Emperor Julian the Apostate mauled eastern Christendom. Christianity had been the official religion for about fifty years. Julian thought it was weakening the Empire, so he wanted to eliminate it and re-install paganism. He started with a repeal of his own baptism, which he sought to accomplish through the pagan rite of the taurobolium, a bath in bull’s blood.
Julian’s violence, revolt against Truth, and use of the taurobolium vividly symbolizes a fundamental truth: Blood is the necessary result when freedom reaches grotesque levels.
Siamese Twins
Power and freedom are Siamese twins. They walk together, support each other, need each other, are intertwined with each other. Without one, the other fails. If a person has the freedom to walk to the next town, but hasn't any legs, he cannot. If he has legs but is in jail, he stays.
Power and freedom cannot be separated without violence and grotesquerie. Give a three-month old baby freedom to choose its daily events for a week while you leave for vacation. The baby has freedom, but he doesn't have the requisite power to go with it. The result is gruesome.
Power and freedom must also be proportionate to each other. When a person demands freedom to drive after drinking ten beers, he is demanding freedom in excess of his power. The results are frequently catastrophic.
Proportionality between power and freedom is crucial to civil life, especially in a civilization like ours that guarantees the highest levels of freedom.
Our freedom gives us the ability to make a dizzying array of choices, if we have the requisite power. We can choose what car to drive, as long as we have the money to pay for it. We can choose what college to attend, as long as we have the credentials to gain admission. We can choose to adopt a dog, as long as we have the property to house it.
Every act of choosing, however, limits our subsequent freedom and power. If I have $20,000 to spend on a new car and buy a Buick, I no longer have the power to buy a new Chevrolet. And because I no longer have that power, I no longer, as a practical matter, have that freedom. “Every act of will,” said G.K. Chesterton, “is an act of self-limitation.”
Good Old Consequences
What exactly imposes the limitation?
Consequences. The consequences of acting on our freedom limit us. Freedom, paradoxically, restricts freedom. I have freedom to throw a rock, and I have the power (arm strength) to throw it. If I use the freedom and power to throw the rock at a window, I am powerless to stop it and cannot expect to be free from the punitive consequences. Prior to throwing the rock, I am free from the threat of punishment. After choosing to throw the rock, that freedom is gone.
But here's the rub: Such freedom can be obtained. It can be obtained by ratcheting up my level of power to a point that matches the desired level of freedom. Because my desired freedom (to avoid punishment for my act) is grotesque, the corresponding level of power must be grotesque, maybe gross unfairness (bribery and corruption within the justice system) or violence (threatening my neighbor with harm if he reports me to the police).
In our culture's obsession with freedom, we have forgotten that freedom and power will be proportionate to each other and that both are limited by earlier choices.
And here we return to Julian and the taurobolium. Julian's attempt to free himself from Christianity was a type of freedom totally disproportionate to his power. Christianity is the Truth. We don't have the freedom to deny it, especially after we've embraced it. Julian's attempt to wipe out his baptism through his bath in bull’s blood is symbolic of the bloodiness that results when freedom grows disproportionately larger than power.
When freedom (or desired freedom) reaches such levels, problems arise and death looms, either because power is no longer proportionate to the level of freedom (the three-month old baby left behind) or because power reaches grotesque levels (the drunk driver or rock thrower).
Perhaps the best evidence that freedom and power have reached grotesque levels in our culture? Abortion. It's not surprising that millions of babies are dying today. Women are spilling oceans of blood as they reach for a grotesque level of power to match their grotesque desired freedom: the freedom not to suffer the consequences of choosing to have sex.
This power over blood makes sense in a freedom-crazed culture like ours that tends to forget the real purpose and meaning of freedom, confuses it with licentiousness, and doesn't understand that freedom limits freedom. The power over blood — the right to kill — is the level of power that goes with it.
Eric Scheske is a freelance writer, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine. You can view his work at www.ericscheske.com.
