Saint John Climacus

Martyrius having died around the year 560, Saint John withdrew to a solitary place named Thole, which was nevertheless only about five stone's throws from a church. He spent forty years there in great peace of mind and marvelous holiness. He refused nothing, for his nourishment, of all that his profession allowed him; but he ate so little of it that he seemed to wish to taste it rather than be nourished by it; thus he avoided the vainglory that often arises from singularity, and he triumphed over gluttony, which a sober use of food cannot satisfy. He fought his other passions with no less care and vigor, and he subjected them so perfectly to the spirit that he became like a heavenly man and an angelic spirit among men. He occupied his soul continually with prayer and the contemplation of divine things, and, withdrawing into a cave that was next to his cell, he made it resound with his cries, his groans, and his sighs. His eyes were also two fountains of tears. He did not fail, however, before taking a moment of rest to satisfy the necessity of the body, to recite several vocal prayers and to compose some treatises of devotion; and it is this assiduity in prayer and work that produced for us the admirable book called The Ladder of Paradise; by thirty degrees, as if by thirty mystical rungs, it leads a soul to the highest point of th e spiritual life; it l'Échelle du Paradis Spiritual work structured in thirty degrees leading to perfection. appears, however, that he did not finish this work until after he had been elected abbot, as we shall soon say.

He had a fervent disciple named Moses; the latter, having carried earth to a certain place to sow some vegetables, took shelter from the heat of the day under a large rock and fell asleep there. This rock being on the point of falling, he heard in his sleep as if it were the voice of his master calling him; he rose promptly and ran to speak to him; but he had scarcely left that place when the rock split in two and collapsed on the very spot where he had just been sleeping. This great wonder made him recognize the power of his master before God; indeed, the holy man, having been warned in a vision of his disciple's danger, had begun to pray for him and had obtained for him this signal mark of heaven's protection.

Another religious, named Isaac, tormented by a violent temptation of the flesh, addressed himself to him and revealed his state to him with tears in his eyes. He consoled him, and having had him join him in prayer, he delivered him from it on the spot. His great erudition and extraordinary holiness attracted, in time, many of the most considerable people to his cell to hear from his mouth the word of eternal life; and, as his charity was extreme, he did not refuse to communicate to them the lights he had himself received in prayer. This having stirred up some envious people who wanted to pass him off as a chatterer, he spoke only through actions and examples of angelic sweetness, patience, and modesty: this so confounded his adversaries that, touched by repentance for their fault, they came to ask his forgiveness and begged him to continue the divine instructions that their slander had caused him to interrupt.

He had made himself so commendable through all kinds of virtues that it could be said he had no equal in all the deserts; the abbot of Mount Sinai having died, all the Fathers who inhabited it elected him in his place, and forced him, despite his excuses and resistance, to take charge of them (600). Thus, to speak with his historian, they raised the light upon its lampstand, so that it might spread its brightness further, and they were not deceived in their choice: for this great man having ascended the mountain, and being, like another Moses, in a sacred darkness, he received there from the hand of God the law, which he then communicated to them; drawing from the good treasure of his heart a good word and a doctrine emanated from heaven. It is undoubtedly of his *Ladder of Divine Ascent* that this author wishes to speak, which gives us reason to believe that he did not compose it, or at least that he did not complete it, until he was in that dignity.

On the day of his installation, six hundred pilgrims having arrived at the monastery, an extraordinary man appeared there who performed all the duties of an excellent steward to treat all this company well, and when they looked for this stranger so that he might take his meal, he could never be found: which led to the belief that it was an angel. It is also said that, during a great drought from which all of Palestine was afflicted, he obtained for the inhabitants, through his prayers, an abundant rain, which restored fertility to their lands, and that, being near death, he assured his brother, named George, who was assisting him

In the government of his monastery and was extremely distressed to survive him, that he would not survive him for more than a year: which came to pass. John received a letter from Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who commended himself to his prayers and sent him money and supplies to furnish the hospital founded for pilgrims, at some distance from Mount Sinai. Finally, as he had lived very holily, he also died very holily. Daniel, a monk of Raithu, wrote his life soon after, to be placed at the head of his *Mystical Ladder*; and another religious of Mount Sinai added some details to it. Besides his surname of *Climacus*, John als o bears that Scholastique Abbot of Mount Sinai and spiritual author famous for his work on asceticism. of *Scholasticus*, which was then given only to persons full of talents and knowledge.

He is represented holding a ladder in his hand, because of his book *The Ladder of Paradise*.