Exchanger

See Money. EXCOMMUNICATION is the name applied to the temporary or permanent exclusion, for errors of doctrme or morals, of a member of a Church from the privileges of its coininunion. The word is not used either in AV or KV, but the practice which it describes meets us in NT, both in the case of the Jewish synagogue and in that of the Christian Church.

The practice in the Jewish synagogue is referred to in Lk 6" (Blessed are ye when men ' shall separate you from their company,' d^opij'u), Jn 9^ (the case of the blind man cast out of the syna- gogue, iroawiyuyo^), Jn 12*^ (the rulers who feared to confess Christ), Jn 16' (Christ's prophecy concerning the disciples). It rests on tne older practice, described in Ezr 10' (the case of those Isr.

who at the Restoration refused to give up their idolatrous wives), which in turn is a modification of the still older hirem (cnn) or ' ban,' referred to in Lv 27^ and elsewhere. The word herein means literally devoted, and is used in OT in the twofold sense of devoted to destruction (hence accursed) and devoted to God's service (hence con- secrated). See Curse.

EXCOMMUNICATION EXECUTIONER 801 The practice of excommunication as we find it among tlie Jevs in the time of Christ is the out- growtli of the herem in the first of these senses. In tlie early history of Israel the punishment of idolatry or other gross sins was physical death. Thus we find the prophets referring; to the future triumph of Israel over their enemies as the whole- sale devotion of them to destruction by J" (so is 34»- », Mic 4", Jer 50^'). and Zech.

looks for- ward to the happy time in the future when there shall be no more ' can ' (14"). Temporary exclusion from the services of the sanctuary meets us only, in the ca.se of ceremonial oB'ences, as part of the general requirement of the ceremonial law. At the time of the Restoration we find a modification of the older practice in the interest of greater humanity. Those Isr.

who had married iforeign wives, and who refused at the command of Ezra to give them up, instead of being put to death had their substance confiscated, and were separated from the congregation of Israel (Ezr 10*).

In the time of Christ, exclusion from the synagogue was the regular punishment for serious moral and religious oflences, and is distinguished by tlie Rabbis as /n'rem proper, the formal ' ban,' which could be indicted by not fewer than ten persons, and which deprived hira on whom it fell of all religious privileges, from the milder nidtiHi ('")), which could be inflicted by a single person, and which merely cut oil' him who suil'ered it from conversation and contact for a period of thirty days.

For a supposed third grade, the so-called shammdthd (niiVP), there seems to be no good authority. The origin of Christian excommunication is often found in Christ's words to Peter (Mt 16'"), ' I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou slialt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' (Cf. Mt 18", Jn 20='.)

But, whatever the particular view taken of this much disputed passage, the reference seems to be rather to the spiritual power which the Church is to exercise through her pre.-iching and witness-bearing than to any formal ecclesiastical procedure. The passage Alt 18""" comes nearer to the mark, and with its threefold admonition, first privately, then in the presence of two or three witnesses (cf. Tit 3'°), and fin.

ally before the Church, reminds us somewhat of the graded procedure of the Jewish sj'nagogue. Hence many critics believe that it represents less a direct utterance of Jesus Himself than the practice in the Jewish, Christian circles for which the Gospel of Matthew was written. In the letters of St. Paul, besides general direc- tions to 'admonisli tlie disorderly' (1 Th 5"; cf.

1 Ti 5*"), and to hold aloof from brothers who are fornicators, or covetous, or idolaters, or revilers, or drunkards, or extortioners (1 Co 5"), or who refuse to obey the word of St. Paul by his letters (2 Th 3" ; cf. Ro 16"), we have in the Church of Corinth at lea.st one ease, and possibly two cases, of ecclesiastical di.scii>line. The first is that of the incestuous person, referred to in 1 Co 5, whom St.

Paul delivers unto Satan ' for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus' (1 Co 5'). The reference in v.* to the Corinthians as being gathered together, shows that whatever the exact nature of the punishment described as committing unto Satan, It had ecclesiastical significance. In v." the Corintliians are expres.sly charged to put away the wicked man from among them.selves.

If 2 Co 2'" refer, as is most coiiimuiily sup]>oscd, to this same matter, it would follow that the exclusion from church fellowship was not permanent. ' Suflicieiit to such a one is this punishment, which was VOL. I. — 51 should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest Dy any means such a one should be swallowed up by his overmuch sorrow' (vv.°' ').

If, howevei, as seems not unlikely, this passage refers to an entirely distinct case from that mentioned in 1 Co, we have a case of disciiiline administered by the Corinth- ians themselves without special instigation by St. Paul. Interesting and penilexing is the mention of Satan in 1 Co 5° (cf. 2 Co 2" ' that no advan- tage may be gained over us by Satan ' ; 1 Ti 1^ ' llymenajus and Alexander, whom I delivered unto Satan that they might be taught not to blasplieme'). That St.

Paul does not mean by the expression ' delivery unto Satan ' a final cutting off from salvation, sucii as seems to be implied in the anathema of 1 Co 10, , Gal !'• ', Ro 9', is clear from the reference in v.° to the salvation of the spirit. On the other hand, that some suffering besides the formal exclusion from church fellowship is intended, seems equally clear from the reference to the destruction of the flesh.

Hence the conjecture of some physical punishment miraculously in- flicted upon the oH'ender, possibly, as in the case of Ananias and Sappliira, deatli it self . But the matter is too obscure to w.arrant a definite conclusion. The Corinthian letters picture a loose organiza- tion, without formal oflicers, in which discipline is administered, now by the Corintliians, now by St. Paul himself. There is no definite rule of procedure.

The general princijile is laid do^vn in 1 Co 5'''=, and special apjilication is made ace. to the circum- st.ances of each case. In the Pastorals we have already a definite mode of procedure, with its public reproof, and its accusation before witnesses (1 Ti 5'*- '■"'). Not moral oli'onces only, but a schis- matic .s]iirit may be tlie occasion for exclusion from church fellowship (Tit 3'" ' A man that is hereti- cal [factious] after a first and second admonition, refuse.' Cf. 1 Ti 6', and esp.

2 Jn v.'", where false doctrine is made the ground for absolute breach of intercourse). That excommunication might be inflicted by a faction, as well as by the Church at large, is clear from the case of Diotrephes (3 Jn '• '"). These later instances show that excom- munication was not merely disciplinary, having as its end the penitence and subsequent restoration of the offender, but also protective, being designed to guard the infant Church from corruiition.

In no case, however, is it regarded as consigning the person cut off to eternal tiunishment, as later theories have sometimes liehf. That was the work of God alone, with which man had nothing to do. In general, this brief survey of the NT passages shows that we have to do only with the first beginnings, from which the later ecclesiastical procedure, with its elaborate process, was de- veloped.

In this matter, as in so many others of interest, the development vs-as a gradual one, a part of that slow process by which the flexibility of early Christian institutions was gradually trans formed into the fixed rules of a powerful ecclea! astical organization. LiTKRATUEii.— The art. In Smith, DB>, by F. Meyrlok, un chanj^ed ; and Herzoir, PitE^ * IJann b«l den Hehniem,' by RiicUchi, where the older literature is jfiven. For the practice amoii^ the Jews, see Nowacli, Ueb. Architol.

- and Keiirlnger, Ileb. Archaol. On tile caae of tlio Corintlnan ofT«nder, cf. Welbziicker, /Ja*i ApvslolUche Zeitalter^. A full diKUWion of NT puuia^es in their connexion in Btill a desideratum. W. Adams BnowN.