EMPLOYMENT OF EXCOMMUNICATION A new chapter in the history of Church censure began with the imperial edicts against heresy, the first of which, de summa trini tate et fide catholica, dates from 380. From that time excommu nication exposed a man to serious temporal risks. The temptation to wield it as an instrument of secular tyranny proved irresistible. During the next thousand years the developments of the practice are perversions of the New Testament standards. The magistrate becomes the excommunicating official (Synesius A.D. 410 ; see Bingham, Antiq.) . Gregory the Great rebukes a bishop for using excommunication for private ends (Epist. ii. 34). The penalty became common and was dreaded for superstitious reasons (Had dan and Stubbs, Councils and Documents iii. 1737). Morinus, De poenit x. c.q., refers to excommunicating the dead. Pope Gregory V. (998) excommunicated France, Gregory VII. (1102) excom municated Germany, Innocent III. (1 208) excommunicated Eng land, and Adrian IV. (1155) Rome itself. Recklessness was char acteristic of the language used (cf. Burton, History of Scotland, vol. iii. 317 seq., and also the often quoted curse of Arnulphus of Rochester). An instance of excommunication by "bell, book and candle" occurs about 1190.
Modern Survivals in Christian Churches.—At the Reformation the development of discipline took various lines. In the Anglican Church the bishops (subject to appeal to the sovereign) have the right of excommunicating, and their sentence, if sustained, may carry civil consequences. This right is never exercised. Legally sentence of excommunication, if properly certified by the bishop, is 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. 53 George III. greatly limited the magis terial powers.
In the Churches which consciously reshaped their policy at the Reformation the principle of excommunication is preserved in the practice of Church discipline. Calvin devoted a chapter in the Institutes (bk. iv. cap. xii.) to the "Discipline of the church: its principal use in Censure and Excommunication." The ends of discipline are stated to be (I) that those who lead scan dalous 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 may be led to repentance. He differentiates decisively between excom munication and anathema. Anathema devotes the offending per son to eternal perdition ; whereas excommunication censures and punishes his conduct. Yet by warning him of his future con demnation it recalls him to salvation (Inst. bk. iv. chap. xii. Io). The Reformed Churches in England and America accepted the distinction between public and private offences. The usual pro vision is that private offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in Matt. v. 23-24, xvii. 15-17. Public offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in 1 Cor. v. 3-5.13. The public ex pulsion or suspension of the offender is necessary for the good repute of the Church, and its influence over the faithful members. The expelled member may be readmitted on showing the fruits of repentance.
A recent statement of Scottish (Presbyterian) practice, drawn up for parliamentary purposes in 1927, is as follows: The cen sures of the Church are admonition, rebuke, suspension, deposi tion from office and excommunication, and they are administered only on confession or proof of sin or offence. Private admonition, which is not a censure, may in certain cases meet the ends of discipline.
The question whether the power of excommunication rests in the church or in the clergy has been important in the history of English and American Reformed Churches. The general tendency has been to make it a matter for the church or congregation rather than the clergy (see Hooker, Survey, pt. 3, PP. Hooker expressly denies the power of Synods to excommunicate, "that there should be Synods which have potestatem juridicam is nowhere proved in Scripture because it is not a truth" (Survey, bk. iv. pp. The Confession of faith issued in 1596 by the London-Amster dam church, one of the original Pilgrim Fathers' churches declares that the Christian congregation having power to elect its minister has also power to excommunicate him if the case so require (Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 66) . In 1603 the document known as "Points of Difference" (i.e., from Anglicanism) submitted to James I. sets forth "that all particular churches ought to be so constituted as having their owne pecu liar officers, the whole body of every church may meet together in one place, and jointly performe their duties to God and one towards another. And that the censures of admonition and ex communication be in due manner executed for sinne, convicted, and obstinately stood in. This power also to be in the body of the church whereof the partyes so offending and persisting are members." The Cambridge Platform of 1648 follows in the main the line of Hooker and Calvin but expressly excepts civil rights from the operation of the sentences. The excommunicant may still "hear the word''; he is admonished as a brother, not accounted as an enemy. The Savoy Declaration of 1658 defines the theory and practice of the older English Nonconformist churches in the section on the "Institution of Churches and the order appointed in them by Jesus Christ" (xix).
In contemporary English Free Churches purity of fellowship in church is commonly secured by the removal of persons unsuit able for membership from the church books by a vote of the responsible authority. (D. M.)