EXCOMMUNICATION, in ecclesiastical polity, the judicial exclusion of offenders from the religif.., rites and other privileges of the particular community to which they belong. Founded in the right which every society possesses to guard its laws and pri vileges from violation and abuse, by the infliction of salutary discipline, proportioned to the nature of the offences committed against them, it has found a place in one form or another, under every system of religion, whether human or divine. That it has been made an engine for the gratification of private malice and re venge, and been perverted to purposes the most unjus tifiable and even diabolical, the history of the world but too lamentably proves; yet this, though unques tionably a consideration which ought to inculcate the necessity of prudence as well as impartiality and tem perance in the use of it, affords no valid argument against its legitimate exercise.
Under the dispensation of Judaism, the contraction of ceremonial impurity or uncleanness, was attended with an ipso facto excommunication from the more pe culiar privileges of religion, which continued unre pealed, till the rites prescribed for restoration to legal purity were duly performed. Besides this, there does not appear to have been any excommunication of special divine appointment, except that which was immediately accompanied with the ultimate punishment of excision or death; and from which, of consequence, there was and could be no absolution. In the later ages of the Jewish church, indeed, this species of discipline was sys tematised by the Rabbins, whose opinions, however, are often so contradictory to each other, that it is next to im possible now to ascertain in what the different kinds of their authorised excommunications consisted. By many writers they have been divided into three classes, viz. Xiddui, Cherem, and Shammatha, but Selden has satis factorily shewn, that these three epithets are indiscrimi nately applied by the Rabbinic authors to every variety of this punishment, though in general the term Cherem denotes a severer species of it than the other two. Dis tinguished into greater and less, both of them might be pronounced on an individual either by a public judge, by a court, by a private person, or even by himself. The least kind, commonly termed Xiddui, i. e. Separation, might be incurred in a vast diversity of ways, of which no fewer than twenty-four are specified in the Talinuds and other Jewish writings; and of which several relate to moral and religious delinquencies, though others of them are of the most frivolous description. When pro nounced by a court, it was preceded by private censure and admonition ; after which, if the culprit gave no sa tisfactory evidence of repentance, the house of judgment, or the assembly of judges, solemnly warned and threat ened him, that if he did not reform, he must fall under the sentence of public excommunication. if he still con tinued obstinate, his name, and the nature of his offence, were proclaimed in the synagogue to which he belong ed, on four successive Sabbaths, in order to bring him to a just sense of his guilt ; and if this also proved inef fectual, he was then solemnly excommunicated. The sentence, whether pronounced publicly or privately, was in force for thirty days, during which lie was interdicted from approaching nearer any person, even his relations, than four cubits; from either doing or receiving any of fice of kindness which required greater proximity to other persons than that distance; and from performing the usual ablutions, previous to sitting down to his meals. On his remaining impenitent at the close of this period, it might be extended to thirty and even to sixty days lon ger; after which, if still incorrigible, he was subjected to the greater excommunication. This sentence was
required to be pronounced by not fewer than ten per sons, or at least in their presence, and with their con currence : and it excluded those on whom it was inflict ed from almost all the advantages of civil society. Of its horrible nature, some idea may be formed by the fol lowing extract from one which Buxtorf found in an an cient Hebrew MS.: Ea.' sententia Domini sit in Anathemate Ploni filius Plod in air-ague domo ju dich, Superorum scil et Inferorum, in anathenzate item. Sanctorum excelsorum,in anathemate Seraphim et Ophan vim, in anathemate denique totius Ecclesix maximorum ct minimorum. Sint super ipsunz jzlagx magnc et fidelcs, ',wild ?nava et horribiles. Domus ejus sit habitaculum d•aconum; caliginosum fiat sides rjus in nubibus; sit in indignationem frallt et excandescendentiam; cadaver ejus objiciatur feris et scrpcntibus; brientur ,super ipso hostes et adversaril ; argentunz et CLUT71171 ipsius dentur ; et onznes filii ejus ad ostium ininzicorum gains sint exposia super die ejus obstupescant posters.-4bsorbeatur sicut Korah ct cirrus ejus ; coin terrore ct tremore egrediatur anima ejus; increpatio Domini occidat eum: stranguletur art Achitophel in consilio suo; sleet lejzra Grhazi sit lepra ipsius; neque calla sit resurrectio ruiner ejus; in sepullura Israelis non sit sepultura ejus; decor uxor ipsius, et super east prostranto se add irz morte cjus. In hoc anathemate sit Ploni filius Ploni, et Ince sit hcereditas Lexic. Talmud, p. 329. The pronouncing of such sentences was frequently accompanied with the lighting of tapers in the synagogue or court-room ; the ringing of bells and sounding of trumpets, &c. practices to which the church of Rome have since had recourse, in order to give greater solemnity and terrific effect to their ana themas. Persons thus excommunicated were prohibit ed from carrying on their ordinary employments; could not buy or sell any thing but what was absolutely neces sary for the preservation of life ; and were not permitted to enter any place of instruction, for the purpose of either teaching or being taught. No person was allowed to associate, or to eat or drink 'a ith them. They were in capacitated for acting either as judges or as witnesses ; for circumcising their sons, and for assisting at the fune ral obsequies, even of their nearest relations. The ordi nary rites of burial were denied them ; their friends not suffered to mourn for them ; and a large stone was left on their graves, or the people, and sometimes the judges, heaped stones on the spot where they were in terred, as over Achan and Absalom.—The sentence of the lesser excommunication, when inflicted by a private person, might be removed by one public judge, or by three men chosen for the purpose ; but to the absolution of those who excommunicated themselves, the sentence of ten persons was necessary. He %vim had been ex communicated in a dream, (as some imagined they might be) could be loosened from this sentence only by ten men learned in the law and the Talmud. Absolution from the greater excommunication, might be obtained from a single judge, provided lie was a doctor of the law; but, in other cases, only from the concurring authority of three judges.—It is somewhat doubtful whether, in any instance, excommunication among the Jews, though pronounced by ecclesiastical judges, involved in it ex clusion from the synagogues, or is justly to be regarded as having been more than a civil punishment, till about or after the Christian xra ; but there can be no doubt whatever, that, subsequently to that period, it was so extended, and became in the strictest sense an ecclesias tical and spiritual malediction.