Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths

an accidental happening in the most precious event in world history.
Ergo, Judas' betrayal was not accidental; it was a preordained fact
which has its mysterious place in the economy of redemption.
Runeberg continues: The Word, when it was made flesh, passed from
ubiquity to space, from eternity to history, from limitless satisfaction
to change and death; in order to correspond to such a sacrifice, it was
necessary that one man, in representation of all men, make a sacrifice
of condign nature. Judas Iscariot was that man. Judas, alone among the
apostles, sensed the secret divinity and terrible intent of Jesus. The
Word had been lowered to mortal condition; Judas, a disciple of the
Word, could lower himself to become an informer (the worst crime in
all infamy) and reside amidst the perpetual fires of Hell. The lower
order is a mirror of the higher; the forms of earth correspond to the
forms of Heaven; the spots on one's skin are a chart of the
incorruptible constellations; Judas in some way reflects Jesus. Hence
the thirty pieces of silver and the kiss; hence the suicide, in order to
merit Reprobation even more. Thus Nils Runeberg elucidated the
enigma of Judas.
Theologians of all confessions refuted him. Lars Peter
Engström accused him of being unaware of, or omitting, the hypostatic
union; Axel Borelius, of renewing the heresy of the Docetists, who
denied that Jesus was human; the rigid Bishop of Lund, of
contradicting the third verse of the twenty-second chapter of the gospel
of St. Luke.
These varied anathemas had their influence on Runeberg, who
partially rewrote the rejected book and modified its doctrine. He left
the theological ground to his adversaries and set forth oblique
arguments of a moral order. He admitted that Jesus, "who had at his
disposal all the considerable resources which Omnipotence may offer,"
did not need a man to redeem all men. He then refuted those who
maintain we know nothing of the inexplicable traitor; we know, he
said, that he was one of the apostles, one of those chosen to announce
the kingdom of heaven, to cure the sick, to clean lepers, to raise the
dead and cast out demons (Matthew 10:7-8; Luke 9:1). A man whom
the Redeemer has thus distinguished merits the best interpretation we
can give of his acts. To attribute his crime to greed (as some have
done, citing John 12:6) is to resign oneself to the basest motive. Nils
Runeberg proposes the opposite motive: a hyperbolic and even
unlimited asceticism. The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, vilifies
and mortifies his flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He
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