diverso Lapso servorum Dei; De his qui degraduntur vel ordinari non possunt; De Baptizatis his,
qualiter peniteant; De his qui damnant Dominicam et indicta jejunia ecclesiae Dei; De communione
Eucharistiae, vel Sacrificio; De Reconciliatione; De Penitentia Nubentium specialiter; De Cultura
Idolorum. The last chapter shows how many heathen superstitions prevailed in connection with
gross immorality, which the church endeavored to counteract by a mechanical legalism. The second
book treats De Ecclesiae Ministerio; De tribus gratlibus; De Ordinatione; De Baptismo et
Confirmatione; De Missa Defunctorum, etc.
§ 86. Ecclesiastical Punishments. Excommunication, Anathema, Interdict.
Friedrich Kober (R.C.): Der Kirchenbann nach den Grundsätzen des canonischen Rechts dargestellt.
Tübingen 1857 (560 pages). By the same author: Die Suspension der Kirchendiener. Tüb. 1862.
Henry C. Lea: Excommunication, in his Studies in Church History (Philadelphia 1869), p. 223–475.
The severest penalties of the church were excommunication, anathema, and interdict. They
were fearful weapons in the hands of the hierarchy during the middle ages, when the church was
believed to control salvation, and when the civil power enforced her decrees by the strong arm of
the law. The punishment ceases with repentance, which is followed by absolution. The sentence
of absolution must proceed from the bishop who pronounced the sentence of excommunication;
but in articulo mortis every priest can absolve on condition of obedience in case of recovery.
- Excommunication was the exclusion from the sacraments, especially the communion. In
the dominions of Charlemagne it was accompanied with civil disabilities, as exclusion from secular
tribunals, and even with imprisonment and seizure of property. A bishop could excommunicate
any one who refused canonical obedience. But a bishop could only be excommunicated by the
pope, and the pope by no power on earth.^394 The sentence was often accompanied with awful curses
upon the bodies and souls of the offender. The popes, as they towered above ordinary bishops,
surpassed them also in the art of cursing, and exercised it with shocking profanity. Thus Benedict
VIII., who crowned Emperor Henry II. (a.d. 1014), excommunicated some reckless vassals of
William II., Count of Provence, who sought to lay unhallowed hands upon the property of the
monastery of St. Giles,^395 and consigned them to Satan with terrible imprecations, although be
probably thought he was only following St. Peter’s example in condemning Ananias and Sapphira,
and Simon Magus.^396
(^394) But during the papal schism, the rival popes excommunicated each other, and the Council of Constance deposed them.
(^395) Aegidius (Αἰ ίδιος); Italian: Sant Egidio; French: S. Gilles. He was an abbot and confessor in France during the reign
of Charles Martel or earlier, and much more celebrated than reliably known. He is the special patron of cripples, and his tomb
was much visited by pilgrims from all parts of France, England and Scotland. Almost every county in England has churches
named in his honor, amounting in all to 146. See Smith and Wace I. 47 sqq.
(^396) Bened. Papae VIII. Epist. 32 (ad Guillelmum Comitem). In Migne’s Patrol. T. 139, fol. 1630-32. Lea translates it in
part, l.c. p. 337. "Benedict Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to Count William and his mother, the Countess Adelaide,
perpetual grace and apostolic benediction .... Let them [who a tempted to rob the monastery] be accursed in their bodies, and
let their souls be delivered to destruction and perdition and torture. Let them be damned with the damned: let them be scourged
with the ungrateful; let them perish with the proud. Let them be accursed with the Jews who, seeing the incarnate Christ, did
not believe but sought to crucify Him. Let them be accursed with the heretics who labored to destroy the church. Let them be
accursed with those who blaspheme the name of God. Let them be accursed with those who despair of the mercy of God. Let
them be accursed with those who he damned in Hell. Let them be accursed with the impious and sinners unless they amend