Non diis curae: The Rhetoric and Practices of Natural Punishment for Sacrilege

Abstract

The article analyzes situations in which punishment for sacrilege is carried out by natural actors without the intervention of the supernatural ones. Such actors include the state represented by lawmakers and law enforcers, religious specialists, as well as religious activists and ordinary believers. The configurations of agency of the three types of actors described in the article, which have their own specifics and tools for natural (as opposed to supernatural) retaliation for sacrilege, cause violent or non- violent resolution of conflicts in which representatives of either type see blasphemy and sacrilege. The article also analyzes the boundaries of actor agency related, on the one hand, to perceptions of the right to the sanctuary and, consequently, to anger over its desecration, and, on the other hand, to the real possibility to carry out this punishment. In the case of the latter, the notion of conditional agency of the “accused” by “prosecutors” is also discussed, and the ways and reasons for its reduction are considered.