Maclear and Williams on Article XXXIII: Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided

celibacy of the Priesthood is not commanded by God’s Law is absolutely primitive and Catholic. ” It has ever been regarded as a matter of pure discipline, varying with the different ages and the divers necessities of the Church1.” The Article claims for the Clergy the same freedom as is allowed the people, the same freedom as was conceded under the Jewish Law. But it by no means regards Clerical marriage as a matter of course. It leaves the ultimate decision to the individual conscience, and the question for each person to solve is whether marriage is likely or not to promote the spiritual life2. Our Lord spoke of continence as a Grace given to a few, and it is clear that He would commend those, who embrace voluntarily whatever privation single life involves in order to yield themselves more effectually a living sacrifice to duty and to God3. What the Article plainly demands is that great care and prayerful forethought should be exercised before the married state is entered upon by those in Holy Orders, who are called to be an example unto the flock which “Christ purchased for Himself with His own Blood.”

i Whether it will tend in the p. 342. 2nd Ed. 18S9. language of the Article “ad pie-

Article XXXIII.

Excommunicato uitandi sunt.

Qvi per publicam Ecclesia; denunti- ationem rite ab unitate ecclesise prce- cisus est et excommunicatus, is ab uniuersa fidelium multitudine, donee per pcenitentiam publice reconciliatus fuerit, arbitrio Iudicis competentis, habendus est tanquam Ethnicus et Publicanus.

Of excommunicate persons, henve they are to be auoided.

That person whiche by open de- nuntiation of the Churche, is ryghtly cut of from the vnitie of the Churche, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faythfull as an Heathen and Publi- cane, vntill he be openly reconciled by penaunce, and receaued into the Churche by a iudge that hath auc- thoritie thereto.

i. Source and Language. The Thirty-third Article is based on the Fifth Article of the Augsburg Confession, and in language has undergone no change since the first draft in 1553.

ii. The Object. Its object is to settle questions which arose in the xvith century respecting internal discipline, a topic which excited the most vehement dispu- tation in the reign of Edward VI1. For several sects of disordered spiritualists, setting at naught the letter of Holy Scripture, professed to have reached such a stage of perfection, that they were beyond all need of discipline.

iii. Analysis. The question as to the right of the Church to exercise discipline is not raised in the Article. It is assumed, and the only point discussed is the way in which it is to be carried out. It affirms that: —

(i) He who by open denunciation… is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church and excommuni- cated, “ought to be regarded by the whole body of the faithful as a heathen man and a publican ; and that

(ii) He is to be so regarded, until he be openly reconciled by penance and received into the Church by a Judge that hath authority there- unto.”

iv. Jewish Excommunication. Under the Jewish Law there were three kinds of excommunication:

(a) One of the simplest description, involving ex- clusion from the congregation for a period of a month, or, in the event of impenitence, two or three months1.

(b) A second, or more severe kind, accompanied with imprecations from Deut. xxviii. and other places of Scripture2:

(c) The third and heaviest form, involving total expulsion from the Synagogue, and handing over to the power of the Evil One3.

v. In the New Testament we find our Lord laying

down three courses to be observed in the case of offences. He enjoins that if a brother sin against another, (i) The party, who deems himself offended, is to tell the other privately of the matter which has caused offence; (ii) If this fails, there is to be reprehension before two or three witnesses; (iii) In the event of continued refusal to be

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this sentence none might consort, no, ajroavydywyoi ytvwvTtu. not to oit. To this S. Paul is sup-

reconciled, then the offended party is to tell the matter to the Church, and, if there be still no signs of penitence, the offender is to be no longer regarded as a Christian, but as a heathen man and a publican (Matt, xviii. 15 — 17).

vi. Apostolic Practice. In accordance with these regulations we find S. Paul in the case of the incestuous person at Corinth enjoining the members of the Church there to assemble together in the Name of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. v. 4), and while he himself is with them in spirit, to deliver over the offender to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. v. 4, 5). And when the incestuous man repents, the same Apostle enjoins the Corinthians to restore and forgive him, and promises that whosoever they forgive he will forgive also (2 Cor. ii. 5 — 11). Again, he threatens to enquire judicially into the case of certain persons in the same Church, and to deal sharply with them according to the power which the Lord had given him (2 Cor. xiii. 10). Thus also he informs Timothy that he had himself excommunicated Hymenreus and Alexander (1 Tim. i. 20), and he gives directions to him and to Titus how they are to judge, rebuke, and reject wherever neces- sary (1 Tim. v. 19 — 21; Tit. iii. io, 11).

vii. Christian Excommunication. That the ex- ample of S. Paul should be followed in the early Church was only natural, and we find that, as amongst the Jews, the exercise of discipline was carried out on a graduated scale : (a) The more lenient form consisted of separation from the Holy Eucharist and from the prayers of the faithful, but it did not exclude the offender wholly from the Church; (b) an intermediate form excluded the offender for a longer period than the first; (c) the great Excommunication, called “Anathema,” involved a total

exclusion from all Church communion and from all Christian privileges1. The Judge or Officer, who was empowered by the early Church to impose and remove2 the penalties of Excommunication was the Bishop. But during the Middle Ages this power was claimed almost exclusively for the Popes, and in their hands acquired a new and terrible meaning. Of this we have prominent examples in the Excommunication of the Emperor Henry IV. by Pope Gregory VII., and the Interdict, under which all England was laid in the reign of John by Pope Innocent III.

viii. The Reformers generally recognised the power of Excommunication, as is proved by the statement con- tamed in the Augsburg and Saxon Confessions. Calvin was a very strict asserter of this authority on the part of the Church, and divided it into (i) private monition, (2) reprehension before witnesses, (3) exclusion from the Holy Communion, humiliation before God, and open confession before the Church3. In our own Church we have in the Commination Service the recitation of the doom of wilful sinners as contained in Deut. xxviii. 11 — 26*, and the Rubric before the Holy Communion directs the Priest to repel notorious and evil livers from participation in that Holy Feast, provided that he at once acquaints the Bishop of the fact of his so doing. The Excommunication contemplated in the Article is that known as ” the greater Excommunication.” It can never be inflicted except by a Judge in a properly constituted Ecclesiastical court, and

1 See Bingham, Eccl. Antiq., Bk. xvi., Ch. ii. 7, 8 ; and Smith’s Diet, of Christian A ntiquities.

• For the form observed at such a solemn anathema, see the office in the Sarum Pontifical, Maskell, A/on. Rit. Eccl. Angl. 11. clxv.

’ Calvin, Instil, iv. xii. 2. This

Reformer exempted no one, not even the sovereign, from such censures, and he quotes the case of Theodosius ex- communicated by S. Ambrose as a precedent for rigour in all cases.

4 For the recitation of these dooms in the time of Joshua see Josh. viii.

this is implied by the words “rightly cut off,” that is in a formal and regular manner, and even now the power of these courts to excommunicate, and even to order penance for living in incest, adultery, or fornication has not been entirely taken away1.

Notes

• Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. tatem.” 627. 3 See Mason’s Faith of the Gospel,
• See Hardwick, Hist. Articles, pp. 91, 104.
• The extent to which it still re- Church Dictionary, p. 339, new mains is substantially defined by the edition, 1887, and Phillimore’s Eccles. Act 53 George III. c. 127. See Hook’s Law, p. 1375.