Thomas à Kempis

THOMAS À KEMPIS. - Ascetical writer (Thomas Hamerhen [Lat. Malleolus] van Kempen), b. at Kempen (near Cologne) ca. 1380, d. at St-Agnienberg on 13 June 1471. After attending the school of his village, at the age of 12 he went to Deventer and continued his studies there from 1392-93 to 1399; there he won the confidence of Florentius (v.) Radevijns, who supported him materially and guided him spiritually.

Edified by his masters and fellow disciples, who lived under the influence of the Brethren of the Common Life (v.), and encouraged by his friend Radevijns, he entered, once his studies were completed, the monastery of the Regular Canons of St. Ago-

Augustinian recently founded at St-Agnietenberg (Mons Sanctae Agnetis), near Zwolle, where his elder brother John was prior. For unknown reasons he was admitted to profession only on 10 June 1406. Ordained priest in 1413-14, he was elected sub-prior in 1429. To escape the consequences of the interdict imposed on Utrecht, he went into exile with the whole community of St-Agnietenberg at Lunekerck (Frisia) from 1429 to 1432. On his return he was appointed "procurator" and, in 1448, prior. He died at the age of 92. His holiness of life earned him the title of "venerabilis."

T. is known for the many (39) writings he left, which can be classified into five categories: 1) the sermons, both to the faithful, on the life and Passion of Jesus, and to his community and the novices, on the virtues and practices of the religious life; in them the affective and practical tone predominates; 2) the letters, many of which form true treatises setting out a complete doctrine on some point relating to the religious and ascetic life; 3) the ascetic and mystical opuscules, which treat various themes in relation to the religious or Christian life in general, insisting on the soul's ascent to God by the interior or mystical ways; 4) the devotional opuscules, in which T. excels, presenting meditations full of fervor on the Life and Passion of Jesus, or composing prayers and "soliloquies" overflowing with pious affections; 5) the historical works (Chronica Montis Sanctae Agnetis), biographical (Vita Gerardi Magni, etc.) and hagiographical (Vita Lidewigis virginis; v. LIDWINA DI SCHIEDAM). The best-known ascetic and devotional treatises of T. are (besides those cited below): Hortulus rosarum, Vallis liliorum, De disciplina claustralium, Hospitale pauperum, Libellus spiritualis exerciti. The attribution to T. of the De imitatione Christi (v. IMITAZIONE DI CRISTO) remains a disputed question. A single treatise of his in thioia is known: Van goeden worden te horen ende die te spreken.

T. presents the flower of the "Devotio moderna" (v.) in full bloom. He had a clear and solid intelligence, a fertile imagination, an exquisite sensibility. His asceticism is austere, without compromises, sincere; it does not shut itself up within itself, but leads straight to love, of which it remains the indispensable safeguard. The spirituality of T. keeps for the most part on the plane of the "interior life," in which the Soliloquium animae cum solo Deo is the spontaneous outpouring of a spirit and a heart penetrated by love and by Grace: in it the concepts of "devotio," "gratia," "visitatio," etc., are of primordial importance. Such an attitude is not at all speculative or abstract, but affective. T. does not reject the soul's ascent to God through the mystical graces of superessential contemplation ("sine forma corporea, sine luce creata"). He himself, moreover, had paramystical graces, such as visions. This timid man, of frail health, little suited to the government of his own, and who preferred to remain "in een huexken met een buexken" ("in agello cum libello"), had on his Congregation and on posterity an enormous influence, attested by the multitude of manuscripts of his works, by the great number of their editions and translations into various languages.

Alberto Ampe