Autor: Climacus, John

Buch: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Titel: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Stichwort: Sprosse 2; die Ablösung

Kurzinhalt: Step 2, ON DETACHMENT; that the religious life can be a harbor of salvation or a haven of destruction

Textausschnitt: ... "Let the dead bury the dead" (Matt. 8:22). There are demons to assail us after our renunciation of the world. They make us envy those who remain on the outside and who are merciful and compassionate. They make us regret that we seem deprived of these virtues. Their hostile aim is to bring us by way of false humility either to turn back to the world or, if we remain monks, to plunge down the cliffs of despair. (Fs) (notabene)

82b If we really wish to enter the contest of religious life, we should pay careful heed to the sense in which the Lord described those remaining in the world as living corpses (Matt. 8:22). What he said was, in effect, "Let the living dead who are in the world bury those dead in the body." Riches did not prevent the young man from coming to receive baptism, and it is quite wrong to say, as some do, that the Lord told him to dispose of his wealth so that he could be baptized. Let us be sure of this, and let us be satisfied with the promise of very great glory that goes with our vocation. We should investigate why those who have lived in the world, and have endured nightlong vigils, fasting, labors, and suffering, and then have withdrawn from their fellowmen to the monastic life, as if to a place of trial or an arena, no longer practice their former fake and spurious asceticism. I have seen many different plants of the virtues planted by them in the world, watered by vanity as if from an underground cesspool, made to shoot up by love of show, manured by praise, and yet they quickly withered when transplanted to desert soil, to where the world did not walk, that is, to where they were not manured with the foul-smelling water of vanity. The things that grow in water cannot bear fruit in dry and arid places. (Fs) (notabene)

82c If someone has hated the world, he has run away from its misery; but if he has an attachment to visible things, then he is not yet cleansed of grief. For how can he avoid grief when he is deprived of something he loves? We need great vigilance in all things, but especially in regard to what we have left behind. (Fs)

83b Mortification of the appetite, nightlong toil, a ration of water, a short measure of bread, the bitter cup of dishonor-these will show you the narrow way. Derided, mocked, jeered, you must accept the denial of your will. You must patiently endure opposition, suffer neglect without complaint, put up with violent arrogance. You must be ready for injustice, and not grieve when you are slandered; you must not be angered by contempt and you must show humility when you have been condemned. Happy are those who follow this road and avoid other highways. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Fs) (notabene)
83c No one can enter crowned into the heavenly bridechamber without first making the three renunciations. He has to turn away from worldly concerns, from men, from family; he must cut selfishness away; and thirdly, he must rebuff the vanity that follows obedience. "Go out from among them," says the Lord. "Go apart from them. Do not touch the uncleanness of the age" (2 Cor. 6:17). (Fs)

83e Whenever our feelings grow warm after our renunciation with the memories of parents and of brothers, that is all the work of demons, and we must take up the weapons of prayer against them. Inflamed by the thought of eternal fire, we must drive them out and quench that untimely glow in our hearts. If a man thinks himself immune to the allurement of something and yet grieves over its loss, he is only fooling himself. Young men who still feel strongly the urge for physical love and pleasure and yet who also want to take on the regime of a monastery must discipline themselves with every form of vigilance and prayer, avoiding all dangerous comfort, so that their last state may not be worse than their first. For those sailing the tides of spirituality know only too well that the religious life can be a harbor of salvation or a haven of destruction, and a pitiable sight indeed is the shipwreck in port of someone who had safely mastered the ocean. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Climacus, John

Buch: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Titel: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Stichwort: Sprosse 3, Exil; Fremdsein des Exilanten (87c)

Kurzinhalt: Exile is a disciplined heart, unheralded wisdom, an unpublicized understanding, a hidden life,... A true exile ... sits like someone of foreign speech among men of other tongues.

Textausschnitt: ... Exile is a disciplined heart, unheralded wisdom, an unpublicized understanding, a hidden life, masked ideals. It is unseen meditation, the striving to be humble, a wish for poverty, the longing for what is divine. It is an outpouring of love, a denial of vainglory, a depth of silence. (Fs)

... Exile is a separation from everything, in order that one may hold on totally to God. It is a chosen route of great grief. An exile is a fugitive, running from all relationships with his own relatives and with strangers. Do not wait for souls enamored of the world when you are pressing on towards solitude and exile. In any case, death comes when least expected. Many set themselves the aim of rescuing the indifferent and the lazy-and end up lost themselves. The flame within them gets dim with the passage of time. So, if you have the fire, run, since you never know when it may be doused, leaving you stranded in darkness. Not all of us are summoned to rescue others. "My brothers, each one of us will give an account of himself to God," says the holy Apostle (Rom. 14:12). Again, he declares, "You teach someone else, but not yourself" (Rom. 2:21). It is as if he were saying, "I do not know about the others, but we have surely to look to what we must do ourselves." (Fs)

86a If you choose to go into exile, then be on the watch for the demon of wandering and of pleasure, since there is an opportunity here for him. (Fs)

86b Detachment is good and its mother is exile. Someone withdrawing from the world for the sake of the Lord is no longer attached to possessions, that he should not appear to be deceived by the passions. If you have left the world, then do not begin to reach out for it. Otherwise your passions will come back to you. Eve had no wish to be driven from Paradise, whereas a monk will abandon his homeland willingly; she would have wished again for the forbidden tree, but he has rebuffed the sure danger coming from the kinship of the flesh. Run from the places of sin as though from a plague. When fruit is not in plain sight, we have no great urge to taste it. (Fs)

86c You have to beware the ways and the guile of thieves. They come with the suggestion to us that we should not really abandon the world. They tell us of the rewards awaiting us if only we stay to look on women and to triumph over our desire for them. This is something we must not give in to at all. Indeed, we must do the very opposite. (Fs)

86d Then again we manage for some time to live away from our relatives. We practice a little piety, compunction, self-control. And then the empty thoughts come tramping toward us, seeking to turn us back to the places we knew. They tell us what a lesson we are, what an example, what a help to those who witnessed our former wicked deeds. If we happen to be articulate and well informed, they assure us that we could be rescuers of souls and teachers to the world. They tell us all this so that we might scatter at sea the treasures we have assembled while in port. So we had better imitate Lot, and certainly not his wife. The soul turning back to the regions from which it came will be like the salt that has lost savor, indeed like that famous pillar. Run from Egypt, run and do not turn back. The heart yearning for the land there will never see Jerusalem, the land of dispassion.1 (Fs)

87a Leaving home, some at the beginning are full of innocence. Their souls are clean. And then they want very much to go back, thinking, perhaps, that they might bring salvation to others, having attained it themselves. Moses, that man who saw God, returned. In his case it was to save the members of his tribe. Still, he ran into many dangers in Egypt and was caught up in the darkness of the world. (Fs)

87b Offend your parents rather than God. He, after all, created and saved us, while they at times even killed the ones they loved, or handed them over to destruction. (Fs)

87c A true exile, despite his possession of knowledge, sits like someone of foreign speech among men of other tongues. (Fs) (notabene)

87d If we have taken up the solitary life, we certainly ought not to abhor our own relations or our own places, but we ought to be careful to avoid any harm that may come from these. Here, as in everything, Christ is our teacher. It often looked as if He were trying to rebuff His earthly parents. Some people said to Him, "Your mother and your brothers are looking for you," and at once Christ gave an example of detachment that was nonetheless free from any harsh feelings. "My mother and my brothers are those who do the will of my Father in heaven," He said (Matt. 12:50). So let your father be the one who is able and willing to labor with you in bearing the burden of your sins, and your mother the compunction that is strong enough to wash away your filth. Let your brother be your companion and rival in the race that leads to heaven, and may the constant thought of death be your spouse. Let your longed-for offspring be the moanings of your heart. May your body be your slave, and your friends the holy powers who can help you at the hour of dying if they become your friends. "This is the generation of those who seek the Lord" (Ps. 23:6). (Fs)

87e If you long for God, you drive out your love for family. Anyone telling you he can combine these yearnings is deceiving himself. "No one can serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24). "I did not come to bring peace on earth," says the Lord, knowing how parents would rise up against sons or brothers who chose to serve Him. "It was for war and the sword" (Matt. 10:34), to separate the lovers of God from the lovers of the world, the materially-minded from the spiritually-minded, the vainglorious from the humble. (Fs)

87f Contradiction and dissent are pleasing to God when they arise from love of Him, but have a care that you do not find yourself swept away on a tide of sentiment while you are yet passionately attached to what was familiar to you. Do not let the tears of parents or friends fill you with pity, lest you find yourself weeping forever in the afterlife. When they circle around you like bees, or rather wasps, when they pour out their laments over you, do not hesitate at all but think at once of your death and keep the eye of your soul directed unswervingly to what it used to do, that you may be able to counteract one pain with another. Our kin, even our friends, make us false-promises so as to restrain us from that noble contest and so as to draw us back to their own goal. We had better withdraw from our own locality. We had better flee to places which are less consoling and more conducive to lack of vanity and to humility. Otherwise we will take flight with our passions. (Fs)

88a You are of noble birth? Hide the fact. You are famous? Do not discuss it. Otherwise your status and your deeds may come into conflict. (Fs)

88b There is no greater example of renunciation than that great man2 who heard the command, "Leave your country and your family and the house of your father" (Gen. 12:1). Obediently he went to a foreign country where the language was different. And so it is that anyone following this model of renunciation is glorified all the more by the Lord. (Fs)

88c But even though this glory is given by God, it is still good to deflect it with the protective shield of humility. When demons or men lavish praise on us for our exile as if it were a great achievement, let us remind ourselves at once of Him Who came down from heaven for our benefit and exiled Himself to earth. Nothing we could ever do would match that. (Fs)

88d An attachment to any of our relations or even to a stranger is hard enough to deal with. It can gradually pull us back toward the world and make cool the fire of our contrition. You cannot look to heaven and to earth at the same time; similarly, if you have not turned your back completely on your relatives and others in thought and in body, you cannot avoid endangering your soul. (Fs)

88e To establish a good and firm character within ourselves is something very difficult and troublesome, and one crisis can destroy what we have worked so hard to set right. Bad, worldly and disorderly company destroys good character (cf. 1 Cor. 15:33). When a man has renounced the world and still returns to its affairs or draws near to it, he will either fall into its snares or will defile his heart with thoughts of it. He may perhaps be uncorrupted himself. But if he comes to feel contempt for those who are corrupted, then assuredly he will join them in their corruption. (Fs)

Autor: Climacus, John

Buch: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Titel: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Stichwort: Traum, Träume; Phantasie (Fantasie); "Bilderdenken"

Kurzinhalt: A dream is a stirring of the mind during the body's rest, while a fantasy is something that tricks the eyes when the intellect is asleep. Fantasy occurs when the mind wanders, while the body is awake.

Textausschnitt: Concerning the dreams of novices

89a Our mind is the instrument of knowledge, but it is very imperfect and filled with all sorts of ignorance. This is a fact that cannot be disguised. (Fs)

89b Now the palate discriminates between various kinds of food, the hearing distinguishes between the things it perceives, the sun shows up the weakness of the eyes, and words reveal the ignorance of a soul. Nevertheless, the law of love urges us to reach beyond ourselves, and so it seems to me-and I do not wish to be insistent-that, immediately after this discussion of exile, or rather, in the course of it, something ought to be said about dreams. For we should not be unaware of this type of deceit practiced by our wily enemies. (Fs)

89c A dream is a stirring of the mind during the body's rest, while a fantasy is something that tricks the eyes when the intellect is asleep. Fantasy occurs when the mind wanders, while the body is awake. A fantasy is the contemplation of something that does not actually exist. (Fs) (notabene)

89d It must be clear why I have decided to speak here about dreams. After we leave home and family for the sake of the Lord, after we have gone into exile for the love of God, the demons try to shake us with dreams. They show us our relatives grieving, near death, poverty-stricken or imprisoned because of us. But the man who believes in dreams is like someone running to catch up with his own shadow. (Fs)

89e The devils of vainglory do their prophecies in dreams. They guess the future and, as part of their deceit, they inform us of it so that we are astonished to discover our visions coming true. Indeed we get carried away with the notion that we are already close to the gift of foreknowledge. (Fs)

89f To the credulous, a devil is a prophet; and to those who despise him, he is just a liar. Because he is a spiritual being, he knows what is happening in the lower regions, that someone is dying, for instance, so by way of dreams he passes the information on to the more gullible. However, demons lack actual foreknowledge. If they did not, these tricksters would be able to foretell our deaths. (Fs)

89g Devils often take on the appearance of angels of light or martyrs and they appear to us in sleep and talk to us, so that they can push us into unholy joy and conceit when we wake up. But this very effect will reveal their trick, for what angels actually reveal are torments, judgments, and separation, with the result that on waking up we tremble and are miserable. And if we start to believe in the devils of our dreams, then we will be their playthings when we are also awake.

90a The man who believes in dreams shows his inexperience, while the man who distrusts every dream is very sensible. Trust only the dreams that foretell torments and judgment for you, but even these dreams may also be from demons if they produce despair in you. (Fs)

90b This is the third step, equaling the number of the Three Persons. Whoever has reached it should look neither to right nor left. (Fs)

Autor: Climacus, John

Buch: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Titel: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Stichwort: Sprosse 1; Schwierigkeit des Aufstieges

Kurzinhalt: Violence (cf. Matt. 11:12) and unending pain are the lot of those who aim to ascend to heaven with the body ... must travel through overwhelming grief

Textausschnitt: 75b Violence (cf. Matt. 11:12) and unending pain are the lot of those who aim to ascend to heaven with the body, and this especially at the early stages of the enterprise, when our pleasure-loving disposition and our unfeeling hearts must travel through overwhelming grief toward the love of God and holiness. It is hard, truly hard. There has to be an abundance of invisible bitterness, especially for the careless, until our mind, that cur sniffing around the meat market and revelling in the uproar, is brought through simplicity, deep freedom from anger and diligence to a love of holiness and guidance. Yet full of passions and weakness as we are, let us take heart and let us in total confidence carry to Christ in our right hand and confess to Him our helplessness and our fragility. We will carry away more help than we deserve, if only we constantly push ourselves down into the depths of humility. (Fs)

76a Let all those coming to this marvelous, tough, and painful- though also easy-contest leap, as it were, into a fire, so that a non-material flame may take up residence within them. But let each one test himself, draw food and drink from the bread of pain and the cup of weeping, lest he march himself to judgment. (Fs)

76b If all are not saved who have been baptized, I will pass in silence over what follows.1 (Fs)

76c But to secure a rocklike foundation, those with a mind for the religious life will turn away from everything, will despise everything, will ridicule everything, will shake off everything. Innocence, abstinence, temperance-these make a fine thrice-firm foundation. Let all infants in Christ begin with these, taking real infants as their example; for among children no evil is found, nothing deceitful, no insatiable greed or gluttony, no flaming lust, but it seems that as you feed them more, they grow in strength until at last they come upon passion. (Fs)

76d It is detestable and dangerous for a wrestler to be slack at the start of a contest, thereby giving proof of his impending defeat to everyone. Let us have a firm beginning to our religious life, for this will help us if a certain slackness comes later. A bold and eager soul will be spurred on by the memory of its first zeal and new wings can thus be obtained. (Fs)

76e When the soul betrays itself, when that initial happy warmth grows cold, the reasons for such a loss ought to be carefully sought and, once found, ought to be combated with all possible zeal, for the initial fervor has to turn back through that same gate through which it had slipped away. The man who renounces the world because of fear is like burning incense, which begins with fragrance and ends in smoke. The man who leaves the world in hopes of a reward is like the millstone that always turns around on the same axis. But the man who leaves the world for love of God has taken fire from the start, and like fire set to fuel, it soon creates a conflagration. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Climacus, John

Buch: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Titel: The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Stichwort: Stufe 13: Niedergeschlagenheit (despondency)

Kurzinhalt: Tedium is rebuffed by community life, but she is a constant companion of the hermit, living with him until the day of his death ...

Textausschnitt: ON DESPONDENCY

162a Despondency or tedium of the spirit,1 as I have often said, is frequently an aspect of talkativeness and indeed is its first child. For this reason I have given it an appropriate place in the chain of vices. (Fs)

162b Tedium is a paralysis of the soul, a slackness of the mind, a neglect of religious exercises, a hostility to vows taken. It is an approval of worldly things. It is a voice claiming that God has no mercy and no love for men. It is a laziness in the singing of psalms, a weakness in prayer, a stubborn urge for service, a dedication to the work of the hands, an indifference to the requirement of obedience.2 An obedient person does not know such tedium, for he has used the things of the senses to reach the level of the spirit. (Fs) (notabene)

162c Tedium is rebuffed by community life, but she is a constant companion of the hermit, living with him until the day of his death, struggling with him until the very end. She smiles at the sight of a hermit's cell and comes creeping up to live nearby. (Fs) (notabene)

A doctor calls on the sick in the morning, but tedium visits the hermit at noon.3 (Fs)

163a Tedium loves to be involved in hospitality, urges the hermit to undertake manual labor so as to enable him to give alms, and exhorts us to visit the sick, recalling even the words of Him Who said, "I was sick and you came to visit me" (Matt. 25:36). Tedium suggests we should call on the despairing and the fainthearted, and she sets one languishing heart to bring comfort to another. Tedium reminds those at prayer of some job to be done, and in her brutish way she searches out any plausible excuse to drag us from prayer, as though with some kind of halter. (Fs) (notabene)

163b At the third hour, the devil of tedium causes shivering, headache, and vertigo. By the ninth hour, the patient has recovered his strength, and when dinner is ready, he jumps out of bed. But now when the time for prayer comes, his body begins to languish once more. He begins his prayers, but the tedium makes him sleepy and the verses of the psalms are snatched from his mouth by untimely yawns. (Fs)

163c There is a particular virtue available to overcome all the other passions. But tedium is a kind of total death for the monk. (Fs)

A brave soul can stir up his dying mind, but tedium and laziness scatter every one of his treasures. (Fs)

163d Tedium is one of the eight deadly vices, and indeed the gravest of them all, and so I must discuss it as I did the others. Still, just note this much. When the psalms do not have to be sung, tedium does not arise, and the Office is hardly over when the eyes are ready to open again. (Fs) (notabene)

163e The real men of spirit can be seen at the time when tedium strikes, for nothing gains so many crowns for a monk as the struggle against this. Note how tedium hits you when you are standing, and if you sit down, it suggests that it would be a good thing to lean back. It suggests that you prop yourself up against the walls of your cell. It produces noise and footsteps-and there you go peeping out of the window. (Fs)

163f The man who mourns for himself does not suffer from tedium. This tyrant should be overcome by the remembrance of past sins, battered by hard manual labor and brought to book by the thought of the blessings to come. And when led before the tribunal, let these be the questions put to him: "You there! You crass and sluggish creature, what was it that evilly begot the likes of you? Who are your children? Who are your enemies? Who can destroy you?" And tedium may be constrained to reply: "I cannot lay my head among those who are truly obedient, and I live quietly where I may. I have many mothers-Stolidity of Soul, Forgetfulness of the Things of Heaven, or, sometimes, Too Heavy a Burden of Troubles. My children who live with me are Changing from Place to Place, Disobedience to One's Superior, Forgetfulness of the Judgment to Come, and sometimes, the Abandonment of One's Vocation. The singing of psalms and manual labor are my opponents by whom I am now bound. My enemy is the thought of death, but what really slays me is prayer backed by a firm hope in the blessings of the future. And as to who gave birth to Prayer, you must ask her." (Fs)

This is the thirteenth victory. He who has won it is really outstanding in all virtue. (Fs)