THOMAS À KEMPIS. - Ascetical writer (Thomas Hamerken [Lat. Malleolus] van Kempen), b. at Kempen (near Cologne) c. 1380, d. at St-Agnietenberg on 13 June 1471. After attending the village school, at the age of twelve he went to Deventer and continued his studies there from 1392-93 to 1399; there he won the confidence of Florentius (q.v.) Radewijns, who supported him materially and guided him spiritually.
Influenced by his teachers and fellow students, who lived under the influence of the Brethren of the Common Life (q.v.), and encouraged by his friend Radewijns, he entered, upon completing his studies, the monastery of the Canons Regular of St Augustine, recently founded at St-Agnietenberg (Mons Sanctae Agnetis), near Zwolle, where his elder brother John was prior. For reasons unknown, 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 entire community of St-Agnietenberg at Luenkerk (Frisia) from 1429 to 1432. On his return he was named “procurator,” and in 1448 prior. He died at the age of ninety-two. The holiness of his life earned him the title “venerabilis.”
T. is known for the many (thirty-nine) writings he left, which may be classified into five categories: 1) sermons, both to the faithful on the life and Passion of Jesus, and to his community and novices on the virtues and practices of religious life; an affective and practical tone predominates; 2) letters, many of which form true treatises expounding a complete doctrine on some point relating to religious and ascetical life; 3) ascetical and mystical opuscula, treating various themes in relation to religious or Christian life in general, insisting on the soul’s ascent to God through interior or mystical paths; 4) devotional opuscula, in which T. excels by presenting meditations full of fervor on the Life and Passion of Jesus, or composing prayers and “soliloquies” overflowing with pious affections; 5) historical (Chronica Montis Sanctae Agnetis), biographical (Life of Gerard the Great, etc.), and hagiographical works (Life of Lidewigis the Virgin; q.V. LIDWINA OF SCHIEDAM). The best-known ascetical and devotional treatises of T. are (besides those cited above): *Hortulus rosarum*, *Vallis liliorum*, *De disciplina claustralium*, *Hospitale pauperum*, *Libellus spiritualis exercitii*. The attribution to T. of the *De imitatione Christi* (q.V. IMITATION OF CHRIST) remains a debated question. A single treatise of his in Dutch is known: *Van goeden woerden te horen ende die te spreken*.
T. represents the flower of the “Devotio moderna” (q.v.) at its fullest bloom. He had a clear and solid intelligence, a fertile imagination, and refined sensibility. His asceticism is austere, uncompromising, and sincere; it does not shut itself up in itself but leads straight to love, of which it remains the indispensable safeguard. T.’s spirituality is mostly maintained on the level of “interior life,” in which the *Soliloquium animae cum solo Deo* is the spontaneous outpouring of a spirit and heart steeped in love and grace: concepts such as “devotio,” “gratia,” “visitatio,” etc., are of primordial importance. This attitude is by no means speculative or abstract, but affective. T. does not reject the soul’s ascent to God through the mystical graces of supra-essential contemplation (“sine forma corporea, sine luce creata”). He himself moreover received paramystical graces, such as visions. This frail man, of poor health, ill-suited to the government of others, who preferred to remain “in een huwesken met een buexken” (“in agello cum libello”), exercised an enormous influence on his Congregation and posterity, as attested by the multitude of manuscripts of his works, the great number of their editions and translations into various languages.