The “Ladder of Divine Ascent”: From Diminished Less to Expanding More

Images representing transcendent union with the divine, variously termed salvation, redemption, sanctification, freedom, victory, deliverance and many other English descriptors possibly originate in the conceptual simplicity of the Hebrew yāšaʿ  (יָשַׁע), a root indicating broadening, enlarging, and ample spaciousness.

While some scholars dispute this linguistic origin, its etymological possibility remains instructive when considering the conceptual foundation of any salvation image to its underlying theme. Understood in light of such an originating concept, images evocative of an ascendant process of enlargement, broadening—such as the Jesuit magis (the more), and the Benedictine dilatato corde (dilated heart)—are particularly effective metaphors for grounding understanding and practice of salvation in conceptions of an ongoing and continual process of conversion and deliverance from one’s former experience of a diminished less toward the presencing of an ever-expanding more.

Often mapped as an ordered and progressive spiritual ascent, this understanding of salvation as a dynamic movement from one stage to the next—the “present-life grace with afterlife consequences” Dennis Hamm (2013) proposes as New Testament key—originates in the first centuries of Christian experience. Such a concept remains solidly present as a metaphorical ladder of the soul’s journey to God first articulated in John Climacus’ 6^th century, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent.” Artistically represented in the Lestnitsa [Russian, “ladder”], the iconographic image depicts what can be clearly interpreted as a step-by-step, ever closer journey toward the enlarged capacity of the soul as it nears the more fully manifest capacity for experience of divinity.

The familiar icon tells a story of cosmic latitude: several climbers ascend a central ladder amidst a rich imaginal narrative. Diverse individuals clamber toward a heavenly throne where Christ welcomes the successful, though wearied, climber. Surrounded by saints, angels, and seraphim, the ascender receives the victor’s crown, joining the holy throng in intercessory prayer for those yet on the way. Exemplars in the ascent, these become the sages and teachers of the ancient Way. Spanning the ages, they offer the generations the wisdom of eternity’s agelessness, as well as that of their particular earthly moment. An iconographic city rests beneath these heavenly beings, as one by one, new adventurers begin their climb upon the ladder’s lowest rungs. If they are skilled climbers they can avoid the dragon—aided by his hideous assistants—who swallows and consigns the languid soul to the depths of the sinister Netherworld, a diminishing abyss for the downward-pummeled soul.

Abbreviating more nuanced stage nomenclature of developmental psychologists including James Fowler’s (1981) Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, we can explore the range of interpretation this icon has undergone across the developmental board. Understood traditionally from both a preconventional (“conquer the Dragon!”) and conventional (“only a few of us will ascend”) stage of spiritual development, foundational perspectives generate a literal appropriation of the icon’s writ, impressing the Christian both to first, avoid becoming swallowed up and cast into the abyss, and then to follow the rules—and the crowd—to avoid doing so. Once expanded beyond the literal, the icon becomes more a metaphorical inspirator of a more synthetic-conventional spiritual excellence, where the scene provokes an acute sense of “we are waging spiritual warfare,” from which salvation nonetheless waits for only the victorious soul, eternally saved from the ever-present, demonic threat. Some transcend this interpretation, passing into a particularly reflective—and critical—level of reason wherein they insist, “the dragon does not exist at all” (and only the uninformed, primitive mind would believe in such things)! Once individuals reach a postconventional, worldcentric level, the icon’s viewer sees an invaluable cultural treasure, though quaint in its devotional theme. Few will grace the universalizing, even transpersonal ego-transcendence that can find “The Ladder to Heaven” holding simultaneous faith-filled devotion, rational truth, cultural beauty, and moral goodness inspiring here-and-now enactment of its wisdom. For these individuals and their communities, the icon can inspire the virtuous action of courageous, prudent, temperate, and just compassion in the very-earthly city while finding faith, hope, and love anchored in the spiritual “heavenlies” invigorating its own ascent.

As an imaginal lesson in humanity’s developmental ascent, the Lestnitsa endures as a perfect image of salvation, especially in semantic light of the term’s possible origin in the Hebrew yāšaʿ. Illustrative not only of saving ascent, the icon also represents individuals’ significant interior expansion accompanying their transformational “climb” most fully through its viewer, whose varied levels of interpretation rest upon the rungs of his or her culturally embedded “view,” wherein the viewer’s influential level of overall development influence and determine its subjective meaning. Since each faith stage sublates  all their preceding levels, a pastorally astute Christianity—like Climacus’ Lestnitsa—supports and upholds all its climbers by faithfully bearing their weight upon every developmental rung while yet urging them—like the climbers—to continually ascend.

References

Fowler, J. (1981).Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. New York: HarperCollins.

Hamm, D. Images of Salvation: Have we allowed their variety to work on us? Images of Salvation/Liberation, Wake Up Lazarus Web site. Retrieved from http://wakeuplazarus.net/2013/salvation-2.html

An abbreviated version of this article appeared on the theology forum wakeuplazarus.net

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