Forbes on Article XXXIII: Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided

ties of continence when the trial-time comes. ” They are pure as angels,” said a French Bishop of his semi narists. The Church of England has, as yet, left this, as well as other matters relating to the soul, purely to the consciences of individuals. It leans to the celibate ; it does not enjoin it. But as men’s souls are stirred more and more by the Spirit of God, it must be, that celibacy, among men too, and especially among those whom God calls to the priesthood, will become a recog nised religious vocation. Wise will be her course, if she follows the Apostle’s advice, and, without limiting the freedom which he admitted, directs her sons, as the more excellent way, to that which he chose.

After what has been said, it is unnecessary in a treatise of this kind to enlarge upon the increased influence, the capacity for labour, the disentanglement from the world, the economy of living, the increased facilities for missionary and hospital work of a celibate priesthood. At the price of much individual suffer ing, a mighty engine for the conversion of the world is thus recognised in clerical celibacy, as the fruit of self-devotion upon the call of God. And the spirit of St. Paul, reflected in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons of the fourth century, finds its highest inter pretation in such self -dedication, where the matured will, after having tested its powers, yields itself a living sacrifice to duty and to God.

U u

Qui per publicam Ecclesice denunciationem rite ab unitate Ecclesice prcecisus est, et excommunicatus, is ab universa fidelium multitudine (donee per pcenitentiam publice re- conciliatus fuerit arbitrio Judicis competently habendus est tanquam ethnicus et publicanus.

” Of excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided.

” THAT person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an heathen and publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a judge that hath authority there unto.”

To cut the offending member from the body is a power which natural law grants as inherent in every society. The expulsion of unruly members, or of those who refuse to obey the conditions of the implied con tract which membership presupposes, is necessary to its well-being. All this holds in an increasingly true sense where we have to deal with supernatural ideas ; and with more or less consistency every form of reli gion has arrogated to itself the right of expulsion ;

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and in the measure that highest spiritual privileges are attached to incorporation and visible communion, there with the importance of the power for such expulsion must be conceived of. The highest notion, of course, is where the consequences of the deprivation of visible communion tell upon the soul in the next world, even to the endangering of salvation. Under the Jewish law the cutting off from the people, though sometimes meaning death by the judgment of God, or by the hand of man a, was latterly understood of excommuni cation, which was either niddui, excommunication for a month ; or cherem, excommunication accompanied with imprecations, the intensest form of which was shammatta. In the earliest times we find that the Chris tian Church wielded this terrible power, and made it the basis of all its discipline. With a graduated scale of Church censures, she reserved excommunication as the ultimate term of her jurisdiction. St. Irenaeus men tions the final excommunication of Cerdon. Origen bears witness to the practice of the expulsion from communion of offenders, especially the incontinent. Tertullian, in view of his Montanist ideas, gives us much insight into the discipline of the Church during his time. The Canons of the Church not only lay down rules for the exercise of this discipline, but actually enforce many of their own enactments under penalty of anathema b.

a 1 Kings xiv. 10; Exod. xxxi. 14, 15; Levit. xvii. 4. b Vide Appendix to Sermon upon Evangelical Repentance by the Bishop of St. Andrew’s. Oxf., 1841.

When the kingdoms of the earth became Chris tian, and had in certain cases to be dealt with by the Church in a corporate capacity, the theory of excommunication and interdict received further de velopment.

It is unnecessary here to dwell at length upon the public discipline of the ancient Church., how the peni tents were divided into weepers, hearers, kneelers, and co-standers ; how crimes were visited by long terms of penance in proportion to the magnitude of the offence ; how some were only reconciled in the article of death, and how some crimes were thought too great for resti tution to communion in this life, though the mercy of God was hoped for them in the next. The Article distinctly asserts the duty of the faithful to take part with the justice of the Church, and strengthen the bands of her discipline by holding the excommunicate person as a heathen man and publican in the very terms of the Gospel6, and in these words the present Church of England in theory, and to a certain degree in practice, adopts all the ancient teaching on this awful subject. It must not be concealed that certain complications arising from State establishment, from the predominance of a legal school which has given undue prominence to the assertion of temporal rights and to the protection which civil law gives to character, have crippled the exercise of godly discipline. Never theless, the Church has never ceased to deplore its decay, and to pray for its restoration.

« St. Matt, xviii. 17.

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The teaching and practice of the Church on the subject of excommunication have been thus formu- larized in the Latin Church, and as the theory of the Church of England is intimately connected with it, some of the details are here given, with a view to clearness. An excommunication is an ecclesiastical cen sure, by which a Christian man is separated from the communion of the Church. It depends on the power of binding and loosing granted to her prelates by Christ, ” If he neglect to hear the Church d :” observe also the practice of the Apostle handing the offender over ” to Satan/’ on which St. Austin says, ” Because the devil is without the Church as Christ is in the Church, so he is given over to the devil who is removed from the communion of the Church.” Excommunication is nearly the same as anathema, but the latter is the more solemn form of the process, nay, in general, is more awful.

Excommunication is divided into the greater and the lesser. The greater is that ecclesiastical censure, whereby the Christian is separated from the commu mon of the faithful absolutely and simply ; i.e. is de prived of all common blessings, such as the Sacraments of the Church, both as to administration and recep tion, as well as common prayer and society. The minor is that whereby the Christian is deprived only of the passive reception of Sacraments. When ex communication is spoken of indefinitely it means the greater. Again, excommunication is divided into 1. ex~ d St. Matt, xviii. 17.

G63 ARTICLE XXXIII.

communicatio lat& sententice, and 2. excommunicatto sen- t entice fcrendce. The first is that which is incurred ipso facto, either by the perpetration of the crime, or by the sentence of the judge ; excommunicatio scntentice ferenda, is that, which though held as established in law, yet is not at once and ipso facto incurred before the sentence of the judge.

Thirdly, excommunication is divided into that which is carried out by the law, and that which is carried out by the individual. Excommunication qua a jure fcrtur, is when anything is prohibited by law, canons, constitution, or decree, under penalty of such, or of anathema. That qua a judice fertur t is that which for any crime is inflicted by the judge. Hence, censure in kind is one thing, in law another as regards the individual ; inasmuch as the first is of perpetual obli gation, till revoked by legitimate authority, the other depends on the life of the censurer.

In the Roman Church there is the further distinc tion of reserved and unreserved excommunication.

All Bishops and other Ordinaries can excommunicate in their territories and dioceses, so chapters sede va- cante, heads of orders, General Councils.

Only Christians, in this life, gravely and continu ously offending, capable of reason, and subject to the jurisdiction of the ex communicator, can be excommu nicated. Jews, Pagans, Saracens, and other infidels, cannot, because they have never been baptized nor are within the Church ; but heretics can, because they have been baptized, and have taken on them the faith

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of Christ. The dead cannot be, for the binding is, “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth/’ not under the earth. Next, gravity and contumacity are necessary, and not even against the contumacious, unless they have been summarily warned.

The judgment of God rests on the truth, which neither deceiveth, nor is deceived; but the judgment of the Church sometimes rests on opinion, which can easily err and cause to err, whence it sometimes hap pens that he who is bound by God is loosed by the Church, and he who is free with God is bound by the sentence of the Church. Clave errante is a recog nised ground of appeal.

The first effect of excommunication is to deprive the excommunicate person of the active and passive use of the Sacraments.

2. Of the common suffrages of the Church, and the spiritual blessings which flow from the public offices of the clergy and the sacrifices of the faithful.

3. Of the right to assist at the divine offices. He may, however, hear sermons, recite prayers in private.

4. Of Ecclesiastical sepulture.

5. Of Political communion with the faithful.

6. In some countries he cannot be judge, advocate, or witness.

7. All his ecclesiastical acts are invalid, except the election of the Pope, no excommunication of a cardinal invalidating that.

8. It renders him incapable of receiving ecclesiastical revenues.

9. The excommunicated person is incapable of hold ing benefices.

10. He cannot obtain any rescript of grace or jus tice from the Apostolic See, unless in the actual case of excommunication, on appeal, it may be obtained for the defence of the excommunicate person.

11. It renders him suspect of heresy if he do not purge himself within the year.

12. It renders excommunicate (at least so far as the minor is concerned) all those who communicate v/ith the excommunicate person.

The effect of the minor excommunication is three fold :-

1. He may not partake in any Sacrament.

2. If without necessity he administers a Sacrament, he sins at least venially.

3. He cannot be elected to an ecclesiastical bene fice.

Absolution, in the case of excommunication a jure, may be granted not only by Bishops and Prelates hold ing jurisdiction, but, so far as the forum internum is concerned, by parish Priests and simple confessors.

From excommunication ab homine, carried out by special sentence, none can absolve but he who laid it on, or his deputy, or his successor, or the superior of the censurer having plenary jurisdiction, but not as Archbishop in respect of his suffragans, except in case of appeal.

A man may be absolved out of confession, in absence, against his will; after death, if he died penitent, he

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may be so far absolved as to be capable of Christian burial, and of the suffrages of the Church.

Absolution may be given absolutely, or on condition, or ad cautelam, or cum reincidentia ; that is, he may fall again under it if he neglect to do what he has promised, or for a special purpose as a judicial ex amination. No one can be absolved from the greater unless he swear to obey the commands of the Church, and not to sin in the kind again ; also, he must make restitution so far as he can. Yet if he neglect to fulfil this, he does not relapse into the excommunicate state, but should be again excommunicated. Yet he who ab solves without an oath, absolves illicitly though validly. Absolution extorted from fear is invalid.

Nothing will place before the student the awful character of excommunication in so striking a light, as the form of service which has for many centuries, with various modifications, been used in the Western Church, since the ninth or tenth century. Before that, no special form was prescribed. Martene gives some very terrible forms, but what is here exhibited is suffi ciently striking and awful.

“When the anathema, i.e. solemn excommunication for grievous faults, is to be inflicted, the Bishop, dressed in amice, stole, and cope, of violet colour, with a simple mitre, assisted by twelve surpliced Priests, having all burning candles in their hands, shall sit on a faldstool before the altar, or in some other public place as shall please him ; he shall there pronounce and emit the anathema in this manner : — ” Inasmuch as N.y by the persuasion of the devil, laying aside

by apostacy that Christian promise which he made in Baptism, has not feared to lay waste the Church of God, to despoil the ecclesiastical property, and vio lently to oppress Christ’s poor ; therefore, anxious lest he perish, by the pastoral negligence for which in the tremendous judgment we shall have to give an account before the Chief Pastor, our Lord Jesus Christ, according to that which the same Lord terribly threatens, saying : ’ If thou shalt not announce to the wicked his sin, his blood will I require at thy hand/ We have warned him canonically once, twice, thrice, and even four times, in order to convince him of his wickedness, inviting him to emendation, satisfaction, and penance, and correcting him with paternal affec tion. But he, alas ! despising salutary counsels, in slated with the spirit of pride, disdains to give satis faction to the Church which he has injured. Yerily, information is supplied by the precepts of the Lord and His Apostles how we ought to act with regard to such transgressors. For the Lord says, ’ If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee ; ’ and the Apostle says, ’ Put away the evil thing from among you ; ’ and again, ’ If any one who is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or an evil speaker, or a drunkard, or a robber, not to take food with him/ And St. John, the be loved disciple of our Lord, forbids us to salute such a wicked one, saying, ’ Receive him not into thy house, neither bid him God speed, for whoso biddeth him God speed, communicateth in his wicked works/ Fulfilling, therefore, the precepts of our Lord and

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His Apostles, let us cut off this putrid and incurable member, which will not take medicine, by the sword of excommunication from the Body of the Church, lest the remaining members of the body become tainted as by poison, by such pestilent disease. Therefore, since he despises our admonitions and frequent exhor tations, and when thrice summoned according to our Lord’s precept, he has neglected to repent and amend, since he has neither bethought himself of his fault, nor confessed it, nor sent an embassage to make any excuse, nor hath asked pardon ; but, the devil harden ing his heart, has persevered in the wickedness on which he hath entered, according to the words of the Apostle, ’ according to his hardness of heart and im penitence, hath treasured up for himself wrath against the day of wrath.’ Therefore, him, with all his ac complices and supporters, by the judgment of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all saints, also by the authority of binding and loosing in heaven and in earth bestowed upon our mediocrity by God, we separate from the reception of the precious Body and Blood of our Lord, and from the society of all Christians, and we exclude him from the thresholds of holy mother Church in heaven and earth, and we decree him excommunicate, and anathematized, and damned with the devil and his angels, and all the lost in eternal fire, till he recover himself from the snares of the devil, and return to amendment and penance, and satisfy the Church of God which he hath injured ; delivering him to Satan for the destruc-

tion of the flesh, that his soul may be saved in the day of judgment.”

« Then all shall answer ’ Fiat, fiat, fiat, ! ’ Which being done, the Bishops and Priests ought to cast to the earth the candles which they held in their hands. Then a letter must be sent through the parishes, and even to the neighbouring Bishops, containing the name of the excommunicated person, and the cause of his excommunication, that no one henceforth through igno rance may communicate with him, and thus cause of excommunication may be taken from all.”

It will be seen how in the midst of all these terrors, the emendation of the sinner is held in view, and pro vision made for his restoration. The same spirit ani mates the Article. The excommunicate person is to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as a heathen and publican, only till he be openly recon ciled by penance, and received into the Church by a judge that hath authority thereto. If there be a re markable fact in the history of the discipline of the Church, it is her great tenderness with regard to sinners, imitating her Divine Head. She embraces the return ing prodigal, and on the slightest indications of re pentance restores him to her Sacraments. She has again and again resisted the rigorous spirit of indi vidual members since the days of her condemnation of Novatianism.