EXCOMMUNICATION, an ecclesiastical penalty or censure, by which persons guilty of any notorious crime or offence are separated from the communion of the church, and deprived of all spiritual advantages.

Excommunication is founded on the natural right which all societies have, of excluding from their body such as violate the established laws; and it was originally instituted for preserving the purity of the church; but ambitious ecclesiastics converted it by degrees into an engine for promoting their own power, and frequently inflicted it on the most frivolous pretences.

The power of excommunication, as well as other acts of ecclesiastical discipline, was lodged in the hands of the clergy, who distinguished it into the greater an∙d lesser.

The lesser excommunication, simply called aphorismos, separation or suspension, consisted in excluding men from the participation of the eucharist, and the prayers of the faithful. But they were not thereby expelled the church; for they had the privilege of being présentât the reading of the Scriptures, the sermons, and the prayers of the catechumens and penitents. This excommunication was inflicted for lesser crimes, such as neglecting to attend the service of the church, misbehaviour in church, and the like.

The greater excommunication, called panteles aphoris-mos, or total separation and anathema, consisted in an absolute and entire exclusion from the church and the participation of all its rites. When any person had thus been excommunicated, notice of it was given by circular letters to the most eminent churches, that they might all confirm this act of discipline, by refusing to admit the delinquent to their communion. The consequences of this latter excommunication were terrible. The excommunicated person was avoided in civil commerce and outward conversation; no one would receive him into his house, or eat at the same table with him; and when dead, he was denied the solemn rites of burial.

The Roman pontifical takes notice of three kinds of excommunication: first, the minor, incurred by those who have had any correspondence with an excommunicated person; second, the major, which falls upon those who disobey the commands of the holy see, or refuse to submit to certain points of discipline, in consequence of which they are excluded from the church militant and triumphant, [7:9:462]and delivered over to the devil and his angels; and, third, anathema, which is properly that pronounced by the pope against heretical princes and countries. In former ages, these papal fulminations were terrible calamities; but at present they are formidable only to a few petty states of Italy.

Excommunication, in the Greek church, cuts off the offender from all communion with the three hundred and eighteen fathers of the first council of Nice, and with the saints; consigns him over to the devil and the traitor Judas; and condemns his body to remain after death as hard is a flint or piece of steel, unless he humble himself, and make atonement for his sins by a sincere repentance. The form abounds with dreadful imprecations; and the Greeks assert, that if a person die excommunicated, the devil enters into the lifeless corpse; to prevent which, the relations of the deceased cut his body in pieces, and boil them in wine. It used to be a custom for the patriarch of Jerusalem annually to excommunicate the pope and the church of Rome; on which occasion, besides a great deal of idle ceremony, a nail was driven into the ground with a hammer, as a mark of malediction.

The form of excommunication in the church of England anciently ran thus: “By the authority of God the Father Almighty, the Son, and Holy Ghost, and of Mary the blessed mother of God, we excommunicate, anathematize, and sequester from the pale of the holy mother church,” and so forth. The causes of excommunication in England are, contempt of the bishop’s court, heresy, neglect of public worship and the sacraments, incontinency, adultery, simony, and the like. It is described as twofold. The lesser is an ecclesiastical censure, excluding the party from the participation of the sacraments; the greater proceeds farther, and excludes the party not only from these privileges, but from the company of all Christians. But if the judge of any spiritual court excommunicate a man for a cause of which he has not the legal cognizance, the party may have an action against him at common law, and he is also liable to be indicted at the suit of the king.

Excommunication, or the act of secluding from a participation in the mysteries of religion, was also in use under paganism. Persons thus excommunicated were forbidden to assist at or attend the sacrifices, or enter within the temples; and they were afterwards delivered over to the demons and furies of hell, with certain imprecations. This was called by the Romans diris devovere.

Amongst the ancient Britons and Gauls the Druids likewise made use of excommunication against rebels, and interdicted from the communion of their mysteries such as had refused to acquiesce in their decisions.