The Ladder or "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" is an ascetic book written for a monastic community by John Climacus around the year 600 AD. It was composed for John, the Abbot of Raithu, which is a monastery situated on the shores of the Red Sea.The work became very popular in the Eastern Orthodox church and remains widely read today, usually during the period of Lent. The work studies the means of ascending to the peak of religious perfection by a sequence of thirty steps, which brin...

For the first time in English, we present Fra. Luis de Granada’s “Libro de la Escala Espiritual”, (1562) of J. Climacus’ “Ladder of Divine Ascent.”What this particular work is and is not.What this work is:This is a translation of the “Libro de la Escala Espiritual”, with the notations and verbiage translated and commented on by Fra. L. de Granada. O.P.. This work is from his initial effort of 1551. According to the late E. Allison Peers, Fra. Luis de Granada had mad...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.In the austere stillness of Mount Sinai, Saint John Climacus gathered the hard-won wisdom of the desert into a single, searching vision of the spiritual life. The Ladder of Divine Ascent sets before the listener a path of thirty steps, tracing the soul’s passage from renunciation and obedience through repentance, vigilance, and the struggle against the passions, and onward to stillness, prayer, and the fullness of divine love.Ma...

The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition.First published in Greek in 1782, then translated into Slavonic and later into Russian, The Philokalia has exercised an influence in the recent history of the Orthodox Church far greater than that of any book apart from the Bible. It is concerned with themes of universal importance: how man may develop his...

St. John Chrysostom was born in the year 349 AD in Antioch. His father died soon after his birth and he was raised by his deeply pious mother. Under her influence St. John became devout as well, and took to studying scripture under the guidance of the bishop of Antioch who would later be the one to baptize him.St. John was drawn to become a monk, and when he mother died he withdrew to the wilderness. There he wrote a number of works on the ascetic life. After a number of years he w...

Athanasius was born in Egypt to a Christian family sometime around 295 AD. He was given a good education by his parents, and in his youth, the local bishop, recognizing his talents, took him on as his aide. As a result he would get the chance to be present at Nicaea for the first Ecumenical council of the church.These works cover the full span of his life, beginning before 319 AD, when he wrote his famous, 'On the Incarnation of the Word'. At the time there were a number of differe...

The psychic phenomena of today are symptoms of the emergence of a new spirituality that is molding the world religion of the future—phenomena such as Yoga, Zen, Tantra, Transcendental Meditation, Guru Maharaj-ji, Hare Krishna, UFO’s, the Charismatic Movement, and Jonestown.“None of these by itself … has a crucial significance in the spiritual makeup of contemporary man; but each one in its own way typifies the striving of men today to find a new spiritual path, distinct from the Ch...

This edition The Institutes, also known as Institutions, comes complete with a Touch-or-Click Table of Contents, divided by each book.Saint John Cassian (ca. 360 435), was a Christian theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern Churches for his mystical writings. He is known both as one of the "Scythian monks" and as one of the "Desert Fathers."John Cassian came very late into writing and only did so when a request was made by an important person or persons. His sources were the sa...

This edition of Against the Pelagians comes complete with a Touch-or-Click Table of Contents, divided by each book. St. Jerome (formerly Saint Hierom) was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and his list of writings is extensive. Jerome is the second...

This edition comes complete with a Touch-or-Click Table of Contents. Most of what is known about the life of Anthony comes from the Life of Anthony. Written in Greek around 360 by Athanasius of Alexandria, it depicts Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who through his existence in a primordial landscape has an absolute connection to the divine truth, which always is in harmony with that of Athanasius as the biographer. Sometime before 374, it was translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch...

“Love little things, and strive for that which is modest and simple. The Lord watches over us, and He is pleased that you long for His peace. Until the soul is ready, He will only sometimes allow us to see that He is present everywhere and fills all things. At these moments the soul feels such joy!… But then the Lord conceals Himself from us again, in order that we might long for Him and seek Him with our hearts!”—Elder Thaddeus of VitovnicaElder Thaddeus of Vitovnica was o...

Inspired by the teachings found in The Way of a Pilgrim**, this guide teaches readers how to unleash the full power of the Jesus Prayer**Thousands have fallen in love with the anonymously authored book The Way of a Pilgrim—the account of an ordinary man's encounter with the Eastern Orthodox Christian practice of the Jesus Prayer, which consists of the constant repetition of the short phrase, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me....