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John Climacus

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore

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(English) · Translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore

Contents 30 sections

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

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