44 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "And the world knew him not (lossless compression)"
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slug: /the-world-knew-him-not/
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date: 2023-02-16
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tags: ["random", "reading"]
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---
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Last night I was reading 'Three Versions of Judas' from Juan Luis Borges'
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masterpiece _Fictions_ (1944). The structure is typical Borges: a cool precis of
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a series of fabricated texts, replete with tokens of mock facticity (publication
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dates, references to other commentaries, footnotes on errata and so forth).
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The story describes the work of an obscure theologian who developed a
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revisionist account of the role of Judas in the Passion, broadly in keeping with
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the (real) Gnostic
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[Gospel of Judas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas). Far from being
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the perennial embodiment of self-interest and betrayal, Judas is reimagined as
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an agent of the Holy Spirit. He becomes the essential catalyst in the
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fullfilment of Christ's prophesy and thus the redemption of humanity.
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The argument is compelling and centers on why it would be necessary to _betray_
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Jesus in the first place. His activities were well known to both the Jewish and
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Roman authorities. If the same Gospels that cast Judas as the betrayer are to be
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believed, Jesus was constantly performing miracles, challenging social and
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religious hierarchies and being a major-league nuisance. They could've come for
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him at any point.
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According to the scholar, Judas was the most significant disciple because he had
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a presentiment of the Crucifixion and its cosmic significance, and was compelled
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to "betray" Christ and shoulder eternal infamy out of this knowledge. His
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suicide by hanging was a pale mirroring of Christ's own death. Hence the kiss
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(an act of love) and discarding the silver at the temple (a repudiation of a
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simplistic reading of the betrayal). Hence also, Jesus's to Judas at the Last
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Supper: "what you are going to do, do quickly".
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Anyway, this elaborate preamble has been merely to draw attention to a passage
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in John that Borges quotes. Maybe it is just that I am a lapsed Catholic but I
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think it is very beautiful and profound: a lossless compression of the entirety
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of Christianity to a single sentence:
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> He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him
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> not.
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— John 1: 10, King James Version
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