The Ladder of Divine Ascent

John Climacus

Language: English

Published: Feb 22, 2017

Page Count: 255
Word Count: 82,711

Description:

The Ladder of Divine Ascent, is an ascetic work written for monastics by John Climacus around 600 AD for John, the Abbot of Raithu, a monastery located on the shores of the Red Sea.

The work proved to be popular in the Eastern Orthodox church and is still widely read today, often during the period of Lent, before Easter. The book examines the means of ascending to the highest degree of religious perfection by a series of thirty steps, which recall the thirty years of the life of Christ, the most holy example of religious perfection.