Blasphemy
Blasphemy is an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred, or something that is considered inviolable. Some religions, especially Abrahamic ones, regard blasphemy as a crime, including insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, speaking the sacred name in Judaism, and blasphemy of God's Holy Spirit is an eternal sin in Christianity. It was also a crime under English common law, and it is still a crime under Italian law.
In the early history of the Church, blasphemy "was considered to show active disrespect to God and to involve the use of profane cursing or mockery of his powers". In the medieval world, those who committed blasphemy were seen as needing discipline. By the 17th century, several historically Christian countries had legislation against blasphemy. Blasphemy was proscribed speech in the U.S. until well into the 20th century. Blasphemy laws were abolished in England and Wales in 2008, and in Ireland in 2020. Scotland repealed its blasphemy laws in 2021. Many other countries have abolished blasphemy laws including Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand. , 40 percent of the world's countries have blasphemy laws on the books, including 18 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, or 90% of countries in that region.
Etymology
The word came via Middle English blasfemen and Old French blasfemer and Late Latin from Greek, from βλασ, "injure" and φήμη, "utterance, talk, speech". From blasphemare also came Old French blasmer, from which the English word blame came. Blasphemy: 'from Gk. blasphemia "a speaking ill, impious speech, slander," from blasphemein "to speak evil of." "In the sense of speaking evil of God this word is found in Ps. 74:18; Isa. 52:5; Rom. 2:24; Rev. 13:1, 6; 16:9, 11, 21. It denotes also any kind of calumny, or evil-speaking, or abuse."History
Middle Ages
received more attention than blasphemy throughout the Middle Ages because it was considered a more serious threat to Orthodoxy, while blasphemy was mostly seen as irreverent remarks made by persons who may have been drunk or diverged from good standards of conduct in isolated incidents of misbehavior. When the fundamental understanding of the sacred became more contentious during the Reformation, blasphemy started to be regarded as similar to heresy.The intellectual culture of the early English Enlightenment embraced ironic or scoffing tones in contradistinction to the idea of sacredness in revealed religion. The characterization of "scoffing" as blasphemy was defined as profaning the Scripture by irreverent "Buffoonery and Banter". From at least the 18th century on, the clergy of the Church of England justified blasphemy prosecutions by distinguishing "sober reasoning" from mockery and scoffing. Religious doctrine could be discussed "in a calm, decent and serious way" but mockery and scoffing, they said, were appeals to sentiment, not to reason.
Common law
It was a common law crime according to William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England:Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering conteumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land".
In 1636, the Puritan-controlled Massachusetts Bay Colony made blasphemy – defined as "a cursing of God by atheism, or the like" – punishable by death. The last person hanged for blasphemy in Great Britain was Thomas Aikenhead aged 20, in Scotland in 1697. He was prosecuted for denying the veracity of the Old Testament and the legitimacy of Christ's miracles.
In the United States, blasphemy was recognized as proscribed speech well into the 20th-century. The Constitution entailed a right to articulate views on religion, but not to commit blasphemy, with the Harvard Law Review stating, "The English common law had punished blasphemy as a crime, while excluding "disputes between learned men upon particular controverted points" from the scope of criminal blasphemy. Looking to this precedent, 19th-century American appellate courts consistently upheld proscriptions on blasphemy, drawing a line between punishable blasphemy and protected religious speech."
The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were repealed in England & Wales by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this meant that promoting atheism could be prosecuted. The last successfully prosecuted case was Whitehouse v. Lemon where the court repeated what had by then become a textbook standard for blasphemy law cases in the UK:
It is not blasphemous to speak or publish opinions hostile to the Christian religion, or to deny the existence of God, if the publication is couched in decent and temperate language. The test to be applied is as to the manner in which the doctrines are advocated and not as to the substance of the doctrines themselves.
The common law offense of blasphemy was abolished in Scotland via the Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021.
By religion
Christianity
Biblical texts
condemns blasphemy. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain", one of the Ten Commandments, forbids blasphemy, which Christians regard as "an affront to God's holiness".Leviticus 24:16 states that "anyone who blasphemes the name of Yahweh will be put to death".
In Mark 3:29, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is spoken of as unforgivable—an eternal sin.
Church history
In the early history of the Church, blasphemy "was considered to show active disrespect to God and to involve the use of profane cursing or mockery of his powers".In The Whole Duty of Man, sometimes attributed to Richard Allestree or John Fell, blasphemy is described as "speaking any evil Thing of God", and as "the highest Degree whereof is cursing him; or if we do not speak it with our Mouths, yet if we do it in our Hearts, by thinking any unworthy Thing of him, it is look'd on by God, who sees the Heart, as the vilest Dishonour."
- Thomas Aquinas says that " we compare murder and blasphemy as regards the objects of those sins, it is clear that blasphemy, which is a sin committed directly against God, is more grave than murder, which is a sin against one's neighbor. On the other hand, if we compare them in respect of the harm wrought by them, murder is the graver sin, for murder does more harm to one's neighbor, than blasphemy does to God".
- The Book of Concord calls blasphemy "the greatest sin that can be outwardly committed".
- The Baptist Confession of Faith says: "Therefore, to swear vainly or rashly by the glorious and awesome name of God…is sinful, and to be regarded with disgust and detestation. …For by rash, false, and vain oaths, the Lord is provoked and because of them this land mourns".
- The Heidelberg Catechism answers question 100 about blasphemy by stating that "no sin is greater or provokes God's wrath more than the blaspheming of His Name".
- The Westminster Larger Catechism explains that "The sins forbidden in the third commandment are, the abuse of it in an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane...mentioning...by blasphemy...to profane jests,...vain janglings,...to charms or sinful lusts and practices".
- Calvin found it intolerable "when a person is accused of blasphemy, to lay the blame on the ebullition of passion, as if God were to endure the penalty whenever we are provoked".
Catholic prayers and reparations for blasphemy
The Holy See has specific "Pontifical organizations" for the purpose of the reparation of blasphemy through Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ, e.g. the ''Pontifical Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of the Reparation of the Holy Face.''
Disputation of Paris
During the Middle Ages a series of debates on Judaism were staged by the Catholic Church, including the Disputation of Paris, the Disputation of Barcelona, and Disputation of Tortosa, and during those disputations, Jewish converts to Christianity, such as Nicholas Donin and Pablo Christiani claimed the Talmud contained insulting references to Jesus.The Disputation of Paris, also known as the Trial of the Talmud, took place in 1240 at the court of the reigning king of France, Louis IX. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, who translated the Talmud and pressed 35 charges against it to Pope Gregory IX by quoting a series of alleged blasphemous passages about Jesus, Mary or Christianity. Four rabbis defended the Talmud against Donin's accusations. A commission of Christian theologians condemned the Talmud to be burned and on 17 June 1244, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire in the streets of Paris. The translation of the Talmud from Hebrew to non-Jewish languages stripped Jewish discourse from its covering, something that was resented by Jews as a profound violation.
Between 1239 and 1775, the Roman Catholic Church at various times either forced the censoring of parts of the Talmud that it considered theologically problematic or the destruction of copies of the Talmud. During the inquisition, sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also charged with blasphemy.