Gnostic themes

It is not surprising, given Borges’s mistrust of all orthodoxies, that he should have been particularly
attracted to Gnosticism, a Christian sectarian movement dating from the second century and declared
heretical by the Church Fathers. It took many forms, evolving into some seventy sects, but though there is
no Gnostic canon, certain features are common to the movement as a whole. The name, derived from the
Greek gnosis (“knowledge”), emphasizes its preoccupation with a direct knowledge of God and the
secrets of salvation. Knowledge, for the Gnostics, meant not rational cognition but the means by which an
individual could arrive at spiritual redemption.

In Gnostic dualistic thinking, God is “absolutely transmundane,” a nameless, uncreated, changeless

divinity, removed from the world which he has not created and does not govern. In “A Defense of
Basilides the False” (“A Vindication” in the original Spanish), Borges discusses certain ideas attributed to
Basilides, arguably the movement’s principal teacher: “From [God’s] repose emanated seven subordinate
divinities” ( SNF 66), and from these came further emanations, the last of which being the Demiurge, to
whom the creation of the material world is ascribed. In this account of creation as “a chance act” we may
i nd an explanation for the existence of evil in the world, and see, too, an argument for mankind’s
complete insignii cance in the cosmos. Borges does not seek to promote or exonerate the doctrine, but like
the similarly entitled essay on Kabbalah, he discusses it with an eye on its literary potential.

Basilides’s main ideas are repeated and i ctionalized in “Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv” in A
Universal History of Iniquity . Hakim is not a prophet but an impostor claiming to have been “forced into
heresy” ( CF 43). His veiled face, a parody of an unknowable divinity, helps him to dupe his followers
into thinking that he is God incarnate, but when he is eventually betrayed the secret of his ravaged face is
revealed, and he loses his power and his life. Gnostic ideas, which set up a theological backdrop for
Hakim’s rise to fame, are highlighted in a sub-chapter entitled “Abominable Mirrors.” There are parallels
between the “false” theologian Basilides, who pretended to possess a secret tradition transmitted from St.
Peter, and Hakim, the “false” prophet who duped his followers by claiming to be endowed with special
powers by the Almighty. Both, moreover, are known only through mediated, uncertain sources. At the
end, the unmasking of Hakim, the Masked Dyer, becomes a powerful metaphor mocking the mysteries of
divine revelation.

The story of the Masked Dyer of Merv puts forward the dispiriting belief that the world we inhabit is an
error, an incompetent parody: “Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and afirm it” (
CF 43). One of Borges’s most complex and ambitious stories, “Tl ö n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” repeats this
gnomic pronouncement twice, with slight variations. It is positioned prominently on the first page and
becomes the springboard for all that follows, starting with the land of Uqbar and the heresiarch to whom
it is attributed. This provenance may be thought to compromise its trustworthiness, insinuating that what
follows is unorthodox and, by extension, a fanciful hoax. Such an assumption is supported by the
narrator’s suspicion that the mysterious unknown country and the anonymous heresiarch may have been
an invention of his friend Bioy Casares .

In this Gnostic-driven reading of “Tl ö n,” I would like to point out the concept of “emanations” as a
structural motif supporting the series of progressive creations of lands, world, and planets. This concept is
also alluded to indirectly by the story’s main conceit, the hrön , Borges’s invented word referring to ideas
willed into the world. These dreams and desires are metaphorically projected onto the real world as solid,
poetic objects, and they are said to derive from previous hrönir , and ultimately, from an Ur. The
sequence of their evolution is unsmooth and unpredictable, in caricatural contrast to Basilides’s account
of celestial emanations. A number of ideas professed by some Tlönists strongly evoke other Gnostic
beliefs concerning the universe, such as its creation by “the handwriting of a subordinate God trying to
communicate with a demon,” or its comparison to a cryptogram, but one in which not every symbol is
significant. I offer the foregoing thoughts, not in a foolhardy attempt to define the meaning of “Tl ö n”
(which will always surpass any interpretation), but to highlight the presence of Gnostic elements in the
story and argue for their structural significance .

Gnosticism occupies a more central role in “The Theologians,” a story set in an atmosphere of
caricaturized theological debates and rivalries. Oppositional points of belief alternate between orthodoxy
and heresy to the point where their differences become blurred and without meaning. Aurelian and John
of Pannonia are ecclesiastical rivals who are in agreement in their opposition to the ideas of the heretical
sects known as the Annulari, but are in fierce competition for the acclaim of being the i rst to denounce
them. The heretics are put to death, though eventually their ideas regarding the cyclical nature of time are
accepted as orthodox. A second heretical sect spreads from the East, known variously as Histrioni,
Abysmals, or Speculari, names that reflect their wild behavior and their beliefs, which are based on
hermetic ideas and distortions of biblical verses. They hold that evil here on earth is inversely reflected by
good in heaven and that, since history never repeats itself, the commission of all possible horrendous acts
today will preclude their occurrence in the future. 2 In his denunciation of the Speculari, Aurelian quotes
John of Pannonia out of context, and the latter is accused and burnt at the stake. In time, Aurelian is
struck by lightning and also burns to death. In heaven, he comes to the devastating realization of the
irrelevance of these theological niceties: for God, he and his rival are as one.

“The Theologians” offers an excellent example of the consistently countercultural and subversive use of
theological elements in Borges’s fiction. In this particular story, the sheer density of erudite theological
references emphasizes the pettiness of the society in which they l ourish, and is an indication of
shallowness rather than the opposite. While there is a historical basis to the easy interchange between
orthodoxy and heterodoxy, this is parodied here by the zealotry and envy among theologians, and also
illustrates their abuse of decontextualized biblical quotations. The two heresies that infuse the story are
the cyclical repetition of time, and a dualistic specularity, a belief in the debased reflection of everything
and every being. These heresies are woven into both the form and the content of “The Theologians.” For
example, the burning of the library of Alexandria at the beginning of the story, the deaths by burning i rst
of the Annulari, then of John of Pannonia, and i nally of Aurelian, dramatically re-enact the i rst heresy,
while the various decontextualized misreadings in the story – of Plato, of a text by John of Pannonia, and
of biblical verses by the Speculari – are textual deflections which illustrate the second. The skeptical
ending ultimately undercuts both.

Gnosticism is clearly not an end in itself in this story but its strands serve as a metaphor to express the
precariousness on which mankind’s “certainties” are based.

I have divided this overview of theologically based elements into three religious classifications in the
Borgesian spirit of mocking categories by setting them up and then dismantling them. The “three”
embedded in the “four,” the points of contact between Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and Neo-Platonism, the
intermingling of orthodoxy and heresy with regard to both Jewish and Christian beliefs, the drawing
together of the sacred and the secular (as in “Emma Zunz”), the presence of Kabbalist ideas in the mind
of a Mayan priest, all attest to the fluid interplay that Borges sets up in his use of theological allusions.
His use of distilled metaphors for their poetic potential has been my primary concern, but, going one step
further in the dismantling of categories, I suggest that it may also enrich our understanding of their
original theological context: the irreverent in dialogue with the reverent.