THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT

St. John Climacus

Translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (Harper & Brothers, 1959)

An Ascetic Treatise by Abba John, Abbot of the monks of Mount Sinai, sent by him to Abba John,
Abbot of Raithu, at whose request it was written.

Content
Step 1- On renunciation of the world….1
Step 2- On detachment….5
Step 3- On exile or pilgrimage….7
Step 4- On blessed and ever-memorable obedience….10
Step 5- On painstaking and true repentance which constitute the life of the holy convicts; and about the
Prison….29
Step 6- On remembrance of death….35
Step 7- On mourning which causes joy….38
Step 8- On freedom from anger and on meekness….44
Step 9- On remembrance of wrongs….47
Step 10- On slander or calumny….48
Step 11- On talkativeness and silence….50
Step 12- On lying….51
Step 13- On despondency….52
Step 14- On the clamorous, yet wicked master- the stomach….53
Step 15- On incorruptible purity and chastity to which the corruptible attain by toil and sweat….56
Step 16 - On love of money or avarice….66
Step 17- On poverty (that hastens heavenwards)….67
Step 18- On insensibility, that is, deadening of the soul and the death of the mind before the death of the
Body…68
Step 19- On sleep, prayer, and psalm-singing in chapel….69
Step 20- On bodily vigil and how to use it to attain spiritual vigil and how to practice it….70
Step 21- On unmanly and puerile cowardice….71
Step 22- On the many forms of vainglory….72
Step 23- On mad pride, and, in the same Step, on unclean blasphemous thoughts….76
Step 24- On meekness, simplicity, guilelessness which come not from nature but from habit, and about
malice….80
Step 25- On the destroyer of the passions, most sublime humility, which is rooted in spiritual feeling….83
Step 26- On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues….89
Step 27- On holy solitude2 of body and soul….111
Step 28- On holy and blessed prayer, mother of virtues, and on the attitude of mind and body in prayer..119
Step 29- Concerning heaven on earth, or godlike dispassion and perfection, and the resurrection of the
soul before the general resurrection….124
Step 30- Concerning the linking together of the supreme trinity among the virtues….126