John Climacus

Died between 650 and 680. Byzantine religious writer. Abbot of a monastery on Mount Sinai. His Heavenly Ladder is an ascetic and didactic treatise on the steps toward self-perfection and the moral pitfalls which a monk must be aware of. It reveals a rich experience of psychological introspection and abounds with narrative material. It was translated into many languages (including Latin and Arabic) and was read widely in the Middle Ages in Greece, Palestine, Syria, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Rus’, where it influenced morality, literature, folklore, and iconography in the fine arts.