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The Medieval Church · c. 1418–1427
The Imitation of Christ
De Imitatione Christi
Thomas à Kempis · c. 1380–1471
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What it is
Four short books of counsel on self-knowledge, inner detachment, the consolations of the interior life, and the sacrament — written in aphorisms brief enough to stop a reader on almost every page.
Why it lasted
After the Bible, the most widely translated and printed book in Christian history, read continuously by Catholics and Protestants alike since before the Reformation divided them.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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