BLASPHEMY (Gk. /3Xao-GpiTh(a, b/osphetnia, `speech or word of evil omen'). As a criminal offense at common law, blasphemy consists in maliciously reviling God or the Christian relig ion. As a sin, it was punishable by the ecclesias tical courts of England; and even in the United States, where such courts are not a part of the machinery of government, it still may subject. the blasphemer to expulsion from a church or religious society.
Two reasons are assigned by the courts for treating blasphemy as a crime: (1) it tends to produce a breach of the peace by leading to violent altercations between the blasphemer and those who arc shocked and outraged by his lan guage. (2) Christianity is a part of the com mon law, and therefore blasphemy tends to subvert the law and to destroy the very founda tion of civil society. Because of its offensiveness to the majority of virtuous people. and because it is considered injurious to the tender morals of the young. it is often spoken of by judges as a public nuisance, and when it is written or printed, it is deemed a libel (q.v.).
Formerly, any attack upon Christianity or any argument against its fundamental doctrines, as those were understood by the Established amounted to the crime of blasphemy; but a different view now prevails both in England and in the United States. it is the manner rather than the matter of the publication that renders it blasphemous, Lord Chief •Justice Coleridge declared in 1883, in one of the few modern eases on this subject, that "if the deeencies of con troversy are observed, even the fundamentals of religion may be attacked without a person being (-nifty of blasphemous libel." Similar views had been expressed still earlier by Chaneellor Kent in New York and Chief Justice SlIfINV in Massachusetts. The latter had defined the crime
as "a willful and malicious attempt to lessen men's reverence of God," and the former had &tined it as consisting "in maliehmsly reviling God and religion." In line with these opinions is the following statement from a decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania: "No author or printer. who fairly and conscientiously pro mulgates opinions with whose truths he is im pressed, for the benefit of others, is answerable as a criminal. Audacious and mischievous in tention is, in such a case, the broad boundary between right and wrong; it is to lie collected from the offensive levity, scurrilous and oppro brious language, and other circumstances, whether the act was malicious." A sober, seri ous, and reverent statement of one's honest opin ions, however heretical, is not at present criminally blasphemous. Undoubtedly, the pro visions in the Federal and State Constitutions, guaranteeing religious freedom and securing the liberty of speech and the press, have helped to modify the judicial conception of this crime.
While blasphemy is still a crime in England and in most of the United States, prosecutions for the offense have become very rare. Though always punishable. it is seldom punished. In some of the United States it has ceased to be a crime. Such seems to be the case in New York.
See Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England (London, ISS3) ; also the Encyclopwdia of the Laws of England, Vol. IL, page 172 (Lon don) : Bishop. Neu; Commentaries on the Crimi nal Law (Chicago, 1892) and the York Penal Code, Chapter 676, Laws of 1882, § 2.