De Reformatione Virium Animae (On the Reform of the Soul's Powers)
Homo quidam descendebat ab Hierusalem in Hiericho...
Our renderingA certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho...
What it is
Zerbolt's companion treatise to the Spiritual Ascents structures the soul's reform around the theological anthropology of the three powers — memory, understanding (intelligentia), and will (voluntas) — which must be healed and reoriented after the Fall. Its organizing parable is drawn from Luke 10:30: the man who fell among thieves going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, making interior reform a literal ascent back to Jerusalem. Printed in incunabula editions from 1492–93 onward, it circulated alongside the Spiritual Ascents as the paired formation manual of the Devotio Moderna, though it reached a narrower readership due to its more explicitly philosophical theological framework.
Why it still matters
The threefold structure of memory-understanding-will offers a distinctive and underused framework for daily examination of conscience; readers of introductory medieval spirituality will find its approach to reforming the imagination and will both intellectually clear and practically applicable.
Kept alongside
Soliloquium Animae (Soliloquy of the Soul)
One of Kempis's most characteristic minor works, the Soliloquium Animae is a sustained interior dialogue between the soul and God organized around themes of divine love, humility, and perseverance in the life of grace. Published as part of his Opera omnia, it was particularly prized in Windesheim houses as a companion to the Imitation of Christ, and an early English translation survives at the Folger Shakespeare Library. It shares with the Imitation the same intimate, second-person address to Christ but has a more lyrical, prayer-like structure that renders it immediately usable as vocal prayer.
De Spiritualibus Ascensionibus (On the Spiritual Ascents)
Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen (1367–1398), librarian of the Deventer house of the Brethren of the Common Life, wrote this 70-chapter handbook of interior reform describing the soul's ascent from sin back toward paradisical innocence through methodical self-examination, affective meditation, and progressive virtue. Organized around the scriptural motto from Psalm 83:6 — 'He has set ascents in his heart' — it was the most widely circulated devotional work from Devotio Moderna scriptoria and was probably present in nearly every house of the movement. First printed by R. Pafraet in Deventer c. 1483–85 and reprinted into the sixteenth century, its method of structured imaginative meditation on Scripture anticipates the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises by more than a century.
Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ
A collection of meditations and prayers on the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ, forming a practical companion to the Imitation of Christ and the wider Vita Christi tradition. Where the Imitation focuses on interior dispositions, this work provides concrete meditative content keyed to Gospel events, functioning as a guide for lectio divina-style prayer through the mysteries of the Lord's life. Circulated in Windesheim and Augustinian communities as a formation text for novices, it was first translated into English by Henry Lee in 1762 and remains available in digitized editions.