BLASPHEMY (derived from βlαψ ll M, compounded of a verbal derivative of ∕3λασrω, laedo, and <pr l μ∣> dιeο) [7:4:675]means literally, injurious or evil speaking. By the writers of the middle ages, it is used to denote simply blaming or condemning any person or thing. But among the Greeks, to blaspheme was to use words of evil omen, or portending something ill, which the ancients were careful to avoid; substituting instead of them other words of softer and gentler import, sometimes the very reverse of the proper ones.

Blasphemy is more peculiarly restricted to evil or reproachful words spoken of the Deity. Hence Augustin says, Jam vulgo blasphernia non accipitur nisi mala verba de Deo dicere. According to Lindwood, blasphemy is an injury offered to God, by denying that which is due and belongs to him, or by attributing to him what is not agreeable to his nature. According to the Mosaic law, blasphemy was punished with death; and the same punishment was also awarded by the civil law. By the canon law, blasphemy was only visited by a solemn penance; and introduced the commutation of corporal punishment into a pecuniary fine. According to the English laws, blaspheming God, as denying his being or providence, and all contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, are offences at common law, and punishable by fine, imprisonment, and the pillory. And, by the statute law, he who denies one of the persons in the Trinity, or asserts that there are more than one God, or denies Christianity to be true, is for the first offence rendered incapable of any office, and for the second adjudged incapable of suing, being executor or guardian, receiving any gift or legacy, and ordered to be imprisoned for three years.

By the law of Scotland, as it originally stood, the punishment of blasphemy was death. The first species of blasphemy consists in railing at or cursing God; and here the single act constitutes the crime. The second consists in denying the existence of the Supreme Being, or any of the persons of the Trinity, and in obstinately persevering in this denial to the last. For reiterated denial does not fully constitute the crime, because the statute of Charles II. 1661 admits of repentance before conviction as a complete expiation. And this statute of 1661 is ratified by an act of King William, by which the calling in question the existence of God, or of any of the persons of the Trinity, or the authority of the Scripture, or the Divine Providence, is made penal; the punishment for the first offence being imprisonment till satisfaction be given by public repentance in sackcloth, and for the second a fine of a year’s valued rent of the real estate of the culprit, and the twentieth part of his personal estate; and the trial in both these cases being competent to inferior judges. The punishment of the third offence is death, and hence it can only be tried by the court of justiciary.

Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Divines are not agreed with respect to the nature of the crime thus denominated, and the grounds of the extreme guilt ascribed to it. Dr Tillotson maintains that it consists in maliciously attributing to the devil the miraculous operations which Christ performed by the power of the Holy Ghost. But Dr. Whitby refers it to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, which commenced after our Lord’s resurrection and ascension; and contends that those were guilty of the crime who persisted in their unbelief, and blasphemed the Holy Ghost, representing him as an evil spirit. The crime was unpardonable, because it implied a wilful opposition to the last and most powerful evidence which God had vouchsafed to mankind, and precluded the possibility of a return to faith and repentance.