Ladder of Divine Ascent | St. John Climacus

Step 10 On slander or calumny. 1. No sensible person, I think, will dispute that slander is born of hatred and malice. Therefore it comes next in order after its forebears. 2. Slander is an offspring of hatred, a subtle yet coarse disease, a leech lurking unfelt, wasting and draining the blood of charity. It is simulation of love, the

Step 11 On talkativeness and silence. 1. In the preceding chapter we spoke briefly of how extremely dangerous it is to judge others and of how this vice steals into even the most apparently spiritual people; and how it is better to subject oneself to condemnation and punishment by the tongue. Now we must show the cause of this vice,

Step 12 On lying. 1. The offspring of flint and steel is fire; and the offspring of chatter and joking is lying. 2. A lie is the destruction of love, and perjury is a denial of God. 3. Let no one with right principles suppose that the sin of lying is a small matter, for the All-Holy Spirit pronounced the

Step 13 On despondency. 1. As we have already frequently said, this—we mean despondency—is very often one of the branches of talkativeness, and its first child. And so we have given it its appropriate place in this chain of vices. 2. Despondency is a slackness of soul, a weakening of the mind, neglect of asceticism, hatred of the vow made.

Step 14 On the clamorous , yet wicked master—the stomach. 1. We have been attacking ourselves in everything that we have said, but this is specially so when we speak about the stomach. For I wonder if anyone has got free of this master before settling in the grave. 2. Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach; for when it is

Step 15 On incorruptible purity and chastity to which the corruptible attain by toil and sweat. Foreword We have heard from that raving mistress gluttony who has just spoken, that her offspring is war against bodily chastity. And this is not surprising since our ancient forefather Adam teaches us this too. For if he had not been overcome by his

STEP 16 On love of money or avarice. 1. Many learned teachers treat next, after the tyrant just described, the thousand-headed demon of avarice. We, unlearned as we are, did not wish to change the order of the learned, and we have therefore followed the same convention and rule. So let us first say a little about the disease, and

Step 17 On poverty (that hastens heavenwards). 1. Poverty is the resignation of cares, life without anxiety, an unencumbered traveller, alienation from sorrow, fidelity to the commandments. 2. A poor monk is lord of the world. He has entrusted his cares to God and by faith has obtained all men as his slaves. He will not tell his need to

Step 18 On insensibility, that is, deadening of the soul and the death of the mind before the death of the body. 1. Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is deadened feeling, which from long sickness and negligence lapses into loss of feeling. 2. Insensibility is negligence that has become habit; benumbed thought; the birth of presumption;

Step 19 On sleep, prayer, and psalm-singing in chapel. 1. Sleep is a particular state of nature, an image of death, inactivity of the senses. Sleep is one, but, like desire, its sources and occasions are many: that is to say, it comes from nature, from food, from demons, or perhaps, sometimes, from extreme and prolonged fasting, through which the

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