CLIMAX

climax, john (c. 525-600 a.d.), ascetic and mystic, also called scholasticus and sinaites. after having spent forty years in a cave at the foot of mount sinai, he became abbot of the monastery. his life has been written by daniel, a monk belonging to the monastery of raithu, on the red sea. he derives his name climax (or climacus) from his work of the same name ([greek: klimax tou paradeisou], ladder to paradise), in thirty sections, corresponding to the thirty years of the life of christ. it is written in a simple and popular style. the first part treats of the vices that hinder the attainment of holiness, the second of the virtues of a christian. editions.--j. p. migne, _patrologia graeca_, lxxxviii. (including the biography by daniel); s. eremites (constantinople, 1883); see also c. krumbacher, _geschichte der byzantinischen litteratur_ (1897); gass-kruger in herzog-hauck, _realencyklopadie fur protestantische theologie_, bd. 9 (1901). the _ladder_ has been translated into several foreign languages--into english by father robert, mount st bernard's abbey, leicestershire (1856). climbing[1] fern, the botanical genus _lygodium_, with about twenty species, chiefly in the warmer parts of the old world, of interest from its climbing habit. the plants have a creeping stem, on the upper face of which is borne a row of leaves. each leaf has a slender stem-like axis, which twines round a support and bears leaflets at intervals; it goes on growing indefinitely. it is a favourite warm greenhouse plant. footnote: [1] the word "climb" (o.e. _climban_), meaning strictly to ascend (or similarly descend) by progressive self-impulsion, with some apparent degree of laborious effort and by means of contact with the surface traversed, is connected with the same root as in "cleave" and "cling." for alpine climbing, &c., see mountaineering.