|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
Anathema
AnathemaThe name was given by the ancients to certain classes of votive offerings, to the nets that the fisherman laid on the altar of the sea nymphs, to the mirror that Laïs consecrated to Venus, and to offerings of vessels, garments, instruments, and various other articles. The word was also applied to the victim devoted to the infernal gods, and it is this sense that is found among Jews and Christians, referring either to the curse or its object. The man who is anathematized is denied communication with the faithful, and he is delivered to the demon if he dies without absolution. Through the centuries the church often lavished anathemas upon those considered heretics and enemies, though many such as St. John Chrysostom taught that while it was well to anathematize false doctrine, people who have strayed should be pardoned and prayed for. The use of anathemas has largely dropped out of contemporary Christianity. Magicians and sorcerers once employed a sort of anathema to discover thieves and witches. Some limpid water was brought, and in it were boiled as many pebbles as there were persons suspected. The pebbles were then buried under the doorstep over which the thief or the sorcerer was to pass, and a plate of tin was attached to it, on which was written the words "Christ is conqueror; Christ is king; Christ is master." Every pebble must bear the name of one of the suspected persons. The stones are removed at sunrise, and the one representing the guilty person is hot and glowing. The seven penitential psalms must then be recited, with the Litanies of the Saints, and the prayers of exorcism pronounced against the thief or the sorcerer. His name must be written in a circular figure, and a triangular brass nail driven in above it with a hammer, the handle of which is of cypress wood, while the exorcist declares, "Thou are just, Lord, and just are Thy judgments." At this, the thief would betray himself by a loud cry. If the anathema has been pronounced by a sorcerer, and one wishes merely to escape the effects of it and cause it to return to him who has cast it, one must take, on Saturday, before sunrise, the branch of a one-year-old hazel tree and recite the following prayer: "I cut thee, branch of this year, in the name of him whom I wish to wound as I wound thee." The branch is then laid on the table and other prayers said, ending with "Holy Trinity, punish him who has done this evil, and take him from among us by Thy great justice, that the sorcerer or sorceress may be anathema, and we safe." Harrison Ainsworth's famous novel, The Lancashire Witches, deals with the subject and the Pendleton locality in England. |
|
|
Cite this article
"Anathema." Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Anathema." Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403800212.html "Anathema." Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. 2001. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403800212.html |
|
anathema
anathema. The word means ‘separated’ or ‘accursed’. In the OT it was used of ‘things devoted to God’, that is not for common use, and later came to involve for people exclusion from the community and loss of goods. St Paul used it of separation from the Christian community. Anathematization, which became the regular procedure against heretics, was distinguished from excommunication; whereas the latter involved only exclusion from the sacraments and worship, the former was complete separation from the body of the faithful. The distinction gradually lost its meaning and since 1983 the term has had no official application in the penal code of the RC Church.
|
|
|
Cite this article
E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-anathema.html E. A. LIVINGSTONE. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2000. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O95-anathema.html |
|
anathema
anathema a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation; the formal act or formula of cursing. The word comes (in the early 16th century) from ecclesiastical Latin ‘excommunicated person, excommunication’, from Greek anathema ‘thing devoted to evil, accursed thing’, from anatithenai ‘to set up’.
anathema maranatha words which occur together in 1 Corinthians 16:22, and were formerly thought to represent an intensification of anathema, but according to modern criticism, they do not belong together, and Maranatha represents a distinct sentence. |
|
|
Cite this article
ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "anathema." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "anathema." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-anathema.html ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "anathema." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-anathema.html |
|
anathema
anathema [Gr.,=something set up; dedicated to a divinity as a votive offering], term that came to denote something devoted to a divinity for destruction. In the Bible, the term is herem. Anathema means "accursed" in the New Testament, where it clearly suggests separation from God as the penalty. In the early Church and in Judaism contemporaneous with it, it was a penalty conveyed by a decree of excommunication . |
|
|
Cite this article
"anathema." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "anathema." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-anathema.html "anathema." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-anathema.html |
|
anathema
anathema The Greek word is used in Luke 21: 5 of gifts in the Temple dedicated to God, but it came to have the opposite meaning—of a thing accursed. In Gal. 1: 9 Paul says of those preaching a different gospel: ‘Let that one be accursed!’ and this formula ‘Let him be anathema’ became a standard denunciation of heretics by Church councils, e.g. the Council of Trent in 1545–64.
|
|
|
Cite this article
W. R. F. BROWNING. "anathema." A Dictionary of the Bible. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. W. R. F. BROWNING. "anathema." A Dictionary of the Bible. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O94-anathema.html W. R. F. BROWNING. "anathema." A Dictionary of the Bible. 1997. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O94-anathema.html |
|
anathema
a·nath·e·ma / əˈna[unvoicedth]əmə/ • n. 1. something or someone that one vehemently dislikes: racial hatred was anathema to her. 2. a formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine. ∎ poetic/lit. a strong curse. |
|
|
Cite this article
"anathema." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "anathema." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-anathema.html "anathema." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-anathema.html |
|
anathema
anathema curse; accursed thing. XVI. — ecclL. anathema — Gr. anáthema accursed thing (Rom. 9: 3).
So anathematize XVI. — F. — ecclL. — Gr. |
|
|
Cite this article
T. F. HOAD. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. T. F. HOAD. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-anathema.html T. F. HOAD. "anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-anathema.html |
|
Anathema
Anathema. A sentence of separation from a Christian congregation. The word is the equivalent of Heb. ḥerem.
|
|
|
Cite this article
JOHN BOWKER. "Anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN BOWKER. "Anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Anathema.html JOHN BOWKER. "Anathema." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Anathema.html |
|
anathema
anathema
•beamer, blasphemer, Colima, creamer, dreamer, emphysema, femur, Iwo Jima, Kagoshima, lemur, Lima, oedema (US edema), ottava rima, Pima, reamer, redeemer, schema, schemer, screamer, seamer, Selima, steamer, streamer, terza rima, Tsushima
•daydreamer
•dimmer, glimmer, limber, limner, shimmer, simmer, skimmer, slimmer, strimmer, swimmer, trimmer, zimmer
•enigma, sigma, stigma
•Wilma, Wilmer
•charisma • Gordimer • polymer
•ulema • anima • enema
•cinema, minima
•maxima • Bessemer • eczema
•dulcimer • Hiroshima
•Fatima, Latimer
•optima • Mortimer • anathema
•climber, Jemima, mimer, old-timer, part-timer, primer, rhymer, timer
•Oppenheimer • two-timer
•bomber, comma, momma, prommer
•dogma • dolma
|
|
|
Cite this article
"anathema." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "anathema." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-anathema.html "anathema." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-anathema.html |
|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries:
HighBeam™ Research, Inc. © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Encyclopedia.com advertising network includes:
