K E M K E N 33
John Gersen, abbot of Vercelli, is supported by the Benedictine order and by others. The first requisite here is to show that such a man ever lived, and this in spite of the pains taken has not yet been done.[1] In all probability Gersen is a mistake of early copyists for Gerson. The MS. evidence is as follows. The earliest dated MS. claimed for Gersen gives the author J. Gers., and is dated 1441; the second gives the author's name in the same contracted fashion, J. Gers., and is dated 1464; while two of the earlier undated MSS., those of Florence and Padolirone, call the author J. Gersen, chancellor of Paris. The other MSS. which write the author's name J. Gersen are all late or undated. In short, there is not a vestige of early evidence to connect the Imitatio with a John Gersen, and there is no contemporary evidence whatever. Gersen is a creation of Cajetan's for the renown of the Benedictine order, and the motive which has prompted Gersen's supporters finds fitting expression in the dedication to St Benedict of the latest contribution to the controversy, that of Wolfsgruber (Augsburg, 1880).
Thomas a Kempis is acknowledged to be the author by most of the earliest dated MSS., by most of the earliest printed editions of the book, by a great mass of contemporary evidence, and by a great deal of internal evidence, some of a most interesting kind. Of MSS. may be mentioned the Kirchheim MS. of 1425, the autograph of Thomas (1441), the MS. of Innersdorf (1441), and that of Liége (1444). Twenty-two printed editions in the 15th century attributed the Imitatio to Thomas. The contemporary witnesses are numerous and convincing. John Buschius of the canons regular of Windesheim, scarcely a league from Mount St Agnes, who had met and conversed with Thomas, calls him the author of the Imitation. Brother Herman, living in a monastery of the canons regular near Halle, who had met Thomas at Windesheim, declared that Thomas was the author of the Imitatio. Similar testimony is borne by Matthias Farinator, a transcriber of the book, by Peter Schott, by Johann Lambert, either during the lifetime of Thomas or a few years after his death. And Hirsche has produced a new contemporary witness from an old Belgian chronicle ("Chronique de Jean Brandon, avec les additions d'Adrien de But," p. 547, published in Collect. de Chroniques Belges inédités), which says that Thomas wrote the Qui sequitur me in metre. The proof from internal evidence has been set on quite a fresh basis by the studies of Carl Hirsche, who has discovered from a careful examination of the MS. of 1441 (Bibliothèque de Bourgogne, Brussels, Nos. 5855 and 5801) that the Imitation was written and pointed for the purpose of chanting. This discovery has enabled him to compare the book with other writings of Thomas as to punctuation, rhythm, and rhymes, with the result that he has incontestably proved the great similarity between the Imitation and the undisputed works of Thomas.
The Imitatio Christi is commonly classed among the mystical writings of the 15th century, and in the opinion of writers of the most opposite schools of thought it sums up all that is best of that side of Latin Christianity which includes the theology of the Victorines, of Bernard and Bonaventura, of Eckhart, Tauler, and Ruysbroeck. Mediæval Christianity shows two ideas of the Christian life struggling for the mastery, each with the common watchword of separation from the world. The one was modelled on Augustine's City of God, and was fulfilled in Hildebrand's conception of a spiritual empire to be raised on the ruins of political society; the other came to light in the aspirations of Francis of Assisi, and the assimilation of Anselm's maxim that sinners can appropriate the benefits won for them by Christ by imitating the Saviour. Francis's idea of imitation was rudely picturesque. The Bible shows Christ obedient, poor, unmarried; we can imitate the Master by keeping the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. This crass idea of an imitation of Christ gave new force to the monastic movement, and put new meaning into its vows, and it spread in various ways through Fratricelli, Spirituales, Wycliffe's poor preachers, &c., far beyond the Franciscan order. This idea of imitation by "evangelical poverty" was almost spent by the 14th century, and was succeeded by the more refined conception of imitation by "renunciation," the watchword of the mystical movement of the 14th and 15th centuries. But by this time the conflict of the Franciscan ideal of the Christian life with Hildebrand's ideal had thoroughly rent mediæval Christendom, and there were two Christianities facing each other, a religious and a political. The breach became wider by the degradation of the papacy, and by the great schism. The "universal" of the church was lost, and had not been discovered again. The new idea of obedience was not obedience to ecclesiastical superiors, but the subordination of the lower part of man's nature to the higher, and of the whole to God. This "renunciation," cut off from practical sympathy with the visible church, feeding itself on a vague idea of union with Christ, might easily have fallen a prey to Buddhist and Averroist notions floating in the European atmosphere (some of the mystics did so fall away) had it not been saved by its clinging to the sacraments, the one mediæval
means of grace, and by its contact with practical Christian work.
And gradually out of Eckhart through Tauler two schools arose,
both of which use "renunciation" as their watchword – imitation
by renunciation. The one school, that of Henry Suso, saw Christ's
renunciation best exhibited in His passion, and therefore held
that men can imitate by suffering; they too have a body to mortify.
The other, that of Ruysbroeck, saw Christ's renunciation in His
incarnation; so that men can renounce by contemplation, which
gives us initiation into the incarnation. Ruysbroeck was Groot's
teacher, and Groot taught Thomas, in whom we see the gathered
wisdom of that idea of a quest for pardon by imitation of Christ
which began with Anselm and came down through Franciscan
revivals and mystical movements to him in the 15th century. But
Thomas is far more than Ruysbroeck or Groot. He is wider and
more sympathetic. He includes Ruysbroeck, Tauler, Eckhart, Bona
ventura, the Franciscans, and even the old Victorines. He sums
up in his little book the heart religion of Latin Christianity.
For the life of Thomas a Kempis see the Nuremberg edition of 1494, Opera et libri vitæ Thomæ a Kempis; Heribertus Rosweide, Vita Thomæ a Kempis, 1616. The best edition of the collected works is that of Sommalius, Ven. Viri Thomæ Malleoli a Kempis ... Opera Omnia ... in tres tomos distributa, 1759. The best, edition of the Imitatio is that of Hirsche, Berlin, 1874. A very complete list of the principal writers in the controversy may be found in Wolfsgruber, Giovanni Gersen, sein Leben und sein Werk de Imitatione Christi, 1880, p. 254 sq. For authorship by Gerson, see G. Ch Vert, Cause de l'Imitation de Jésus-Christ, réplique et conclusions, Toulouse, 1861. For Thomas as author, see Malou, Recherches historiqnes et critiques sur le véritable auteur du livre de l'Imitation de Jésus-Christ, Tournay, 3d ed., 1858; Carl Hirsche, Prolegomena zu einer neuen Ausgabe der Imitatio, Berlin, 1873; and Samuel Kettlewell, The Authorship of the De Imitatione Christi, London, 1877. (T. M. L.)
KEMPTEN, a town in the government district of Swabia and Neuburg, Bavaria, is situated on the Iller, about 65 miles south-west of Munich. It is the seat of numerous local and special tribunals, and contains a castle, a gymna sium and a grammar school, two hospitals, and other educational and benevolent institutions. There is a hand some town-house, and the aqueduct is noteworthy. The industries include wool spinning and weaving on a large scale, and the manufacture of paper, beer, machines, hosiery, matches, and wooden wares. As a commercial centre of the Algau, Kempten carries on active trade in linen, timber, and dairy produce. In 1875 the popula tion, including the garrison, was 12,681.
Kempten, identified with the Roman Campodunum, consisted
in early times of two towns, the old and the new. The continual
hostility that existed between these was intensified by the welcome
given by the old town to the Reformed doctrines, the new town,
built round the Benedictine abbey erected in the 8th century, keep
ing the old faith. The abbot in 1360 had been promoted to the
dignity of a prince of the empire by the emperor Charles IV.,
and the princely abbacy only passed to Bavaria in 1803.
KEN, Thomas (1637-1711), the most eminent of the non-juring bishops, and one of the fathers of modern English hymnology, was born at Little Berkhampstead, Herts, in 1637. He was the son of Thomas Ken of Furnival's Inn, who belonged to an ancient stock, – that of the Kens of Ken Place, in Somersetshire; his mother was a daughter of the now forgotten poet, John Chalkhill, who is called by Walton an "acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser." It may be mentioned that Ken's stepsister, Anne, was married to Izaak Walton in 1646, a connexion which brought Ken from his boyhood under the refining influence of this gentle and devout man. In 1652 he entered Winchester College, and in 1656 became a student of Hart Hall, Oxford. He gained a fellowship at New College in 1657, and proceeded B.A. in 1661 and M.A. in 1664. He was for some time tutor of his college; but the most characteristic reminiscence of his university life is the mention made by Anthony Wood that in the musical gatherings of the time "Thomas Ken of New College, a junior, would be sometimes among them, and sing his part." Ordained in 1662, when he was twenty-five years old, he successively held the livings of Little Easton in Essex, Brighstone (sometimes called Brixton) in the Isle of Wight, and East Woodhay in Hampshire; in 1672 he resigned the last of these, and returned to Winchester, being by this time a prebendary of the cathedral, and chaplain to the bishop, as well as a fellow of Winchester College. He remained there for several years,
- ↑ This mythical personage has been photographed, see Auteurs présumés de l'Imitation, by Abbé Delaunay.
