[The Imitation of Christ] The »Imitation of Christ« (De imitatione Christi) is one of the most influential works of Christian devotional literature. It furnishes a mystically grounded manual to a personal spiritual life of pious inwardness. Written in Latin in the early 15th century by the canon Thomas à Kempis (1389/90–1471), the »Imitation of Christ« has found numerous devotees across denominational boundaries through the centuries to the present, from Ignatius of Loyola to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It was highly esteemed in the Catholicism of the Tridentine Reform and Romanticism, as well as in Protestant Pietism, and even today it can inspire readers in search of individually practiced spirituality.
