The different approaches to the problem of sin frequently attributed to it an ethical connotation which would have assigned its role and place even in the history of religions. These approaches supposed implicitly a closer or looser connection between religion and ethics. The present author's historico-philological investigation, after having compared some basic linguistic and historical data of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, came to the conclusion that the early forms of the sin perceptions had not yet belonged to the sphere of ethics, while those forms which developed in early modern times have not become part of ethics. Evil and sin were originally associated with religion, later on, however, the judgement of sins has been taken over by the secularised law.