committed by the affected zealots with impunity. At length, in the closing scenes of Jerusalem, such were the multitude and the magnitude of the sacrileges that Josephus says if the Romans had not taken the city of Jerusalem he would have expected it to have been swallowed up like Sodom, or have had some other dreailful judgment. The jealousy of the Almighty re- specting things dedicated to him, and his punishment of the profanation of them, are alluded to by Paul (1 Cor. iii, 17) : "If any man defile the tomi)le of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." We read but little else in the N. T. pertaining to sacrilege except Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians for their profane conduct at the cel- ebration of the Lord's supper (1 Cor. xi, 29). In that early period of the Christian Church, it had not been able as yet regularly to establish sacred places and things ; but as soon as circumstances permitted, we shall find in the Church history of every nation a due re- spect for consecrated things, and laws for their preser- vation. Even the heathens, particularly the Greeks and Romans, were not without their rules concerning sacrilege, the penalty of which was usually death. Thus it was held sacrilege for the polluted to pass beyond the porch of the temple, to spit or wipe the nose in a temple, to cut down consecrated trees, to build upon or till any spot of ground where a thunderbolt had fallen, to sutt'er a man to witness the ceremonies of the Bona Dea, or Good Goddess, or to suffer a woman to enter the temple of Diana in the Vicus Patri- cius in Rome, to suffer a birth or death to occur in the holy isle of Delos, to steal anything belonging to a temple, to ap- proach a sacrifice without being sprin- kled by the priest with the lustral wa- ter, to consecrate a blemished man to the priesthood (compare with the Jew- ish law. Lev. xxi, 21), and many other instances which will occur to the classi- cal reader.
SACRILEGE, Christian View of. The ancient Church distinguished sev- eral sorts of sacrilege : 1st, the diverting things appropriated to sacred purposes to other uses; to break or burn the fur- niture of the Church, or deliver it to be broken or burned; 2d, robbing the graves or defacing and spoiling the monuments of tlie dead ; 3d, those were considered as sacrilegious persons who delivered up their Bibles and the sacred utensils of the Church to the pagans in the time of the Diocletian persecution; 4th, profaning the sacraments, churches, altars, etc. ; 5th, molesting or hindering a cler- gyman in the performance of his office; 6th, depriving men of the use of tlie Scriptures or the sacraments, par- ticularly the cup in the eucharist, the last being con- demned by Gelasius and pope Leo, and yet not recog- nised as sacrilege by the Romish casuists. See Sacri- LEGIUM. In England sacrilege is not now a legal, but a popular term, used to denote the breaking into a place of worsliip and stealing therefrom. The legal offence comes generally under tlie head of burglary or house- breaking. A less punishment applies to the offence when committed in dissenting chapels. In Scotland there is no increase of severity in the punishment by reason of the sacred character of the things stolen.
Saciilegium, in Roman Catholic theology, is a term denoting contempt of God or of divine and lioly things when expressed in act, the utterance of such feeling in speech l)eing characterized by the word hhis- phemy (q. v.) This crime may be committed either dh-edly against the holiest objects by unwortliy j^arlak- ing of the consecrated bread and wine or otherwise des- ecrating their character {sacrikfivnn immediatiim'); or indirectly against consecrated persons, tilings, or jijaces (sacrilef/ium medintum^. 'J'he latter form is conseipient- ly either personale, incurred througli violation of the
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pnrileffium canonis, or assault on the persons of individ- uals belonging to the clerical and monastic orders [see I'lUvii-Kcii'M Canonis], with intent to do bodily harm, or through violations of the law of chastity by persons of rank in such orders {sacrilfyium canuile); or it is gacriletjium retde, consisting in the employment of sa- cred eililices and their decorations, vessels, utensils, etc., for comnidii or even wicked purposes; tlie purloining of things wliich have been set apart for the use of a church by consecration or benediction (q. v.), or which have been placed in a church for protection and safe-keeping; the alienating from or denying to the Church of legal and customary revenues; the vohnitary transfer of ob- jects used in the worship and otlier services of the Church to the enemies of Clirisliaiiily, ])articularly in times of ])ersecution, etc.; and the receiving of any ''sacrament of the living" ((]. v.) wliile in a state of mortal sin, and without having previously been ab- solvetl : or, lastly, the sacrilei/iuin is locale, and may be committed by consciously violating an ecclesiastical asylum [see Asyli'm], by breaking a local interdict (q. V.) witli armed force, by desecrating lioly places with murder, the guilty s[)illing of human blood or hu- man sperm, the interment of unbelievers and excom- municated persons in churches and burial-grounds be- longing to the Church, etc.