Three Versions of Judas
| "Three Versions of Judas" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jorge Luis Borges |
| Original title | "Tres versiones de Judas" |
| Country | Argentina |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, short story |
| Published in | Sur |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | August 1944 |
"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 1944. Like several other Borges stories, it is written in 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) and some are completely fictitious (like Jaromir Hladík, who is a character from his own story "The Secret Miracle").
The story is similar in theme and subject to the subsequent short story "The Sect of the Thirty".
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 (1904) [Christ and Judas] and his magnum opus Den hemlige Frälsaren (1909) [The secret Savior]. Borges analyses these two works (three if the revised edition of Kristus och Judas is counted separately) and discusses their heretical conclusions without providing the "dialectic or his (Nils Runeberg) proofs". The story ends with the death of Nils Runeberg. He dies a death of anonymity which was undeserved considering the controversial nature of his texts.
Borges' fictitious writer Nils Runeberg presents to the world three versions of Judas Iscariot using his two books.
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