119
Climacus (AD 579–649) himself exerted one of the most profound influences
upon the climate of asceticism in the Sinai through his powerful little book, Κλῖμαξ,
Scala Paradisi or Ladder to Paradise, composed in his early 20s or 30s (he’d first
arrived at the Holy Monastery in 595 AD, an enthusiastic teenager).
14
Climacus’
work illuminates the thirty steps of his ladder to/reunion with God. In it, he summarizes all of the virtues, despondencies, ambitions, and fearlessness that the ascension of the ladder—and by implication and historic evidence, the mountains
surrounding the Monastery of Mt. St. Catherine’s where Climacus wrote his book—
must necessarily entail. “May this ladder teach you the spiritual combination of the
virtues… And now there remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of all
is love.”
15
The famed icon and hundreds of variations on it show the monks of Mount
Sinai climbing the steep ladder following Climacus, with God and St. Peter awaiting them, while angels in heaven, monks on the ground rally “round for encouragement,” as a band of devils try plucking the monks from the ladder.
Unlike the impenetrable silences that draped the entire Sinai (in terms of modernity’s discovery of its location) even as late as the 1880s when the London publisher
of Virtue and Company commissioned Colonel Wilson’s spectacular four-volume
edition on Palestine,
16
today’s Sinai, while bearing all the predictable resemblances
to its Mosaic past, also purports to a checkered contemporary reality. Environmental
conditions have changed. Just a mile or so West of where I (mt) had lived in a cave
above the monastery, in the southern cliffs of Wady Sho’eib, or Jethro’s Valley,
today Egypt’s South Sinai Governate hosts a metropolitan cluster within the El Tur
Mountains, St. Catherine, population nearly 6000. There is a highway, a patchwork
of dirt roads, hotels, B&B’s, and every incentive for massive international tour
groups to St. Catherine’s. On just a single day, Sunday, November 26, 2017, “1295”
tourists showed up at the monastery.
17
When I resided there, up among the surrounding rock faces, it was truly the
“Valley of Refuge.” I saw one visitor in approximately 6 months. Today, not
infrequently, the solemn rock walls of Râs Sufsafeh, of Jebel ed Deir, Wad yes
Sheikh, and Wady Seba-iyeh are echo chambers during the not infrequent bombings
by the Egyptian military to vanquish various rebel groups. It is a shamble of geopolitical obfuscation, harassing the fortress and her adjacent, millennia-old sites, various hermitages, the once flourishing convent of St. Episteme, heavenly gardens just
14 See Jacob’s Ladder Divine Ascent, P.Pincius, Venice, 1518; See also, L’E’Chelle Sainte, ou Les
Degrez Pour Monter Au Ciel, Composez par S. Jean Climaque, Abbe Du Monastere Du Mont
Sinai, Traduits Du Grec En Francois par Mr. Arnauld D’Andilly, With George and Louis Josse,
Paris, 1688. And Sermoni Di S. Giovanni Climaco – Abbate nel Monte Sinai, Apresso Francesco,
Milano 1585.
15 See The Ladder Of Divine Ascent, by Saint John Climacus, Revised Edition, Holy Transfiguration
Monastery, Boston, Mass., 1991, p. 229.
16 See Picturesque Palestine -Sinai and Egypt, Edited by Colonel Wilson, Assisted By The Most
Eminent Palestine Explorers, Four Volumes, London, Virtue And Company, 1880-1884. St.
Catherine’s section, Volume 4, pp. 98–120, by Rev. C. Pickering Clarke.
17 See http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/9/34273/Saint-Catherine-receives-1-295-tourists-in-asingle-day, Accessed March 13, 2019.
13.2 The World of Saint John Climacus
Climacus (AD 579–649) himself exerted one of the most profound influences
upon the climate of asceticism in the Sinai through his powerful little book, Κλῖμαξ,
Scala Paradisi or Ladder to Paradise, composed in his early 20s or 30s (he’d first
arrived at the Holy Monastery in 595 AD, an enthusiastic teenager).
14
Climacus’
work illuminates the thirty steps of his ladder to/reunion with God. In it, he summarizes all of the virtues, despondencies, ambitions, and fearlessness that the ascension of the ladder—and by implication and historic evidence, the mountains
surrounding the Monastery of Mt. St. Catherine’s where Climacus wrote his book—
must necessarily entail. “May this ladder teach you the spiritual combination of the
virtues… And now there remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of all
is love.”
15
The famed icon and hundreds of variations on it show the monks of Mount
Sinai climbing the steep ladder following Climacus, with God and St. Peter awaiting them, while angels in heaven, monks on the ground rally “round for encouragement,” as a band of devils try plucking the monks from the ladder.
Unlike the impenetrable silences that draped the entire Sinai (in terms of modernity’s discovery of its location) even as late as the 1880s when the London publisher
of Virtue and Company commissioned Colonel Wilson’s spectacular four-volume
edition on Palestine,
16
today’s Sinai, while bearing all the predictable resemblances
to its Mosaic past, also purports to a checkered contemporary reality. Environmental
conditions have changed. Just a mile or so West of where I (mt) had lived in a cave
above the monastery, in the southern cliffs of Wady Sho’eib, or Jethro’s Valley,
today Egypt’s South Sinai Governate hosts a metropolitan cluster within the El Tur
Mountains, St. Catherine, population nearly 6000. There is a highway, a patchwork
of dirt roads, hotels, B&B’s, and every incentive for massive international tour
groups to St. Catherine’s. On just a single day, Sunday, November 26, 2017, “1295”
tourists showed up at the monastery.
17
When I resided there, up among the surrounding rock faces, it was truly the
“Valley of Refuge.” I saw one visitor in approximately 6 months. Today, not
infrequently, the solemn rock walls of Râs Sufsafeh, of Jebel ed Deir, Wad yes
Sheikh, and Wady Seba-iyeh are echo chambers during the not infrequent bombings
by the Egyptian military to vanquish various rebel groups. It is a shamble of geopolitical obfuscation, harassing the fortress and her adjacent, millennia-old sites, various hermitages, the once flourishing convent of St. Episteme, heavenly gardens just
14 See Jacob’s Ladder Divine Ascent, P.Pincius, Venice, 1518; See also, L’E’Chelle Sainte, ou Les
Degrez Pour Monter Au Ciel, Composez par S. Jean Climaque, Abbe Du Monastere Du Mont
Sinai, Traduits Du Grec En Francois par Mr. Arnauld D’Andilly, With George and Louis Josse,
Paris, 1688. And Sermoni Di S. Giovanni Climaco – Abbate nel Monte Sinai, Apresso Francesco,
Milano 1585.
15 See The Ladder Of Divine Ascent, by Saint John Climacus, Revised Edition, Holy Transfiguration
Monastery, Boston, Mass., 1991, p. 229.
16 See Picturesque Palestine -Sinai and Egypt, Edited by Colonel Wilson, Assisted By The Most
Eminent Palestine Explorers, Four Volumes, London, Virtue And Company, 1880-1884. St.
Catherine’s section, Volume 4, pp. 98–120, by Rev. C. Pickering Clarke.
17 See http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/9/34273/Saint-Catherine-receives-1-295-tourists-in-asingle-day, Accessed March 13, 2019.
13.2 The World of Saint John Climacus