Three Versions of Judas
My Invisible Audience:
Allow me to tell you a story.
Before I begin, however, I wish to offer a word of caution. The tale I tell is of a heretic. Since, as you may well know, a heretic blasphemes against the orthodoxy of the Church, this is, therefore, a tale of his blasphemy. So, why do I tell you tales of blasphemy? Not because I believe it, and certainly not because my atheism drives me to do so. Despite the fact that the story I tell would be dismissed as nonsense by any and all theologians, it is a story worth telling. It is a story that was written to tantalize the mind and inspire the imagination - it is my sincere hope that, in telling you the story, I will have exposed your mind to new horizons.
I admit that I am no creative genius. I got this delightful little tale from an anthology of short stories written by the Argentinian essayist Jorge Luis Borge. The main character in this tale clothed in the seriousness of a research paper is the heretic Nils Runeberg. More specifically, it is a tale of his heretical ideas - the narratives published by Runeberg in his two books Kristus och Judas and Dem hemlige Fralsaren. He begins, as many heretics do, by affirming the absolute truth of the Bible. Runeberg then poses the question: "If Jesus is the miracle-worker and the teacher of thousands the Bible describes him to be, why is the act of betrayal necessary?"
I now present, for your enjoyment, "Three Versions of Judas" by Jorge Luis Borge:
The first tale told by Runeberg imposes a structuralist narrative on the story of Judas and Jesus. The Word descends from the heavens in order to redeem mankind. The act of redemption is, in a way, a debasement of His perfection - the Word must become flesh. Whither Judas? The descent of the Redeemer from the heavens above to the earth below must be paralleled by Man - specifically, a representative of Man - in a descent from the earthly realm to the hell below. The act of treason is an act of sacrifice, to quote Borges: "The lower order is a mirror of the superior order, the forms of the earth correspond to the forms of the heavens; the stains on the skin are a map of the incorruptible constellations; Judas in some way reflects Jesus."
The second tale told by Runeberg is of Judas as the supreme ascetic. The ascetic denies the flesh for the glory of God. Judas - the archtype of asceticism - denies, not the body, but the spirit. Treason, as the foulest form of sin there is, condemns Judas to be tormented in the maw of Satan for all of eternity - there is no happiness to be found in Judecca. It was as Judas desired: Man - frail and corrupt, sinners all - was unworthy of happiness. The treason of Judas is the rejection of divine grace. God cannot forgive he who spurns forgiveness, the anguished cry of Judas, directed to the Heavens: "Forgive me not, Abba, for I have sinned!"
There is a terrible pride amidst the humility of Judas. He presumes to judge his own worthiness - the domain of God - even as he condemns himself to eternal damnation. But there is also the tender hint of tragedy in this second tale. Here - I say - here is the man who suffers. No tormentor can ever hope to best the agonies the flagellant of the spirit willingly inflicts upon himself.
It is an old storyteller's trick to tell the best tale last. Borges and I are no different. The third tale of Judas is the simplest, but their is beauty in simplicty. It is also the most blasphemous, but there is - according to Borges - a certain satanic splendor in profanity and blasphemy. You have been warned: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!
Runeberg begins from the beginning. The Redeemer was made flesh. He became man. The divine attribute of impeccabilitas - the etymological predecessor of our "impeccable" - and the human, all-too-human attribute of humanitas - humanity - are mutually contradictory. To be human is to be capable of sin. It is to admit the possibility of damnation. I quote Borges, a greater essayist than I, when he speaks: "God became a man completely, a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of being reprehensible - all the way to the abyss. In order to save us, He could have chosen any of the destinies which together weave the uncertain web of history; He could have been Alexander, or Pythagoras, or Rurik, or Jesus; He chose an infamous destiny: He was Judas."
Why?
Runeberg cites the Bible: He will sprout like a root in a dry soil; there is not good mien to him, nor beauty; despised of men and the least of them; a man of sorrow, and experienced in heartbreaks (Isaiah 53:2-3). But let us not allow our paths of inquiry to be frustrated by a single prophecy - let us allow our intellects to roam free as we consider other possibilities. It stands to reason that prophecy is the intimation of the divine plan. The question, therefore, seeks to unravel the mysteries that cloak the designs of God. This is hubris, but let us consider the fruits of knowledge before we are driven from grace.
He who affirms the truth of the Bible affirms its prophecies. The humanitas of man is marred by the burden of original sin, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The sacrifice of animals had, in ages past, served to cleanse man of sin, the cruxification of the Messiah is, therefore, the redemption of man, writ large. The redemption of man is rooted in the suffering of the divine. In the millenia of suffering and sacrifice between the Creation and the Coming, there can be no sacrifice greater than the sacrifice upon the Cross. A perfect God must offer up the perfect sacrifice. The idle litterateur who humbly questions the period of the Redeemer's suffering means no disrespect: What is three days to an eternity? I am reminded of the tale of the centaur Chiron, who, according the Greek myths, was wounded by an arrow tipped with poison. As an immortal, Chiron was condemned to eternal life as he writhed in the torment of the arrow's poison. The suffering of the Crucified, then, must itself be the perfect sacrifice.
So let us consider this from a literary perspective: The essence of tragedy is the Fall, and the Fall is pre-determined by the stature of the tragic hero. God - omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent - is perfection, and the Fall must therefore marr this perfection in one crucial sense: If the Redeemer is, as claimed by Runeberg, Judas - the traitor-apostle, condemned to hellfire for all of eternity - then the divine Trinity is sundered. To rephrase Runeberg's conclusion in Hegelian terminology, the Absolute Spirit is alienated from Itself - the price of human redemption is the eternal suffering of God.
So, what happened to Runeberg? He died in Malmo on March 1, 1912; having spent the rest of his days wandering the streets of his hometown, praying aloud that he be given the grace to share Hell with the Redeemer.
Most Humbly,
Kahlyban.
Nota Bene: Borges, as an essayist, had a most peculiar form of writing. His stories, this one included, are filled with references to books that do not exist in actuality. The cited materials in this tale - Kristus och Judas and Dem hemlige Fralsaren - are entirely fictional, created by Borges to shroud his story with the aura of realism.
Allow me to tell you a story.
Before I begin, however, I wish to offer a word of caution. The tale I tell is of a heretic. Since, as you may well know, a heretic blasphemes against the orthodoxy of the Church, this is, therefore, a tale of his blasphemy. So, why do I tell you tales of blasphemy? Not because I believe it, and certainly not because my atheism drives me to do so. Despite the fact that the story I tell would be dismissed as nonsense by any and all theologians, it is a story worth telling. It is a story that was written to tantalize the mind and inspire the imagination - it is my sincere hope that, in telling you the story, I will have exposed your mind to new horizons.
I admit that I am no creative genius. I got this delightful little tale from an anthology of short stories written by the Argentinian essayist Jorge Luis Borge. The main character in this tale clothed in the seriousness of a research paper is the heretic Nils Runeberg. More specifically, it is a tale of his heretical ideas - the narratives published by Runeberg in his two books Kristus och Judas and Dem hemlige Fralsaren. He begins, as many heretics do, by affirming the absolute truth of the Bible. Runeberg then poses the question: "If Jesus is the miracle-worker and the teacher of thousands the Bible describes him to be, why is the act of betrayal necessary?"
I now present, for your enjoyment, "Three Versions of Judas" by Jorge Luis Borge:
The first tale told by Runeberg imposes a structuralist narrative on the story of Judas and Jesus. The Word descends from the heavens in order to redeem mankind. The act of redemption is, in a way, a debasement of His perfection - the Word must become flesh. Whither Judas? The descent of the Redeemer from the heavens above to the earth below must be paralleled by Man - specifically, a representative of Man - in a descent from the earthly realm to the hell below. The act of treason is an act of sacrifice, to quote Borges: "The lower order is a mirror of the superior order, the forms of the earth correspond to the forms of the heavens; the stains on the skin are a map of the incorruptible constellations; Judas in some way reflects Jesus."
The second tale told by Runeberg is of Judas as the supreme ascetic. The ascetic denies the flesh for the glory of God. Judas - the archtype of asceticism - denies, not the body, but the spirit. Treason, as the foulest form of sin there is, condemns Judas to be tormented in the maw of Satan for all of eternity - there is no happiness to be found in Judecca. It was as Judas desired: Man - frail and corrupt, sinners all - was unworthy of happiness. The treason of Judas is the rejection of divine grace. God cannot forgive he who spurns forgiveness, the anguished cry of Judas, directed to the Heavens: "Forgive me not, Abba, for I have sinned!"
There is a terrible pride amidst the humility of Judas. He presumes to judge his own worthiness - the domain of God - even as he condemns himself to eternal damnation. But there is also the tender hint of tragedy in this second tale. Here - I say - here is the man who suffers. No tormentor can ever hope to best the agonies the flagellant of the spirit willingly inflicts upon himself.
It is an old storyteller's trick to tell the best tale last. Borges and I are no different. The third tale of Judas is the simplest, but their is beauty in simplicty. It is also the most blasphemous, but there is - according to Borges - a certain satanic splendor in profanity and blasphemy. You have been warned: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!
Runeberg begins from the beginning. The Redeemer was made flesh. He became man. The divine attribute of impeccabilitas - the etymological predecessor of our "impeccable" - and the human, all-too-human attribute of humanitas - humanity - are mutually contradictory. To be human is to be capable of sin. It is to admit the possibility of damnation. I quote Borges, a greater essayist than I, when he speaks: "God became a man completely, a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of being reprehensible - all the way to the abyss. In order to save us, He could have chosen any of the destinies which together weave the uncertain web of history; He could have been Alexander, or Pythagoras, or Rurik, or Jesus; He chose an infamous destiny: He was Judas."
Why?
Runeberg cites the Bible: He will sprout like a root in a dry soil; there is not good mien to him, nor beauty; despised of men and the least of them; a man of sorrow, and experienced in heartbreaks (Isaiah 53:2-3). But let us not allow our paths of inquiry to be frustrated by a single prophecy - let us allow our intellects to roam free as we consider other possibilities. It stands to reason that prophecy is the intimation of the divine plan. The question, therefore, seeks to unravel the mysteries that cloak the designs of God. This is hubris, but let us consider the fruits of knowledge before we are driven from grace.
He who affirms the truth of the Bible affirms its prophecies. The humanitas of man is marred by the burden of original sin, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The sacrifice of animals had, in ages past, served to cleanse man of sin, the cruxification of the Messiah is, therefore, the redemption of man, writ large. The redemption of man is rooted in the suffering of the divine. In the millenia of suffering and sacrifice between the Creation and the Coming, there can be no sacrifice greater than the sacrifice upon the Cross. A perfect God must offer up the perfect sacrifice. The idle litterateur who humbly questions the period of the Redeemer's suffering means no disrespect: What is three days to an eternity? I am reminded of the tale of the centaur Chiron, who, according the Greek myths, was wounded by an arrow tipped with poison. As an immortal, Chiron was condemned to eternal life as he writhed in the torment of the arrow's poison. The suffering of the Crucified, then, must itself be the perfect sacrifice.
So let us consider this from a literary perspective: The essence of tragedy is the Fall, and the Fall is pre-determined by the stature of the tragic hero. God - omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent - is perfection, and the Fall must therefore marr this perfection in one crucial sense: If the Redeemer is, as claimed by Runeberg, Judas - the traitor-apostle, condemned to hellfire for all of eternity - then the divine Trinity is sundered. To rephrase Runeberg's conclusion in Hegelian terminology, the Absolute Spirit is alienated from Itself - the price of human redemption is the eternal suffering of God.
So, what happened to Runeberg? He died in Malmo on March 1, 1912; having spent the rest of his days wandering the streets of his hometown, praying aloud that he be given the grace to share Hell with the Redeemer.
Most Humbly,
Kahlyban.
Nota Bene: Borges, as an essayist, had a most peculiar form of writing. His stories, this one included, are filled with references to books that do not exist in actuality. The cited materials in this tale - Kristus och Judas and Dem hemlige Fralsaren - are entirely fictional, created by Borges to shroud his story with the aura of realism.