Sacrilege

Sacrilege

Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offense is verbal, it is called blasphemy. The term originates from the Latin "sacer", sacred, and "legere", to steal, as in Roman times it referred to the plundering of temples and graves. By the time of Cicero, sacrilege had adopted a more expansive meaning, including verbal offenses against religion and undignified treatment of sacred objects.

Most ancient religions have a concept analogous to sacrilege, often considered as a type of taboo. The basic idea is that sacred objects are not to be treated in the same way as other objects.

With the advent of Christianity as the official Roman religion, the Emperor Theodosius criminalized sacrilege in an even more expansive sense, including heresy and schism, and offenses against the emperor, including tax evasion.

By the Middle Ages, the concept of sacrilege was again restricted to physical acts against sacred objects, and this forms the basis of all later Catholic teaching on the subject.

In post-Reformation England, sacrilege was a criminal offense for centuries, though its statutory definition varied considerably. Most English dictionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries appealed to the primary sense of stealing objects from a church.

Most modern nations have abandoned laws against sacrilege out of respect for freedom of expression, save in cases where there is an injury to persons or property. In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court case "Burstyn v. Wilson" (1952) struck down a statute against sacrilege, ruling that the term could not be narrowly defined in a way that would safeguard against the establishment of one church over another, and that such statutes infringed upon the free exercise of religion and freedom of expression.

Despite their decriminalization, sacrilegious acts are still often regarded with public opprobrium, even by non-adherents of the offended religion, especially when these acts are perceived as manifestations of hatred toward a particular sect or creed.

Confusion with the term "Religion"

Owing to the phonetic similarities between the words "sacrilegious" and "religious", and their spiritually-based uses in modern English, many people mistakenly assume that the two words are etymologically linked, or that one is an antonym of the other. On the contrary, the root words "sacrilege" and religion developed independently and are linked only by a similarity in subject matter, and not by any actual substance of meaning. Thus, "sacrilegious" and "religious" are by no means opposite terms.

ee also

* Anti-Sacrilege Act
* Blasphemy
* Desecration

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13321a.htm Sacrilege] Catholic Encyclopedia


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  • sacrilége — 1. (sa kri lè j ) s. m. 1°   Action impie par laquelle on profane les choses sacrées. •   La lettre que vous écrivez à votre frère est admirable ; vous aviez très bien deviné : il est dans le bel air par dessus les yeux, point de Pâques, point de …   Dictionnaire de la Langue Française d'Émile Littré

  • Sacrilege — • The violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006. Sacrilege     Sacrilege …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • SACRILEGE — SACRILEGE, the deliberate or inadvertent violation of sacred things. The Torah ordains the punishment of karet for anyone who deliberately flouts the sanctity of the Temple precincts or deviates in the slightest from any of the rules or rituals… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Sacrilege — Sac ri*lege, n. [F. sacril[ e]ge, L. sacrilegium, from sacrilegus that steals, properly, gathers or picks up, sacred things; sacer sacred + legere to gather, pick up. See {Sacred}, and {Legend}.] The sin or crime of violating or profaning sacred… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Sacrilege — est un groupe de Death metal mélodique, originaire de la ville de Göteborg, en Suède. Il fut formé en 1993, se sépara en 1999, puis se reforma de nouveau en 2006, avec l ajout des lettre GBG à la fin de leur nom. Le groupe fit deux démos avant de …   Wikipédia en Français

  • sacrilege — index blasphemy Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 sacrilege …   Law dictionary

  • sacrilège — SACRILÈGE: C est un sacrilège d abattre un arbre …   Dictionnaire des idées reçues

  • sacrilege — (n.) c.1300, crime of stealing what is consecrated to God, from O.Fr. sacrilege (12c.), from L. sacrilegium temple robbery, from sacrilegus stealer of sacred things, from phrase sacrum legere to steal sacred things, from sacrum sacred object… …   Etymology dictionary

  • sacrilege — Sacrilege, Larron de choses sacrées, Sacrilegus. Sacrilege, Larcin des choses sacrées, Sacrilegium. Qui sont in sacris, Sacris alligati et astricti. B …   Thresor de la langue françoyse

  • sacrilege — [sak′rə lij΄] n. [ME < MFr < L sacrilegium < sacrilegus, temple robber < sacer, SACRED + legere, to gather up, take away: see LOGIC] 1. the act of appropriating to oneself or to secular use, or of violating, what is consecrated to God …   English World dictionary

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