Preface

JohiuClimacus
THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT
TIUXSLATION
BY
COLM LUIBHEID and
N01
NOTES ON TlUNSlJVriON
BY
NOl^'lAN RUSSELL
t
IXTROnL'CTION
BY
KALLISTOS WARE
l^KEFACE
BY
COLiVl LIJIBHEID
SPCK . LONDON
6-P>^ to. //S-C^
Cover Art
A graduate of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts In Philadelphia, cover artist ANDRIJ MADAY has won numerous awards for his graphic designs and prints. He has exhibited his paintings and woodcuts in approximately eighty shows in the United States and has permanent collections at universities in Italy, Canada, and the United States. Mr. Maday's art, based on simple rectangular and circular designs, is inspired by ancient Ukrainian icons and conveys Mr. Maday's own deep mystical experience and rich Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox heritage.
First published in the United States in 1982 by Paulist Press
Copyright © 1982 by the
Missionary Society of St. Paul
the Apostle in the State of New York
Published in Great Britain in 1982
by SPCK
Hoty Trinity Church
Marylebone Road
London NWl 4DU
ISBN: 281 0J782 .1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Contents
FOREWORD
IX
ABBREVIATIONS
PREFACE
XI
INTRODUCTION
THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT
71
INDEXES
293
Translators of This V^olume COLM LUIBHEID was born in Dublin in 1936 and received his B.A. and M.A. from University College, Dublin. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University. Since 1961 he has been a member of the teaching staff at University College, Galway. His scholarly interests focus on the early Church in the eastern half of the Mediterranean between the third and fifth centuries. In addition to publishing two books on Eusebius, he is preparing a volume on John Cassian for this series. Dr. Luibheid lives with his wife and four chil- dren in the village of Abbeyknockmoy, near Galway.
REV. NORMAN VICTOR RUSSELL was born in Belfast in 1945 and was educated at King's College, University of London. Subse- quently he took his theology degrees at Oxford. In 1971 he was or- dained Deacon in the Church of England. After being received into the Catholic Church a year later he was ordained a priest of the Con- gregation of the Oratory. Eather Russell is an editor of Sobornost and has contributed to the English editions of the Philokatia and The Lives of the Desert Fathers.
Author of the Introduction BISHOP KALLISTOS WARE was born in Bath in 1934 and was educated at the Westminster School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied Classics, Philosophy and Theology. Re- ceived into the Orthodox Church in 1958, he was ordained a priest in 1966, the same year he took monastic vows at the Monastery of St John the Theologian in Patmos. In 1982 he was consecrated titular Bishop of Diokleia and appointed assistant bishop in the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. Since 1966 he has been been Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford, and in 1970 he became a Fellow at Pembroke College. He is the co-editor of Sobornost and the author of many books, including The Orthodox Church.
FOREWORD
If there are numerous and well-founded doubts concerning the few spare details of the biography of John Climacus, or John Scholas- ticus, there is little risk of over-estimating the influence of the treatise which emerged from the pen of this notably elusive figure whose life touched the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh centu- ries. The Ladder of Divine Ascent is undeniably a classic of early Chris- tian spirituality. It offers advice, counsel and guidance to those capable of embarking on that difficult road whose summit is encoun- ter with God, and it embodies the fruit both of long personal experi- ence and of the intensely dynamic insights of earlier generations of men caught up in the first great surge of monasticism.
The present translation is based on the text printed by Migne — Patrologia Graeca 88. Apart from the details to be gathered in the stan- dard handbooks of patrology, a most useful and wide-ranging bibliog- raphy has been supplied by Guerric Couilleau at the end of his article, /eaw Climaque in Dictionnaire de Spiritualite, Ease, lii-liii (Paris) 1972. This is to be strongly recommended to anyone wishing to ex- plore the various issues raised by the impact of The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
IX
ABBREVIATIONS
PREFACE
DHGE:
DS:
DTC:
ET:
HTM;
PG: PL: Phil.:
Rader:
Dictionnaire dVistoire et di geographic ecclhiastiques (Paris)
Dictionnaire de spiritualiti (Paris)
Dictionnaire de theologie catholique (Paris)
English translation
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by
Archimandrite Lazarus (Moore) (revised edition by the
Holy Transfiguration Monastery: Boston, Massachusetts
1978).
J. -P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca (Paris)
J. -P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris)
St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of
Corinth, The Philokalm, translated by G.E.H. Palmer, P.
Sherrard and K. Ware, vol. 1 (London & Boston 1979).
Matthew Rader, editor of the text printed in Migne.
References to St. John Climacus, The Ladder, are given as follows: first the number of the step; then the column number from PG 88; finally the page number of the present translation. Thus "4 (677C), p. 45" signifies: Step 4, PG 88, col. 677C, p. 45 below.
To the Shepherd (Ad Pastorem) is cited as Past., followed by the chapter number and the column number in PG 88, and then the page number of the HTM translation.
Old Testament references are to the Septuagint.
To Western eyes, the monk increasingly is a figure of yesterday, and the commonest images of him are of the kind to make easy the patroni/.ing smile, the confidently dismissive gesture, or that special tolerance extended to the dotty and the eccentric. Around Friar Tuck, with his cheerful obesity, and Brother Francis, harming no one as he' talks to birds and animals, vaguer ghosts manage to cluster, gaunt, cowled, faintly sinister, eyes averted'or else looking heaven- ward, a skull clutched in a wasted hand, with gloom arising and laughter dead. Somewhere in the background there are bells and hymns, and psalms chanted long after midnight; and, as if to confirm that these are only the leftovers of a past surely and mercifully gone, there is the dumb presence of all those European monasteries visited for ten scheduled minutes during a guided tour, or else sought out on warmer evenings by courting couples,
But for the Christian, that is, for someone who believes that there is a God, that God has manifested Himself in historical surroundings in the person of Christ, and that insights and obligations are thereby held up to everybody, the monk cannot easily be shrugged off. Cer- tainly in the aftermath of the immense changes that have occurred in the outlook of Christians since the end of World War II, the future of the religious order or community as such may well be problematic, but this in no way alters the deeper challenge presented by the monk. For here is someone who, so it would appear, has deliberately with- drawn from the usual patterns of living.
In this matter, of course, one has to tread with great care, since the meaning of such a withdrawal is not absolute, but is conditioned
XI
I'KII Acr,
l>y iiiui imiM he iiiKlcrsinoil m \rtti\^ n| tlic MKftti.s rtiid customs of the era in which ii niciii s. Ami cvrti il tiiMuruul evidence can help to iso- late what seem lo he ihe characieiislrc Iraliires ot a widely shared out- look at a given time, this siitl leaves nitiMly untouched the precise set of reasons impelling a particular person (o choose a type of living that involves some form of rciiunciatmri, s.inie decision to opt out of the way of the world.
But again, the difficulties iiet,'iii to multiply. A linguistic usage, so long employed by Christians that it has the look of being quite sim- ply "natural," surrounds the individual monk with a wall of venera- ble words, a wall more solid and enduring than any that may set the boundaries of the area where he actually lives. For the talk is of "withdrawal" from "the world," of "renunciation," of a "monastic life" in contrast with the way other people happen to live, of being "apart from," "away from" the rest of mankind, of pursuing a "dedi- cated" and "consecrated" path. And this language, with its emphasis on the differences between the monk and all others, very quickly be- gins to generate something more than a mere set of descriptions. It begins to imply a value system, a yardstick of achievement and worth until at last, and not surprisingly, there grows the irresistible urge to speak of a "higher," "fuller," and "more perfect" way of life.
Words of this sort, words lined and laced with implications of particular values, are the co-relations of belief, of commitment, and of action. Language of this kind, endlessly repeated by ecclesiastical writers and preachers, has long been characteristic of Christian prac- tice and has been received largely without demur. But the power of words is not a constant; and the impact of a terminology that claims, among other things, that the clerical, and specifically the monastic, way is a "higher" calling grows greater or lesser in proportion to the number and availability of competing terminologies. And when, as in the last quarter of the twentieth century, there is in fact a prolifera- tion of serious and compelling value systems, then the force of an ex- clusively Christian rhetoric is inevitably weakened, even for Christians. The mere assertion of a value is no longer matched, as it used to be in other days, by a willingly affirmative respon.se, and the timely quotation from Leo XIII or from Thomas Aquinas cannot now be relied on to still doubts or to answer questions.
There is in all of this a situation unique in Christian experience, for it has long been a popular notion that Christianity is a religion of the book; and it has certainly been the case that the Bible, the com-
XI 1
PREFACE
mentary, and the exegetical tract have supplied the material and the language in which the sermon, the homily, and the theological analy- sis have been firmly grounded. The pastoral letter, the authorized hymn, and the training manual for future clerics have extended the range and the reach of a discourse whose themes and elaborations have reverberated ceaselessly in the consciousness of believers. Year after year, scripted prayers have been read aloud to a congregation that is either silent or else invited to repeat them, and stock themes of petition or praise, with all that this implies by way of what is accept- able or not, have directed the minds of worshipers to a landscape of concern, a domain of reality that for long had the appearance of being unique. Until, that is, the coming of other rhetorics and other certain- ties. So that now there are, in a sense, too many books, too many claims to attention in a world geared for the instant transmission of every idea, event, and apocalypse. And the Christian, bombarded from every quarter by the exigencies of the day, is less and less able to operate exclusively within the frontiers established for his forebears by a language rooted in biblical detail. ,
Given those circumstances, it is reasonable to wonder how a C!]hristian may now cope with the vast literature to which he is heir. It is also reasonable to anticipate that he will approach it with some- thing less than automatic deference. And amid all the competing voices, his capacity to deploy a commitment and a sustained interest may well diminish as he strives to assemble for himself and for his friends criteria of evaluation that make some kind of accepted sense. I!(»w, for instance, is he to approach a work like The Ladder of Divine Ahent by John C^limacus? By what means can he integrate it within hiii own heritage and his immediate environment? How can this text, over fourteen hundred years old, have any bearing on the problems of a Christian in the last quarter of the twentieth century? Such ques- tions arise in relation to any classic book. But for the moment they iiiiisi be directed to this treatise, which had a very considerable influ- ence during a lengthy era in the history of the Church. And, in any Cilsc, if something useful can be said of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, it tuny coniribiite a little to the resolution of the problem presented to- day hy the figure of the monk.
The selling at least can be readily established. The Ladder is a Drodui't ol that great surge of monasticism which ;ip[ieared first in rKVpl during the third century, sfiread rapidly through all ot i'.nvtrrti ( IhriMctidom, and eventually reached the West by wuy o( the inrdnii
Xili
PRKFACE
PREFACE
ing zeal of figures such as John Cassian. '['he general history of this most influential development in the life of the early Church is well known, even if details and certain interpretations continue to preoc- cupy scholars, and there is no need to attempi here a sketch of what has been so well described by others. But in justice to the author of the Ladder it would be important to make a few preliminary com- ments in order to lessen the possibility of serious misunderstanding.
First, it should be observed that no discussion of early monasti- cism is complete without its due quota of lugubrious tales. The ap- palled scholar and the generous opponent of zeaTot'ry carTchoose from and grade a seemingly endless supply of horror stories, and someone familiar with the relevant literature finds himself on the lookout for the better-known figures: the monk who constructed for himself a cell too tiny to permit him ever to stand up or to lie down, the stylites who perched for decades on top of their sunscorched pillars, the Egyptian whose boast was that he was closer to being a corpse than anyone else. These are not the figments of some Gothic imagination, and frequently one may construct from various sources solid bio- graphical details. Take, for instance, the case of Barsauma, a fifth-cen- tury monk from Syria, a region notable for the numbers who displayed a positive genius in the extravagant penances they managed to devise for themselves. Barsauma first had himself chained to a rock-face, and only when it was pointed out to him that he would be unlikely to survive long enough to practice the penance he had in view did he change his plans. Instead he took to wearing an iron tu- nic, vowed never to sit or to recline, hung himself in an upright posi- tion whenever he had to sleep, and attracted in this way fascinated and uncritical disciples who, at his bidding, wrecked and looted syna- gogues in the name of the God they all worshiped.
Barsauma was not unique, and the Ladder too has its own contri- bution to make to this ima ge of extremism: — .
. . . there were men in hardship and bowed down to the end of their lives, going about ea ch day _ _in sadness, t heir bodies' wounds stinkingj)fjxittSiii£ss-aiKi'yet unnoticed by them. They forgot to eat their bread; th ejr drink was mixed with tears. They at£ dust jnd^ashes instead of bread; their bones stuck to their flesh and they wSre-dFted'Tip like grass. . . . You could see the tongues on some of them dry and hanging
from their mouths in the manner of dogs. Some pun isjied themselves in_the_b] a2ing sun, othe rs tortured themselves in the cold, while others, again, drank only as much water as would keep them from dying of thirst. . . . With knees like wood, as a result of all the prostrations, with eyes dimmed and sunken, with hair gone and cheeks wasted and scalded by many hot tears, with faces pale and worn, they were no
di fferent from corp ses- Their breasts were livid from all the
beatings, which had even made them spit blood. There was no rest for them in beds, no clean and laundered clothing. They were bedraggled, dirty, and verminous. rfStep 5), -.—
f
Such tales earn a disproportionate measure of attention among
many of those dealing with the phenomenon of early monasticism. The stories are too vivid, too imperious for the imagination to be able to remain unengaged, and the decent witness or the gentle historian, accustomed to worthy ideals and the advantages of hygiene, recoils in distaste from what he takes to be the rep ulsive excesses of guilt-r i dden luul maddened wretches. Indeed, so intense is the inclination to dwell on the specl:acular or tBe repulsive aspects of the first Christian monks that the attempt to describe their hopes and practices regular- ly degenerates into caricature or well-bred irony. And this is surely tvgrcHable since even the available evidence points unambiguously to ihc fact that very many of the first monks were wholly admirable men, gentle, wise, and loving, capable ot jrearTiero ism^ndlnovedTiy Hti ;ibid7ng t rust in ^ o9^ Figures remarkable by any standard emerged from their monastic surroundings to leave an enduring murk on the character and quality of their times; and in the fourth tind (ifih centuries some of the most effective men, some of the men nuiM iible to provide leadership and inspiration to countless thou- Ntind.s, were actually dedicated ascetics. In other words, the emphasis Dti ilu' sensational features of early monastic life is apt to provide a lopsided and seriously misleading historical picture.
But whether the focus of attention be on the saint, on the fanatic, or indi'cd on the common and ordinary human, no one would deny itiiii Inirdship and strict regimentation marked the lives of the early ttioiiks And this too calls for brief comment, since a complex net- work o| incentives — religious, psychological, social, and anthropo- toUICul is in play whenever the issue of discipline is seriously
XIV
XV
PKKl ACE
invoked. There seems to bean aMriicimii nr ilu ipit im Ic »^ «lmnpliiie, irrespective of the values that may hiipprn tn iiiianltf il mi a j(ivcn context. A strangely recurrent terminology shirws n|) aiimtij^ (.In-is- tians, Marxists, Manichees, army otliicrs, rcviihiiiKiirti i«'s, ti^Ui wing extremists, and racists, and it consecrates ilic iiiIktcih wuiili nt re- straint, self-sacrifice, manliness, solidarity wiili one'i *ninrailrs, the "cause," the need to struggle, and the requirement i sin, corruption, and weakness. Translated inii> prueli.c, ihis viKnihu- lary can be brought to exemplify what is mamlesily i i«lii "i' ""'gh- teous. Such proclaimed values draw continued adminiiinn, regardless of the brotherhood that may happen to have lietrayrd tlietii, and pre- cisely because they have long held so great an afii>eal tor so many, it is foolish to try (as some do) to confine within a c le gencrali/.a- tion the reasons why men in their thousands joiti a pariieiilar move- ment. A student of motives is not much helped by the .siateinent that, for instance, the national humiliation stemming from (he \ersailles treaty was the cause of the growing membership of the Na/i party, or the economic and social dislocation of the third century was responsi- ble for the rise of monasticism.
However, there is one feature of the unrelaxed .severity and disci- pline of early monastic life that certainly ought to be adverted U) and that offers a clue to the reasons why some men resolve to join a reli- gious community; namely, the undeniable correlation between hard- ship and an intense marshaling of inner, and frequently unsuspected, resources. Words cannot really encompass what happens here. But the fact seems well established. In the evidence of the Gulag Archi- pelago, in the testimony of men like Solzhenitsyn, lertz, Panin, and Shifrin, in the records of the tidal wave of misery let loose by German Nazism, there is a persistent and humbling proof of the capacity of individiials, trapped amid the worst conditions of deprivation, to un- lock an inner dynamism, which often is manifested as a commanding faith in God and which must never be confused with the understan- dable motive of escapism. It has happened too often in twentieth-cen- tury experience to be trivialized or explained away; and somewhere within it lies a common bond with the ordeals, voluntarily undertak- en, and the achievements of the first monks of the Church, Sharp dif- ferences of time and circumstance do not alter the shared character of the early saint and that prisoner of our day who has climbed beyond gross suffering and oppression to arrive at a level of richness beyond
XVI
PREFACE
all common imagining. And because this is so, the decision of a n to take on himself the discipline of a hard religious life may not, af all, be so odd and unintelligible.
That many of the first monks had glimpsed a connection tween the experience of hardship and an enhanced spirituality is e dent in the writings of the early Church. And in the neighborhood that perceived connection were other sources of the resolve to en on a monastic life. There was, for instance, the belief that, given right conditions and preparation, a man may even in this life w( his passage upward into the actual presence of God; and there, if G so chooses, he can receive a direct and intimate knowledge of the vine Being. Such knowledge is not the automatic or the guarantt conclusion of a process. It is not like the logical outcome of a faultie ly constructed argument. There is no assurance that a man will co to it at the end of a long journey. But to many it was a prize an. prospect so glittering that all else looked puny by comparison; a besides, there were tales told of some who, so it seemed, had actus been granted that supreme gift of a rendezvous.
Something of what was meant is found in a section of the Con sions of Augustine:
Imagine a man in whom the tumult of the flesh goes silent, in whom the images of earth, of water, of air and of the skies cease to resound. His soul turns quiet and, self-reflecting no longer, it transcends itself. Dreams and visions end. So too does all speech and every gesture, everything in fact which comes to be only to pass away. All these things cry out: "We did not make ourselves. It is the Eternal One who made us." And after they have said this, think of them falling silent, turning to listen to the One Who created them. And imagine Him speaking. Himself, and not through the medium of all those things. Speaking Himself. So that we could hear His ( word, not in the language of the flesh, not through the
speech of an angel, not by way of a rattling cloud or a myste- i rious parable. But Himself The One Whom we love in ev-
i erything. imagine we could hear Him without them.
Reaching out with speeding thought we come to Him, to the Ktcrnal Wisdom which outlasts everything. And imagine if sight of 1 liin were ke|)i available, while all lesser sights were
PRKl'ACK
taken away. Think of this cncoimicr. sd/iujl, fll>Mirliiii«. drawing the witness into the dt•plh^ nl \<>\. iMrnuil life would be of a kind with this moment ol nn.lnM.indinji. {Confessions ix, 10, 25)
Augustine is talking of a one-to-one cncounicr wiih (iod. I hat anyone should dream of such an encounter in this life riu.y sectn hold and surprising to a believer from the twentieth ccnuny. surruundcd as he is by countless men of goodwill unable to accept that tlicrc is a God at all. But the dream was clearly there, and there was much to keep it alive. To writers of the fourth, fifth, and sixth ccnuines, the cultural and intellectual resources of the age supported them and co- operated with them as they confidently formulated convictions of the kind laid out by Augustine. They had, too, a thriving, dynamic sense of the reality of God. And from this they turned to the life and, espe- cially the resurrection of Christ as an unambiguous proof of the exis- tence'of a sure road, a high road, into the actual living presence of the Creator Journey's end might not perhaps be reached until the after- life but to these men, with their great capacity to love, their hunger for salvation, and their bitter awareness of the fact of sin, the way was already marked out, and only the obstacles had to be overcome.
But whatever the combination of motives that might operate for individuals entering on the path of monasticism^here was one^gctor that set the t one of all else; namely, the d^tinction, profb^^ndly felt betw^'i^TSSnUnd body, a"dittinction reguIiFIfH^Ta^FSt^d in terms of a c^iiiTTi^r-^TTdTSSr7nd^ without respite, between two irreconcilable ant^nists yoked together for a lifetime. The body was the foe— gross corrupt, and greedy, reaching out for its own crass satisfactions or else generating subtle, even civilized, needs against which the soul had always to struggle. This notion of a deadly antagonism at the very center of a man's own being was a theme older than Christian- ity but in the literature of early monasticism it became a focal point of agonized reflection. For to be alive at all is to be in the world, en- suring one's survival, entering into relationships with others, gazing on the beauty rising before the eye, encountering at every turn the achievements of art and intellect, feeling the stirrings of delight, and discovering the outward reach of desire, of passion, and of the urge to possess And all this in the arena where the body feels most at home. Even the hours awake and the sleep of the night are but aspects ot the
^'i^h ^"■''''
XVUl
PREFACE
body in command; and, seemingly, no hour or place can offer the soul an instant of unthreatened peace and recreation.
And so it is that John Climacus, facing the spectacle of unending war between soul and body, finds himself compelled to write as fol- lows:
By what rule or manner can I bind this body of mine? By what precedent can I judge him? Before I can bind him he is let loose, before I can condemn him I am reconciled to him, before I can punish him 1 bow down to him and feel sorry for him. How can I hate him when my nature disposes me to love him? How can I break away from him when 1 am bound to him forever? How can I escape from him when he is going to rise with me? How can I make him incorrupt when he has received a corruptible nature? How can I argue with him when all the arguments of nature are on his side? ... If I strike him down 1 have nothing left by which to acquire vir- tues. I embrace him. And I turn away from him. What is this mystery in me? What is the principle this mixture of body and soul? (Step 15)
More typical, perhaps, was the following reflection by Basil of Oaesarea, himself the single most influential figure in the monasti- L'ism of the eastern half of the Roman Empire;
I
I'here is only one way out of this, namely, total separation from all the world. But withdrawal from the world does not mean physical removal from it. Rather, it is the withdrawal I by the soul of any sympathy for the body. One becomes stateless and homeless. One gives up possessions, friends, ownership of property, livelihood, business connections, so- cial life and scholarship. The heart is made ready to receive the imprint of sacred teaching, and this making ready in- volves the unlearning of knowledge deriving from evil hab- its. I'o write on wax, one has first to erase the letters previously written there, and to bring sacred teaching to the Noui one must begin by wi|)ing out preoccupations rooted in nnlinary liabil.s. (iJa.sil, J w tier 2)
XIX
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John Climacus, Basil, and i.umy nil,,-. I.m.I.hk U^inw^ wt-rc i>ro. claiming in effect that the only sale p/c w.is hcHVt-nw anl, that the onlv unblemished gesture was tho siK.ia! nl |..->ivcr or ..I cmnpunc- tion, that the only secure involvcmcni with mhtTS wi.s the unstinted offer of charity. Temperament and availahle insinixs would deter- mine the extent and the degree to whirh, for it.dividiiiiU, all this would be translated mto hatred of the body and hrtuc ol the wurld^ But whatever the disparate motives at work, a man sci/ed by a love ot God and a man laceratmg himself in a frcn/y of penance had at least in common the abiding sense of a war withu. ihcm, ol the soiM tac.ng the body in an unending and possibly mortal combat. No other (actor was more decisive in shaping the morality and the disciplinary prac- tices of the first monks, and its influence can still be .seen at work, tor instance, in many of the pronouncements on the subject ot marriage or in the nervous efforts of some ecclesiastical celibates to cope with the fact that half, if not more, of the members of (he human race are
women. -
But a vastly more troublesome problem arises in the context ot this deeply felt antagonism between soul and body, and it is a prob- lem that will today strike someone reading The Ladder oj Divtne Ascent. It is also an issue that can be touched on here in only the briefest fash- ion There is now in the consciousness of the West a terminology and a set of value judgments centered on the person. From the era of the Renaissance and Reformation up to the present time, there has been a steady progress in the insistence on the reality and the inherent worth of the individual. Some philosophers, of course, would argue that man the word-spinner has in this merely demonstrated once again his capacity to sublimate reality and has only succeeded in hid- ing from himself that he is no more-and no less— than a very com- plex organism. But this is not a widely shared view, Instead, there is much talk of human rights, of one man's being as good as another, ot the right of the poor to share in the goods of the world, of one-man- one-vote What all this has done to belief in God is a theme of mapr import However, on a more restricted plane, a difficulty for anyone today reading The Ladder of Divine Ascent or similar texts is that in these a somewhat different view of the person is at work. If modern Christianity has invested heavily in the notion of the value of the m- dividual person, it has been at the cost of a seeming incompatibility with much that was felt and believed in the early Church.
Still whether incompatible or not with the modern sense of the
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self and of identity, The Ladder of Divine Ascent remains what it has long been, a text that had a profound influence, lasting many centur- ies, in the monastic centers of the Greek-speaking world. As such it deserves at least a hearing, if only to ensure that the awareness of the (Christian past is not impoverished. And in any case it has in its own fashion a contribution to make to the problem of what the monk could possibly signify in the life of today. For the Ladder was, of course, addressed specifically to monks.
Hardly anything is known of the author, and the most reliable information about him can be summarized in the statement that he lived in the second half of the sixth century, survived into the sev- enth, passed forty years of solitude at a place called Tholas; that he became abbot of the great monastery of Mount Sinai and that he com- posed there the present text. The Ladder was written for a particular group, the abbot and community of a monastic settlement at Raithu on the Gulf of Suez. It was put together for a restricted audience and to satisfy an urgent request for a detailed analysis of the special prob- lems, needs, and requirements of monastic li£e. John Climacus was not immediately concerned to reach out to the general mass of believ- ers; and if, eventually, the Ladder became a classic, spreading its ef- fects through all of Eastern Christendom, the principal reason lay in its continuing impact on those who had committed themselves to a disciplined observance of an ascetic way as far removed as possible Irom daily concerns.
Not much is actually said of the reasons for joining a monastery. Men become monks "either for the sake of the coming kingdom, or bcciiuse of the number of their sins, or on account of their love of ( iod" (Step 1). But once inside the walls, the monk, according to John, hiis to live under the scrutiny of a God Who is undoubtedly loving, merciful, and omnipotent, but Who is also just, stern, and conscious of protocol. Like the emperor, in fact:
Those of us wishing to stand before our King and God and to speak to Him should not rush into this without some preparation, lest it should happen that — seeing us from afar without arms and without the dress appropriate to those who appear before the King — He should command His ser- vnnts and I lis slaves to lay hold of us, and to drive us out of His sight, to tear up our pctiti faces. (Step 2H)
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PREFACE
The emperor in ihc world known to John, presided over . socety iS d V sCfied with the eo-nmon man living at the base of a tr.an-
I Icrapex was rem
ml into he imperial presence would do so w,th nerv<>us apprehen-
r^irh a sense of risking some terrible displeasure. Bm at least for
ih m^ OH y of hif subiect' the emperor lived far away m a distant the ma,onty oi i ^^^ ^,^^^^^ ^^^^,^g and
And in ct= the analogy Kere is not properly understood, J,>hn offer.
some others:
If you ever found yourself having to appear before a human
lols'eff in priyer. Perhaps you have never -0^1 ^ejo iudge nor witnessed a cross-examination. In that case, take your cue from the way patients appeal to surgeons prior to an operation or a cautery. (Step 28)
"With no anaesthetic," the modern scholiast "^'g^t -dd.
Before the face of this King, the monk puts on a lifetime pertor nuance one moreover, that at every turn is imperiled by virtually un-
hS hazards. Had John lived in the -^^'^^ ---[,. ^ut" 2 i have spoken of the monk as journeying through a minefield, but as it tth image of the strait way suffices, and that a ---"^^j^lf j^^i c^me when it would be otherwise, when a man might briefly re ax, is nowhere hinted at in the course of the long, often melancholy, analy-
tion sufficient for the weight and gravity of his sins:
Let no one who grieves for his sins expect -assurance at the hour of death. There can be no reassurance about the un- known. (Step 5) And he has to beware even this insecurity, since "to despair is ... to
'^'V:t rhoTeToin-rrt La^^er of D...n. A.en. is that a great amount of wisdom a'nd insight is available to enable the monk to cope
xxii
with the perils of his situation. There is knowledge to be handed on to him, and practical steps that, if taken, must show him how to trans- form his life, how to transcend his condition, provided he has within himself the necessary faith and zeal. The form of John's text — with its thirty sections or steps — is suggested by the biblical image of the lad- der of Jacob, and such an image, rooted in the certainties of scripture, must be taken to imply that despite the myriad difficulties rising up before him, the way of the monk is not in fact impassable. But it has its own special character and its own particular objectives, and these must be understood from the beginning and accepted for what they are. The monk, after all,
finds himself in an earthly and defiled body, but pushes him- self into the rank and status of the incorporeal. . . . With- drawal from the world is a willing hatred of all that is materially prized, a denial of nature for the sake of what is , above nature. (Step 1)
In other words, the monk, unlike the majority of believers, is so over- whelmed by his sense of the reality of God and of the afterlife that he turns away, by a deliberate choice, from the concerns of the here and now, renounces as far as possible the alliance of soul and body, and lives to the extent that he can the life of the spirit. Of all tasks this is surely the most formidable; and yet, John is saying, at the top of the ladder, on the thirtieth step of striving, there awaits a promise for the man whose heart longs to be there: love clarified, God made present. To get there, however, the monk has first to enter the arena of renunciation. It is easily said, and the inexperienced onlooker will have his own way of constructing the image of the bolt on the cloister gate, of the cell entered for a lifetime. Or the talk can be of what a man has decided to forego — a varied diet, physical comfort, sexual ex- perience, possessions, the security and self-respect provided by the love and esteem of one's time, of neighbors, of society. And these are indeed among all that the monk has decided to renounce. But wherev- er a man is, however far he has retreated from what the world may have lo offer, he remains a man, endowed, among other attributes, with a capacity to remember and to imagine, and in the drabbest by- Wiiy of the rockiest desert he would be less than human if he did not lliinii sonielimes ot the road noi taken — which would mean ihiii he hud no! vet achieved retmnciniion.
f
k....
XXIII
i»i
PREFACE
And suppose that Ik n^^ «' '"-«' '" '«*"'''' '"' " """"'" '"
taste^reat remembered, dr.nm-.! (..
world He has .t.ll to run . ,aun.U. ..I .- «U-M,.n.V «ll .nHcc 1 on
his oenume humanity, all dcnv.n^ Imn. ih. I...'t Hm. -n „ (u-rv.n, an
amalga- of body and soul, he has h- n nd.n.v -o nnprnge
vlntarily on h's .urrouna,n,s. II. U, .,«. .■ N;? ; /; '^
form mdgments about whatever he h.un. ,h,.I m'.n, .ml, •'»•''"' ^^
lum' John maintains, catas.n.phe I ' " ' ';;■--
t onof hisownop.mon,ofh,.sown pn.pos,,! I .l..„«. ^ho uld be
done of his own criteria of evaluation, nu.y wHl -mo.-m .' '^^Jf^-
laTe'and unwarranted promotion of .he .- ih- .;M"-e ol that
goal of "denying nature for the sake oi what i- above
'as if thfs w'ere not more than enough .o eopc -^h M.erc -s fur^
ther problem with which the monk nu,s, sonu-how >'-'\' '' ^^ ^;;.
inendins assault of demons, of evil spu-.ts hover.nn u.ul lu.k.ng ev
rrTCher IrestLs and v.aous, ever on the waU;l. for ..n ..pportumty
^turn a Lehever, but especially a monk, awav fnnn tlu- I-" ^h
conduct. In this matter John is at one wUh h.s nun.e, ous p, de c. or
and Hke them, he refers constantly to the war on ,wo l.on.s, agamst
the self and against the hosts of marauding devils^
J We have countless hidden enemies-evil cnennt-s, ha.-sh de- ceitful wicked enemies with fire in their hands wishing to th; Lord's temple alight with the flame that is in U^ These enemies are powerful, unsleeping, incorporeal and unseen. (Step 1)
And they cooperate, these enemies, this self and jhese circling de- they coop ' ^^j jh^ „„nU, calling h.m ai^d
TtSng him '::':::;:: corner of the world where he is mo.st likely
'^"'Jf these conditions he must therefore decde if his vocation is „.ore"ike!y to be realized in solitude than in a religious community Tan anchorite rather than a cenobite. The two options he before hm and he has numerous exem^TaH-to help htm make up his mind. As an rnchorite, Hving totally alone or with fellow anchorites nearby he can choose f;^ himself the ascetical regime that appears most suit- able to his needs. While he may seek guidance from many quarter and may feel bound to follow in detail the advice of someone else, the decisTon a to how he should conduct himself remains within his own
person and under his own control. The cenobite, on the other hand, while renouncing the world as the anchorite does, also abdicates his capacity to decide his future for himself. To him, the "I," with its power of decision, is the enemy, always insidious, ever exploited by demons, endlessly a prey to deceit from within and from outside; and because of this, the solitary life appears too hazardous, too filled with risk. So he joins a community, a resolve in which he will be encour- aged by John, who is convinced of the fact that pnly a special few are able to live in solitude and that in community life the monk will find at least one major instrument for his own progress, namely, the strat- egy of obedience.
It is no accident that one of the longest and most impressive sec- tions in The Ladder of Divine Ascent is given over to obedience, which is variously described, but which involves above all the decision "to put aside the capacity to make one's own judgment." With care and fore- .sight the monk, knowing his own special failings and proclivities, chooses a director or superior and then submits completely to him in everything great or small, reserving to himself not even the tiniest do- main of personal initiative.
I have seen men there who lived in total obedience for all of fifty years, and when I begged them to tell me what consola- tion they had won from so great a labor, some answered that having arrived thereby at the lowest depths of abasement they could repel every onslaught, while others declared that they had attained complete freedom from the senses and had obtained serenity amid every calumny and insult. (Step 4)
To emphasize this aspect of the matter, John puts forward sever- ill anecdotes of which the following is typical:
I he superior . . . said to (Isidore): "Brother, this is what I want you to do. You are to stand at the gate of the monas- tery, and before everyone passing in or out, you are to bend the knee and say; 'Pray for me, Father, because I am an epi- leptic.' " And Isidore obeyed (and) spent seven years at the gale. ... 1 asked this great Isidore how he had occupied his mind while he was at the gate. . . , "At first I judged thai I ha penance with iiitterness, great effort ami l)lootl. Alter tt yrrt!'
xxiv
XXV
PRl'.FACI
mv heart was no longer full of grief, :n.a I lu^aii loilunkot a reward for my obedience from CJod 1 li.nscM. At.mluT yc^ir passed and in the depths of my heart I bcyan lo sec how un- worthy I was to live in a monastery, to enconnicr the fa- thers to share in the Divine Mysteries. I lost the courage to look anyone in the face, but lowering my eyes ami lowering my thoughts even further, I asked with true si.uerity tor the prayers of those going in and out." (Step 4)
From this, and from the many other incidents and comments set down by John, it becomes clear that the requirement of obedience im- plies very much more than what the term would suggest today, h is not a question of agreeing to accept the rules of a club that one has voluntarily joined. Nor is the obedience invoked here the phenom- enon one associates with a soldier, who, in following highly danger- ous and even very stupid orders, can still preserve an independence of view concerning them. The submission of the monk goes much far- ther and includes the surrender of even the capacity to hold a P"vate and unspoken attitude of critical reserve or judgment regarding the commands meted out to him. And this is not to be confused with blind obedience. For the obedience is indeed purposeful, because the monk in h.s awareness within himself of particular failings actual or potential, has chosen a superior who will correct these; and h,s total unquestioning submission will then be the avenue by which to tran- scend weakness and to advance toward increasingly important spin- tual goals:
Ihe surest sign of our faith is when we obey our superiors without hesitation, even when we see the opposite happen- ing to what we had hoped. (Step 4)
Let what we call quicksilver be a paradigm of perfect obedi- ence Roll it with any substance you wish and it will never- theless run to the lowest place and mix with nothing defiled. (Ibid.)
When a monk living in solitude has realized what his weak point is, and when he changes place and sells himself to obe- dience, then, blind that he was once, he recovers sight and can see Christ without difficulty. (Ibid.)
xxvi
PREFACE
He who strives for dispassion and for God considers lost any day on which he was not criticized. Like trees swayed by the wind and driving their roots deeper into the ground, those who live in obedience become strong and unshakable souls. (Ibid.)
All this because the self, reduced through obedience not only to a humble recognition of its own insignificance, but also to an actualiza- tion of that insignificance, will then lie open to receive the grace of becoming someone pleasing in the sight of God, pleasing as a show- place of the virtues.
These virtues, and the vices that shadow them, form the subject matter of the greater part of The Ladder of Divine Ascent. They are sub- mitted to penetrating analysis, classification, and subdivision. They are treated in a sequence more or less logical and in a manner occa- sionally reminiscent of a soul owner's manual. Yet this too can be misleading, as indeed the image of the ladder itself is somewhat mis- leading. For it would be wrong to think in terms of a solid progres- sion up from one firm level to that above it. A more appropriate metaphor would be the text of a play or the notations of a musical composition whose internal patterns and consistencies may well be described and established, but which really come to true being only in a living enactment. In The Ladder of Divine Ascent the monk can study the virtues as an actor studies his lines, but the exercise is only of secondary interest if it is not followed by the actual performance, a performance that, in the case of the monk, will be in an ambience of prayer, in a continuous "dialog and union of man and God" (Step 28).
Here, perhaps, is the crucial point. For John Climacus is con- cerned not so much with the outward trappings of monasticism as with its vital content. To him the monk is a believer who has under- taken to enter prayerfully into unceasing communion with God, and this in the form of a commitment not only to turn from the self and world but to bring into being in the context of his own person as many of the virtues as possible. He does not act in conformity with virtues of one kind or another. Somehow, from within the boundaries of his own presence, he emerges to he humility, to be gentleness, to be Ktn abhorred, to be faith and hope and, above all else, to be love. Such il vocation turns him intr) a marked man, not just in the sort of milieu known lo Jolm Climacus, luii at any time, even where tlir (iiiinr of (iod is something to be shrugged off or rejected. He offers mi px«ni
xxvti
PREFACE
ple of love and courage, something to be followed l>y '^^^^^.^t Zn way and as their own .nsights and crcumsta.Kos dutatc,
cause
the monastic Hfe ,s a hght for all men. Hence monks should snare no effort to become a shining example >n all th.ngs, and hey should give no scandal .n anything they say or da For >f the light becomes dark, then all the deeper w.ll be the darkness of those living in the world. (Step 26)
c; h in outline is the perspective in which The Ladder of Divine
™ "J LT^tpoverished .,sio„ ,„d a d™ini*ed 8-P "Jj, :,-";
ihc nianv opportunities to contront a view o 5 ^^ reasoned
. ;nhclVui(ufsuch a confrontation IS a researched No, or a reasone IcMuic'^encc. then indeed the sum of human enrichment can confi- dently be held to have been augmented.
INTRODUCTION
I