The Imitation of Christ

The Imitation of Christ is a Christian devotional book. It is a handbook for spiritual life arising from the Devotio Moderna movement, a movement for religious reform, calling for apostolic renewal through the rediscovery of genuine pious practices. With the exception of the Bible, no Christian writing has had so wide a vogue or so sustained a popularity as this. Its structure it owes largely to the writings of the medieval mystics, and its ideas and phrases are a mosaic from the Bible and the Fathers of the early Church. But these elements are interwoven with such delicate skill and a religious feeling at once so ardent and so sound, that it promises to remain, what it has been for five hundred years, the supreme call and guide to spiritual aspiration.

Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380 - 1471) was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books.