Dictionaries :: Excommunication

Excommunication:

eks-ko-mu-ni-ka'-shun: Exclusion from church fellowship as a means of personal discipline, or church purification, or both. Its germs have been found in (1) the Mosaic "ban" or "curse" (cherem, "devoted"), given over entirely to God's use or to destruction (Le 27:29); (2) the "cutting off," usually by death, stoning of certain offenders, breakers of the Sabbath (Ex 31:14) and others (Le 17:4; Ex 30:22-38); (3) the exclusion of the leprous from the camp (Le 13:46; Nu 12:14). At the restoration (Ezr 10:7,8), the penalty of disobedience to Ezra's reforming movements was that "all his substance should be forfeited (cherem), and himself separated from the assembly of the captivity." Nehemiah's similar dealing with the husbands of heathen women helped to fix the principle. The New Testament finds a well- developed synagogal system of excommunication, in two, possibly three, varieties or stages. nidduy, for the first offense, forbade the bath, the razor, the convivial table, and restricted social intercourse and the frequenting of the temple. It lasted thirty, sixty, or ninety days. If the offender still remained obstinate, the "curse," cherem, was formally pronounced upon him by a council of ten, and he was shut out from the intellectual, religious and social life of the community, completely severed from the congregation. shammatha', supposed by some to be a third and final stage, is probably a general term applied to both nidduy and cherem. We meet the system in Joh 9:22: "If any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue" (aposunagogos); Joh 12:42: "did not confess.... lest they should be put out of the s."; and Joh 16:2: "put you out of the synagogue." In Lu 6:22 Christ may refer to the three stages: "separate you from their company (aphorisosin), and reproach you (oneidisosin = cherem, "malediction"), and cast out your name as evil (ekbalosin)."

It is doubtful whether an express prescription of excommunication is found in our Lord's words (Mt 18:15-19). The offense and the penalty also seem purely personal: "And if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican," out of the pale of association and converse. Yet the next verse might imply that the church also is to act: "Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," etc. But this latter, like Mt 16:19, seems to refer to the general enunciations of principles and policies rather than to specific ecclesiastical enactments. On the whole, Jesus seems here to be laying down the principle of dignified personal avoidance of the obstinate offender, rather than prescribing ecclesiastical action. Still, personal avoidance may logically correspond in proper cases to excommunication by the church. 2Th 3:14: "Note that man, that ye have no company with him"; Tit 3:10: "A factious man.... avoid" (American Revised Version margin); 2 Joh 1:10: "Receive him not into your house," etc., all inculcate discreet and faithful avoidance but not necessarily excommunication, though that might come to be the logical result. Paul's "anathemas" are not to be understood as excommunications, since the first is for an offense no ecclesiastical tribunal could well investigate: 1Co 16:22, "If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema"; the second touches Paul's deep relationship to his Lord: Ro 9:3, "I myself.... anathema from Christ"; while the third would subject the apostle or an angel to ecclesiastical censure: Ga 1:8,9, "Though we, or an angel.... let him be anathema."

Clear, specific instances of excommunication or directions regarding it, however, are found in the Pauline and Johannine writings. In the case of the incestuous man (1Co 5:1-12), at the instance of the apostle ("I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit"), the church, in a formal meeting ("In the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together"), carrying out the apostle's desire and will ("and my spirit"), and using the power and authority conferred by Christ ("and with the power of our Lord Jesus"), formally cut off the offender from its fellowship, consigning (relinquishing?) him to the power of the prince of this world ("to deliver such a one unto Satan"). Further, such action is enjoined in other cases: "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves." 2Co 2:5-11 probably refers to the same case, terminated by the repentance and restoration of the offender. ‘Delivering over to Satan' must also include some physical ill, perhaps culminating in death; as with Simon Magus (Ac 8:20), Elymas (Ac 13:11), Ananias (Ac 5:5). 1Ti 1:20: "Hymenaeus and Alexander.... that they might be taught not to blaspheme," is a similar case of excommunication accompanied by judicial and disciplinary physical ill. In 3 Joh 1:9,10 we have a case of excommunication by a faction in control: "Diotrephes.... neither doth he himself receive.... and them that would he.... casteth out of the church."

Excommunication in the New Testament church was not a fully developed system. The New Testament does not clearly define its causes, methods, scope or duration. It seems to have been incurred by heretical teaching (1Ti 1:20) or by factiousness (Tit 3:10 (?)); but the most of the clear undoubted cases in the New Testament are for immoral or un-Christian conduct (1Co 5:1,11,13; perhaps also 1Ti 1:20). It separated from church fellowship but not necessarily from the love and care of the church (2Th 3:15 (?)). It excluded from church privileges, and often, perhaps usually, perhaps always, from social intercourse (1Co 5:11). When pronounced by the apostle it might be accompanied by miraculous and punitive or disciplinary physical consequences (1Co 5:5; 1Ti 1:20). It was the act of the local church, either with (1Co 5:4) or without (1Co 5:13; 3 Joh 1:10) the concurrence of an apostle. It might possibly be pronounced by an apostle alone (1Ti 1:20), but perhaps not without the concurrence and as the mouthpiece of the church. Its purpose was the amendment of the offender: "That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" (1Co 5:5); and the preservative purification of the church: "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened" (1Co 5:7). It might, as appears, be terminated by repentance and restoration (2Co 2:5-11). It was not a complex and rigid ecclesiastical engine, held in terrorem over the soul, but the last resort of faithful love, over which hope and prayer still hovered.

LITERATURE.

Arts. in HDB, DB, Jew Eric, DCG; Martensen, Christian Ethics, III, 330 ff; Nowack, Benzinger, Heb Archaeol.; Commentary in the place cited.

Written by Philip Wendell Crannell

Excommunication:

See CHURCH, GOVERNMENT OF

Excommunication:

See CHURCH, RULES OF DISCIPLINE IN

Excommunication:

(expulsion from communion.)

(1.) Jewish excommunication.-The Jewish system of excommunication was threefold. The twenty‐four offences for which it was inflicted are various, and range in heinousness from the offence of keeping a fierce dog to that of taking God's name in vain. The offender was first cited to appear in court; and if he refused to appear or to make amends, his sentence was pronounced. The term of this punishment was thirty days; and it was extended to a second and to a third thirty days when necessary. If at the end of that time the offended was still contumacious, he was subjected to the second excommunication. Severer penalties were now attached. The sentence was delivered by a court of ten, and was accompanied by a solemn malediction. The third excommunication was an entire cutting off from the congregation. The punishment of excommunication is not appointed by the law of Moses; it is founded on the natural right of self‐protection which all societies enjoy. In the New Testament, Jewish excommunication is brought prominently before us in the case of the man that was born blind (John 9:1). … In Luke 6:22, it has been thought that our Lord referred specifically to the three forms of Jewish excommunication: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake."

(2.) Christian excommunication.-Excommunication, as exercised by the Christian Church, was instituted by our Lord (Matthew 18:15; 18:18) and it was practiced and commanded by St. Paul (1 Corinthians 5:11; 1 Timothy 1:20; Titus 3:10). In the epistles we find St. Paul frequently claiming the right to exercise discipline over his converts; (compare 2 Corinthians 1:23; 13:10). We find,

(1). that it is a spiritual penalty, involving no temporal punishment, except accidentally;

(2). that it consists in separation from the communion of the Church;

(3). that its object is the good of the sufferer (1 Corinthians 5:5) and the protection of the sound members of the Church (2 Timothy 3:17).

(4). that its subjects are those who are guilty of heresy (1 Timothy 1:20) or gross immorality (1 Corinthians 5:1).

(5). that it is inflicted by the authority of the Church at large (Matthew 18:18) wielded by the highest ecclesiastical officer (1 Corinthians 5:3; Titus 3:10).

(6). that this officer's sentence is promulgated by the congregation to which the offender belongs (1 Corinthians 5:4) in defence to his superior judgment and command (2 Corinthians 2:9) and in spite of any opposition on the part of a minority (2 Corinthians 2:6).

(7). that the exclusion may be of indefinite duration, or for a period;

(8). that its duration may be abridged at the discretion and by the indulgence of the person who has imposed the penalty (2 Corinthians 2:8).

(9). that penitence is the condition on which restoration to communion is granted (2 Corinthians 2:8).

(10). that the sentence is to be publicly reversed as it was publicly promulgated (2 Corinthians 2:10).