THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
that the Sacred College paid no heed to it, and that
there was little prospect of its being allowed at
any future election.
Bibliography: The subject has been especially studied by L. Wahrmund, in Das Ausschliessungsrecht bei
den Papstwahlen, Vienna, 18SS; Exclusionsrechl bei den Papstwahlen, ib. 1890; Die Bulle " Mterni patris filius," ib. 1894. Consult further: N. Wiseman, Recollections of the Last Four Popes, pp. 356, 416, London, 1858; J. B. Sagmiiller, Die Papstwahlbullen und das staatliche Rechl der Exklusiva. Tubingen, 1892; idem, Neueste Losungsversuche in der Frage der Exklusiva, Freiburg, 1896;
L. Lector, Le Conclave. Origine, histoire, organisation, Paris, 1894.
EXCLUSIVE BRETHREN. See Plymouth Brethren.
EXCOMMUNICATION.
Early Practise (§ 1).
The Lesser and Greater Excommunication (§ 2).
Various Legal Provisions (§3).
Changes Introduced by the Reformation (§ 4).
Excommunication is the exclusion of an offender from full church fellowship, which may occur as a means of discipline in varying degrees. On the basis of various passages of Scripture (Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; John xx. 23; I Thess. v. 14; James v. 16; I John i. 8 sqq.; v. 16; II Cor. v. 18 sqq.; for the old Testament ban, see Law, Hebrew, Civil and Criminal), the Church of the earliest times undertook to punish grievous sinners by such exclusion, and either refused entirely to restore them to its fellowship or restored them only after they had attested their sorrow by penance (q.v.). After the Councils of Ancyra (314) and Nicaea (325), four stages of penance developed
i. Early through which the offender had to pass.
Practise. During the first year he lay prostrate and weeping in the vestibule of the church and begged those entering in to pray for him (Gk. prosklausis ; Lat. fletus). Next, commonly for three years, he had a place in the back of the church, with the unbaptized catechumens, where he was allowed to hear the reading of the Scriptures {akroasis ; auditio). Then he was allowed to enter the body of the church, and to pray prostrate, while the bishop and the faithful interceded for him (hypoptosis ; genuflexio, substratio). After further penitential exercises, he was allowed to pray standing, with the rest of the congregation, and to be present at the most sacred portion of the liturgy, the missa fidelium, from which the catechumens were excluded (systasis ; consistentia). Only after the completion of this long process was he restored to full communion. Originally this discipline was applied also to sins which had given no public scandal, until Pope Leo I. forbade them to be publicly confessed (450), after which public penance was only applied to open sins — the graver ones in the manner described, the lesser ones without exclusion from the fellowship of the faithful, but still so as to atone for public scandal, and covering the exclusion from the missa fidelium. Both of these methods are called pcence medicinales by Augustine; their application belonged to the bishop, whose action must be recognized by his brother bishops, and could be reversed only by himself.
In the Frankish kingdom, after the institution of the Synodal Courts (q.v.), penitential discipline
was placed in their charge, when once the testes synodales had established the existence of an open scandal. By degrees the old distinct stages of penance, which had at first been accepted also in the West, fell into disuse in the Frankish kingdom. Finally public penance practically ceased, and the exclusion from the sacraments became regularly
(as it had been exceptionally) an
2. The independent measure of discipline,
Lesser and becoming known as the lesser excom-
Greater munication, while the old exclusion
Excom- from all blessings and graces of the
munication. Church was called the greater. In
the view of the canon law these form the general means used by the ecclesiastical body for the maintenance of its discipline. Both presuppose a cause which is both public and grave. None can be excommunicated but living, baptized persons who have the use of reason. The bishop has the right of excommunication over those who belong to his diocese, though his sentence is valid also outside of it; a prelate with quasiepiscopal jurisdiction, such as a papal legate, has it in the territory for which he is commissioned; and the pope for the Church at large. The power of reconciliation is vested in the same person, and it requires as a condition the promise of obedience for the future. Excommunication is either juris or hominis, i.e., prescribed by law or pronounced at the decision of an authorized person in a case not explicitly covered by the law. It is divided again into excommunicatio latce sententice, where it takes
effect ipso facto upon the commission of
3. Various a specified offense, or ferendw sententice, Legal Pro- where it follows an express judicial devisions, cision. The latter class requires two
warnings at least . Ignorance of the law excuses from the former, and to be effective it must be definitely proclaimed. The lesser excommunication deprives a person of the sacraments; the greater cuts him off from all rights — the mass may not be celebrated in his presence, he can not hold a benefice, exercise jurisdiction, or take part in an ecclesiastical election, and Christian burial is denied him; intercourse with the faithful is prohibited except in certain specified cases. Since the time of Gregory IX. the term Anathema (q.v.) has been applied to the solemn declaration of the greater excommunication (cf. the form in the Pontificate Romanum). The canon law expects that the State will give effect on its side to the social consequences of exclusion from Christian fellowship. The extent to which the civil governments of the Middle Ages were subservient to the power of the Church over society may be seen in the way they responded tosuch appeals; thus the Emperor Frederick II. in 1213 and 1219 and Henry VII. in 1230 expressed their willingness to inflict the ban of the Empire
upon any excommunicated offender
4. Changes who was still recalcitrant at the end Introduced of six weeks after his sentence. These by the Ref- conditions prevailed down to the
ormation. Reformation; but in the countries
where it prevailed a great change took
place. The greater excommunication, as being
a secular punishment, was not recognized by the