Si pro delicto anathema quis efficiatuv, Os, orare, vale, commiinio, luensa negatiir.
See Anathema ; Bell, Book, axd Candle.
"In the Roman Catholic Church the power of" ex- communicating is held to reside, not in the congre- gation, but in the bishop ; and this is believed to be in exact accordance with the remarkable proceeding commemorated in the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. v, 3, 5), and with all the earliest recorded examples of its exercise. Like all the pow- ers of the episcopate, it is held to belong, in an especial and eminent degree, to the Roman bishop, as primate of the Church ; but it is by no means believed to be- long to him exclusively, nor has such exclusive right ever been claimed bj^ the bishops of Rome. On the contrary, bishops within their sees, archbishops while exercising visitatorial jurisdiction, heads of religious orders within their own communities, all possess the power to issue excommunication, not only by the anr cient law of the Church, but also by the most modem discipline" (Chambers, s. v.). But Aquinas held that excommunication, as not belonging to the keys of or- der, not to those of jurisdiction, and as net referring to ' grace directly, but only accidentally, might be exer- 1 cised by ])crsons not in holj- orders, but yet having { jurisdiction in ecclesiastical courts (Summa, Suppl. iii, qu. 22). See Marshall, Penitential BiscipHne, Oxf. 1844, p. 139. The Council of Trent declares (sess. XXV, ch. iii, de Beform-.') that, "Although the sword of excommunication is the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people in their duty, j'et it is to be used with sobriety and great circumspection ; seeing that experience teaches that if it be rashly or for slight causes wielded, it is more despised than feared, and produces destruction rather
than safety It shall be a crime for any secular
magistrate to prohibit an ecclesiastical judge from ex- communicating any one, or to command tliat he re- voke an excomnninication issued, under pretext that the thmgs contained in the jjresent decree have not
EXCO]\mUNICATION
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EXCOMMUNICATION
been observed ; whereas the cognizance hereof does not pertain to seculars, but to ecclesiastics. And every excommunicated person soever who, after tlie lawful monitions, does not change his mind, shall not onlj' not 1)3 received to the sacraments and to communion and intercourse with the faithful, but if, being bound with censures, he shall, with obdurate heart, remain for a year in the defilement thereof, he may even be pro- ceeded against as suspected of hercs}'." The popes have exercised the power of excommunication against entire communities at once. Tlie CupUularies of Pepin the Less, in the 8th century, ordained that the greater excommunication should be followed by banishment from the countrj'. On the claim of the popes to ex- communicate and depose nionarchs, and to free sub- jects from their allegiance, see M'Clintock, Temporal Power of the Pope (N. Y. 1855, 12mo). "The latest examples ofpiiial excommunication of monarchs were Napoleon I in 1809, and Victor Ennnanuel, king of Italy, in 1860 ; neither of whom, however, was excom- municated by name, the popa having confined himself to a solemn and reiterated publication of the penalties decreed by his predecessors against those who unjustly invaded the territories of the Holy See, usurped or vio- lated its rights, or violently impeded their free exer- cise. The excommunication of a sovereign was re- garded as freeing subjects from their allegiance ; and, in the j'ear 1102, this sentence was pronounced against the emperor Henry IV, an example which subsequent popes liliewise ventured to follow. But the fearful weapons with which the popes armed themselves in this power of excommunication were rendered much less cflTective through their incautious employment, the evident worldl}' motives by which it was some- times governed, and the excommunications which rival popes hurled against each other during the time of the great papal schism" (Chambers, s. v.).
(IV.) The Greek Church. — In tlie Greek Church ex- communication cuts off the offender from all commu- nion witli the 318 fiithers of the first Council of Nicaia, consigns him to the devil and his angels, and condemns his body to remain after death as hard as a piece of flint, unless he humbles himself and makes atonement for his sins bj' a sincere repentance. " The form abounds with dreadful imprecations ; and the Greeks assert that, if a person dies excomminiicated, the devil enters into the lifeless corpse ; and, therefore, in order to prevent it, the relations of the deceased cut his body in pieces and boil them in wine. Every year, on a fixed Sundaj', the greater ban is pronounced against the pope and the Church of Rome, on wliich occasion, togetlier w'ith a great deal of idle ceremony, he drives a nail into the ground with a hammer as a mark of malediction" (Buck, s. v.). Sir Paul Rj'caut (Present Slate of the Greek and Armenian Churches, Lond. 1679, 8vo), who wrote his observations on the state of that communion in 1678, has given, in the original Greek, the form of an excommunication issued against an un- known thief whom the authorities were seeking to discover. It runs as follows : " If they restore not to him that which is his own, and possess him peaceablj-- of it, but suflfer him to remain injured and damnifyed, let him be separated from the Lord God Creatour, and be accursed, and unpardoned, and undissolvable after dcatli in this world, and in the other which is to come. Let wood, stones, and iron be dissolved, but not they : may they inherit the leprosie of Gekazi and the confu- sion of Judas ; may the earth be divided, and devour them like Dathan and Ahiram ; may tiiey sigh and trcmlile on earth like Cain, and the wrath of God be upon their heads and countenances ; may they see nothing of that for which they labor, and beg their bread all the days of their lives; maj' their works, possessions, labors, and services be accursed ; always without effect or success, and blown awaj' like dust ; may they have the curses of the holy and righteous patriarchs Abram, Isaac, andJacob ; of the 318 saints