John Climacus

ON ST. JOHN CLIMACUS, ABBOT OF THE HOLY MOUNT SINAI, TOWARD THE END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

John Climacus, Abbot of the Holy Mount Sinai (St.)

[1] This holy Abbot is called by various surnames, of which the chief is Climacus, St. John, whence called Climacus: by which he is generally called on account of a book written by him in thirty chapters, by which as by steps or ladders one ascends to the summit of religious perfection. For in Greek it is entitled klimax tou paradeisou, that is, the Ladder of Paradise. The Abbot of the monastery of Raithu seems to have provided the occasion, who most earnestly exhorted him by letter to write this book, in which letter he makes mention of the ladder shown to the Patriarch Jacob from chapter 28 of Genesis. Cardinal Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology for this day testifies that a certain divine image of his soul is most clearly perceived in these writings. Because, however, his varied erudition shines everywhere in this sacred and religious work, he is called by the surname Scholasticus. He is also often called John the Sinaite or Abbot of the Holy Mount Sinai, Scholasticus and Abbot of Sinai: where he flourished in the sixth century of Christ, and at last, full of days and virtues, ascended to the heavenly Paradise on the thirtieth of March, on which day the Greeks in the Menologion collected in the tenth century by order of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus commemorate the following.

[2] Eulogy from the Menologion of the Emperor Basil: Memorial of our holy Father John Climacus. Our holy Father John Climacus, when he was in his sixteenth year, ascended Mount Sinai, and offered himself to God as a most holy sacrifice, and after the nineteenth year thereafter he gave himself over to solitude in a place called Tholas, five miles distant from the basilica of the monastery. He spent forty years in the love and desire of serving God; enriching his spirit with fasts, weeping, and prayers: yet he indulged in sleep, lest by sleeplessness and wakefulness he should immediately corrupt the state of his mind. Having thus exercised himself in every kind of virtue, and having far surpassed in virtue all the monks who served God on that mountain, he was illuminated by God with the greatest gifts and contemplations of divine things: he wrote many discourses for the benefit of souls, and composed a book called the Ladder, because it teaches in the right order the ascent of the virtues, and at last he ended this life. So far the Menologion of the Emperor Basil, and other Menaia: with which the new Anthologion of Anthony Arcudius, approved by Pope Clement VIII in the year 1598, fully agrees. Longer eulogies are recited in the printed and handwritten Menaia, as also in the frequently cited manuscript Synaxarion of Paris at the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus. But we omit these, because they are excerpted from the Life soon to be given, and were published in Greek and Latin before the works of St. John Climacus by our Matthew Rader, as also two canticles from among the many odes and hymns customarily recited at the Canonical hours from the Menaia. Following the example of the Greeks, Molanus, and in the Latin calendars: Canisius, and Felicius have recorded the same in their calendars, together with the Roman Martyrology, and celebrate St. John Climacus, Abbot on Mount Sinai.

[3] A certain compendium of his Life, to be prefixed to his book, was written shortly after his death by Daniel, a monk of Raithu, while the Abbot John of Raithu was still living, Life written by Daniel, a contemporary monk: at whose request St. John Climacus had written the Ladder of Paradise. Concerning Raithu, a neighboring monastery toward the Red Sea, we treated on the fourteenth of January, on which day the forty-three Martyrs and monks of this monastery are venerated. This Life has been published many times together with the Ladder of Paradise, and separately by Surius for this day. Matthew Rader published it in Greek and Latin from various manuscripts; we copied the same from the ancient Florentine manuscript codices of the Grand Duke of Etruria, which are preserved in the Medicean library, shelf 7, numbers 17 and 20, and compared them with the translation of Rader. An Appendix is added, appended from contemporary authors, in the same Rader.

[4] Trithemius wrote some things about John Climacus in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers, but not without various errors: which Rader corrects. time of death: Among other things he writes that he flourished around the year 346, during the reigns of Constantine, Constantius, and Constans, sons of Constantine the Great. But he is much younger, and, as Baronius in the Roman Martyrology and Bellarmine on Ecclesiastical Writers rightly observed, he flourished after the times of the Emperor Justinian and St. Sabas the Abbot: of whom the latter died in the year 531, and Justinian in the year 565. Philip Labbe on Ecclesiastical Writers writes that St. John Climacus died around the year 580, which seems probable to us, or at least toward the end of that century.

LIFE

By Daniel, a contemporary monk.

John Climacus, Abbot of the Holy Mount Sinai (St.)

BY DANIEL THE MONK.

PROLOGUE.

Daniel, monk of Raithu, on the Life of Abbot John, surnamed Scholasticus.

[1] John most excellently weighed the matter when he built for us the heavenly ladder, which, The Life was written to be prefixed to the Ladder of Paradise: in accordance with the age of Christ, who was thirty years old when he was baptized, contained thirty steps: comprehended in which just age of the Lord, we shall truly be found just and innocent: to which, whoever has not yet aspired is still an infant and will be found imperfect in the estimation of all. We shall truly seem to do something worthwhile if we prefix to his book the life and deeds of this most wise man, so that having contemplated his labors and toils, we may not deny credence to his achievements.

Life written in compendium of Abbot John, Abbot of the Holy Mount Sinai, surnamed Scholasticus, a truly holy man.

CHAPTER I.

Training, monastic and solitary life, exercise of virtues.

[2] What homeland or noble city gave birth to this Hero, and raised him before undertaking, so to speak, the arena of religious life, His first homeland is unknown: I am not able to say for certain and as a fact. But what place now holds this Saint, worthy of all admiration, and feeds him, received with immortal banquets and delights, I am by no means ignorant. For he is now in that royal city his last is heaven: of which the most vocal cicada (Paul) sings, when he exclaims in these words: Whose citizenship is in heaven: where, with his senses freed from all contagion of the body, with the mind alone and intelligence in an insatiable manner, he enjoys, is flooded, and is satisfied with the beauty of the inexhaustible good with the greatest pleasure: having obtained rewards worthy of his toils, the crown of his labors: and gifts that soothe all the pains of his labors, and admitted there to the lot of inheritance, namely the heavenly kingdom, already one of those, and forever henceforth to be with those, whose foot has stood in the right way.

[3] But how, once enclosed in a body, he aspired purely to those minds, I will now explain as clearly as I can. In the sixteenth year of his age he came to Mount Sinai: First, therefore, when in the flower of his youth that most blessed man was already in his sixteenth year, but in the excellence and skill of his mind could seem to have reached a thousandth, he offered himself to the great Pontiff God as a sincere and voluntary sacrifice, when he brought his body indeed to this Mount of Sinai, but his mind to the heavenly mountain, having seized, I believe, from the very sight of the place the opportunity by which he might at his convenience prepare for himself the way to surmounting that heavenly mountain. Thus through flight from the world he embraced comely modesty, a monk, he lives in all submission: as the chief of spiritual young maidens, that is, the mistress of virtues, with all stubbornness and impudence of speaking and contradicting cut away: and by the best counsel, immediately at the very entrance to religious discipline, he completely routed the deceitful sense of a self-pleased and self-confident mind: and submitted his neck to a most skilled spiritual master, trusting that he would thus by a safe way cross the deep sea of vices. Moreover, he so conducted himself in the religious and common life of the Brethren, as though he were an infant lacking reason and wished for nothing that pleased him, just as though he had completely put off the very nature of his mind. But what is far more worthy of admiration, well instructed in the knowledge of letters: although he had previously been initiated in all the disciplines of letters, yet afterwards imbued with heavenly simplicity, through submission of mind he banished and eliminated that most rare applause and pride of wisdom.

[4] Now having begun his twentieth year, when his Abbot, in the twentieth year of his age he withdraws to Tholas: like a legate and patron, had been sent ahead to the heavenly Emperor, he too, with forces and military apparatus suitable for undermining the strongholds of enemies, enters the arena of the quiet and solitary life, armed by the prayers of that great Master of his: and having chosen for the contest a place called Tholas, five miles from the sacred church, he spent there forty full years, he dwells there forty years: aflame with the fire of heavenly love and therefore always burning and glowing, with tireless zeal. For indeed, who has such great power of speech or such abundance of eloquence as to be able, with any applause of oratory, to attain, not to say worthily adorn, those immense labors endured there? And indeed how shall what was done by him secretly in the hidden silence of solitude be brought into public? Yet it will be possible, as from certain first-fruits of crops sampled, to perceive and estimate all the most holy riches and virtues of mind of this most holy man.

[5] At table he rejected nothing that was not inconsistent with the rules and laws of religious life: sparing in food: but he took food so moderately and soberly that he seemed to taste rather than to eat. And thus, as I think, through sobriety, he suppresses the sense of pleasure: having broken the horn of pride; but by the brevity of lunch and dinner he crushed the mistress pleasure, destructive to many, as through want he cried out: Be silent, be still. Through solitude, however, and flight from men, he extinguished the fire of this furnace and so quenched it that it was finally reduced to ashes. Avarice, moreover, which Paul calls the worship of idols, generous to the wretched: this generous hero with a generous spirit avoided through kindness to the wretched and want of things necessary at home. Sloth also, the daily death and desertion and paralysis of the soul, free from sloth: he pierced and aroused by the meditation of death and the last things, as by a spur. The web also, or entanglement of desires and all viciousness, from desires: and the bonds of the affections that fall under the senses, he dissolved by religious grief. The tyrannical impulse of fury, moreover, he had already slain with the weapon of obedience. from anger: The leech, however, of popular favor and glory, most similar in nature to spiders, he killed by rarely going out in public and more rarely speaking. from vain glory: What shall I say of the palm carried off from the eighth vice of pride by this mystic? What of the supreme purity of heart, which this new Bezalel through obedience began, but the Emperor of that heavenly Jerusalem consummated by his presence: without which the sower and mender of crimes, the devil, with his own legion and tribe of the same lot and shape, will never be conquered and overthrown.

[6] But in what place shall I set the diadem of the present crown of our Hero, Alone in a cave: fashioned from the multiplied gems of continuous tears? I shall discover in few words today a matter whose secret workshop still exists, situated at the very foot of the mountain; a cave, I say, very narrow, just far enough removed from the common dwellings both of himself and of others as suffices to ward off and exclude the ears that seek to catch vain glory. While meanwhile he, close to heaven, he pours forth groans and prayers: struck the stars with groans, sighs, and vows: as those are accustomed to groan who are either pierced with swords, or burned with cautery irons, or whose eyes are gouged out. He indulged in only so much sleep as suffices solely to preserve the state of his mind, lest it be corrupted by eternal vigils. he indulges in brief sleep after long prayers: Before he retired to bed, he poured forth very many prayers and composed little books, by which means he completely routed idleness and sloth. Moreover, throughout the entire course of his life he prayed continually and was carried by an immense love for God, by which day and night, as in a mirror, through the purity of his most chaste mind, representing God to himself, he seemed to wish to be filled with no satiety, or rather, to speak more truly, he seemed unable to be.

CHAPTER II.

Divine helps rendered to others. Governance of the monastery. Holy death.

[7] Inflamed by the example and zeal of this man, a certain Moses, a lover of solitude and silence, He admits Moses as a disciple: labored earnestly to be admitted as a disciple into his training, companionship, and true wisdom. To obtain this, when he had sent the elders to him as patrons, compelled by their prayers, he received Moses into the fellowship and apprenticeship of his life. And so when it once happened that the great Father commanded his disciple to carry rich soil from a certain place for nourishing and cultivating the vegetables of the garden, Moses, when he arrived at the place assigned to him, began diligently to carry out the command of his master. Noon was already approaching, and the sun at its height had set everything ablaze with an immense heat of burning: for it was the last of the months of summer, August. Here when Moses, avoiding the heat, had withdrawn under an immense rock, he fell asleep and rested for a little while. But the Lord, and divinely warned: who suffers none of his suppliant clients to be crushed by any graver accident, anticipated and averted the danger in his customary manner. For when John, that great Father, was in his hiding place, at leisure for himself and God through contemplation, and he himself was just drowsing a little, he sees a man more august than human appearance, by whom, with his sleep rebuked and shaken off, he seemed to be addressed: Is it so, John,

you snore securely here; and Moses's life is in danger. he saves him from the danger of death: John leaped up at once and took up the weapons of prayers for his recruit. Then toward evening he asked the returning Moses whether all was well. Had anything sad or unexpected happened? An immense rock, said Moses, under which I had gone to rest at noon, very nearly crushed me while sleeping, had I not seemed to be suddenly called by you and leaped out of the hollow. But John, truly humble in this, kept silent and revealed nothing of what he had seen; only with silent voices of the mind and ardent vows of love, he celebrated the goodness of the Divinity with a grateful mind.

[8] He was also a model of virtues and a physician of hidden diseases, as is evident from a certain Isaac, who, oppressed by the most severe tyranny of the body or flesh, he frees Isaac from the tyranny of the flesh: and almost cast into despair, hastened at full speed to this great man and laid before him his domestic warfare, interspersed with tears and sobs: admiring whose faith, he himself, far more admirable, said: Come, friend, let us both take refuge together in prayers. Therefore the oracles of promises soon followed those who were praying, and God, to show that they were not produced by fraud but were true and ratified, began to do the will of his servant, still cast down on his face and afflicted, to show that David does not deceive. For the most impure dragon, beaten back by the scourges of the most efficacious prayers, took himself to flight. And the sick man in his soul, when he felt himself cured, was greatly astonished, and joyfully gave praises of thanks to God who honored John by hearing him, and to John who was honored.

[9] But there were those who, stung by the goad of envy, called him garrulous and trifling: considered garrulous by the envious: whom he refuted by deeds and examples, showing to all that he could do all things in Christ, who supplies strength to all. And so for the space of an entire year he kept so deep a silence that his very calumniators came to him as suppliants with requests and entreaties, asking him not to stop up the perennial font of utility, he is silent for an entire year: and to put everyone's salvation at risk by his silence. He immediately yielded to their wishes, as one who did not even know how to resist, and again entered upon his former manner of life. he is appointed Abbot: Whence all, admiring his virtue in all things, as though he were another Moses, dragged him by force to the office of head of the monastery, and placed the face of his authority upon the candlestick. Nor indeed did he disappoint the hope of those by no means poor judges, by whom he had been promoted to that rank of dignity. For he himself approached the mountain of God, and entered the inaccessible cloud, and having been brought to the steps of the heavenly ladder, received the law written by the finger of God, and opened his mouth to the word of God, and drew in the spirit, and from the good treasure of his heart poured forth a good word.

[10] At last he arrived at the goal of the present life for guiding his religious Israelites, dissimilar to Moses in one thing only, he dies holily: in that John entirely ascended to that heavenly Jerusalem, whereas Moses, I know not how, did not even attain the earthly one. Moreover, many who, inspired by the spirit of his words, obtained salvation, testify to his holiness. The excellent and new David, having obtained the wisdom and salvation of this wise man, testifies. Finally our illustrious and venerable Abbot John testifies, his virtues are proclaimed by various people: entreated by him on behalf of his sheepfold, from whom this new beholder of God descended in mind and understanding from Mount Sinai, and presented to us the tables also dictated by God, which embrace on the outside in letters the precepts of action, but within those of contemplation. Thus I have tried to express very many things in few words, not unaware that brevity in narration is most approved by candidates of eloquence.

APPENDIX

By a contemporary Sinaite monk.

John Climacus, Abbot of the Holy Mount Sinai (St.)

When formerly the Abbot Martyrius, the Superior of John, had come to the great Anastasius, Anastasius, looking at John, addressed Martyrius and said: Tell me, Even as a youth he is predicted to become Abbot by the great Anastasius: Martyrius, where is this son from? Who tonsured him as a monk? Then Martyrius said: Your servant, O Father, I tonsured him. And Anastasius said: Wonderful! Abba Martyrius, who would have said that you have tonsured the Superior of Mount Sinai? Nor was Anastasius's prophecy in vain: for after forty years John was made our Superior and Abbot. At another time again, the Abbot Martyrius, his Superior, went with his own John to that great man, John the Sabaite, who lived in the desert of Gudda: when the old Sabaite saw them, and by John the Sabaite: he immediately rose and washed with water the feet not of Martyrius but of John Climacus, having also honored his hand with a kiss: a Star of the world by the Abbot Strategius: but he did not wash the feet of Martyrius. And when Stephen, the disciple of the Sabaite, asked why he had done so; Believe me, son, said the Sabaite, I do not know who that religious son is: for I received the Superior of Mount Sinai and washed his feet. Furthermore, the Abbot Strategius on the very day when John Climacus, being in his twentieth year of age, was tonsured as a monk, predicted that he would be a great luminary of the world. And so as soon as he was made Superior of our monastery, six hundred guests arrived: and when they had reclined to take food; Made Abbot, he receives 600 pilgrims: he himself saw a certain man dressed in linen in the Hebrew manner, as if a steward, who was running about everywhere and giving orders with authority, now to the cooks and stewards, now to the pantry-keepers and cellars, and other servants of the monastery. After the pilgrims were therefore sent away, when the servants also sat down at table, that diligent steward was sought, assisted by an unknown man who later disappeared: who had administered everything by running about and giving orders, so that he too might recline: but however diligently he was searched for, he could no longer be found. Then the servant of God, our venerable Father John, said to us: Stop seeking him: perhaps by Moses the lawgiver: for the Lord Moses did nothing strange when he performed his ministry in his own place.

There was a great drought in the regions of Palestine, and the rains of heaven were greatly desired. he obtains rain by his prayers: Being therefore asked by the neighbors and surrounding inhabitants, he immediately obtained by his prayers a copious rain from God. Nor is this beyond belief: for the Lord will do the will of those who fear him and will hear their prayer.

It should be known that John Climacus had a full brother George, whom he designated as his successor while he was still alive, to administer the monastery of Mount Sinai in his place with the authority of Abbot: on dying, he predicts death to his brother the Abbot: because he himself was held by the love of the desert and solitude, which he had taken to himself as a bride from the beginning. When therefore our new Moses and most religious Superior John was dying and setting out to the Lord, George the Abbot, his full brother as I said, stood by and tearfully said: Behold, my Lord, you go away, neglecting me? I was praying that you would send me ahead, for I cannot govern this sacred family of yours without you: and behold, unhappy me, I send you ahead. To whom the Abbot John said: There is no reason for you to be sad and distressed; if I have any hope and confidence in God, I will not suffer you to complete this year before you follow me. And so it happened. For within the tenth month George himself also departed to the Lord.