The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

The Book

The Imitation of Christ is the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible itself. Written between approximately 1418 and 1427 by Thomas à Kempis, an Augustinian canon living in the monastery of Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle in the Netherlands, it has been translated into over 50 languages and has gone through thousands of editions. By the 17th century, it was already the most-published book in Europe after the Bible, a position it has held continuously for four centuries.

The book's enduring popularity rests on two qualities: simplicity and psychological honesty. Thomas writes in clear, direct Latin (the English translations preserve this clarity) about the universal obstacles to spiritual life: distraction, vanity, attachment to comfort, fear of suffering, lukewarmness, and the restless mind that cannot be still. He does not write for scholars or theologians. He writes for anyone who has tried to pray and found their mind wandering, who has resolved to be better and failed, who wants to know God but cannot stop wanting other things more.

The book's structure is deceptively simple: four books of short chapters (some only a page long), each addressing a specific aspect of the spiritual life. The reader can open to any page, read a chapter, and find something applicable to the present moment. The Imitation is not a book to be read once and shelved. It is a companion for daily practice, designed to be picked up, read briefly, and applied immediately.

Thomas à Kempis and the Devotio Moderna

Thomas Hemerken (c. 1380-1471) was born in Kempen, a small town in the Rhineland (present-day Germany). He entered the Augustinian monastery of Mount Saint Agnes at age twenty and spent the remaining seventy years of his life there, copying manuscripts, writing, and practicing the contemplative life. He lived to be approximately ninety-one, one of the longest-lived medieval writers.

Thomas belonged to the Devotio Moderna (Modern Devotion), a spiritual renewal movement that emerged in the Low Countries in the late 14th century under the influence of Geert Groote (1340-1384). The movement emphasized personal piety (rather than institutional observance), meditation on Scripture (rather than scholastic disputation), practical virtue (rather than theological speculation), and the inner life (rather than external ritual).

The Devotio Moderna produced the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life (lay communities practicing shared devotion without formal religious vows) and influenced many subsequent movements: Ignatian spirituality (Ignatius of Loyola read Thomas extensively), the Protestant Reformation (which shared the Devotio Moderna's critique of institutional religion), and modern Catholic contemplative practice (Thomas Merton cited Thomas à Kempis as a primary influence).

The Four Books

Book I: Counsels Useful for Spiritual Living (23 chapters). The first book addresses the external obstacles to the spiritual life: worldly vanity, excessive learning, the desire for recognition, the attachment to creature comforts, and the scattering of attention through too many activities. Thomas's counsel is consistent: withdraw inward. The world offers distractions, not wisdom. What you need is not more information but more silence.

Key chapters include "On the Imitation of Christ and Contempt of the World" (the programmatic opening), "On Personal Humility" (the foundation of all virtue), and "On the Love of Solitude and Silence" (the necessary condition for inner development). Thomas writes: "Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner with a little book."

Book II: Directives for the Interior Life (12 chapters). Having addressed the external obstacles, Thomas turns to the internal: the cultivation of inner peace, the acceptance of suffering, the discipline of the will, and the ordering of the emotions. This is the book's psychological heart: Thomas describes with remarkable precision the inner dynamics of the spiritual life, including the alternation between consolation (the feeling of God's presence) and desolation (the feeling of God's absence).

Thomas anticipates Ignatius of Loyola's "Rules for Discernment of Spirits" by a century: he teaches the reader to recognize the movements of the soul, to distinguish between genuine spiritual consolation and the counterfeit consolation that the ego produces, and to maintain equanimity through both states.

Book III: On Interior Consolation (59 chapters). The longest and most profound book, structured as a dialogue between Christ and the soul. Christ speaks directly to the reader, offering comfort, correction, and instruction. The soul responds with questions, complaints, and expressions of love. The dialogue form allows Thomas to address the most intimate aspects of the spiritual relationship: doubt, dryness, temptation, the desire for God coupled with the inability to reach God, and the gradual surrender of the self-will that genuine devotion requires.

This book has been the primary source of the Imitation's influence on contemplative practice. The dialogues between Christ and the soul create a template for personal prayer that millions of readers have adopted: speaking to Christ as a friend, listening for his response in the silence of the heart, and allowing the conversation to shape the quality of daily life.

Book IV: On the Sacrament of the Altar (18 chapters). The final book focuses on the Eucharist as the supreme encounter with Christ. Thomas treats the reception of communion not merely as a ritual obligation but as the most intimate moment of the spiritual life: the point at which the divine and the human physically meet. This book is the most specifically Catholic of the four, but even non-Catholic readers have found value in its treatment of the sacred meal as a place of genuine encounter.

What Does Imitation Mean?

The word "imitation" (imitatio) carries a specific meaning in Thomas's usage that modern readers sometimes miss. He does not mean external copying: dressing like Jesus, walking where Jesus walked, or performing miracles. He means interior transformation: allowing the pattern of Christ's life (humility, service, suffering, love, surrender to the divine will) to reshape the inner life of the reader.

The "imitation" is a process of becoming. The reader does not just act like Christ (which would be mere performance). The reader becomes Christ-like through sustained contemplation of Christ's life, meditation on Christ's teachings, and the gradual alignment of the reader's will with Christ's will. The imitation is interior, not exterior. It changes what you are, not just what you do.

This interior emphasis connects Thomas to the broader Christian mystical tradition (Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila), even though Thomas himself is not technically a mystic. The Imitation prepares the ground. The mystics describe what grows in it.

Key Teachings

Humility as foundation: "If you wish to learn and appreciate something worthwhile, then love to be unknown and to be considered worthless." Thomas returns to humility in virtually every chapter because he considers it the indispensable prerequisite for all genuine spiritual development. Without humility, the spiritual life becomes a form of vanity: seeking God for the pleasure of the search rather than for God himself.

Detachment from opinion: "Do not be concerned about who is with you and who is against you, but make it your greatest care that God is with you in everything you do." Thomas's teaching on detachment is not cold or indifferent. It is focused: by releasing attachment to what others think, the soul becomes free to attend to the only opinion that matters.

The Cross as path: "Jesus has many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His Cross." The way of the Cross is not the way of suffering for its own sake but the way of accepting reality (including its painful dimensions) without resistance. The person who runs from suffering runs from reality. The person who embraces the Cross embraces the full spectrum of human experience, which is where God is found.

Interior silence: "In silence and stillness a devout soul advances and learns the hidden things of the Scriptures." Thomas's emphasis on silence anticipates the teaching of the Cloud of Unknowing and John of the Cross: the divine is encountered not in noise, activity, or intellectual effort but in the silence that remains when all of these have been stilled.

Six Centuries of Influence

The Imitation has influenced an extraordinary range of figures across six centuries:

• Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556): Read the Imitation during his conversion and incorporated its principles into the Spiritual Exercises
• John Wesley (1703-1791): The founder of Methodism recommended the Imitation to all his followers and drew on its teaching of personal holiness
• Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897): The Carmelite saint read the Imitation daily and considered it, after the Bible, the most important book in her spiritual life
• Thomas Merton (1915-1968): The Trappist monk cited Thomas à Kempis as one of the primary influences on his conversion and his contemplative practice
• Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948): The Hindu leader read the Imitation and found its teaching on detachment, humility, and service compatible with his own spiritual framework
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945): The Lutheran pastor read the Imitation during his imprisonment and drew on its teaching of the Cost of Discipleship

The book's influence extends beyond Christianity. Its psychological honesty (about the restless mind, the attachment to comfort, the difficulty of sustained practice) speaks to anyone who has attempted serious spiritual discipline, regardless of tradition.

The Pre-Mystical Path

Thomas à Kempis is not technically a mystic. He does not describe visions, ecstasies, or the unitive experience that characterizes the great Christian mystics (Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross). What he provides is the preparation: the moral and psychological groundwork without which genuine mystical experience is impossible or dangerous.

The Imitation cultivates the virtues that the mystical life requires:

• Humility: Without it, spiritual experience inflates the ego rather than dissolving it
• Detachment: Without it, the soul clings to spiritual consolation rather than to God
• Interior silence: Without it, the still small voice of the divine cannot be heard
• Patience: Without it, the long periods of dryness and darkness that the mystical path requires become unbearable
• Surrender: Without it, the soul tries to control the spiritual process rather than allowing God to direct it

Read the Imitation as the training manual. Read the Cloud of Unknowing, Dark Night of the Soul, and the Interior Castle as the advanced practice guides. Thomas prepares the ground. The mystics describe the flowering.

Modern Relevance

Thomas à Kempis wrote in the 1420s for monks in a Dutch monastery. His warnings about distraction, vanity, and the scattered mind were addressed to people whose most sophisticated technology was the printing press (which had not yet been invented). Six centuries later, every word applies with greater force:

• "Do not busy yourself with the affairs of others" could be carved above every social media platform
• "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, except loving God and serving Him alone" is the antidote to the attention economy
• "In silence and stillness a devout soul advances" is the prescription for a world drowning in noise
• "What good does it do you to dispute learnedly about the Trinity if you lack humility and are therefore displeasing to the Trinity?" is the reply to every online theological argument

The Imitation's relevance has not diminished with time. It has increased, because the obstacles it addresses (distraction, vanity, attachment to comfort, the inability to be still) have intensified beyond anything Thomas could have imagined.

Who Should Read It

Anyone who has tried to pray, meditate, or practice any form of spiritual discipline and found it difficult. Thomas wrote for exactly this condition: the person who wants to know God but keeps getting in their own way.

Christians of any denomination who want a devotional companion for daily practice. The book works best when read one chapter at a time, morning or evening, as a preparation for prayer.

Non-Christians who appreciate spiritual psychology that transcends its religious context. Gandhi and many others have found the Imitation's insights applicable regardless of faith tradition.

Anyone who suspects that the modern world's noise, speed, and constant stimulation are preventing them from hearing something important. Thomas wrote the silence manual. It still works.

Where to Buy

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