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 offense is verbal, it is called blasphemy.

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

Most ancient religions have a concept analogous to sacrilege, often considered as a type of taboo. The basic idea is that sacred objects are not to be treated in the same way as other objects.

With the advent of Christianity as the official Roman religion, the Emperor Theodosius criminalized sacrilege in an even more expansive sense, including heresy and schism, and offenses against the emperor, including tax evasion.

By the Middle Ages, 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. (Link.)

Interesting that by the Middle-Ages, sacrilege was an act against a sacred object, suggesting another reading of Dante’s framing of Beatrice as a form of objectification of her being. Framing here more as a sacred thing, than a love interest. I may be out of my league here, but your post certainly has me thinking. Thanks.

Dr. K.

TK

Dr. K.