Tres versiones de Judas -- [Three Versions of Judas*]
Translated by J. E. I.
Edición bilingüe, español- inglés, de Miguel Garci-Gomez. Dept. Romance Stydies
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There seemed a certainity in degradation.
T. E. Lawrence: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, ciii
Three Versions of Judas
Short story by Jorge Luis Borges
"Three Versions of Judas" (original Spanish title: "Tres versiones de Judas") is a short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in Borges' anthology Ficciones, published in Like several other Borges stories, it is written in the form of a scholarly article. The story carries three footnotes and quotes many people, some of which are real (like Antônio Conselheiro), some have been concocted from real life (like Maurice Abramowicz, who was once his classmate, and later became a deputy for the Swiss communist party, but is made a French religious philosopher in the story[1]) and some are completely fictitious (like Jaromir Hladík, who is a character from his own story "The Secret Miracle").
Plot summary
[edit]The story begins as a critical analysis of works of a fictitious writer Nils Runeberg. Nils Runeberg lives in the city of Lund, where he publishes two books: Kristus och Judas () [Christ and Judas] and his magnum opusDen hemlige Frälsaren () [The secret Savior]. Borges analyses these two works (three if the revised edition of Kristus och Judas is counted sepa
FIN
from Jorge Luis Borges' anthology Ficciones,
There seemed a certainty in degradation.
-T. E. Lawrence: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, CIII
In Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second century of our faith, when Basilides wrote that the cosmos was a reckless or evil improvisation of less-than-capable angels, Nils Runeberg would have directed, with a singular intellectual passion, one of the gnostic conventicles. Dante would have relegated to him, perhaps, a sepulchre of fire; his name would have bolstered the catalogues of minor heresiarchs, between Satornilo and Carpocrates; some fragment of his preaching, exonerated from injury, would have survived in the apocryphal Liber Adversus omnes haereses, or would have perished when the fire of a monastic library consumed the ultimate example of the Syntagma. Instead, God gave to him the twentieth century and the college town of Lund. Here, in , he published the first edition of Kristus och Judas; here, in , his most important book, Den hemlige Frälsaren. (Of the latter, there exists a German version, translated in by Emili Schering; it is titled Der heimliche Heiland.)
Before attempting an examinat
There seemed a certainty in degradation.
- T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
In Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second century of our faith (when Basilides was announcing that the cosmos was a rash and malevolent improvisation engineered by defective angels), Nils Runeberg might have directed, with a singular intellectual passion, one of the Gnostic monasteries. Dante would have destined him, perhaps, for a fiery sepulcher; his name might have augmented the catalogues of heresiarchs, between Satornibus and Carpocrates; some fragment of his preaching, embellished with invective, might have been preserved in the apocryphal Liber adversus omnes haereses or might have perished when the firing of a monastic library consumed the last example of the Syntagma. Instead, God assigned him to the twentieth century, and to the university city of Lund. There, in , he published the first edition of Kristus och Judas; there, in , his masterpiece Dem hemlige Fr�lsaren appeared. (Of this last mentioned work there exists a German version, Der heimliche Heiland, published in by Emil Schering.)
Before undertaking an examination of th
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