The Teaching of St. John the Ladder in old Russian hagiography (preliminary notes)

Context and relevance. “Lestvitsa” (The Ladder) by John of Sinai is one of the sources for a number of images, motives, toposes, quotations and ideas in the texts of the Reverends’ lives. The concept of the texts of Holy Scripture, the Psalter, the Gospel, popular theological and ascetic works of Eastern Christian origin as sources of stable literary formulas, images, motifs, plots and ideas of ancient Russian hagiographic monuments became the theoretical basis of the study. Objective. To identify and describe motives, quotations, plot toposes and images in the Reverends’ lives, the source of which is the "Lestvitsa (Ladder)" by John of Sinai. Hypothesis. "Lestvitsa (Ladder)" by John of Sinai as one of the most popular ascetic monuments in Russia served as a source for some elements of the Reverends’ lives. Methods and materials. The study was based on the Saints’ lives of the XVI–XVII centuries, both already introduced into scientific circulation and contained in manuscripts. Establishing links between motives, plot toposes, images, quotations and ideas from the Reverends’ lives and the "Lestvitsa (Ladder)" by John of Sinai was conducted using comparative typological and hermeneutic methods. Results have shown that motives of the circumstances of the Saint's lives and the renunciation of marriage, the variant of a separate plot topos "the Reverend's retreat to the desert", quotes describing the abandonment of worldly attachments by the reverend, the ideological content of the Reverend's journey through monasteries for spiritual development through observation of customs, practices and peculiarities of communal rules date back to “Lestvitsa (Ladder)”. Conclusions. It has been shown that some elements of the macro and micro levels of the Reverends’ lives genetically date back to “Lestvitsa (Ladder)” by John of Sinai. The necessity of continuing work on the identification, description and systematization of the elements of the ancient Russian Saints’ lives is stated, which are related to the “Lestvitsa”, this would lead to a deeper understanding of the context of both the image of the Saints who pleased God with their monastic feat, and the biographies themselves dedicated to this type of holiness.