Synopses & Reviews
The Imitation of Christ is the work of at least three men: Gerard Groote, Florent Radewijns, and Thomas a Kempis. The first two were founders of the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay religious society that flourished in the Netherlands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Working on their manuscripts, first as a compiler and editor and then as a coauthor, was Kempis.
So successful were Kempis's efforts that the work became the golden treasury not only of their community but also of the contemporary spirituality movement known as the Modern Devotion. Its prescriptions might very well be known as the Perennial Devotion for its continual appeal through the centuries.
In its fifteenth century Latin original the Imitation was not a silken cord of consecutive prose. Rather it was a series of scratchings, the sort that a spiritual director would note down in preparation for sermons and addresses. What wasn't always in the original was exactly how Kempis developed each topic sentence or wisdom quotation as he delivered it.
In this new rendition William Griffin recovers the original experience of listening to Kempis as he taught and preached to his spiritual charges. Using a variety of literary and historical means, Griffin enhances the original, making the insights of this seminal exposition of Christian life more accessible.
Synopsis
A lively translation breathes new life into the great Christian classic on spiritual life that has provided inspiration and comfort to millions of readers worldwide.
Synopsis
Only the Bible has been more influential as a source of Christian devotional reading than The Imitation of Christ, which has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul II.
The Imitation of Christ is the work of at least three men: Gerard Groote, Florent Radewijns, and Thomas Kempis. Groote and Radewijns were founders of the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay religious society that flourished in the Netherlands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Kempis worked on their manuscripts, first as a compiler and editor, and then as a coauthor.
In this new translation of Imitation of Christ, William Griffin uses a variety of methods to make the insights of this seminal exposition of Christian life more accessible to all.
Thomas Kempis (1379/80-1471) was a Christian theologian. Kempis joined the Windesheim congregation at Agnietenberg monastery, where he remained almost continually for over 70 years. He took his vows in 1408, was ordained in 1413, and devoted his life to copying manuscripts and directing novices.
H. William Griffin is the former religion editor at Macmillan and Publishers Weekly, the author and editor of several books, and a charter member of the Crysostom Society of Christian Writers. He is editor of The Joyful Christian, a bestselling selection of C.S. Lewis writings and is the author of a major biography of C.S. Lewis.
"I cannot recall when an inspired translation has so effectively converted a timeless classic into an idiom that goes straight to my modern bones." -Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions
About the Author
Thomas à Kempis (1379/80-1471) was a member of the Brethren, priest, Augustinian monk, author of a dozen books, and copyist extraordinaire. He lived at and was a member of the Windesheim congregation at Agneitenberg monastery in the Netherlands for more than seventy years.