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 offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...

.
"Sacrilege" 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

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

, sacrilege had adopted a more expansive meaning, including verbal offences against religion and undignified treatment of sacred objects.

Most ancient religions have a concept analogous to sacrilege, often considered as a type of taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

. The basic idea is that sacred objects are not to be treated in the same way as other objects.

With the advent of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 as the official Roman religion, the Emperor Theodosius

Theodosius I

Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...

 criminalised sacrilege in an even more expansive sense, including heresy and schism, and offences against the emperor, including tax evasion.

By the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, 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. A major offense was to tamper with a consecrated host

Sacramental bread

Sacramental bread, sometimes called the lamb, altar bread, host or simply Communion bread, is the bread which is used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist.-Eastern Catholic and Orthodox:...

, otherwise known as the Body of Christ.

Most modern nations have abandoned laws against sacrilege out of respect for freedom of expression except in cases where there is an injury to persons or property. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 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 scorn by the public, even by non-adherents of the offended religion, especially when these acts are perceived as manifestations of hatred toward a particular sect or creed.

Origin of sacrilegious

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

Antonym

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to the fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not...

 of the other. Religious is derived from the Latin word religio, meaning "reverence

Reverence

Reverence may refer to:* Reverence a subjective response to something excellent in a personal way* Reverence , the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the power of one's superior or superiors...

, religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

," whereas sacrilegious is derived ultimately from the Latin combining form sacr-, meaning sacred

Sacred

Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...

, and the verb legere, meaning "to steal". The Latin noun sacrilegus means "one who steals sacred things".¹

England and Wales

In post-Reformation England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, sacrilege was a criminal offence 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.

So much of the 1 Ed 6 c 12 (An Act for the Repeal of certain Statues concerning Treasons, Felonies, etc.) as related to sacrilege was repealed by the 7 & 8 Geo 4 c 27.

Section 10 of the 7 & 8 Geo 4 c 29 enacted:
The corresponding section of the Irish Act 9 Geo 4 c 55 was identical.

Both of those sections were replaced by section 50 of the Larceny Act 1861

Larceny Act 1861

The Larceny Act 1861 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It consolidated provisions related to larceny and similar offences from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act...

, which was described by its marginal note as "breaking and entering a church or chapel and committing any felony" and which read:
Hard labour

See section 118.

Solitary confinement

See section 119.

This offence was not triable at quarter sessions

Quarter Sessions

The Courts of Quarter Sessions or Quarter Sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the United Kingdom and other countries in the former British Empire...

Section 50 of the Larceny Act 1861 was repealed by section 48(1) of, and the Schedule to, the Larceny Act 1916

Larceny Act 1916

The Larceny Act 1916 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its purpose was to consolidate and simplify the law relating to larceny triable on indictment and to kindred offences ....

. It was replaced by section 24 of the Larceny Act 1916 which provided:
The words "arrestable offence

Arrestable offence

Arrestable offence is a legal term now obsolete in English law and the legal system of Northern Ireland, but still used in the legal system of the Republic of Ireland. The Criminal Law Act 1967 introduced the category to replace the ancient term felony...

" were substituted for the word "felony", in subsections (1) and (2), by section 10(1) of, and paragraph 12(1) of Schedule 2 to, the Criminal Law Act 1967

Criminal Law Act 1967

The Criminal Law Act 1967 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. However, with some minor exceptions, it generally applies to only England and Wales. It made some major changes to English criminal law...

.

Penal servitude

See section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948

Criminal Justice Act 1948

The Criminal Justice Act 1948 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It has been described as "one of the most important measures relating to the reform of the criminal law and its administration." It abolished penal servitude, hard labour and prison divisions for England and Wales...

 and the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1953.

Section 24 is replaced by sections 9 and 10 of the Theft Act 1968

Theft Act 1968

The Theft Act 1968 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of offences against property in England and Wales.On 15 January 2007 the Fraud Act 2006 came into force, redefining most of the offences of deception.-History:...

 (which create the offences of burglary

Burglary in English law

Burglary in English law is defined by section 9 of the Theft Act 1968 which created two variants:##-"Enters":Although physical evidence of entry is not normally difficult to obtain, it can be difficult on occasions to decide whether an entry has occurred in law. In R v Collins, it was held that...

 and aggravated burglary.

External references

• Webster's Dictionary of English Usage 1989
• Magda Teter, Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2011), ISBN 9780674052970