John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Overview
The Ladder of Divine Ascent was the most widely used handbook of the ascetic life in the ancient Greek Church. Popular among both laity and monastics, it was translated into Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Old Slavonic, and other languages. Written while the author was abbot of the monastery of Catherine on Mount Sinai, it portrays the ascetical life as a ladder which each aspirant must ascend, each step being a virtue to be acquired, or a vice to be surrendered. Its thirty steps reflect the hidden life of Christ himself. Pierre Pourrat in his History of Christian Spirituality calls John Climacus the “most important ascetical theologian of the East.”
For a massive collection including over a hundred and twenty of the volumes in this series, see the Classics of Western Spirituality Bundle (126 vols.).
- A clear presentation of classic spirituality from the eastern church in a vibrant and accessible form
- Fully integrates and cross references with other resources from your Logos library
- A primary source that is useful for research and historical study of the ancient Greek church
Top Highlights
“Yet full of passions and weakness as we are, let us take heart and let us in total confidence carry to Christ in our right hand and confess to Him our helplessness and our fragility. We will carry away more help than we deserve, if only we constantly push ourselves down into the depths of humility.” (Pages 75–76)
“The beginning of prayer is the expulsion of distractions from the very start by a single thought;132 the middle stage is the concentration on what is being said or thought; its conclusion is rapture in the Lord.” (Page 276)
“We simple people assume that His friends, О holy Father, are properly speaking those intelligent and bodiless beings who surround Him. His true servants are all those who have done and are doing His will without hesitation or pause. His useless servants are those who think of themselves as having been worthy of the gift of baptism, but have not at all guarded their covenant with Him; while, it seems to us, the strangers from God, His opponents, are the unbelievers or heretics. His enemies are those who not only contravene and repudiate the commands of the Lord, but make stern war against all who obey Him.” (Page 73)
“But to secure a rocklike foundation, those with a mind for the religious life will turn away from everything, will despise everything, will ridicule everything, will shake off everything. Innocence, abstinence, temperance—these make a fine thrice-firm foundation. Let all infants in Christ begin with these, taking real infants as their example; for among children no evil is found, nothing deceitful, no insatiable greed or gluttony, no flaming lust, but it seems that as you feed them more, they grow in strength until at last they come upon passion.” (Page 76)
Saint John Climacus (Ἰωάννης τῆς Κλίμακος c. 7th Century CE), also known as John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites, was a 7th century Christian monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai. He is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. We have almost no information about John’s life. There is in existence an ancient Vita, Life of the Saint by a monk named Daniel of Raithu monastery.