Thiasoi may be closely related to such phenomena as
women’s and men’s initiation clubs as found in the form of
secret societies in many extant cultures. The Greek under-
standing would have come close to such dramatization of
mythic events through imitation and identification: Plato
mentions that the human thiasoi imitate their divine proto-
types (Plato, Laws 815b). The initiation ordeals and actions
of some cult associations can be historically verified, while
the content and existence of many other such organizations
must remain conjectural, such as the Idaean Dactyls, the Tel-
chines, or the Cyclops, which could all have been mythic rep-
resentations of existing secret craft associations of smiths.
What is certain is the development from purely religious
and mystical cult associations to guild and craft associations
(technitai), which continue to have religious characteristics.
These guilds enjoyed many privileges, such as the right to
asylum and freedom from taxation or military service. They
were led by a priest of the Dionysos cult. In many ways the
Greek development of clubs organized by gender and age
seems to run a similar course, from mystical initiation and
dramatic enacting of sacred history to rational organization
of crafts and guilds, as we find in the development of frater-
nities and sororities in the history of Christianity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burkert, Walter. Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassisc-
hen Epoche. Stuttgart, 1977. Fine summary of the diverse in-
terpretations of religious associations.
Der kleine Pauly: Lexikon der antike. 5 vols. Munich, 1964–1975.
Encyclopedic collation on the basis of Paulys Realencyclopä-
die; emphasizing the secularization of religious associations
in Hellenistic times.
New Sources
Avram, Alexandru. “Der dionysische thiasos in Kallatis: Organisa-
tion, Repräsentation, Funktion.” In Religiöse Vereine in der
römischen Antike. Untersuchungen zu Organisation, Ritual
und Raumordnung, edited by Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser und Al-
fred Schäfer, pp. 69–80. Tübingen, 2002.
Gentili, Bruno. “Il Partenio di Alcmane e l’amore omoerotico
femminile nei tiasi spartani.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura
Classica 22 (1976): 59–67.
Kloppenborg, John S. “Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in Function,
Taxonomy and Membership.” In Voluntary Associations in
the Graeco-Roman World, edited by John S. Kloppenborg
and Sthephen G. Wilson, pp. 16–30. London-New York,
1996.
L’association dionysiaque dans les sociétés anciennes. Actes de la table
ronde organisée par l’École française de Rome (Rome 24–25 mai
1984). Paris, 1986.
Schlesier, Renate. “Die Seele im Thiasos: zu Euripides, Bacchae
75.” In Psukhe - Seele - Anima: Festschrift für Karin Alt zum
- Mai 1998, ed. by Jens Holzhausen, pp. 37–72. Stuttgart,
Villanueva Puig, Marie-Christine. “Le cas du thiase dionysiaque.”
Ktèma 23 (1998): 365–374.
KLAUS-PETER KÖPPING (1987)
Revised Bibliography
THOMAS À KEMPIS (1379/80–1471), also known
as Thomas Hemerken, late medieval Christian mystic. Born
in the German town of Kempen, near Cologne, Thomas at
age fourteen entered one of the schools of the Brethren of
the Common Life in the Dutch city of Deventer and spent
the rest of his long life in the Netherlands. Ordained to the
priesthood in 1413, he entered an Augustinian monastery
near Zwolle, where he remained until his death. A reputed
portrait of Thomas carries this inscription: “In all things I
sought quietness and found it only in retirement and books.”
Whether or not the portrait is indeed one of Thomas, the
legend is one that accurately describes him.
His lasting fame proceeds from the book Imitation of
Christ. While its authorship cannot be firmly established and
has been disputed by many scholars, the preponderance of
opinion is that Thomas was the author. A devotional manual
for personal spiritual growth and development, Imitation of
Christ has been an influential guide to personal piety for per-
sons as different as Samuel Johnson and John Wesley. The
number of known editions far exceeds two thousand.
The fifteenth century saw a reaction against what was
felt to be the excessively intellectual quality of medieval scho-
lasticism. Imitation of Christ reflects these feelings in its
marked Christocentricity and its insistence upon experience
rather than reason, and it presents a kind of piety that has
appealed far beyond the Middle Ages. It shares many basic
assumptions with eighteenth-century Protestant pietism and
was an influential work for this movement, particularly in
England and Germany.
The reputation of the book has diminished in the twen-
tieth century because of its innate quietism. The social impli-
cations of the gospel and the activism that it might require
find no support in Thomas’s book. But wherever Christiani-
ty is seen as consisting primarily in personal devotion and
private piety, the work’s traditional reputation still holds.
Apart from Imitation of Christ, Thomas’s writings have
attracted little lasting attention. His Small Alphabet for a
Monk in the School of God is in much the same vein as Imita-
tion. A number of biographies of leaders in the Brethren of
the Common Life breathe the same spirit but have never at-
tained the same popularity.
Scholars have disagreed rather sharply about the rela-
tionship of Thomas to later movements, such as the Protes-
tant Reformation. Albert Hyma argued that there was direct
continuity between him and his school and Martin Luther.
R. R. Post, on the other hand, maintained that the disconti-
nuity was far greater than the continuity, especially in the
way Thomas insisted on the virtues of monastic life. No defi-
nite answer is possible. Whatever his influence on Luther and
Erasmus, it is known that Imitation was the favorite book of
Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus.
For the most part Thomas simply ignored the peculiari-
ties of later medieval theology, concentrating instead on his
own inner experience. It is for this reason that the popularityTHOMAS À KEMPIS 9159