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Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie
A legal historian reviews the history of blasphemy, from Moses to Rushdie, showing what forms of speech societies have found intolerable, tracing the changing meanings of blasphemy, and discussing the costs and benefits of free speech.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published August 17, 1993
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122 people want to read
About the author
Leonard W. Levy
56 books7 followersLeonard Williams Levy was the Andrew W. Mellon All-Claremont Professor of Humanities and Chairman of the Graduate Faculty of History at Claremont Graduate School, California. He was educated at Columbia University, where his mentor for the Ph.D. degree was Henry Steele Commager.
Levy's most honored book was his 1968 study Origins of the Fifth Amendment, focusing on the history of the privilege against self-incrimination. This book was awarded the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for History. He wrote almost forty other books.
In 1990, Levy was appointed a Distinguished Scholar in Residence; Adjunct Professor of History and Political Science at Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon.
Levy's most honored book was his 1968 study Origins of the Fifth Amendment, focusing on the history of the privilege against self-incrimination. This book was awarded the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for History. He wrote almost forty other books.
In 1990, Levy was appointed a Distinguished Scholar in Residence; Adjunct Professor of History and Political Science at Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 19, 2009
This is a substantial and extremely interesting history of the way people have defined and punished imprecations. Now of course it's important to remember that blasphemy is a victimless crime, yet one that has been most severely dealt with in the past.
Simultaneously it's a history of freedom of expression and how the liberty to speak without fear of reprisal has grown in scope. The definition of what is blasphemous has changed often revealing what society will and will not tolerate, the limits society feels it must enforce in order to preserve its unity.
The irony is that historically most blasphemers have not been irreverent ridiculers of religion. Atheists and anti-religionists were not the victim of blasphemy laws until the nineteenth century. It has always been fervent religious believers, devout Christians who suffered the figurative and physical arrows of legal oppression. It is those who refuse to accept the standard religious interpretation of the majority faith that religious zealots wish to oppress. Christianity took a very narrowly defined Jewish definition of blasphemy and broadened it until the distinction between heresy and blasphemy disappeared. The early Protestants considered Roman Catholics to be blasphemers; heresy, with its more sever penalties they reserved for dissidents within their own ranks. So it's important to remember that when the Supreme Court rules in favor of artists who presume to use the crucifix in a different or unappealing way, that they are protecting the essence of religious expression and freedom.
This is not to suggest that blasphemous remarks are not painfully offensive to the religious, and that has been the traditional reason for blasphemy laws. “But offensiveness is an insufficient basis for sustaining blasphemy laws. It has no basis for special protection. As the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving racial epithets, “a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it produces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”
Strictly speaking, blasphemy means speaking ill of the sacred. It is not unique to monotheistic religions, but, of course, requires some concept of sacred. Every religious society wishes to punish those who denigrate their concept of what is sacred because it affronts the priestly class, which is usually in a position of power. Ironically, I suppose, a basic underlying assumption is a fear that the God(s) will reveal themselves to be impotent when the offenders are not struck down. Natural disasters (you know, like global warming) are often ascribed to vengeful Gods who wish to punish societies that do not engage in an adequate level of obsequiousness and servility. If blasphemers are not punished, orthodox truths can be called into question perhaps the best reason for NOT punishing them.
Heresy became formalized in the fourth century — see When Jesus Became God, reviewed in Issue 90 for a full discussion of the issues related to defining the Trinity and the Arian heresy.
. Without orthodoxy, heresy cannot exist. The merger of church and state begun under Constantine meant that the power of the secular could now be used by the church to enforce orthodox views. Books could be burned, heretics banished, and non-believers — more accurately, wrong-believers — anathematized. By 435 there were sixty-six laws (on their way to becoming six-hundred-sixty-six, no doubt) aimed at church heretics. Der so genannte Saint Augustine, began a campaign against the Donatists arguing that it was “a good work to correct evil men by evil”. Toleration of toleration was evil and no mercy to the heretic because it intensified his damnation. “It has been a blessing to many to be driven first by fear of bodily pain, in order afterwards to be instructed,” he wrote, laying the groundwork for the Inquisition. The Corpus Juris Civilis of 529 in the east condemned heretics and blasphemers to death.
Blasphemy became quite catholic in its application under Luther. He was reluctant to declare any group who believed differently than he to be heretical because the the Catholic Church had denounced him as a heretic, but as he aged and became more dogmatic and less tolerant, his attacks on Jews, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and others became vicious, even declaring they should be executed as blasphemers. Any denial of Christian faith as he understood it was to be considered blasphemous. Soon he was applying the term so promiscuously as to make it virtually meaningless.
The concept of the Trinity continued to be a stumbling block for many. Arianism resurfaced and Michael Servetus (1511-53) became its first martyr in Calvin’s Geneva. He had attempted to systematize the anti-Trinitarian position, declaiming “not one word is found in the whole Bible about the Trinity, nor about its Persons, nor about an Essence, nor about a unity of the Substance, nor about one Nature of the several beings.” Servetus tried to reeducate the theologians of the Reformation. Forced into hiding he assumed a new identity as a Catholic even while working on a new book that would “restore” the innocence and simplicity of the Bible. Temporal power and an erroneous Nicean Creed, he argued, had corrupted the Church. He wanted to rediscover the true Christianity. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of trusting John Calvin, writing him about some of his ideas. Calvin betrayed him to the Inquisition. He escaped, was caught by some Clavinists, was tried and burned at the stake with a copy of his book.
Finally, someone had enough of the bloodletting. Sebastian Castellio of Basel published a book supporting religious liberty. He used three different pseudonyms, necessary because just the idea of toleration could bring the charge of heresy or blasphemy. He stated that heresy had become misdefined as any position with which one disagreed. He argued that only conduct should be punished, never belief, a position that was redefined by Thomas Jefferson two centuries later.
Wycliffe and the Lollards in England resurrected the conflict between secular and religious authority. The inquisition against Wycliffe’s Protestant-like beliefs led to the death of many of his adherents. The church, fearing to hang out there all on its own, persisted in seeking the legal approval for these burnings from the state. Indeed, Henry IV's ascension to the throne would have been impossible without the help of the archbishop. He agreed to help persecute the Lollards. In 1401, William Sawtre, a parish priest -- he had denied transubstantiation -- was grilled, partly to display to Parliament that Henry and the church could do what they wanted in this regard without its permission. Parliament lost no time in approving their actions, and passed the De Heretico Comburendo. This act failed to define heresy giving the church a blank check to inflict its definition anyway it wanted. Henry VIII severed ties with Rome in 1534, but the new closer link between church and state did not result in lesser punishments for heresy. Now treason against the state could also be defined as heresy resulting in being burned at the state rather than just beheaded. Mary’s ascension in 1553 restored Catholicism and its insistence on orthodoxy resulted in an orgy of burning. Between 1555 and 1558, 273 people were killed for holding beliefs that contradicted those of the Catholic Church.
Elizabeth’s reign was much milder. She really cared little for the religious peccadilloes of her subjects, and tolerated a great deal of religious diversity as long as it did not threaten her reign, but in 1648 Parliament passed “An Ordinance for the Punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies” that attempted to restrict Socinian (a form of Arianism that insisted reason must be one avenue to understanding the Scriptures) adherents, most notably John Biddle and Paul Best. The Ordinance specified quite precisely what must be believed in order not to be considered heretical. The Baptists, perhaps somewhat ironically, were the chief opponents to the Ordinance. Taking a remarkably liberal stance, they believed that erroneous opinions were inevitable, that God permitted them, but that Truth would prevail over time. They claimed that “persecutors always saw truth as blasphemous, thus justifying their coercion of conscience. Christ had not planted his church by force. To exact an unwilling and hollow conformity was the real blasphemy. Any limitations on religious belief or any punishment for it destroyed the foundations of liberty, opening the way for further persecution.” I could not have said it better myself. They foresightedly also realized they were next in line after the Socinians. As are we all.
Simultaneously it's a history of freedom of expression and how the liberty to speak without fear of reprisal has grown in scope. The definition of what is blasphemous has changed often revealing what society will and will not tolerate, the limits society feels it must enforce in order to preserve its unity.
The irony is that historically most blasphemers have not been irreverent ridiculers of religion. Atheists and anti-religionists were not the victim of blasphemy laws until the nineteenth century. It has always been fervent religious believers, devout Christians who suffered the figurative and physical arrows of legal oppression. It is those who refuse to accept the standard religious interpretation of the majority faith that religious zealots wish to oppress. Christianity took a very narrowly defined Jewish definition of blasphemy and broadened it until the distinction between heresy and blasphemy disappeared. The early Protestants considered Roman Catholics to be blasphemers; heresy, with its more sever penalties they reserved for dissidents within their own ranks. So it's important to remember that when the Supreme Court rules in favor of artists who presume to use the crucifix in a different or unappealing way, that they are protecting the essence of religious expression and freedom.
This is not to suggest that blasphemous remarks are not painfully offensive to the religious, and that has been the traditional reason for blasphemy laws. “But offensiveness is an insufficient basis for sustaining blasphemy laws. It has no basis for special protection. As the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving racial epithets, “a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it produces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”
Strictly speaking, blasphemy means speaking ill of the sacred. It is not unique to monotheistic religions, but, of course, requires some concept of sacred. Every religious society wishes to punish those who denigrate their concept of what is sacred because it affronts the priestly class, which is usually in a position of power. Ironically, I suppose, a basic underlying assumption is a fear that the God(s) will reveal themselves to be impotent when the offenders are not struck down. Natural disasters (you know, like global warming) are often ascribed to vengeful Gods who wish to punish societies that do not engage in an adequate level of obsequiousness and servility. If blasphemers are not punished, orthodox truths can be called into question perhaps the best reason for NOT punishing them.
Heresy became formalized in the fourth century — see When Jesus Became God, reviewed in Issue 90 for a full discussion of the issues related to defining the Trinity and the Arian heresy.
. Without orthodoxy, heresy cannot exist. The merger of church and state begun under Constantine meant that the power of the secular could now be used by the church to enforce orthodox views. Books could be burned, heretics banished, and non-believers — more accurately, wrong-believers — anathematized. By 435 there were sixty-six laws (on their way to becoming six-hundred-sixty-six, no doubt) aimed at church heretics. Der so genannte Saint Augustine, began a campaign against the Donatists arguing that it was “a good work to correct evil men by evil”. Toleration of toleration was evil and no mercy to the heretic because it intensified his damnation. “It has been a blessing to many to be driven first by fear of bodily pain, in order afterwards to be instructed,” he wrote, laying the groundwork for the Inquisition. The Corpus Juris Civilis of 529 in the east condemned heretics and blasphemers to death.
Blasphemy became quite catholic in its application under Luther. He was reluctant to declare any group who believed differently than he to be heretical because the the Catholic Church had denounced him as a heretic, but as he aged and became more dogmatic and less tolerant, his attacks on Jews, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and others became vicious, even declaring they should be executed as blasphemers. Any denial of Christian faith as he understood it was to be considered blasphemous. Soon he was applying the term so promiscuously as to make it virtually meaningless.
The concept of the Trinity continued to be a stumbling block for many. Arianism resurfaced and Michael Servetus (1511-53) became its first martyr in Calvin’s Geneva. He had attempted to systematize the anti-Trinitarian position, declaiming “not one word is found in the whole Bible about the Trinity, nor about its Persons, nor about an Essence, nor about a unity of the Substance, nor about one Nature of the several beings.” Servetus tried to reeducate the theologians of the Reformation. Forced into hiding he assumed a new identity as a Catholic even while working on a new book that would “restore” the innocence and simplicity of the Bible. Temporal power and an erroneous Nicean Creed, he argued, had corrupted the Church. He wanted to rediscover the true Christianity. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of trusting John Calvin, writing him about some of his ideas. Calvin betrayed him to the Inquisition. He escaped, was caught by some Clavinists, was tried and burned at the stake with a copy of his book.
Finally, someone had enough of the bloodletting. Sebastian Castellio of Basel published a book supporting religious liberty. He used three different pseudonyms, necessary because just the idea of toleration could bring the charge of heresy or blasphemy. He stated that heresy had become misdefined as any position with which one disagreed. He argued that only conduct should be punished, never belief, a position that was redefined by Thomas Jefferson two centuries later.
Wycliffe and the Lollards in England resurrected the conflict between secular and religious authority. The inquisition against Wycliffe’s Protestant-like beliefs led to the death of many of his adherents. The church, fearing to hang out there all on its own, persisted in seeking the legal approval for these burnings from the state. Indeed, Henry IV's ascension to the throne would have been impossible without the help of the archbishop. He agreed to help persecute the Lollards. In 1401, William Sawtre, a parish priest -- he had denied transubstantiation -- was grilled, partly to display to Parliament that Henry and the church could do what they wanted in this regard without its permission. Parliament lost no time in approving their actions, and passed the De Heretico Comburendo. This act failed to define heresy giving the church a blank check to inflict its definition anyway it wanted. Henry VIII severed ties with Rome in 1534, but the new closer link between church and state did not result in lesser punishments for heresy. Now treason against the state could also be defined as heresy resulting in being burned at the state rather than just beheaded. Mary’s ascension in 1553 restored Catholicism and its insistence on orthodoxy resulted in an orgy of burning. Between 1555 and 1558, 273 people were killed for holding beliefs that contradicted those of the Catholic Church.
Elizabeth’s reign was much milder. She really cared little for the religious peccadilloes of her subjects, and tolerated a great deal of religious diversity as long as it did not threaten her reign, but in 1648 Parliament passed “An Ordinance for the Punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies” that attempted to restrict Socinian (a form of Arianism that insisted reason must be one avenue to understanding the Scriptures) adherents, most notably John Biddle and Paul Best. The Ordinance specified quite precisely what must be believed in order not to be considered heretical. The Baptists, perhaps somewhat ironically, were the chief opponents to the Ordinance. Taking a remarkably liberal stance, they believed that erroneous opinions were inevitable, that God permitted them, but that Truth would prevail over time. They claimed that “persecutors always saw truth as blasphemous, thus justifying their coercion of conscience. Christ had not planted his church by force. To exact an unwilling and hollow conformity was the real blasphemy. Any limitations on religious belief or any punishment for it destroyed the foundations of liberty, opening the way for further persecution.” I could not have said it better myself. They foresightedly also realized they were next in line after the Socinians. As are we all.
July 4, 2023
This book gives a very interesting and thought-provoking exploration of free speech through the centuries as it has evolved specifically in the framework of blasphemy. It is in some ways a very valuable exploration. But it is also very long and fairly dense, and quite a few of the thoroughly-presented cases are very similar; similar enough that fewer exemplars are needed.
August 28, 2022
Good book.
Twenty-eight chapters, 700+ pages, 268,000 words, 1,357 footnotes.
Knowing so little history, especially on the English Revolution, I found this book informative at every turn. My complaint, after having spent the last year reading it, is that I didn't finish it with a firm grasp of Levy's thinking. He recounts so many events & facts and interjects so much commentary that I too often lost the thread of his thinking, that is, if his thinking is consistent throughout.
Levy earlier, shorter books on this subject might have suited me better. They're available here:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=...
I can hardly remember Blasphemy's first chapters, but my notes say that I should reread chapters 1-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, esp. 15, 16, 20, 22, 26-28 — that's about 2/3 of the book.
I learned of this book from David Bromwich's thrilling essay "What Are We Allowed To Say" (London Review of Books, Sept. 22, 2016), available here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n18/david-br...
Frank Kermode wrote a very interesting, helpful review of this book ("The Art of Persecution") for the New Republic, Nov. 8, 1993, pp. 38-40.
J. P. Diggins wrote a short, unilluminative review for the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/12/bo...
I'll have more to say after I reread & more slowly digest his story.
Twenty-eight chapters, 700+ pages, 268,000 words, 1,357 footnotes.
Knowing so little history, especially on the English Revolution, I found this book informative at every turn. My complaint, after having spent the last year reading it, is that I didn't finish it with a firm grasp of Levy's thinking. He recounts so many events & facts and interjects so much commentary that I too often lost the thread of his thinking, that is, if his thinking is consistent throughout.
Levy earlier, shorter books on this subject might have suited me better. They're available here:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=...
I can hardly remember Blasphemy's first chapters, but my notes say that I should reread chapters 1-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, esp. 15, 16, 20, 22, 26-28 — that's about 2/3 of the book.
I learned of this book from David Bromwich's thrilling essay "What Are We Allowed To Say" (London Review of Books, Sept. 22, 2016), available here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n18/david-br...
Frank Kermode wrote a very interesting, helpful review of this book ("The Art of Persecution") for the New Republic, Nov. 8, 1993, pp. 38-40.
J. P. Diggins wrote a short, unilluminative review for the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/12/bo...
I'll have more to say after I reread & more slowly digest his story.
February 22, 2016
Leonard Levy, in the dispassionate tone of a legal scholar, recounts centuries of horrors committed in the name of protecting the God of Love.
As we watch the news from the Middle East, shocked by the murders of people because they don't belong to the right sect of Islam, largely forgotten is that similar things occurred in the Christian West not so long ago. In the legal history of England, countless people were, imprisoned, mutilated, or put to death for not holding the "right" belief about the concept of the Trinity. The Trinity got a lot of people in trouble.
Levy parses the word "blasphemy" and finds that its definition is slippery. In some cases just saying " I am an atheist" could get you legally killed because you blasphemed by denying God. According to Levy, the actual definition is to insult God by name. This narrow definition did not allow for enough persecution, so it was broadened as needed. When Catholics were in power, the definition was that anyone who criticized the Church blasphemed. When Protestants were in power it got a little trickier. If you were a Catholic or not the right kind of Protestant, you could be charged with blasphemy. Devout, God loving people who sought to better understand man's relationship with God, put their freedom and even their lives at peril if their discussions drifted out of the orthodox belief system of those in power.
As the freedoms in the USA and Britain expanded, blasphemy laws remained on the books and sometimes enforced. The excuse was that certain speech or writings could so hurt the feelings of the good Christians, that it could lead to "breeches of the peace" (violence). So the rationale for punishing blasphemers was that Christians might be so upset by their words that something bad might happen. In a sense, you don't punish the people who do violence, you punish the people whose words might cause good Christians to break bad.... you punish even if no breech of the peace occurs.
The acceptance of the idea that religious folks are not to blame for the pain and horrors they commit if someone upsets them about their religion, is still alive today. Think of the French cartoonists murdered because they poked fun at some concepts of Islam. I heard Christians in the West hemming and hawing about how the victims were to blame for being insensitive to how strongly some people feel about their religion. In reality, killing in the name of religion makes as much sense as Star Wars fans feeling the right to kill Star Trek fans for disputing their vision of the future.
Read this book, though written over 20 years ago, it is even more powerful today.
As we watch the news from the Middle East, shocked by the murders of people because they don't belong to the right sect of Islam, largely forgotten is that similar things occurred in the Christian West not so long ago. In the legal history of England, countless people were, imprisoned, mutilated, or put to death for not holding the "right" belief about the concept of the Trinity. The Trinity got a lot of people in trouble.
Levy parses the word "blasphemy" and finds that its definition is slippery. In some cases just saying " I am an atheist" could get you legally killed because you blasphemed by denying God. According to Levy, the actual definition is to insult God by name. This narrow definition did not allow for enough persecution, so it was broadened as needed. When Catholics were in power, the definition was that anyone who criticized the Church blasphemed. When Protestants were in power it got a little trickier. If you were a Catholic or not the right kind of Protestant, you could be charged with blasphemy. Devout, God loving people who sought to better understand man's relationship with God, put their freedom and even their lives at peril if their discussions drifted out of the orthodox belief system of those in power.
As the freedoms in the USA and Britain expanded, blasphemy laws remained on the books and sometimes enforced. The excuse was that certain speech or writings could so hurt the feelings of the good Christians, that it could lead to "breeches of the peace" (violence). So the rationale for punishing blasphemers was that Christians might be so upset by their words that something bad might happen. In a sense, you don't punish the people who do violence, you punish the people whose words might cause good Christians to break bad.... you punish even if no breech of the peace occurs.
The acceptance of the idea that religious folks are not to blame for the pain and horrors they commit if someone upsets them about their religion, is still alive today. Think of the French cartoonists murdered because they poked fun at some concepts of Islam. I heard Christians in the West hemming and hawing about how the victims were to blame for being insensitive to how strongly some people feel about their religion. In reality, killing in the name of religion makes as much sense as Star Wars fans feeling the right to kill Star Trek fans for disputing their vision of the future.
Read this book, though written over 20 years ago, it is even more powerful today.
Read
November 18, 2009barely started
March 10, 2012
i would give it 10 stars!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews