The fact of Clirist's nttitude of aloofness toward the Gentile m nrM I hninuliout His earthly ministry is quite evidiiii . In t\|iliiiiation of it various con- siderations lia\c- lo Iji- taken into account. (1) His vocation as • a minister of the circumcision ' (Ro 15") led Him to avoid as far as possible work among ■Samaritans and Gentiles. As the Messianic King, who came in fulfilment of OT prophecies, His apjjeal would naturally be, in the hrst instance, to ' His own' (Jn 1"). (2) The whole history of the .Jewish peoi^le having been a preparation for the Kingdom of God, He recognized in its members ' the cliildren of tlie kingdom ' (Mt 8'-). By virtue of possessing the oracles of God, Israel alone was fitted to appreciate the message of the Kingdom, Nvhich could not be presented to the world at large without a preparatory training, involving more or less delay. (3) To secure a favourable reception for His message it was necessary to avoid, as far as possible, arousing the prejudice and alienating the sympathy of His Jewish hearers, who would have resented any teaching or practice tending to place Gentile comnmnities on a level of privilege with themselves (Lk i"-^-"-^). (4) The shortness of His earthly ministry made it imperative that He should restrict the field to be evangelized, and not be diverted from His immediate purpose of estab- lishing the Kingdom among the chosen people by the claims of those outside, however urgent and undeniable. (5) Assuming that the Kingdom was destined ultimately to be universal, its triumph anioii;^ till' .Trws vc.uld evidently be the most -!i'rr.-fiil iii,-ilio,l of ^iTuriug its exteusion to oilhi ii:aion-, A^ a iiiattcr of fact, it was Jewish aillicii'Tils who aflciw.anls became the agents of >lireading it among the (ientiles.
Among the reasons why Gentiles were excluded from the scope of Christ's personal ministry, want of sympathy cannot be included. The evidence, instead of proving want of sympathy, is all the other way. He granted the request of the Roman ■ enturion who sought the healing of his servant, eulogizing at tlie same time his faith as something without a parallel even in Israel (Mt 8'"). The ajjparent coldness of His demeanour toward the Syrophoenician woman was due to the embarrass- ing nature of her petition, which required Him to violate the principle by which His conduct had been governed hitherto. He was anxious to help, if He could do so without sacrificing the interests of those who had the first claim upon His services. The terra ' dogs ' has been objected to on the ground that it is insulting. The woman herself did not view it in this light, and her quick wit turned it into an argument in her own favour.
EXCOMMUNICATION
EXCOMMUNICATION
The term (/cwdpia), Tiioreovcr, does not denote the ownerless doys whieli :iit as sc-iviMipfisin the East, but the householil i>r(s wliirli si-i vi' iis Uie children's playmates. The s<iu|.li..s win. h lr,l Christ to with- hold for a moment the help suu,t;ht, were in the end overcome by the woman's faith, which won His cordial approval.
There is no trace of racial or religious bias in Christ's references to the heathen. Any repug- nance implied in His language is toward what is evil in their system or in their conduct. It is their method of prayer with which He has no sympathy, and which He stigmatizes as unworthy of imitation. Their lives were often such as to make close association with them unadvisable, and the im- penitent offender is regarded as on a par with them in this respect. Clirist's attitude toward piiblicans, wlio are bracketed with heathen, was anything but unsympathetic ; and if He felt toward lieathen in the same way, they were objects not of dislike, but of the deepest compassion. See also artt. Gentiles, Mission.?. W. S. Montgomery.
EXCOMMUNICATION denotes the exclusion, either temporary or permanent, and specifically on moral or religious grounds, of a member of a religious body from the privileges which member- ship in that body ordinarily carries with it. Tlie word does not occur in EV, but we have in the Gospels several references to the practice as it existed among the Jews in the time of Christ, while certain words of Christ Himself supjily the germs of the usage of the Christian Cliurch as it meets us in the Ai)ostolie age and was subse- quently developed in the ecclesiastical discipline of later times.
i. Jewish excommunication. — Passing over the segregation of lepers, though this generally implied exclusion from the synagogue (MtS-ilILk IV"),* and coming to excommunication of the more specific kind, we find that it is certainly referred to four times in the Gospels, viz. Lk 6-^ (' blessed are ye . . . when they shall separate you from their company '—d0o/)i<ruo-i>' v/ia^), Jn 9-^ ('for tlie Jews had agreed already that if any man should confess hira to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue ' — d7roffwd7w705 -yev-qTai), Jn 12"'^ ('they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue' — iVa ixr) a-n-oawdyu-yoi. 'yivuvTo.i), Jn 16- ('they sh.all put you out of the synagogues' — airoawayur^ov; Tron'iaovcni^ i>/j.a.s). It is not unlikely, however, tliat a fifth reference should be found in the ^i^l3a\ov avrdv ^iw of .Jn 931. 35 (gQ AVm and many (•omiiientators). Mej'er and Westcott {Gospel of ,Sf. John) object to this that no sitting of the Sanhedrin had taken place, and that the persons who cross-questione<l the for- merly blind man were not competent to pronounce the sentence of excommunication. It is true, no doubt, that excommunication properly denotes a formal sentence passed by the officials of the con- gregation (Schiirer, HJP 11. ii. 60), — though in Talmudic times a minor fonii of excomnmnication by an individual, and especially by a raltbi, was also recognized { Jewish Kiir,/,-. Vol. v. p. 286 f.),— but as it was 'the Jews,' i'l'.. in the language of the Fourth Gospel the Jewish authorities, who expelled the man, it seems quite possible that the examination described in Jn 9 was of a formal nature. This is confirmed by the exjiressions, ' they bring to the Pliarisees him that aforetime was blind' (v."), 'they called the parents' (v.'«), 'they called a second time the man that was blind'