Donald Traxler's Poetry

Friday, June 18, 2021

Informal Notes on De Imitatione Christi - IV

Liber III, Caput I

1. Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus Deus.

I will hear what the Lord God speaks within me.

When I read these words the other day, I was struck by what a magnificent opening verse this is for the chapter whose subject is "De Interna Consolatione" (Of Interior Consolation). At the time, I was reading from the Vatican's "critical edition" of 1982, which does not make the sources of biblical quotations very obvious, and I didn't realize that this was a quotation of Psalm 84/85, v.9. But Thomas à Kempis' choice could not have been more appropriate to Book III, the mystical heart of his work, and its longest book.

I have translated the Latin literally. Some will notice that it is not the same as the Masoretic Text, or the KJV, or the RSV. It does agree with the Greek of the Septuagint (LXX, circa 100 BCE), and with the Vulgate, which is based on the LXX. Many (including me) believe that the best text of the Psalms is that of the LXX and the Vulgate. The LXX reflects a Hebrew text that is 500 years before St. Jerome, and eight or nine hundred before our oldest copy of the Masoretic Text. It would certainly be the best Hebrew text, and the best text of the Psalms, but unfortunately it has not survived, and can only be inferred from the LXX.

Anyway, this opening verse struck me so forcibly because of the support it gives to the main premise of mysticism, which is that direct communication with the Divine is possible. The institutional Church has always considered this idea a threat to its hierarchical power, but why should it not be true? Why indeed, since every branch of Christianity recognizes something called the Communion of Saints, by which we can communicate with the holy ones who have gone before us? Why should the members of the Mystical Body be able to communicate with each other, but not with the Head?

[to be continued]

Photo: Audiam quid loquatur

"I will hear what the Lord God speaks within me."

The Latin is St. Jerome's Latin in the Vulgate, based on the Greek of the Septuagint (circa 100 BCE).

Thomas à Kempis chose this quotation for the opening words of the magnificent Book III of his devotional work, De imitatione Christi.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Informal Notes on De Imitatione Christi - III

One of the most interesting "omissions" in Puyol's list (see part II of this series) is this: Bk. IV, Chap. XV, 16: The words "super omnem devotionem" are, according to Puyol, found only in mss. Gaesdonck, Grammont, Kemp (the 1441 autograph), and Paris 2. It is enlightening to look at the whole verse:

"Hic in accipiendo sacram Eucharistiam magnam promeretur divinae unionis gratiam, quia non respicit ad propriam DEVOTIONEM et consolationem, sed super omnem DEVOTIONEM, et consolationem, ad Dei gloriam et honorem.

This is an example of a very common error in hand-copying a manuscript. The copyist's eye has skipped from the first "devotionem" to the second, and he simply copied out the rest of the verse, leaving out the words "super omnem devotionem." The error would not be easily caught and corrected, because the sentence still makes perfect sense. We do not need to assume that such an omission was intentional; it is, on the contrary, quite understandable.

Thomas à Kempis' text had already been copied at least a few times (we have mss. dated 1424 and 1427) before the "autograph" of 1441. The first few mss. avoided the copyists error described above; the rest did not.

De imitatione Christi has a logical, overarching structure, but it is not the only one possible. In fact, in the 1441 autograph the author went so far as to change the order of the books: the positions of Bk. III and Bk. IV were reversed! To be honest, this change does not surprise me, having read these books.

The subject of Bk. I is Admonitions Useful to the Spiritual Life; that of Bk. II is Admonitions Drawing one Within; Bk.III: On Internal Consolation; Bk. IV: On the Sacrament. It seemed to me, as a young man (thinking about entering the religious life), that the content of the first two books was pretty basic. For me, the heart of the work, the real "meat" of it, was in Bk. III, definitely my favorite. Bk. IV lowered the tension, and for me it was a letdown. The author, apparently, felt the same way, and tried to change the order of the books. Like any good writer, he wanted to end on a high note.

My plan, therefore, in these "Informal Notes," is to concentrate on Book III. Knowing that it impressed me greatly as a young man, I would like to understand why, and see whether it still does.

Photo: We Are Bodies of Light

115,000 Visits and a New Schedule

Greetings, dear readers. It took only fourteen days to go from 114,000 visits to 115,000. Unfortunately, this was due to pirate activity. Because of this, and also because writing these chatty little announcements takes me away from other writing that I need to do, I am changing the schedule. From now on, I'll announce at every five thousand visits, instead of every thousand. We are currently getting about two thousand visits (page-views) per month. If this rate continues, you should see an announcement like this about every two and a half months.

In between these announcements, you will continue to see the best poetry, prose writing, and photography that I can serve up.

As usual, thanks to all of you (even the pirates) for your continued interest and enthusiasm.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Informal Notes on the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis - II

Two weeks have elapsed since the first entry in this series, during which time I have learned a great deal about the textual history of this work. I'll recap some of it here, as briefly as I can.

The manuscripts of the Imitation of Christ fall into two main classes, according to Puyol (Variantes, 1898) and Lupo (critical edition published by the Vatican in 1982): the Italici (from Italy), and the Transalpini (from other countries, notably the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany). For 400 years, people in France and Italy were very attached to the theory the this devotional work had been written by Jean Gerson. This was the theory supported by Puyol at the end of the nineteenth century. Some scholars (Pittigliani, 1939) said that the Italici seemed to be textually anterior to the Transalpini. The debate was probably at its peak in the late seventeenth century, but it took a long time to die. Rosweyde, a Jesuit, took great pains in the front matter to his edition of 1691 (which was based on the autograph of 1441) to show that Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) was, in fact, the the author. This is now pretty much universally recognized. Jean Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429) was an amazing and extraordinary person, well worth studying, but he did not write the Imitation of Christ.

Puyol (1898), as a supporter of the Gerson theory, was wrong in his analysis, but his work in identifying the variants in the mss. and some incunabula was truly monumental, and I don't think anyone has surpassed it. On Page four of VARIANTES (1898) he provided an extremely useful list by which we can identify the parentage or basis of a text of the I. C. I give the list here, in two screen captures:

One of these "omissions" can tell you right away whether the text in front of you is of the Italian or the Transalpine class; Qui pro amore tuo . . . (III X, 25) is missing from all the Italian texts, and present in all the Transalpine. Interestingly, this omission in all Italian texts translates as "Those who for your love shall reject all fleshly delights . . . " Too much for the Italians, I guess.

Another of them, "Nunc sunt dies salutis . . . ," is only found in fourteen documents, including some of the oldest and best ones.

Perhaps best of all, "Super omnem devotionem . . . " (IV, XV, 16), is only found in four mss., and they are among the oldest and best (Gaesdonck, Grammont, Kemp, and Paris 2). If the text before you contains these words at the end of Chapter XV of Book IV, you have a good one. They are in my book, previously owned by Bishop Buddy, which I now believe is based on Kemp (the 1441 autograph).

The question I raised concerning the completion of the quotation of John 8:12 is an interesting one. It (the completion of the quote) only occurs in a few mss. and one incunabulum (that of Venice, 1483). It is an addition, not original.

For those who care, there is an easy way to get close to the 1441 autograph: it is the fine 1691 edition of Fr. Rosweyde, SJ. It is easy to read (unlike the fifteenth-century mss. and editions), and Google Books has kindly made it available to read online or to download as a pdf (I did both).

In conclusion, I would like to say that Bishop Buddy's book, which I have carried with me through many moves for sixty years, is an excellent one, probably based on the 1441 autograph, perhaps via Rosweyde's fine 1691 edition. It was published by Dessain, Mechlin, Belgium, in 1881. There, they always knew who the author of De imitatione Christi was.

Above: part of the title page of the 1691 Antwerp edition.