The Imitation of Christ: How Jesus Wants Us to Live - A Contemporary Version - Hardcover

Thomas A. Kempis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060634006 ISBN 13: 9780060634001

Publisher: HarperOne, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

A beautifully produced gift edition of Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ, newly translated by William Griffin (a noted expert on C.S. Lewis) renders this timeless classic in a contemporary idiom. Imitation consists of four sections that deliver exactly what they promise: "The Spiritual Life: What It Is & How It Works," "The Interior Life: Where It Is & How to Find It," "Internal Consolation: How Jesus Describes It & How the Soul Experiences It," and "The Sacrament of the Altar: How to Prepare for It & What It Tastes Like." Richard Foster, in his introduction to this edition, observes that Griffin's translation abandons the smoothly spiritualized serenity of earlier English versions. Instead, Griffin renders Imitation in "the gusts and grunts and hiccups and heehaws of the common fun of the earth" (a phrase borrowed from the poet Dylan Thomas). Foster is right; there is lots of funny stuff here and lots of raw emotion: "All-nighters of roister-doistery lead only to mornings of hugger-muggery, that's to say, of sickness and sadness." Maybe you've never considered the intimate connection between roister- doistery and hugger-muggery before. You will now, and you'll be better for it.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0060634006
• ISBN 13: 9780060634001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336