“The sacrifice of the mass is a reminder
but it only rarely makes a deep impression on our sensibility. However
obsessive we find the symbol of the Cross, the mass is not readily identified
with the bloody sacrifice.”1
On the surface, Bataille’s
philosophy of religion is unabashedly antichristian, claiming that after the
crucifixion, Christianity is capable of providing only hollow emotional comfort.
Bataille holds the purpose of religion to be the pursuit a mystical return to a
sort of ‘unity’ ‘oneness’ or ‘truth’ he defines vaguely as the end of
‘discontinuity’, and he views modern Christianity as unable to attain this.
What exactly Bataille means by ‘continuity’ is somewhat uncertain, but he
employs openly mystical language in describing it, and directly relates it to
the crucifixion. Continuity, and the ability to communicate outside the
discontinuity of a human life, is what the martyr attains, and precisely what
Bataille holds Christianity after Christ can no longer attain.2
“Continuity is reached through experience of the divine, the divine is the
essence of continuity.”3
For Bataille,
Christ’s death on the cross represents the ultimate act of sacrifice, however since
this brief moment of continuity and communication Christendom has degraded it,
chiefly in the form of the Mass, into symbolic acts mirroring, but not
embodying, the self-sacrifice and spiritual continuity. Because of this their
rituals cannot bring one to the mystic state of continuity or enable
communication. Since the act of self-sacrifice is considered in violation of
Christian morality, Bataille concludes, “Christian religious feeling has by and
large opposed the spirit of transgression”4.
Having (apparently) abandoned the transgressive, or the sacrificial, act, they
abandon that act which pushes them beyond the boundaries, which tether them to
discontinuity. I am positioning the Martyrs as an exception to this rule.
“Sacrifice though, while like a war a
suspension of the commandment to kill, is the religious act above all others.”5
And there is a transgressive element
to the act of martyrdom, the saints are pursuing
death and in many ways what they do is in violation of the word of the church
fathers, however as the intention is wholly selfless and in imitation and
admiration of the divine act of Christ, it is made a religious act. A similar
transformation is undertaken during the martyrdom, the martyr actively converts
their tortures and humiliations into spiritual milestones, confounding the
audience. It is evident Bataille is putting the crucifixion, and other elements
of self-sacrifice in his theory, in mystical terms. The person who submits, in
this case the martyr, functionally dissolves within the tradition. There is a
distinction between self-sacrifice as represented by the crucifixion and as
represented in Bataille’s economic theories, and that is the mystical character
of union, which the individual submitting undergoes. In the scheme of the
general economy, the Roman or Aztec rites of sacrifices represent the economic
sacrifice, those spent are merely a part of the spectacle, in Bataille’s theory
of the crucifixion and sacrifice there is a mystical and inner concern, the
dissolution of discontinuity, and the ability to ‘communicate’. While,
ultimately, martyrdom itself may be a result of the machinations of the General
Economy, the experience of the martyrs is made distinct from the experience of
the gladiators and the executed, and that distinction is made clear through
Bataille. Bataille describes the transcendent ‘sharing’ of the mystical
experience of discontinuity with the greater community as follows.
The victim dies
and the spectators’ share in what his death reveals. This is what religious
historians call the sacramental element. This sacramental element is the
revelation of continuity though the death of a discontinuous being to those who
watch it as a solemn right.6
Sacrifice
is equivalent to communication7
and one must mystically overcome the ‘discontinuity’ we all have from the
supposed ‘unity’- in this case the Christian God- before one can meaningfully
‘communicate’. Christ’s sacrifice breached this wall and allowed him to
‘communicate’ Christianity and thus divine ‘continuity’ through his sacrifice;
it is in this way the martyrs leave their indelible mark on Christian culture. “Initiation,
sacrifices, and festivals represent so many moments of loss of self and
communication between individuals… the sacred is communicated between beings,
and thereby the formation of new beings,”8
Bataille’s theory of
‘general economy’ assumes all productive interpersonal activity is part of a
great social economy, in his worldview this manifests as war, human sacrifice
and mystical and erotic behavior. All human activity is part of an economic
system, ‘economy’ as it is conventionally understood as being only a
microcosmic representation of the greater social order. Human society, and the
individuals composing the society, cannot survive in a purely productive
economy, just as we waste innumerable resources in order to consume meat,
indulging in an impossibly costly vice, society ‘spends’ its excess in order to
promote it’s own continuation. Rome and the Aztec both spend both capital and
the valuable lives of slaves (and criminals and war captives) on massive
spectacles, ultimately promoting their own sovereignty, while simultaneously
engaging the individuals who ascribe to the collective engaging in the sacrifice, the crowds watching
either macabre and orgiastic blood sport are experiencing a similar phenomena.
One which Bataille characterizes as an interrelated promotion of the social
collective engaging in the promotion of the spectacle, it is the Imperial Roman
state, under the Julio-Claudians9,
-the earthly representation of Roman society- who take over the organization of
games from the aristocracy, bringing the socio-religious spectacle even closer
to the body of the state. Though the religious element, already mentioned, is
perhaps somewhat buried in the political and social propaganda, through
Bataille’s system the rainbow of concerns associated with social
phenomena-religious, political, economic- is brought immediately to bear. Just
as the mass sacrifices of the Aztec are as religious as they are
representations of the power of the state (The sacrifices being war captives,
the feasts being paid for with the spoils of war), and just as the mass
executions and elaborate blood sports of the Romans are spectacles designed as
public amusement, they also promote the power, authority and cultural necessity
of the political establishment as a fundamental part of the roman social order.10
The state represented the culture, and thus the religion, functions as an
inexorable part of the state, another component of the elaborate ‘Roman’ body.
In staging opulent expenditures of capital and
human lives the state engages in the same kind of self-gratifying, and in
Bataille’s general economy, wasteful, expenditure (the titular Accursed Share)
as the sexual fetishist, constantly developing more elaborate erotic scenarios.
And certainly, the Roman state spared
little expense, staging, perhaps most infamously, elaborate naval battles, as
well as fights between exotic animals, mass executions, and other decadent
displays. In fact, for Bataille this wasteful social expenditure is as
necessary for the continuation of human society as it is for the continued
mental/emotional stability of the individual within the system. “Neither growth
nor reproduction would be possible if plants and animals did not normally
dispose of an excess.”11
For Bataille all
organisms or bodies, being a part of a general economic system, produced
wealth, and that wealth, the slaves or criminals ‘spent’ or wasted in lavish
displays is dubbed the Accursed Share.12
Ultimately,
while Perpetua’s martyrdom, due to it’s concerns with transformation and the
Christian community, is related to the more mystical Bataillean reading of
self-sacrifice emblemized by the crucifixion, it still emerges from the Roman
tradition in parts. The Roman method of sacrifice, the orgiastic indulgence in
the Accursed Share, is what the altruistic and selfless martyrs are reacting to
in their deaths. Perpetua’s transformation represents this vividly, turning the
concerns of the Spectacle from violence to spiritual progression the act of
Martyrdom is transformed into a spiritual act.
Part IV. Imitation, Transgression, and Sacrifice. Conclusion.
1 Bataille, 1996. 89
2 ibid, 118
3 ibid
4 ibid
5 ibid, 87
6 ibid,82
7 Campbell,
Robert A. "Georges Bataille's Surrealistic Theory of Religion." Method
& Theory in the Study of Religion 11.2 (1999): 127-42. Web. 135
8 ibid
9 Kyle, 50
10 Barton, 35
11 Bataille, 1991 25
12 “He refers to the victim as the “Accursed share” that is destined for
violent consumption, a mode of communication for separate beings. He also
describes the victim as a “surplus taken from the mass of useful wealth.” Olson, Carl. "Eroticism, Violence, and Sacrifice: A
Postmodern Theory of Religion and Ritual." Method & Theory in the
Study of Religion 6.1 (1994): 231-50. 240.