The Monk and the Demon:
The Demonology of the Byzantine Fathers
The Demonology of the Byzantine Fathers
A Study of the Ladder of Saint John Climacus [c. 580-649]
By Deacon Dr. John Chryssavgis
I. Introduction
The importance of the demonological theme in Patristic spirituality is nowhere expounded by the Fathers in any systematic fashion but can be gauged from their writings describing the struggle of the human person, from their anthropology. In the Ladder of St. John Climacus, demons seem to dominate the stage, although he never succumbed to any obsession with demonology of the kind which characterized second and third century Gnosticism and which was responsible for the erection of a vast and complex system of demonic hierarchies. Still, Climacus reflects an intense experience of demonic influence, which brings about splits and conflicts within man and impels him to struggle against its divisive claims. To split, to divert, to shift, to disrupt is its essential procedure; but the struggle is basically within man. Indeed, in the East it is accepted that demons approach us in the form corresponding to our own inward state. Satan says to St. Anthony:
It is not I who trouble them (the monks),
It is they who trouble themselves.