Satan unto God. Converseh', to be cast out of the Church would be to be removed from light to dark- ness, to be withdrawn from God's government, and de- livered into the power of Satan (so Balsamon and Zo- naras, in Basil. Can. 7 ; Estius, in 1 Cor. v ; Bever- idge, in Can. Apost. x). If, however, the expression means more than excommunication, it would imply the additional exercise of a special apostolical power, similar to that exerted on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts V, 1), Simon Magus (viii, 20), and El^-mas (xiii, 10). (So Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, Hammond, Gro- tius, Lightfoot.)
3. Apostolic Precept. — In addition to the claim to exercise discipline, and its actual exercise in the form of excommunication by the apostles, we find apostolic precepts directing that discipline should be exercised by the rulers of the Church, and that in some cases excommunication should be resorted to : " If any man obey not our word bj' this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother, ' ' writes Paul to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. iii, 14). To the Romans: "Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have heard, and avoid them" (Rom. xvi, 17). To the Galatians : " I would thej' were even cut off that trouble you" (Gal. v, 12). ToTimothj': "If any man teach otherwise, . . . from such withdraw tliyself" (1 Tim. vi, 3). To Titus he uses a still stronger ex- pression : "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject" (Tit. iii, 10). John in- structs the lady to whom he addresses his second epis- tle not to receive into her house, nor bid God speed to an}' who did not believe in Christ (2 John 10); and we read that in the case of Cerinthus he acted himself on the precept that he had given (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii, 28). In his third epistle he describes Diotrci)hes, apparently a Judaizing presbyter, " who loved to have the pre-eminence," as "casting out of the Church," i. e. refusing Church communion to the stranger breth- ren who were travelling about preaching to the Gen- tiles (3 John 10). In the addresses to the Seven Churches the angels or rulers of the church of Perga- nios and of Thyatira are rebuked for "suflering" the Nicolaitans and Balaamites "to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols" (Rev. ii, 20). There are two passages still more important to our subject. In the epistle to the Galatians, Paul denounces, " Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed \_avadina toroj]. As I said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gos- pel unto jou than that ye have received, let him be accursed" {avaOtpa tcrroj, Gal. i, 8, 9). And in the second epistle to the Corinthians: " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Ma- ran-atha" (1 Cor. xvi, 22). It has been supposed that these two expressions, "let him be Anathema," "let him be Anathema Maran-atha," refer respectively to the two later stages of Jewish excommunication — the ckerem and the shammdihd. This requires considera- tion .
The words ai-aQt^ia and ava9)]na have evidently the same derivation, and originally they bore the same meaning. They express a person or thing set apart, laid up, or devoted. But whereas a thing may be set apart by way of honor or for destruction, the words, like the Latin " sacer" and the English "devoted," came to have opposite senses — rl> c'lTDiWoTiiKoitivov BfoTi, and ro cKJHoptaph'ovOtifj. The Sept. and sever- al ecclesiastical writers use the two words almost in- discriminately, but in general the form avaQi]pa is ap- plied to the votive offering (see 2 Mace, ix, 16; Luke xxi, 5 ; and Chrysost. Horn, xvi in Ep. ad Rom.'), and the form araOipa to that which is devoted to evil (see Deut. vii, 20; Josh, vi, 17; vii, 13). Thus Paul de.
EXCO]\BnJNICATION"
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EXCOMMUNICATION
dares that he could wish himself an ('(vu9fi.ta from Christ if he couhl therebj' save the Jews (Rom. ix, 3). His meaning is that lie would be willing to be set apart as a vile thing, to be cast aside and destroj^ed, if only it could bring about the salvation of his brethren. Hence we see the force of avaOe/ia taroj in Gal. i, 8. "Have nothing to do with him," would be the apos- tle's injunction, " but let him be set apart as an evil thing, for God to deal with him as he thinks fit." Hammond (in loc.) paraphrases it as follows: "You are to disclaim and renounce all communion with him, to look on him as on an excommunicated person, un- der the second degree of excommunication, that none is to have any commerce with in sacred things." Hence it is that ch'dOti.ia iutu) came to be the common expression employed by councils at the termination of each canon which they enacted, meaning that who- ever was disobedient to the canon was to be separated from the communion of the Church and its privileges, and from the favor of God, until he repented (see Bing- ham, Ant. xvi, 2, IG). See Anathema.