Scaling the text: the ambiguity of the book in John Climacus

The literary sophistication of John Climacus has been the subject of recent scholarly discussion, and forms part of a larger trend that seeks to recover the pivotal importance of paideia in early Byzantine monasticism. In dialogue with this ongoing interest in text and book culture, the present article outlines John Climacus' nuanced position on the matter of sacred text. In Climacus' oeuvre we discover a tension between his reverence for sacred text, which includes the written word's role in bringing about spiritual health, and the need to recognize all text and every book, however holy, as something ultimately dispensable in light of the ascetic ideal. The setting aside of holy texts, however, does not indicate the superfluity of these texts for Climacus so much as the need to transpose them from the dead and external letter of the page to the living and embodied book of the heart.