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"The Theologians" (original title: "Los teólogos") is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was featured in the collection Labyrinths . It was originally published in Los Anales de Buenos Aires in April 1947 and appears in the 1949 short story collection The Aleph .
The story follows Aurelian and John of Pannonia, who compete with one another as theologians. Though much of their work is a thinly veiled criticism of one another, the topic of their writing is regarding the heretical factions that appear around them such as the Monotoni, whose heresy is to preach that "history is a circle, and that all things have existed and will exist again", and the Histrioni, who argue that all individuals occupy dual forms – one on earth and one in heaven – and that actions on earth influence heaven.
Though at first, he struggles to put to words the nature of their heresy, he is surprised when a subconscious sentence springs forward that efficiently describes their beliefs. Upon closer consideration, he realizes that the sentence was taken from an old text written by John and that such a text could be considered heretical. Aurelian identifies John as the text's author and he is sentenced to death. John is burnt at the stake for heresy, and Aurelian later dies in a fire caused by a lightning strike. The narrator notes that the remainder of the story is rife with metaphor since it must take place in heaven but considers the possibility that in the eyes of an ineffable divine intelligence, both Aurelian and John of Pannonia may appear to be a single person.
A strict reading of the story deals with morality and heresy, but a broader reading deals with the internal pathos man struggles with when questioning truth and one’s own life's importance. The obolus, along with the mirror, is a symbol of one of the new schisms in the story. The author uses a quote of Luke 12:59, that points to reconciling with one's apparent enemy, translated as "no one will be released from prison until he has paid the last obolus." [1]
Meditating over the author's use of symbols is not overindulgence into speculation or academic over-analysis because Borges' attention to symbols in the story appears purposeful. The story's premise, that the orthodoxy of ancient Christianity feared groups breaking away from the Christian world, is first expressed in the story by stating that certain symbols were being exalted by a group of people ("In the mountains, the Wheel and the Serpent had displaced the Cross. ...all were afraid...."). [2] Use of a different symbol is not just the author visually explaining that one group in the mountains has a different version of Truth. The author's attention to symbols (such as the wheel, the cross, the mirror, the obolus, and even the "iron scimitar") suggest that the battle between orthodoxy and heresy is a war between these physical objects that provide a doorway to esoteric spiritual truth. The author Henry Corbin wrote that symbol was the clothing that must not be robbed from us, nor ignored by us, as the symbolism of the physical world is our only entry way into intellectually the divine. [3] The stark physical nature of the world is expressed in the story's first symbol, the "iron scimitar" worshipped by the barbarians as a god. Such a preposterous and seemingly ridiculous notion is asserted at the story's beginning so that the reader carelessly overlooks it, only to re-examine one's own reaction later. "The Theologians" is a story about our struggle to discern truth, and the folly that befalls us when we cast aside other notions of truth, however barbaric, only later to see that we had cast our own selves into the flames countless times into eternity.
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known books, Ficciones (Fictions) and El Aleph, published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring themes of dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges' works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and majorly influenced the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Anathema, in common usage, is something or someone detested or shunned. In its other main usage, it is a formal excommunication. The latter meaning, its ecclesiastical sense, is based on New Testament usage. In the Old Testament, anathema was a creature or object set apart for sacrificial offering and thus removed from ordinary use and destined instead for destruction.
The Name of the Rose is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. It was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.
"The Library of Babel" is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set.
Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fantastique novel The Invention of Morel.
Orthodoxy is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
The obol was a form of ancient Greek currency and weight.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
"The Immortal" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, first published in February 1947, and later in the collection El Aleph in 1949. The story tells about a character who mistakenly achieves immortality and then, weary of a long life, struggles to lose it and writes an account of his experiences. The story consists of a quote, an introduction, five chapters, and a postscript. "The Immortal" has been described as "the culmination of Borges' art" by critic Ronald J. Christ.
Ficciones is a collection of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, originally written and published in Spanish between 1941 and 1956. Thirteen stories from Ficciones were first published by New Directions in the English-language anthology Labyrinths (1962). In the same year, Grove Press published the entirety of the book in English using the same title as in the original language. "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" originally appeared published in A History of Eternity (1936). Ficciones became Borges's most famous book and made him known worldwide.
Labyrinths is an anthology of short stories and essays by the writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was translated into English, published soon after Borges won the International Publishers' Prize with Samuel Beckett.
The Aleph and Other Stories is a book of short stories by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The title work, "The Aleph", describes a point in space that contains all other spaces at once. The work also presents the idea of infinite time. Borges writes in the original afterword, dated May 3, 1949, that most of the stories belong to the genre of fantasy, mentioning themes such as identity and immortality. Borges added four new stories to the collection in the 1952 edition, for which he provided a brief postscript to the afterword. The story "La intrusa" was first printed in the third edition of El Aleph (1966) and was later included in the collection El informe de Brodie (1970).
"The Aleph" is a short story by the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. First published in September 1945, it was reprinted in the short story collection, The Aleph and Other Stories, in 1949, and revised by the author in 1974.
"The House of Asterion" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in 1947 in the literary magazine Los Anales de Buenos Aires and republished in Borges's short story collection The Aleph in 1949. It is based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and is told from the perspective of Asterion, the Minotaur.
Walter Bauer was a German theologian, lexicographer of New Testament Greek, and scholar of the development of Early Christianity.
"Three versions of 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 the form of a scholarly article. The story carries three footnotes and quotes many people, some of which are real, some have been concocted from real life and some are completely fictitious.
Heresy in Christianity denotes the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith as defined by one or more of the Christian churches.
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in the anthology Ficciones, part one. The title has also been translated as A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain.
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religious teachings, but is also used of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
