church exercising discipline independently of apostolic advice.
Up to this point there is no established formal practice. 1 Tim.
i. 20 (“Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I delivered unto Satan
that they might be taught not to blaspheme”) seems to refer
to an excommunication, but it does not appear whether the
apostle had acted as representing a church, nor is there anything
to explain the exact consequences or limits of the deliverance
to Satan. 1 Cor. xvi. 22, Gal. i. 8, 9, Rom. ix. 3 refer to the
practice of regarding a person as anathema. Taking these
passages as a whole they seem to point to an exclusion from
church fellowship rather than to a final cutting off from the hope
of salvation. In the pastoral letters there is already a formal
and recognized method of procedure in cases of church discipline.
1 Tim. v. 19, 20 requires two or three witnesses in the case of
an accusation against an elder, and a public reproof. Tit. iii. 20
recognizes a factious spirit as a reason for excommunication
after two admonitions (cf. Tim. vi. and 2 John v. 10). In 3 John
v. 9-10 Diotrephes appears to have secured an excommunication
by the action of a party in the church. It is clear from these
illustrations that within the New Testament there is development
from spontaneous towards strictly regulated methods; also
that the use of excommunication is chiefly for disciplinary and
protective rather than punitive purposes. A process which is
intended to produce penitence and ultimate restoration cannot
at the same time contemplate handing the offender over to
eternal punishment.
4. Medieval and Monastic Usage.—The writings of the church Fathers give sufficient evidence that two degrees of excommunication, the ἀφορισμός and the ἀφορισμὸς παντελής, as they were generally called, were in use during, or at least soon after, the apostolic age. The former, which involved exclusion from participation in the eucharistic service and from the eucharist itself, though not from the so-called “service of the catechumens,” was the usual punishment of comparatively light offences; the latter, which was the penalty for graver scandals, involved “exclusion from all church privileges,”—a vague expression which has sometimes been interpreted as meaning total exclusion from the very precincts of the church building (inter hiemantes orare) and from the favour of God (Bingham, Antiquities of Christian Church, xvi. 2. 16). For some sins, such as adultery, the sentence of excommunication was in the 2nd century regarded as παντελής in the sense of being irrevocable. Difference of opinion as to the absolutely “irremissible” character of mortal sins led to the important controversy associated with the names of Zephyrinus, Tertullian, Calistus, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Novatian, in which the stricter and more montanistic party held that for those who had been guilty of such sins as theft, fraud, denial of the faith, there should be no restoration to church fellowship even in the hour of death. On this point the provincial synods of Illiberis (Elvira) in 305 and of Ancyra in 315 subsequently came to conflicting decisions, the council of Elvira forbidding the reception of offenders into communion during life, and the council of Ancyra fixing a limit to the penalty in the same cases. But the excommunication was on all hands regarded as being “medicinal” in its character. It is noteworthy that the word ἀνάθεμα had fallen into disuse about the beginning of the 4th century, and that, throughout the same period, no instance of the judicial use of the phrase παραδοῦναι τῷ Σατανᾷ can be found.
A new chapter in the history of the church censure may be said to have begun with the publication of those imperial edicts against heresy, the first of which, De summa trinitate et fide catholica, dates from 380. Till then exclusion from church privileges had been a spiritual discipline merely; thenceforward it was to expose a man to serious temporal risks. Excommunication still continued to be occasionally used in the spirit of genuine Christian fidelity, as by Ambrose in the case of Theodosius himself (390); but the temptation to wield it as an instrument of secular tyranny too often proved to be irresistible. The church fell back on carnal weapons in her warfare and invoked the secular powers to uphold the ecclesiastical. In the formula used by Synesius (410) which is to be found in Bingham’s Antiquities, we already find the attention of magistrates specially called to the censured person. The history of the next thousand years shows that the magistrates were seldom slow to respond to the appeal. Even the hastiest survey of that long and interesting period enables the student to notice a marked development in the theory and practice of excommunication. One or two points may be specially noted. (1) When the Empire became nominally Christian and the quality of the church life was sacrificed to the quantity of its adherents, the original character of excommunication was lost. The power of excommunication was transferred from the community to the bishop, and was liable to abuse from personal motives: Gregory the Great rebukes a bishop for using for private ends power conferred for the public good (Epist. ii. 34). Excommunication became a common penalty applied in numberless cases (see the Penitential of Archbishop Theodosius: Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Documents, iii. 1737), and was invested with superstitious terrors. (2) While it had been held as an undoubted principle by the ancient church that this sentence could only be passed on living individuals whose fault had been distinctly stated and fully proved, we find the medieval church on the one hand sanctioning the practice of excommunication of the dead (Morinus, De poenit. x. c. 9), and, on the other hand, by means of the papal interdict, excluding whole countries and kingdoms at once from the means of grace. The earliest well-authenticated instance of such an interdict is that which was passed (998) by Pope Gregory V. on France, in consequence of the contumacy of King Robert the Wise. Other instances are those laid respectively on Germany in 1102 by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), on England in 1208 by Innocent III., on Rome itself in 1155 by Adrian IV. (3) While in the ancient church the language used in excommunicating had been carefully measured, we find an amazing recklessness in the phraseology employed by the medieval clergy. The curse of Ernulphus or Arnulphus of Rochester (c. 1100), often quoted by students of English literature, is a very fair specimen of that class of composition. With it may be compared the formula transcribed by Dr Burton in his History of Scotland (iii. 317 ff.). To the spoken word was added the language of symbol. By means of lighted candles violently dashed to the ground and extinguished the faithful were graphically taught the meaning of the greater excommunication—though in a somewhat misleading way, for it is a fundamental principle of the canon law that disciplina est excommunicatio, non eradicatio. The first instance, however, of excommunication by “bell, book and candle” is comparatively late (c. 1190).
5. Modern Survivals in Existing Christian Churches.—At the Reformation the necessity for church discipline did not cease to be recognized; but the administration of it in many Reformed churches has passed through a period of some confusion. In some instances the old episcopal power passed more or less into the hands of the civil magistrate (a state of matters which was highly approved by Erastus and his followers), in other cases it was conceded to the presbyterial courts. In the Anglican Church the bishops (subject to appeal to the sovereign) have the right of excommunicating, and their sentence, if sustained, may in certain cases carry with it civil consequences. But this right is in practice never exercised. In the law of England sentence of excommunication, upon being properly certified by the bishop, was followed by the writ de excommunicato capiendo for the arrest of the offender. The statute 5 Eliz. c. 23 provided for the better execution of this writ. By the 53 Geo. III. c. 127 (which does not, however, extend to Ireland) it was enacted that “excommunication, together with all proceedings following thereupon, shall in all cases, save those hereafter to be specified, be discontinued.” Disobedience to or contempt of the ecclesiastical courts is to be punished by a new writ, de contumace capiendo, to follow on the certificate of the judge that the defender is contumacious and in contempt. Sect. 2 provides that nothing shall prevent “any ecclesiastical court from pronouncing or declaring persons to be excommunicate on definite sentences pronounced as spiritual censures for offences of ecclesiastical cognizance.” No persons so excommunicated
