Step by Step, Upward #
By Bishop Mikhail Semyonov
This Sunday is dedicated to the memory of St. John of the Ladder, the author of a remarkable book about the Path to Heaven—thirty steps of ascent “up the ladder”… to that place where the seraphim stand before the Divine Throne, covering their faces.
The image of the ladder to heaven is an ancient biblical symbol. Jacob saw in Bethel a ladder reaching to heaven, and angels ascending and descending upon it.
At the entrances of Athonite monasteries, I have often seen depictions of such a ladder. A ladder from earth to heaven, usually with thirty steps—according to the book of St. John. At the top: heaven opened… the Lord in the radiance of His eternal glory, with the righteous and the angels surrounding Him. And up the ladder, weary people are climbing.
Here are six people who wish to begin this ascent. They are gathered at the foot of the ladder. But two of them clearly will not begin the climb.
One of them sits in despair near the base of the ladder and weeps. His face reveals his thoughts: “It is too high; it’s not even worth thinking about ascending—it’s impossible…” And he, evidently, will remain there, powerless, not even attempting to rise. His tears are lifeless, paralyzing tears that do not move him forward.
The second looks at the ladder calmly, even cheerfully. He, too, has no intention of climbing. “It’s too high—not worth it… It’s fine down here.” And he turns back—to the pig trough of a self-centered life, to the lusts of this world…
The other four do not remain at the bottom. Together they ascend the first step—but they soon scatter. Each takes his own path.
One quickly outpaces the others, but midway up the ladder he stops, exhausted. He looks down in despair—he has no more strength and refuses to make even one more effort. And the devil pulls at the hem of his garment…
Another also stops halfway and calmly sits there. He believes he has done enough. “This is sufficient.” He thinks he’s fulfilled his task and can now rest. The higher steps, he believes, are not for him. He does not realize that the steps beneath him are already beginning to crack, and that he is about to fall into the abyss…
Two continue to climb. One is still near the bottom. He moves slowly, but with calm and steady resolve. The other is near the top. Just two or three more steps, and he will reach the goal.
But will he?
No… He turns around. And the sentence is written on his face. He already considers himself to have attained the heights. He thinks himself above others. The delusion of self-deceit has taken hold of his soul and heart. And this unfortunate man does not see that the ladder is already swaying beneath him, that in a moment the demon of evil will cast him into the abyss. And the higher he had climbed, the more terrible will be his fall.
And only the last man climbs upward calmly. Now he is on the tenth step, then the fifteenth, the twentieth… Finally, he reaches the thirtieth, the last step. And the angels stretch out their hands to him, to support him in the heights. A deeply thought-out image…
The whole story of the Christian journey to heaven is contained in this image. How many people never even begin their ascent because of carelessness—or because of the “spirit of despondency” from which we ask deliverance in the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.
And what about those who do attempt to climb? So many abandon their struggle halfway, overcome by despair, by the awareness of their weakness. They forget that God is with the weak, and that what He requires of us is the effort of our will. It is enough for us to say to ourselves, “Just one more step!”—and strength will be given. Strength from the Source of all strength.
Even more often, people resemble that unfortunate man who sat down halfway up the ladder. How many people say to themselves, “We’re not trying to be saints… We do a little something, we try to live somewhat Christian lives—and that’s enough.”
“A little something, done somehow…”
And these Christians do not even realize how terrible such words are. Whoever remains in one place, refusing to move forward, is already dead—already lost—even if he stopped on the twenty-ninth step. The moment a person decides his journey is finished, that he has done enough, and no longer struggles against sin, no longer tries to climb even one step higher—he has died spiritually. He is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and such a one, “will I spue out of My mouth,” saith the Lord. And of course, he will not remain standing where he stopped; he will begin to slip downward, back into his former way of life.
Only a few ascend calmly and confidently, trusting in the help of God. Step by step, upward, gradually, one after another—they cast off their sinful passions. Slowly but persistently, their will is trained in goodness.
They tell this of Abba Dioscorus of Nahiasta: each year, he would set for himself the beginning of some new virtue. “This year,” he would say to himself, “I will increase my fasting. This year I will not answer an evil word with another. The third year, I will strive to conquer all anger and all injustice.”
And thus, having completed one task, having conquered one passion, he would begin another, moving forward slowly and steadily. He began with what was easier, and worked toward what was harder. And—we believe—he reached the “gates of heaven” and the “house of God.”
Patience and persistence in doing good—this is what is most needed by those who wish to ascend the ladder. It is not for nothing that the Church prays in the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian: “But grant me, Thy servant, the spirit of… patience.” If nothing at all in this life can be accomplished without patience, then all the more impossible is it to overcome the steep ascent to heaven without it. The path upward is difficult.
Imagine travelers climbing to the summit of a mountain. At the top, a light glows—a place to rest. But the path is hard. One traveler reaches halfway. But the light disappears behind the mountain. Darkness again… How to go forward? Fear sets in. He wants to stop, to turn back. But the voice of conscience says to him: “Go on. Endure… Just endure a little more.” And he goes. The light becomes visible again. But then he slips halfway, and finds himself again—“at the bottom,” in the valley. All his efforts seem wasted, and how hard it is to begin again. And up there, near the summit, he may fall once more. But… he will still reach it—if he does not lay down his arms. If he says: “I will go on. Let me fall ten, fifteen times—then ten, fifteen times I will begin again.” If a person resolves thus, trusting in the help of the Almighty, he will arrive. The divine hand will be stretched out to him from the heights of heaven, and it will uphold him along the way. It will not let him fall and perish…
Patience… And the counsel of Abba Dioscorus:
“Step by step…”
Do you know what statistical curves are? They work like this: for example, one needs to track the progression of an infectious disease—whether it is increasing or decreasing. Instead of using just numbers, they draw a line: when the disease spreads, the line rises; when it subsides, the line falls. Similar curves are used to represent, say, levels of education, and so forth.
One famous man used such curves to record his moral state. That man was Benjamin Franklin. He tracked the movement of his moral will toward good or evil.
Anger. One day he gave in to this passion twice, the next day three times, the day before only once. He would write this down, and his goal was to lower the “evil” curve. One day he allowed his thoughts to linger five times on something unclean or unworthy. He recorded this—to try to reduce the line by at least one point the next day, and so on.
On the other side… was the line of good—the manifestations of a virtuous will. Franklin tried to raise this line upward. He recorded every victory of the will so that the next day he might achieve just “an inch” more, to lift the curve even slightly higher.
A good path. This is the path of Abba Dioscorus. This is the common path of all those who strive for good.
Of course, moral stature cannot truly be measured in quantities. Even the act of counting one’s good and evil deeds can become a kind of Phariseeism.
What Christ requires above all is the purification of the heart—its cleanness—and mere abstention from the outward act of sin can lead to self-love, the vanity of outward righteousness without inward godliness.
We know that the Pharisee was, in fact, righteous. All that is true—but Christian thought delivers us from Phariseeism by reminding us that man is always a slave—never exempt—and that no matter how hard he labors over himself, he remains far from the ideal he is bound to reach.
Yet the path of the curves—a gradual struggle against a particular sin, or for a particular virtue—is sometimes the only reliable path to moral victory over passion, to spiritual healing.
Think about it: surely, you too have some spiritual ailment. An ulcer that must be excised from the soul. How to do it? Of course, the best way is to do it at once—with a surge of the will, with fervent repentance that burns the ulcer away once and for all, like a surgeon’s blade removing a tumor. But few possess such strength of will. One must then follow another path…
What path?—The path of Dioscorus.
Those who wish to quit smoking—a harmful, suicidal habit—reduce their intake by one cigarette per day. This approach applies to any passion, to the fight against any sin. Little by little—“from step to step.”
Of course, it would be wrong to say to oneself: “Last week I sinned seven times; this week I’ll allow myself six.” That is a dreadful and sinful attitude. One cannot pre-authorize six sins.
But one can say: “I will fight against this sin. If I cannot overcome it at once, I will root it out gradually, like trees are uprooted from a forest to clear the land for plowing.”
This week I fought, and through my effort I managed, in two out of ten temptations, to overcome. Next week I will fight again; and it would be shameful if I do not win at least three times out of ten. Then, the week after, one says again: “I will keep fighting. If I can, I’ll tear this passion out of my soul entirely. If I cannot, then I’ll at least move one inch closer to victory… Let me resist four times out of ten.”
And thus, by steady labor, any curve can be corrected.
With patience, with perseverance, one can quietly but steadily ascend the ladder to the thirtieth step.
And even so—one might not notice their fall.
There are fewer people, of course, who fall from the top. Few, because few rise so high. Yet the holy lives recorded in the Lives of the Saints (Chapters of the Menaion) and the Prolog tell us of many who, at the very height of their spiritual struggle—on the verge of kissing the footstool of the Lord’s throne—bowed instead to the devil.
Remember, for instance, St. Isaac.
The mountains of Athos have known many ascetics who, quite literally, fell into the abyss—tempted by the devil, who tested them at the height of their struggle, just as he tempted Christ.
“You have already reached the heights. You are above men. You are like angels, with silver wings. If you wish, cast yourself into the abyss—and you shall remain unharmed.”
And they fell—from the twenty-ninth step—into the abyss.
Only a few reach the top.
Bishop Mikhail (Semenov)
Church, 1909, No. 10