Icon of the ladder of divine ascent.

Christian Century, June 1, 2004

IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, the abbot of St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, known as St. John Klimax, wrote a book on the spiritual life. According to the current abbot of the monastery, Archbiship Damianos, it was a "terse manual" full of advice for those seeking sanctification. The 12th-century icon based on that book shows 30 rungs corresponding to 30 virtues, with Christ at the summit.

The illustration appears in Byzanthium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the catalogue of an exhibit now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, published by Yale University Press (680 pp., $75.00). Yale has also published Saint Catherine's Monastery: A Photographic Essay (96 pp., $25.00). Yale has also published views of the world's oldest continuously active monastery.