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Ask how two things in the atlas connect and sometimes the answer is a straight line. Ask it of Aztec religion and Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, and there is no straight line at all. The shortest way between them takes three steps, and none of the three religions you might expect turns out to be needed.

Two Steps Come Up Empty

Aztec religion and Kabbalah share no direct link in the atlas, which is no surprise, they arose on opposite sides of an ocean with no contact between them. What is more telling is that they also share no single go-between: nothing in the atlas is linked to both at once. Any path connecting them needs at least two steps in between.

The Path Runs Through the Vatican

The path that does exist is unexpected. The Vatican's own library, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, holds the Codex Borgia, a surviving Aztec religious manuscript, and the atlas records that as its link to Aztec religion. The same library is linked to Christianity, whose books it has kept for centuries. And Kabbalah is linked, in the atlas, to Christianity as well as to Judaism, through the Christian scholars of the Renaissance who studied it as their own. Follow the three links in order and the path is complete: Aztec religion, the library that guards the pope's books, Christianity, Kabbalah.

Where To Read More

• Aztec ReligionPolytheistic (Historical)One end of the path
• Biblioteca Apostolica VaticanaLibrariesThe unexpected middle step, linked to Aztec religion through the Codex Borgia it holds
• ChristianityAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Kept by the same library, and itself linked onward to Kabbalah
• KabbalahCosmological DisciplinesThe other end of the path, reached in three steps rather than two