most prominence and attached most weight was the ban of excommunication; and therefore, consistently with the accepted doctrine, the formula of excommunication ended by sentencing the offender to remain whole and undissolved after death—a condition from which the body was not freed unless and until absolution was read over it and the decree of excommunication thereby rescinded.
This doctrine was held to have the authority of Christ's own teaching[1]. The power which was conferred upon the apostles in the words, 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven[2],' was believed to have been so transmitted to their successors, the bishops[3] of the Church, that they too had the faculty of binding and loosing men's bodies—that is, of arresting or promoting their decomposition after death. Such an interpretation of the text was facilitated by the very simplicity of its wording; for [Greek: lyô], in modern Greek [Greek: lyonô], 'loose,' expresses equally well the ideas of dissolution and of absolution, while [Greek: deô], in modern Greek [Greek: denô], 'bind,' embraces their respective opposites. A nomocanon de excommunicatis[4], promulgated in explanation of the fact that excommunication sometimes failed to produce its expected result, presents clearly the authorised doctrine and at the same time illustrates effectively the twofold usage of the words 'loosing' and 'binding.'
'Concerning excommunicated persons, the which suffer excommunication by their bishops and after death are found with their bodies "not loosed" ([Greek: alyta]).
'Certain persons have been justly, reasonably, and lawfully excommunicated by their bishops, as transgressors of the divine law, and have died in the state of excommunication without amending their ways and receiving forgiveness, and have been buried, and in a short time their bodies have been found "loosed" ([Greek: lelymena]) and sundered bone from bone. . . .
'Now this is exceeding marvellous that he who hath been
- ↑ Cf. Leo Allatius, De quor. Graecorum opinat. XIII. Balsamon, I. 569 (Migne). Epist. S. Niconis, quoted by Balsamon, II. p. 1096 (ed. Paris, 1620). Christophorus Angelus, cap. 25.
- ↑ S. Matthew xviii. 18.
- ↑ The power of excommunicating belonged to priests as well as to bishops, but they might not exercise it without their bishop's sanction. Cf. Balsamon, I. 27 and 569 (Migne).
- ↑ Quoted by Leo Allatius, De quor. Graec. opinat. XIII. and XIV.
