(Part 6: The Virtues The Lenten Prayer of St Ephraim is the ‘Step Stool’ of ‘Ladder of Divine Ascent’ for the Rest of Us

 

Introducing the Corresponding VIRTUES 

“But give rather the spirit of chastity (σωφροσύνη)”

Wholeness and self‑control in body, thoughts, and senses; purity joined to sober judgment.

• Step 14 – Gluttony: because for St John, control of food is the first wall supporting chastity.

• Step 15 – Chastity: main treatment of purity in body and soul, its supernatural character, and remedies (flight, tears, humility, prayer).

• Step 27 – Stillness: inner hesychia that purifies thoughts and images.

For fuller reading in the Ladder:  Steps 14, 15, 27.

Biblical References σωφροσύνη – chastity, sound‑mindedness

NT Acts 26:25 – οὐ μαίνομαι… ἀλλὰ σωφροσύνης ῥήματα ἀποφθέγγομαι – “I am not mad… I utter words of truth and sound mind.” ​

            LXX Occurs in Wisdom/Deuterocanon and elsewhere (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 8:7                    among virtues of wisdom; Sirach has related forms).

In the Lenten prayer, the petition for σωφροσύνη—chastity or sound-mindedness—reveals virtue not merely as bodily purity, but as the integrated wholeness of the person, where thoughts, desires, and senses are governed by grace and illumined by sober judgment. In The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Saint John Climacus presents this virtue as a hard-won harmony: Step 14 teaches that restraint in food lays the first foundation for purity; Step 15 unfolds chastity as a supernatural gift cultivated through humility, tears, vigilance, and prayer; and Step 27 points to inner stillness (hesychia) as the condition in which the heart is purified from disordered images and passions. Scripture likewise presents σωφροσύνη as the mark of a rightly ordered soul—expressed in words of truth and clarity (Acts 26:25) and counted among the chief fruits of divine wisdom—showing that true chastity is not repression, but the radiant freedom of a mind and body restored to their proper orientation in God.