FatherJustinsBlog

A lone Tristram’s grackle on top of the bell tower

The beginning of the Steps of Repentance that lead to the very summit of Mount Sinai.

Καὶ εἰσῆλθε Μωυσῆς εἰς τὸ μέσον τῆς νεφέλης καὶ ἀνέβη εἰς τὸ ὄρος καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἐν τῷ ὄρει τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας καὶ τεσσαράκοντα νύκτας.

And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights. (Exodus 24:18)

The first gleams of sunlight from behind the mountain

The first printed edition in Greek of The Heavenly Ladder (Κλίμαξ τοῦ Παραδείσου) was a paraphrase into vernacular Greek made by the learned Maximos Margounios, Bishop of Cythera. It was printed in Venice in 1590 by Francesco Giuliani, and published by Manolis Glyzounis.

The extended title reads,

Ladder of Paradise, or Ascetical Admonitions, of our Father among the Saints John, Abbot of the Monks on Mount Sinai, in which every Christian is taught how it is necessary to govern himself, in order to ascend to the perfection of the monastic and Christian life, now first translated from the Greek language into the vernacular idiom for the benefit of Christians, by Maximos Margounios, humble Bishop of Cythera.

Μυστήριον φρικῶδες ὁρῶ· Θεὸς γὰρ ὁ κατέχων δρακί, πᾶσαν κτίσιν, περιέχεται σαρκί, ἐν φάτνῃ τῶν ἀλόγων, καὶ ράκει σπαργανοῦται, ὁ σπαργανῶν ὁμίχλῃ θάλασσαν.

A dread mystery do I behold: for God who holds all creation in His hand is contained in the flesh in a manger of irrational beasts, and swathed in bands, He who swathes the sea in mist.