"Hardened sinners" (says Lea) "might despise such imprecations, but their effect on believers
was necessarily unutterable, when, amid the gorgeous and impressive ceremonial of worship, the
bishop, surrounded by twelve priests bearing flaming candles, solemnly recited the awful words
which consigned the evil-doer and all his generation to eternal torment with such fearful amplitude
and reduplication of malediction, and as the sentence of perdition came to its climax, the attending
priests simultaneously cast their candles to the ground and trod them out, as a symbol of the
quenching of a human soul in the eternal night of hell. To this was added the expectation, amounting
almost to a certainty, that Heaven would not wait for the natural course of events to confirm the
judgment thus pronounced, but that the maledictions would be as effective in this world as in the
next. Those whom spiritual terrors could not subdue thus were daunted by the fearful stories of the
judgment overtaking the hardened sinner who dared to despise the dread anathema."
- The Anathema is generally used in the same sense as excommunication or separation
from church communion and church privileges. But in a narrower sense, it means the "greater"
excommunication,^397 which excludes from all Christian intercourse and makes the offender an
outlaw; while the "minor" excommunication excludes only from the sacrament. Such a distinction
was made by Gratian and Innocent III. The anathema was pronounced with more solemn ceremonies.
The Council of Nicaea, 335, anathematized the Arians, and the Council of Trent, 1563, closed with
three anathemas on all heretics.
- The Interdict^398 extended over a whole town or diocese or district or country, and involved
the innocent with the guilty. It was a suspension of religion in public exercise, including even the
rites of marriage and burial; only baptism and extreme unction could be performed, and they only
with closed doors. It cast the gloom of a funeral over a country, and made people tremble in
expectation of the last judgment. This exceptional punishment began in a small way in the fifth
century. St. Augustin justly reproved Auxilius, a brother bishop, who abused his power by
excommunicating a whole family for the offence of the head, and Pope Leo the Great forbade to
enforce the penalty on any who was not a partner in the crime.^399 But the bishops and popes of the
middle ages, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, thought otherwise, and resorted repeatedly
their ways, and confess themselves in fault towards St. Giles. Let them be accursed in the four quarters of the earth. In the East
be they accursed, and in the West disinherited; in the North interdicted, and in the South excommunicate. Be they accursed in
the day-time and excommunicate in the night-time. Accursed be they at home and excommunicate abroad; accursed in standing
and excommunicate in sitting; accursed in eating, accursed in drinking, accursed in sleeping, and excommunicate in waking;
accursed when they work and excommunicate when they rest. Let them be accursed in the spring time and excommunicate in
the summer; accursed in the autumn and excommunicate in the winter. Let them be accursed in this world and excommunicate
in the next. Let their lands pass into the hands of the stranger, their wives be given over to perdition, and their children fall
before the edge of the sword. Let what they eat be accursed, and accursed be what they leave, so that he who eats it shall be
accursed. Accursed and excommunicate be the priest who shall give them the body and blood of the Lord, or who shall visit
them in sickness. Accursed and excommunicate be he who shall carry them to the grave and shall dare to bury them. Let them
be excommunicate, and accursed with all curses if they do not make amends and render due satisfaction. And know this for
truth, that after our death no bishop nor count, nor any secular power shall usurp the seigniory of the blessed St. Giles. And if
any presume to attempt it, borne down by, all the foregoing curses, they never shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, for the blessed
St. Giles committed his monastery to the lordship of the blessed Peter."(^397) Corresponding to the Cherem, as distinct from Niddui (i.e. separation), in the Jewish Synagogue. See J. Lightfoot,
De Anathemate Maranatha, and the commentators on Gal. 1:8, 9 (especially Wieseler).
(^398) Interdictum orprohibitio officiorum divinorum, prohibition of public worship. A distinction is made between interd.
personale for particular persons; locale for place or district; and generale for whole countries and kingdoms.
(^3999)
Aug. Ep. 250, § 1; Leo, Ep. X. cap, 8—quoted by Gieseler, and Lea, p. 301. St. Basil of Caesarea is sometimes
quoted as the inventor of the interdict, but not justly. See Lea, p. 302 note.