Note 184 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
See, especially, the twelfth chapter of the second book, On the Necessity of bearing the Cross. Compare Michelet’s somewhat overdrawn picture of the effects of the Imitation in his History of France.
The Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium of Gerlacus Petrus is a contemporary treatise belonging to the same school. (Comp. capp. xxxix. and xxvi.; ed. Strange, 1849.) It is less popular, less impassioned than the Imitation, and more thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of mysticism. Gerlach would seem to have studied Suso: in one place he imitates his language. The cast of his imagery, as well as the prominence given to mystical phraseology, more peculiar to the Germans, shows that he addresses himself to an advanced and comparatively esoteric circle.—Comp. capp. xxii, xxiv, p. 78.