, 1439, in Vigilia S. Jacobi Apostoli per manus Fratris Thomae à Kempis ad laudem Dei in Monasterio S. Agnetis." There is no evidence, therefore, of authorship in the subscription of the MS.
But doubts existed soon after the publication of the work about its authorship, and another MS. was discovered at Arône bearing the inscription, "Incipiunt capitula primi libri Abbatis Johannis Gesen De Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vauitatum mundi," and at the end was written "explicit liber quartus et ultimus Abbatis Johannis Gersen de Sacramento Altaris." The house in which this document was found belonged to the company of Jesus, but as it had formerly been held by Benedictines, some vigilant members of that active body at once declared it must have been written by one of their order. They managed to get possession of it, and immediately brought it out with the addition in the title after the name of Gersen of "Abbatis Ordinis Sti. Benedicti." Then commenced that celebrated controversy between the two monastic orders, the Augustines, who advocated the claims of Thomas à Kempis, and the Benedictines, who fought for Gersen. A volume might be written easily upon the bare history of that controversy, as some hundreds of volumes were during its progress. It began immediately after the publication of this Benedictine claim in the year 1616, and it raged in different countries in Europe for more than two centuries, the last controversy coming to a conclusion in 1832, which arose from the discovery of a MS. at Paris, copied in 1550, and a document purporting that it was bequeathed to one of the De' Avogadri family in the year 1347. This further confirmation of the antiquity of the work gave rise to the last controversy which ended like all the others in increasing the doubt as to Thomas à Kempis's authorship and the uncertainty of the whole question.
We think it can be shown that the De lmitatione was known before the birth of Thomas à Kempis, and about the time of the existence of Gersen; but the evidence of the claim of the Gersenites is so slender that the mere chronological coincidence is not sufficient to maintain it. Passages have been collected from works written long before the time of à Kempis word for word the same as in the De Imitatione. In the conferences of Bonaventura to the people of Toulouse, written about 1260, there are many such passages; [{817}] and in an office written by Thomas Aquinas for the Pope Urban IV., about the same time, there are many other passages. [Footnote 226] In fact, in the Conferences a whole paragraph is quoted verbatim, concluding with the phrase, "as may be seen in the pious book on the 'Imitation of Christ.'" Criticism has labored diligently to discover in its text evidences indicative of the nationality of the author, but they have ended in contradictions which seem to insinuate that it might be the joint production of pious minds in different countries, which would leave to Thomas à Kempis the honor of having collected and arranged them into one form. However, instead of wasting time over a fruitless investigation, we prefer taking the book as it is with its wealth of spirituality, with its calm beauty, its power of soothing the perturbed spirit, its subtle analyses of the human heart [Footnote 227] and the springs of human action, its encouragement to a godly life, its fervor, its eloquence, and its strange power; and we are driven to the conclusion that it is the most marvellous book ever produced—most marvellous from the universal influence it has exerted over the minds of men of all creeds, ages, and countries, and from its adaptability to the common yearnings of all humanity. Like the gospel, of which it is the exponent, and therefore from which it derives the quality, it stands out in its marked individuality, in the midst of every phase of life through which it has passed, a distinct thing, having nothing in common with the world or worldly pursuits, but trying to wean men from them, or at least from allowing them to gain an ascendency over their affections. In the present age this isolation is more striking. We are far too philosophical, too scientific, too logical, to attend to the ascetic ravings of this "monkish" book. The business of life runs high with us, runs too noisily, to allow us to listen to its small voice. We are so deeply engaged in the pursuits of pleasure and the acquisition of wealth, that we have no time for the "Imitation of Christ." We are involved in great undertakings—Atlantic telegraphs, principles of physical science, railway committees, parliamentary reforms, and drainage questions, absorb all our attention. But philosophy, science, and logic fail to exempt humanity from its ills. The hour comes when man falls sick, sick unto death; then in that moment when philosophy deserts pain, and science affords no consolation; when logic is dumb, and the soul with instinctive apprehension is clamoring for help, then is the moment for such a book as this. And it was in such a moment that La Harpe, cast into a dungeon of the Luxembourg, with nothing but death before him, accidentally meeting with this book, and opening its pages at the words "Ecce adsum! Ecce ad te venio quia vocasti me. Lacrymae tuae et desiderium animae tuae, humiliatio tua et contritio cordis inclinaverunt me et adduxerunt ad te," [Footnote 228] he fell upon his face heartbroken and in tears. We must conclude this portion of the subject by repeating that the Latin language retained its position as the language of literature until the time of the Reformation. But during the fourteenth century there was a tendency to blend the two vernacular tongues spoken in England—the French and the Saxon. In the struggle for precedence the Saxon conquered, and out of it came the present vigorous idiom spoken by the English; but nothing of any consequence was written in this tongue until it became settled and confirmed.
[Footnote 226: These passages may be seen collected in parallel columns in a work by M. De Gregory on L'Histoire du Livre de l'Imitation. Paris,1843.]
[Footnote 227: Vide the analysis of Temptation, lib. I., c. xiii., and the well-known chapter on the Royal Road of the cross, lib. II., c xii.]
[Footnote 228: "De Imi., lib. III., c. xxi., sec. 6. Behold me! behold I come to thee because thou hast called me. Thy tears and the desire of thy soul, thy humiliation and contrition of heart have inclined and led me unto thee.">[
We now advance to the consideration of one of the most beautiful emanations of Christianity in the world—-her hymns. We take up these [{818}] hymns of the church, and we find that they bear testimony, not only literary but historical, as to the state of the church at any given time, and certainly one of the best and purest testimonies that can be found. Few, if any, writers have sufficiently investigated this branch of ecclesiastical history, the evidence of the hymnology of the church. If we appeal to her controversial theology we shall find invariably a mass of one-sided representation, mutual vituperation, and invective; if we go to ecclesiastical history we shall find that those histories are written by minds working under the bias of some inclination toward sect or theory; but if we take up the hymns of the church we shall have the pure, free, outspoken voice of the church—we shall see, as it were, its internal organization, its emotions, its aspirations, its thoughts, living, throbbing, palpitating—the very heart of the church itself.
The song of Christianity has never ceased in the world; it has continued in an unbroken strain. It began at its very outset in the song of the mother of its founder, and it has been going on ever since. As the voice of one age dies away, the strain is taken up by the next. It has sunk at times into a low plaintive melody, and at others mounted into a grand swelling psalm, heard above the noise of the world, which ceases its strife to listen· to its music. Of this melody we shall now endeavor to give a brief history. We begin at the coming of our Lord; but the whole worship of the true God is marked by the psalmody of rejoicing hearts. The children of Israel by the Red Sea broke out into the first recorded song; a considerable portion of the Scripture is in that form; Jesus with his disciples sung a hymn at the Last Supper; the apostles continued the practice, and from post-apostolic times there have come down to us three great hymns, whose origin is lost in their remote antiquity—the Ter Sanctus, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum. These hymns were used in the very earliest ages of the church. Of the latter there is a legend that it was sung by Ambrose spontaneously at the baptism of Augustine.
The periods of hymnology may be divided into two great sections—the earliest or Greek period, extending to the dawn of the fourth century, when the second or Latin division commences; and this latter may be subdivided into three parts—the Ambrosian, the Barbarian, and the Mediaeval. The earliest Greek hymns are anonymous; there is one to Christ on the Cross:—
"Thou who on the sixth day and hour
Didst nail to the cross the sin
Which Adam dared in Paradise,
Read also the handwriting at our transgressions,
O Christ our Lord! and save us."
There is one on repentance, commencing:—
"Receive thy servant, my Saviour,
Falling before thee with tears, my Saviour,
And save, Jesus, me repenting."