Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis (born Thomas Hemerken, also Hammerlein) was a Dutch-German Augustinian canon regular, born in Kempen near Cologne and died in Zwolle in 1471. He lived during the late Middle Ages within the Modern Devotion, a movement of spiritual renewal that stressed inner piety and simple living over ecclesiastical display. He matters chiefly for The Imitation of Christ, one of the most widely read Christian devotional books ever written.

The son of a craftsman, he went to Deventer to study around the 1390s, where he met the Brethren of the Common Life, founded by Geert Groote and continued by Florens Radewyns. He then joined the Augustinian community of Mount St Agnes (Agnietenberg) near Zwolle, which belonged to the Windesheim congregation. He entered in 1406, was ordained a priest in 1413 and became subprior in 1429. When a dispute over the See of Utrecht led to the community's exile between 1429 and 1432, he spent part of that time caring for his ailing brother. Otherwise his days went to prayer, reading and copying manuscripts; he copied the Bible four times, one of them in five volumes now kept in Darmstadt. As an instructor of novices he wrote in a plain, teaching style full of biblical quotation.

The Imitation of Christ, in four short books, deals with the spiritual life, humility, inner consolation and the Eucharist. It appeared first around 1418, anonymously. Its central claim is that the believer should follow Christ in ordinary daily conduct, and that peace of soul comes from renouncing vanity and staying close to God rather than from learning alone. He also wrote sermons, meditations, letters and biographies of Groote, Radewyns and other members of the movement.

For centuries scholars questioned whether so humble and retiring a man could have written such a work. Most now accept Kempis as its author. The book reached generations of Catholic and Protestant readers, and it was meant, according to tradition, to serve the spiritual formation of young pupils rather than personal fame.