BLASPHEMY mpl; Sept. 13Xampthata).
The Greek word is generic, denoting verbal abuse proceeding from an evil disposition. It is equivalent to defamation or slander, involving an attempt to lessen the character of others, with the intention of doing them injury. All kinds of abusive language, whether called imprecation, calumny, or reviling, come under the term.
The English word blasphemy is more restricted in its signification. It refers to God only. In like manner when liAmnibmula is directed against the Supreme Being, or when Jehovah is the object of it, it is specific. In these circumstances it corres ponds to the English blasphemy. The Greek 13•acr muta is employed in reference to the defamation of men or angels equally with the Deity; but it is proper to use the term blasphemy only when God is spoken against. Thus the Greek and English words are not coextensive in import.
Our English translators have not adhered to the right use of the term. They employ it with the same latitude as the Greek ; but it is generally easy to perceive, from the connection and subject of a passage, whether blasphemy properly so called be meant, or only defamation. It would certainly have been better to have employed detraction or calumny than blasphemy where man is the object ; reserving the latter for that peculiarly awful slander which is directed against the ever-blessed God.
Blasphemy signifies a false, irreverent, injurious use of God's names, attributes, words, and works. Whenever men intentionally and directly attack the perfections of Jehovah, and thus lessen the rever ence which others entertain for him, they are blas phemers. If the abusive language proceed from ignorance, or if it be dishonouring to the majesty of Heaven only in the consequences deduced from it by others, blasphemy has no existence. It is wiTfze/ calumny directed against the name or pro vidence of God that alone constitutes the crime denoted by the term.
Examples of the general acceptation of flXao Oncia in the N. T. are common, where the objects of it are men, angels, or the devil, as in Acts xiii. 45 ; xviii. 6 ; Jude 9. The restricted sense is found in such passages as Luke v. 21 ; John x. 36.
By the Mosaic law blasphemy was punished with death (Lev. xxiv. to-16) ; and the laws of some countries still visit it with the same punishment. Fines, imprisonment, and various corporal inflic tions are annexed to the crime by the laws of Great Britain. It is matter, however, of sincere satisfac tion, that there are very few instances in which these enactments require to be enforced.
Much has been said and written respecting the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, usually but im properly denominated the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Some refer it to continued oppo sition to the Gospel, i. e., obstinate impenitence or
final unbelief. In this view it is unpardonable, not because the blood of Christ is unable to cleanse from such a sin, nor because there is anything in its own nature which separates it from all other sins and places it beyond forgiveness, but because, as long as man continues to disbelieve, Ile voluntarily shuts himself out from the forgiving mercy of God. By not receiving the Gospel, he refuses pardon. In the same manner, every sin might be styled unpardonable, as long as an individual continues to indulge in it.
We object to this opinion, becauses it generalizes the nature of the sin in question. On the contrary, the Scripture account narrows it to a particular sin of a special kind, discountenancing the idea that it is of frequent occurrence and marked by no cir cumstances of unwonted aggravation. Besides, all the notices which we have refer it not so much to a state of mind, as to the outward manifestation of a singularly malignant disposition by the utterance of the lips.
The occasion on which Christ introduced his mention of it (Matt. xii. 31, etc. ; Mark iii. 28, etc.), the subsequent context, and, above all, the words of Mark iii. 30 (` because they said, He hath an unclean spirit ') indicate, with tolerable plain ness, that the sin in question consisted in attribut ing the miracles wrought by Christ, or his apostles in his name, to the agency of Satan. It was by the power of the Holy Ghost, given to the Re deemer without measure, that he cast out devils ; and whoever maligned the Saviour, by affirming that an unclean spirit actuated and enabled him to expel other spirits, maligned the Holy Ghost.
There is no connection between the description given in the Epistle to the Hebrews, vi. 4-6, and this unpardonable blasphemy. The passages in the Gospels which speak of the latter are not parallel with that in the Epistle to the Hebrews : there is a marked difference between the states of mind and their manifestations as described in both. The sins ought not to be identified : they are altogether dissimilar.
It is difficult to discover the sin unto death' noticed by the apostle John (I John v. 16), although it has been generally thought to coincide with the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit ; but the lan guage of John does not afford data for pronouncing them one and the same. The first three gospels alone describe the blasphemy which shall not be forgiven : from it the sin unto death' stands apart. (See Liicke's Commentar caber die Briefe des Evan gelisten 7ohannes, Zweyte Auflage, pp. 305-317 ; Campbell's Preliminary Dissertations to the Gospels, Dissertat. ix., part ii. ; Meyer's Konzmentar on Matt. xii. 31, and the writers there referred to.— S. D.