John Climacus

Life

John Climacus was a monk of the Eastern Church who lived from the late sixth century to the mid-seventh century. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain. A widely accepted view holds that he was born around 579 and died around 649, though some scholars place him earlier. Almost nothing is known about his birthplace or family.

According to the surviving biography, he entered the monastery on Mount Sinai in his teens and trained under an elderly monk. He then spent many years in solitary prayer at a nearby hermitage, and late in life he is said to have been elected abbot of the Sinai monastery.

"Climacus" is an epithet derived from the Greek word for "ladder." It comes from the title of his principal work, and for this reason he is also called "John of the Ladder."

Ministry and Work

His principal work is The Ladder of Divine Ascent, the word "ascent" referring to a climb upward. According to tradition, he wrote it for monks at the request of the abbot of the nearby monastery of Raithu.

The book divides the path of the believer into thirty steps.

• The first step is the renunciation of attachment to the world.
• The intermediate steps include obedience, repentance, remembrance of death, humility, and discernment.
• The final step is faith, hope, and love.

The number thirty is interpreted as corresponding to the age at which Jesus began His public ministry (Luke 3:23). The image of the ladder is drawn from Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28:12).

In the section on prayer, he recommends short and simple prayers. He also teaches that the remembrance of Jesus should become one with one's breath. For this reason he is frequently cited as a forerunner of the Orthodox hesychast tradition of silent prayer and of the Jesus Prayer. He also left a short work for abbots, To the Shepherd.

Commemoration

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is traditional to read this book during Great Lent, the Orthodox observance of Lent. The Orthodox Church also keeps the Fourth Sunday of Lent in his memory. Both the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church venerate him as a saint, and his feast day is March 30.

Influence on the Korean Church

He is not widely known in Korean Protestantism. With growing interest in the Desert Fathers and the spiritual classics of the early church, he is introduced chiefly in lectures on spiritual theology and in books on spirituality. The Orthodox and Catholic churches in Korea commemorate him as a saint.

Assessment

The Orthodox and Catholic churches hold the book in high regard as a preeminent classic of monastic spirituality and a guide to the spiritual life.

Within Protestantism, opinions are divided.

• Some Protestant scholars and pastors value its insights on humility, repentance, and discernment and regard it as a spiritual classic worth reading across denominational lines.
• Some in the Reformation tradition hold that its scheme of ascending to God through graded spiritual exercises conflicts with the doctrine of justification, the teaching that one is declared righteous by faith alone. They also criticize its idealization of monastic life withdrawn from the world.
• In Korea, in connection with the controversy over contemplative prayer, some also urge caution toward the Eastern monastic tradition as a whole.

Defenders of the book respond that it does not teach that a person can ascend to heaven by his own efforts apart from grace, but rather depicts the process of sanctification, by which the believer grows in holiness.