I. THE AUTHOR AND HIS BACKGROUND

Sinai and Tabor ,
With the exception of the Bible and the service books, there is no work in Eastern Christendom that has been studied, copied and trans- lated more often than The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Clima- cus. Every Lent in Orthodox monasteries it is appointed to be read uloud in church or in the refectory, so that some monks will have lis- tened to it as much as fifty or sixty times in the course of their life. Outside the monasteries it has also been the favorite reading of count- less lay people in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, and throughout the Orthodox world. The popularity of The Ladder in the East equals I hat of 'The Imitation of Christ in the West, although the two books are iiliogether different in character.
The author of The ladder lived in the desert of Sinai, at the foot of Jebcl Musa, Moses' Mount, that rises rocky and precipitous to a height of nearly 7,500 feet. The surroundings would often have called to his mind the scene in Exodus: the lightning and thunder, the fnountain shrouded in thick cloud, and Moses climbing up alone into llu- ilarkne.ss to speak with (Jod face to face (Exod. 20:18-21). But St. J(»hn t^limacus was also reminded constantly of another mountain- dtp, belonging to the New (Covenant — 'labor, "the higli mountain «|n dlNciplcs. Kor, when he prayed in the church built for ihe monks mI SIniii bv ihe I'mfx-ror Jiistininn in 5.^6-7, each lime lie Inuked up |iilm
XXVlll
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INTRODUCTION
would have seen in the apse at the east end the yica. n„.^aK■ .hat .tdl survives to this day, depicting Christ's Transf.gur.non.
Visually and spiritually, then, John's imagmat.on was dominated by these two mountains. Sinai and Tabor, and both a ,kc arc reflected in the book that he wrote. In its seventy, its refusal ot con,prumise and Its demand for total dedication, The Ladder calls to m.nd the arid desert, and the rocks and darkness of Sinai. But those prepar d to look deeper will discover that the book speaks not only of penitence but of icy, not only of self-denial but of man's -"y.--/:7g^^f2'. Together with the gloom of Sinai there is also the fire of the Burning Bush and the light of Tabor.
The Three Monastic Paths u rf„ ,.f St
Little is known, beyond the bare outlines, about the life of bt^ lohn Climacus.2 In Greek he is called loannis tts Khmakos, John of the Ladder " after the book that he wrote. In Latin this came to be ren- dered /«««.. CUmacus, and so in English his t.tle has become Chma- cu • In Greek he is also named "John the Scholastic" (scholasttkosy, while the term used here could mean a lawyer, it is often more broad- Ty applied to someone well educated or widely read, and this seems to
he the sense in John's case.
John's dates have been much debated. According to the view most commonly accepted, he was born m ^V^^^.^'f before 579^ and he died around 649- but some scholars put his bjrth as early as 25 and his death around 600,* while others place his death as late as 670
rT[,c mosa.c date, probably from 565-6, nine years after the bu.lding of the
church, ic V. Benesevic, -'Sur l/d.te de U n.as.Y
Sinai"', Wvztfn/iwn i (1^24), pp. 145-72. co/uAOR-
2 The main source .. the Life by Daniel of Ra.thu: Greek tex, m PC «H, 596-608
VT 11 M pp xv.iv-xx.viii. l>.n,el wr.tes as if he were John's contemporary but he
. „; ' V ' w 11 informed. For further deta.ls about John's Ufe, -;''-^-™.-'" J"'^^"
, fi:„.; ss
^J;7c^':^:^:Z m5 ^p: lix-xl.There .s some doubt how much of this
schrrfi ''^^'^O^g'; PP;/;;^^,„,,,,,,,„ ,,„,,,„„ a-he-alomca 1%4), p. 18«- An early date is also prefe;red by B^nesevic, an. a>.. By.annor. i (1924). pp. 168-9: .„ hts v.ew f.hmacus was born before 532 and died before 596.
80.5 While certainty is not possible, it seems reasonable to regard John as an author of the seventh rather than the sixth century, as a contemporary, that is to say, of St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580- 662). It is not known where he was born. His delight in metaphors drawn from the sea has led some to conclude that his early years were spent near the coast,*^ but this is no more than a speculation.
John was sixteen when he came to Sinai.'' Here he would have found a monastic center already well established, containing in close proximity all the three forms of the monastic life that he describes in Step 1 of The Ladder.^ First, inside the fortress walls built at the orders of Justinian, and occupying the buildings around the church with its mosaic of the Transfiguration, there was a fully organized cembium, a monastic brotherhood pursuing the common life under the direction of an abbot (higoumenos). Second, scattered through the surrounding desert there were hermits dedicated to the solitary life. And in the third place there were monks following the middle way, intermediate between the cenobitic and the anachoretic forms, whereby small groups lived as close-knit families, each under the immediate guid- ance of a spiritual father. For this third way, "the life of stillness shared with one or two others," as he terms it, John himself expresses a preference: it avoids the dangers of excessive isolation, while being at the same time less "structured" and more personal than life in a large-scale monastery, and providing more opportunities for silence.
In the course of his life St. John Climacus had experience of all these three forms. Initially, so it seems, he adopted the middle way, taking as his spiritual father a certain Abba Martyrius. After three years, when John was nineteen or twenty, Martyrius took him to the
5. H.-G. Beck, Kirche und Tbeologische Literatur im Byzuntinischen Rekh (Munich I'J.W), p. 451.
ft. S. Rabois-Bousquet, "Saint Jean Climaque: sa vie et son oeuvre", Echos d'Orient *xi\ (192.1), pp. 442-3.
7. Daniel of Raithu, Life (.f97A). But L. Petit, DTC viii {1924), cols. 690-3, doubts whether t;iimacus entered the monastic life so young, and prefers to identify him with ri ccrlain John the Rhetorician, a married man in Alexandria, who is mentioned by Sophroniu-s, Miriiths ofSl. Cynis and St. John. §§ 61, 70 (PC 87, 364(lA, 3673 A); in Peril's Vtrw, ClirnacuN is also the John rtlenlioned in Moschus, The Spiniual Akiidois, (j MI2 (If, K7, 29C,(>D), Hill ihis ihcory thai Gliniaiu.s only became a monk ai a mature a^v. after UlKmiine and a m-cuIiii- career, remains lupo! helical and has mn been vMdi-lv luci'pteil
H. I (MIDI, p, -').
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
chapel at the top of Moses' Mount and there, following the custom of theCe he tonsured John as a monk. Commg down from the sum- tVZr^o met AnasLius, the abbot of the central monastery who ^ad not seen John before. "Where does th.s boy come from asked Anastasms, "and who professed him- Martyr.us -^'^^^'^^h- J^^//^ done so "How strange!" Anastas.us exclaimed. Who would have ?h.:;:ght that you had professed the abbot of Mount «- " Martynu and John Climacus continued on the.r way, and paid a visit to the celebrated solitary John the Sabbaite, who washed John Chmacus fet and ki sed his hand, but took no notice of Martynus. John the Sabbat's disciple was scandalized by this, but after the two v.si ors had leftthe old man assured him: "Believe me, I ^on^^^^^^l^VX boy is; but I received the abbot of Sinai and washed his feet. Forty vears later these prophecies were fulfilled. ,0 t k„
' Martyrius, so it seems, died soon after John's profession.- John now retired irito solitude, settling as a hermit at Tholas, some five miles from the fortress housing the main monastery. Yet he was not :^ gelher isolated, for there were certainly other --ks in the imme diate vicinity According to John's biographer Darnel of Ra.thu dur fng hiryea'Iof retreat ft Tholas he received the gift of tears and the arace of continual prayer, He reduced sleep to a minimum but dis- p a ed a prudent moderation in his fasting, for it was h.s custom to e 'everything allowed by the monastic rule, but in extremely sina quantities. In' time he became known and respected as a spin ua^ ?T,„de and he began to receive frequent visits from his fellow monks-so frequem, indeed, that some criticized him for being a gos- " and a hatterbo;. Thereupon John kept total silence for a year onlv agreeing to speak once more wnh his visitors when entreated to do so bv the very monks who had been his critics.
AtLme pofnt during his time in Tholas I^^n made a ,ourney o F^rvDt stavine at a large monastery on the outskirts of Alexandr a, {^fha' he w itne ed in'this community of several hundred monks Id a laslg impression on him, as can be gauged from the lengthy desc iption that he gives in Steps 4 and 5 of The Ladder. Since his own
early years as a monk had been spent in the third way, in a small her- mitage and not in a large cenobium, it is easy to understand the impact which life at the Alexandrian house must have had upon him. He was struck in particular by the abbot's power of insight, and by the com- bination of sternness and affection which he showed in his treatment of the monks. John was also impressed by the "Prison," a mile from the main monastery, in which erring monks were confined; here he stayed for a month. ^^ His vivid account of the physical austerities and the mental anguish undergone by the monks in this "Prison" is likely to prove, for most Western readers, by far the least attractive section of The Ladder; at times, so one modern critic has complained, it sounds like "a badly run psychiatric institution." But John was impressed by other things as well during his visit to the Alexandrian monastery — by the unity prevailing among the brethren, by the warmth and sen- sitivity of their mutual love, and by their unceasing inward prayer. '^
\ After forty years of hermit life at Tholas, against his will John was elected abbot of the central monastery at Sinai. On the day of his installation as abbot, a party of six hundred pilgrims chanced to ar- rive at the monastery. While they were all being given a meal, John saw "a man with short hair, dressed like a Jew in a white tunic, going round with an air of authority and giving orders to the cooks, cel- larers, stewards and other servants." Once the meal had finished, the man was nowhere to be found. "It was our lord Moses," said John, "I le has done nothing strange in serving here in the place that is his own."'* I'o the monks the sign was significant; for they were soon to iw\ that, in the person of their new abbot John, they had indeed found another Moses. ^^
I How long John continued in office is unknown. It was during this last period of his life, while abbot, that he composed The Ladder of fhviiic Ascent, at the request of another John, the superior of a nearby monastery at Raithu.'** "Tell us in our ignorance," asked John of Uiiillui, "what like Moses of old you have seen in divine vision upon llic mountain; write it down in a book and send it to us as if it were
died no. whrrl John w.s n.netfen years of age, but when John had been nineteen years in the monastic life (i.e. when he was about thirry-five). 11. Daniel, /.//> (600A-601 A, 604D-60SA).
12. S (776H), |). MX. It ^C^.KIAHC), |)p. y5-W. 14, Atiiisiiisiiis, Siirraltva, % 7. IV DiinicI, /,i/f |6(I5H).
Ift I'rolmlily tii \k iiii'iiiificil with Tor, III I III' .SiDui |iriiiii'iiihi
INTRODUCTION
the tables of the Law, wntten by God." In his reply John Cl.macus nrotest that the task is beyond his strength: "I am st.ll among the Larn s 'But, he says, constrained by the virtue of obedience, he ha corphed wtth the request, composing "tn my stammering way what is no more than "an outline sketch."'''
Shortly before his death John, longing to en,oy once more the
stillness in'which he had lived as a solitary resigned his position as
abbot appointing his brother George to replace him.
There IS nothing to indicate that St. John Climacus was ev^er or-
dainJd a prL" His anointment as abbot is not in itself proof that he
was in holy orders.