Editing Blasphemy (section)

===Middle Ages===
[[Heresy]] received more attention than blasphemy throughout the [[Middle Ages]] because it was considered a more serious threat to [[Orthodoxy]],<ref>cf. Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologiae''. ST II-II q10a3, q11a3, q12. Q11A3: "With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."</ref> while blasphemy was mostly seen as irreverent remarks made by persons who may have been drunk or diverged from good standards of conduct in isolated incidents of misbehavior. When the fundamental understanding of the [[sacred]] became more contentious during the [[Reformation]], blasphemy started to be regarded as similar to heresy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nash |first1=David |title=Blasphemy in the Christian World |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=4}}</ref>

The intellectual culture of the early English Enlightenment embraced ironic or scoffing tones in contradistinction to the idea of sacredness in revealed religion. The characterization of "scoffing" as blasphemy was defined as [[profanity|profaning]] the Scripture by irreverent "Buffoonery and Banter". From at least the 18th century on, the clergy of the [[Church of England]] justified blasphemy prosecutions by distinguishing "sober reasoning" from mockery and scoffing. Religious doctrine could be discussed "in a calm, decent and serious way" (in the words of [[Edmund Gibson|Bishop Gibson]]) but mockery and scoffing, they said, were appeals to sentiment, not to reason.<ref name=Frances/>