1. _In Art-theory._--According to Plato all artistic production is a
form of imitation ([Greek: mimêsis]). That which really exists is the
idea or type created by God; of this type all concrete objects are
representations, while the painter, the tragedian, the musician are
merely imitators, thrice removed from the truth (_Rep._ x. 596 seq.).
Such persons are represented by Plato as a menace to the moral fibre of
the community (_Rep._ iii.), as performing no useful function, drawing
men away from reality and pandering to the irrational side of the soul.
All art should aim at moral improvement. Plato clearly intends by
"imitation" more than is connotated by the modern word: though in
general he associates with it all that is bad and second-rate, he in
some passages admits the value of the imitation of that which is good,
and thus assigns to it a certain symbolic significance. Aristotle,
likewise regarding art as imitation, emphasizes its purely artistic
value as purging the emotions ([Greek: katharsis]), and producing
beautiful things as such (see AESTHETICS and FINE ARTS).
2. _In Biology_, the term is sometimes applied to the assimilation by
one species of certain external characteristics (especially colour)
which enable them to escape the notice of other species which would
otherwise prey upon them. It is a form of protective resemblance and is
generally known as mimicry (q.v.; see also COLOURS OF ANIMALS).
3. _In Music_, the term "imitation" is applied in contrapuntal
composition to the repetition of a passage in one or more of the other
voices or parts of a composition. When the repetition is note for note
with all the intervals the same, the imitation is called "strict" and
becomes a canon (q.v.); if not it is called "free," the latter being
much the more common. There are many varieties of imitation, known as
imitation "by inversion," "by inversion and reversion," "by
augmentation," "by diminution" (see _Grove's Dictionary of Music, s.
v._, and textbooks of musical theory).
IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE (_Imitatio Christi_), the title of a famous
medieval Christian devotional work, much used still by both Catholics
and Protestants and usually ascribed to Thomas à Kempis. The
"Contestation" over the author of the _Imitation of Christ_ is probably
the most considerable and famous controversy that has ever been carried
on concerning a purely literary question. It has been going on almost
without flagging for three centuries, and nearly 200 combatants have
entered the lists. In the present article nothing is said on the history
of the controversy, but an attempt is made to summarize the results that
may be looked on as definitely acquired.
Until quite recently there were three candidates in the field--Thomas à
Kempis (1380-1471), a canon regular of Mount St Agnes in Zwolle, in the
diocese of Utrecht, of the Windesheim Congregation of Augustinian
Canons; John Gerson (1363-1429), chancellor of the University of Paris;
and an abbot, John Gersen, said to have been abbot of a Benedictine
monastery at Vercelli in the 12th century. Towards the end of the 15th
century the _Imitation_ circulated under the names of the first two; but
Gerson is an impossible author, and his claims have never found
defenders except in France, where they are no longer urged. The
Benedictine abbot Gersen is an absolutely mythical personage, a mere
"double" of the chancellor. Consequently at the present day the question
is narrowed to the issue: Thomas à Kempis, or an unknown author.
The following is a statement of the facts that may be received as
certain:--
1. The earliest-known dated MS. of the _Imitation_ is of 1424--it
contains only Bk. I.; the earliest MSS. of the whole work of certain
date are of 1427. Probably some of the undated MSS. are older; but it is
the verdict of the most competent modern expert opinion that there is no
palaeographical reason for suspecting that any known MS. is earlier than
the first quarter of the 15th century.
2. A Latin letter of a Dutch canon regular, named Johann van
Schoonhoven, exhibits such a close connexion with Bk. I. that plagiarism
on the one side or the other is the only possible explanation. It is
capable of demonstration that the author of the _Imitation_ was the
borrower, and that the opposite hypothesis is inadmissible. Now, this
letter can be shown to have been written after 1382. Therefore Bk. I.
was beyond controversy written between the years 1382 and 1424.
3. It is not here assumed that the four treatises formed a single work,
or even that they are all by the same author; and the date of the other
three books cannot be fixed with the same certainty. But, on the one
hand, before the beginning of the 15th century there is no trace
whatever of their existence--a strong argument that they did not yet
exist; and on the other hand, after 1424 nearly each year produces its
quota of MSS. and other signs of the existence of these books become
frequent. Moreover, as a matter of fact, the four treatises did commonly
circulate together. The presumption is strong that Bks. II., III., IV.,
like Bk. I., were composed shortly before they were put into
circulation.
It may then be taken as proved that the _Imitation_ was composed between
1380 and 1425, and probably towards the end rather than the beginning of
that period. Having ascertained the date, we must consider the
birthplace.
4. A number of idioms and turns of expression throughout the book show
that its author belonged to some branch of the Teutonic race. Further
than this the argument does not lead; for when the dialects of the early
15th century are considered it cannot be said that the expressions in
question are Netherlandic rather than German--as a matter of fact, they
have all been paralleled out of High German dialects.
5. Of the 400 MSS. of the _Imitation_ 340 come from the Teutonic
countries--another argument in favour of its Teutonic origin. Again, 100
of them, including the earliest, come from the Netherlands. This number
is quite disproportionate to the relative size of the Netherlands, and
so points to Holland as the country in which the _Imitation_ was first
most widely circulated and presumably composed.
6. There is a considerable body of early evidence, traceable before
1450, that the author was a canon regular.
7. Several of the MSS. were written in houses belonging to the
Windesheim Congregation of canons regular, or, in close touch with it.
Moreover there is a specially intimate literary and spiritual
relationship between the _Imitation_ and writings that emanated from
what has been called the "Windesheim Circle."
To sum up: the indirect evidence points clearly to the conclusion that
the _Imitation_ was written by a Teutonic canon regular, probably a
Dutch canon regular of the Windesheim Congregation, in the first quarter
of the 15th century. These data are satisfied by Thomas à Kempis.
We pass to the direct evidence, neglecting that of witnesses who had no
special sources of information.
8. There can be no question that in the Windesheim Congregation itself
there was already, during Thomas à Kempis's lifetime, a fixed tradition
that he was the author of the _Imitation_. The most important witness to
this tradition is Johann Busch. It is true that the crucial words are
missing in one copy of his "Chronicle"; but it is clear there were two
redactions of the work, and there are no grounds whatever for doubting
that the second with its various enlargements came from the hands of
Busch himself--a copy of it containing the passage exists written in
1464, while both Busch and Thomas à Kempis were still alive. Busch
passed a great part of his life in Windesheim, only a few miles from
Mount St Agnes where Thomas lived. It would be hard to find a more
authentic witness. Another witness is Hermann Rhyd, a German member of
the Windesheim Congregation, who also had personally known Thomas.
Besides, two or three MSS. originating in the Windesheim Congregation
state or imply the same tradition.
9. More than this: the tradition existed in Thomas à Kempis's own
monastery shortly after his death. For John Mauburne became a canon in
Mount St Agnes within a few years of Thomas's death, and he states more
than once that Thomas wrote the _Imitation_.
10. The earliest biographer of Thomas à Kempis was an anonymous
contemporary: the _Life_ was printed in 1494, but it exists in a MS. of
1488. The biographer says he got his information from the brethren at
Mount St Agnes, and he states in passing that Bk. III. was written by
Thomas. Moreover, he appends a list of Thomas's writings, 38 in number,
and 5-8 are the four books of the _Imitation_.
It is needless to point out that such a list must be of vastly greater
authority than those given by St Jerome or Gennadius in their _De Viris
Illustribus_, and its rejection must, in consistency, involve methods of
criticism that would work havoc in the history of early literature of
what king soever. The domestic tradition in the Windesheim Congregation,
and in Mount St Agnes itself, has a weight that cannot be legitimately
avoided or evaded. Indeed the external authority for Thomas's authorship
is stronger than that for the authorship of most really anonymous
books--such, that is, as neither themselves claim to be by a given
author, nor have been claimed by any one as his own. A large proportion
of ancient writings, both ecclesiastical and secular, are
unquestioningly assigned to writers on far less evidence than that for
Thomas's authorship of the _Imitation_.
Internal arguments have been urged against Thomas's authorship. It has
been said that his certainly authentic writings are so inferior that the
_Imitation_ could not have been written by the same author. But only if
they were of the most certain and peremptory nature could such internal
arguments be allowed to weigh against the clear array of facts that make
up the external argument in favour of à Kempis. And it cannot be said
that the internal difficulties are such as this. Let it be granted that
Thomas was a prolific writer and that his writings vary very much in
quality; let it be granted also that the _Imitation_ surpasses all the
rest, and that some are on a level very far below it; still, when at
their best, some of the other works are not unworthy of the author of
the _Imitation_.
In conclusion, it is the belief of the present writer that the
"Contestation" is over, and that Thomas à Kempis's claims to the
authorship of the _Imitation_ have been solidly established.
The best account in English of the Controversy is that given by F. R.
Cruise in his _Thomas à Kempis_ (1887). Works produced before 1880 are
in general, with the exception of those of Eusebius Amort,
superannuated, and deal in large measure with points no longer of any
living interest. A pamphlet by Cruise, _Who was the Author of the
Imitation?_ (1898) contains sufficient information on the subject for
all ordinary needs; it has been translated into French and German, and
may be regarded as the standard handbook.
It has been said that the _Imitation of Christ_ has had a wider
religious influence than any book except the Bible, and if the
statement be limited to Christendom, it is probably true. The
_Imitation_ has been translated into over fifty languages, and is said
to have run through more than 6000 editions. The other statement,
often made, that it sums up all that is best of earlier Western
mysticism--that in it "was gathered and concentered all that was
elevating, passionate, profoundly pious in all the older mystics"
(Milman) is an exaggeration that is but partially true, for it
depreciates unduly the elder mystics and fails to do justice to the
originality of the _Imitation_. For its spiritual teaching is
something quite different from the mysticism of Augustine in the
_Confessions_, or of Bernard in the _Sermons on the Song of Songs_; it
is different from the scholastic mysticism of the St Victors or
Bonaventure; above all, it is different from the obscure mysticism,
saturated with the pseudo-Dionysian Neoplatonism of the German school
of Eckhart, Suso, Tauler and Ruysbroek. Again, it is quite different
from the later school of St Teresa and St John of the Cross, and from
the introspective methods of what may be called the modern school of
spirituality. The _Imitation_ stands apart, unique, as the principal
and most representative utterance of a special phase of religious
thought--non-scholastic, non-platonic, positive and merely religious
in its scope--herein reflecting faithfully the spirit of the movement
initiated by Gerhard Groot (q.v.), and carried forward by the circles
in which Thomas à Kempis lived. In contrast with more mystical
writings it is of limpid clearness, every sentence being easily
understandable by all whose spiritual sense is in any degree awakened.
No doubt it owes its universal power to this simplicity, to its
freedom from intellectualism and its direct appeal to the religious
sense and to the extraordinary religious genius of its author.
Professor Harnack in his book _What is Christianity?_ counts the
_Imitation_ as one of the chief spiritual forces in Catholicism: it
"kindles independent religious life, and a fire which burns with a
flame of its own" (p. 266).
The best Latin edition of the _Imitation_ is that of Hirsche (1874),
which follows closely the autograph of 1441 and reproduces the
rhythmical character of the book. Of English translations the most
interesting is that by John Wesley, under the title _The Christian's
Pattern_ (1735). (E. C. B.)
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, THE. This dogma of the Roman Catholic Church was
defined, as "of faith" by Pope Pius IX. on the 8th of December 1854 in
the following terms: "The doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin
Mary, from the first instant of her conception, was, by a most singular
grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus
Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, preserved from all stain of
Original Sin, is a doctrine revealed, by God, and therefore to be firmly
and steadfastly believed by all the faithful."[1] These words presuppose
the distinction between original, or racial, and actual, or personally
incurred sin. There is no dispute that the Church has always held the
Blessed Virgin to be sinless, in the sense of actual or personal sin.
The question of the Immaculate Conception regards original or racial sin
only. It is admitted that the doctrine as defined by Pius IX. was not
explicitly mooted before the 12th century. But it is claimed that it is
implicitly contained in the teaching of the Fathers. Their expressions
on the subject of the sinlessness of Mary are, it is pointed out, so
ample and so absolute that they must be taken to include original sin as
well as actual. Thus we have in the first five centuries such epithets
applied to her as "in every respect holy," "in all things unstained,"
"super-innocent" and "singularly holy"; she is compared to Eve before
the fall, as ancestress of a redeemed people; she is "the earth before
it was accursed."[2] The well-known words of St Augustine (d. 430) may
be cited: "As regards the mother of God," he says, "I will not allow any
question whatever of sin."[3] It is true that he is here speaking
directly of actual or personal sin. But his argument is that all men are
sinners; that they are so through original depravity; that this original
depravity may be overcome by the grace of God, and he adds that he does
not know but that Mary may have had sufficient grace to overcome sin "of
every sort" (_omni ex parte_).
It seems to have been St Bernard who, in the 12th century, explicitly
raised the question of the Immaculate Conception. A feast of the
Conception of the Blessed Virgin had already begun to be celebrated in
some churches of the West. St Bernard blames the canons of the
metropolitan church of Lyons for instituting such a festival without the
permission of the Holy See. In doing so, he takes occasion to repudiate
altogether the view that the Conception of Mary was sinless. It is
doubtful, however, whether he was using the term "Conception" in the
same sense in which it is used in the definition of Pius IX. In speaking
of conception one of three things may be meant: (1) the mother's
co-operation; (2) the formation of the body, or (3) the completion of
the human being by the infusion of the rational or spiritual soul. In
early times conception was very commonly used in the first
sense--"active" conception as it was called. But it is in the second, or
rather the third, sense that the word is employed in modern usage, and
in the definition of Pope Pius IX. But St Bernard would seem to have
been speaking of conception in the first sense, for in his argument he
says, "How can there be absence of sin where there is concupiscence
(_libido_)?" and stronger expressions follow, showing that he is
speaking of the mother and not of the child.[4]
St Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval scholastics, refused to
admit the Immaculate Conception, on the ground that, unless the Blessed
Virgin had at one time or other been one of the sinful, she could not
justly be said to have been redeemed by Christ.[5] St Bonaventura (d.
1274), second only to St Thomas in his influence on the Christian
schools of his age, hesitated to accept it for a similar reason.[6] The
celebrated John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), a Franciscan like St Bonaventura,
argued, on the contrary, that from a rational point of view it was
certainly as little derogatory to the merits of Christ to assert that
Mary was by him preserved from all taint of sin, as to say that she
first contracted it and then was delivered.[7] His arguments, combined
with a better acquaintance with the language of the early Fathers,
gradually prevailed in the schools of the Western Church. In 1387 the
university of Paris strongly condemned the opposite view. In 1483 Pope
Sixtus IV., who had already (1476) emphatically approved of the feast of
the Conception, condemned those who ventured to assert that the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception was heretical, and forbade either side to
claim a decisive victory until further action on the part of the Holy
See. The council of Trent, after declaring that in its decrees on the
subject of original sin it did not include "the blessed and immaculate
Virgin Mary, Mother of God," renewed this prohibition.[8] Pope Paul V.
(d. 1651) ordered that no one, under severe penalties, should dare to
assent in public "acts" or disputations that the Blessed Virgin was
conceived in original sin. Pope Gregory XV., shortly afterwards,
extended this prohibition to private discussions, allowing, however, the
Dominicans to argue on the subjects among themselves. Clement XI., in
1708, extended the feast of the Conception to the whole Church as a holy
day of obligation. Long before the middle of the 19th century the
doctrine was universally taught in the Roman Catholic Church. During the
reign of Gregory XVI. the bishops in various countries began to press
for a definition. Pius IX., at the beginning of his pontificate, and
again after 1851, appointed commissions to investigate the whole
subject, and he was advised that the doctrine was one which could be
defined and that the time for a definition was opportune. On the 8th of
December 1854 in a great assembly of bishops, in the basilica of St
Peter's at Rome, he promulgated the Bull _Ineffabilis Deus_, in which
the history of the doctrine is summarily traced, and which contains the
definition as given above.
The festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, as distinct from
her Nativity, was certainly celebrated in the Greek Church in the 7th
century, as we learn from one of the canons of St Andrew of Crete (or of
Jerusalem) who died about A.D. 700.[9] There is some evidence that it
was kept in Spain in the time of St Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) and in
southern Italy before A.D. 1000. In England it was known in the 12th
century; a council of the province of Canterbury, in 1328, ascribes its
introduction to St Anselm. It spread to France and Germany in the same
century. It was extended to the whole church, as stated above, in 1708.
It is kept, in the Western Church, on the 8th of December; the Greeks
have always kept it one day later.
The chief répertoire of Patristic passages, both on the doctrine and
on the festival, is Father Charles Passaglia's great collection,
entitled _De immaculato Deiparae semper Virginis conceptu Caroli
Passaglia sac. S.J. commentarius_ (3 vols., Romae, 1854-1855).
A useful statement of the doctrine with numerous references to the
Fathers and scholastics is found in Hürter's _Theologia Dogmatica_
(5th ed.), tom. i. tract. vii. cap. 6, p. 438.
The state of Catholic belief in the middle of the 19th century is well
brought out in _La Croyance générale el constante de l'Église touchant
l'immaculée conception de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie_, published in
1855 by Thomas M. J. Gousset (1792-1866), professor of moral theology
at the grand seminary of Besançon, and successively archbishop of
Besançon and cardinal archbishop of Reims.
For English readers the doctrine, and the history of its definition,
is clearly stated by Archbishop Ullathorne in _The Immaculate
Conception of the Mother of God_ (2nd ed., London, 1904). Dr F. G.
Lee, in _The Sinless Conception of the Mother of God; a Theological
Essay_ (London, 1891) argued that the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception is a legitimate development of early church teaching.
(+J. C. H.)