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 [Greek: aphorismos] and the [Greek: aphorismos panteles], 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 [Greek: panteles] 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 [Greek: anathema] 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 [Greek: paradounai to Satana] 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. _Modem 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 shall incur any civil penalty or incapacity whatever, save such sentence of imprisonment, not exceeding six months, as the court shall direct and certify to the king in chancery.

In the churches which consciously shaped their polity at or after the Reformation the principle of excommunication is preserved in the practice of church discipline. Calvin devotes a chapter in the _Institutes_ (bk. iv. chap. xii.) to the "Discipline of the Church; its Principal Use in Censure and Excommunication." The three ends proposed by the church in such discipline are there stated to be, (1) that those who lead scandalous lives may not to the dishonour of God be numbered among Christians, seeing that the church is the body of Christ; (2) that the good may not be corrupted by constant association with the wicked; (3) that those who are censured or excommunicated, confounded with shame, may be led to repentance. He differentiates decisively between excommunication and anathema. "When Christ promises that what his ministers bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, he limits the power of binding to the censure of the church; by which those who are excommunicated are not cast into eternal ruin and condemnation, but by having their life and conduct condemned are also certified of their final condemnation unless they repent. For excommunication differs from anathema: anathema which ought to be very rarely, or never, resorted to, in precluding all pardon, execrates a person, and devotes him to eternal perdition: whereas excommunication rather censures and punishes his conduct. Yet in such a manner by warning him of his future condemnation it recalls him to salvation" (_Inst._ bk. iv. chap. xii. 10). The Reformed churches in England and America accepted the distinction between public and private offences. The usual provision is that private offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in Matt. v. 23-24,