ANATEMA — Christian funerary inscription with an anathema against violators of tombs — Rome, Lateran Christian Museum.
and monuments, II, Rome 1868, pp. 251–57. Other fragments of works in PG 89, 1404–1408. Feast day, 21 April.
ANATEMA (Gr. ἀνάθη(ε)μα [τὸ ἀνατεθειμένον], “that which is placed on high, suspended”). — Among the classical profane authors, in II Mach. 9, 16, in Iud. 13, 23 (19), and in Lc. 21, 5, it denotes an object consecrated to the divinity, hung on the walls or columns of the temple, a kind of “ex voto.” In the Septuagint, however, it translates the Hebrew hērem.
Since ἀνατίθμαι, in religious usage, denotes consecration to infernal deities, it is uncertain whether, in the time of the Septuagint (3rd–2nd cent. B.C.), ἀνάθη(ε)μα in common usage meant “object of cursing” and ἀναθηματίζειν “to curse,” as in the curse tablets of Cnidus and the inscriptions of Megara (2nd–1st cent. B.C.), or whether they acquired this meaning later, under Judeo-Hellenistic influence.
In the New Testament (apart from Lc. 21, 5), it denotes: a) an oath to be fulfilled under penalty of severe privations (Act. 23, 14); b) “an object of cursing and execration” (Gal. 1, 8 ff.). To pronounce it against Jesus was a blasphemous formula, incompatible with supernatural charisms (I Cor. 12, 3). Paul hypothetically resigns himself to becoming an a., that is, deprived of salvation in Christ, in order to see the Jews converted (Rom. 9, 3). From a. arose the Hellenistic verb anathemitize (Mc. 14, 71; Act. 23, 12, 14, 21).
Since the Jews had replaced the death penalty required by the hērem with the loss of property and exclusion from the society of the faithful (Esd. 10, 8), the concept of synagogue excommunication began to take shape from the time of Ezra; hence, in the New Testament, ἀποσυνάγωγος and ἀφορίζειν, “to be expelled or separated from the synagogue,” already appear as established terms (Io. 9, 22; 12, 42; 16, 42; Lc. 6, 22). In the Talmud, two forms of this excommunication are distinguished: the niddūj, involving temporary exclusion (30, 60, or 90 days) from sacred assemblies and perhaps also from society, and the hērem, that is, solemn and perpetual exclusion from all association with the faithful, accompanied by the pronouncement of the curses of Deut. 28.
In the sources of the CIC and among ancient authors, the term a. is often used to indicate major excommunication (that is, complete separation from the society of the faithful), in contrast to minor excommunication (consisting simply in exclusion from the Sacraments). Today, with minor excommunication abolished, the word a. — as can. 2257, § 2 of the CIC points out — excommunication (v.), but it refers especially to those cases in which excommunication is imposed with the solemnities described in the Pontificale Romano under the title Ordo excommunicandi et absolventi.
IN CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. - As in pagan sepulchral inscriptions, so too in Christian ones, deprecatory formulas were used to prevent the violation of tombs, accompanied by threats of divine punishment; one implores in the name of God, or of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, in the name of the day of the dreadful judgment; whoever renders himself guilty: Anathema sit, habeat; he will have to answer before Christ on the day of judgment, suffer eternal punishment with Judas, be struck by the leprosy of the Syrian Naaman, of Gehazi, disciple of Elisha, die badly, remain unburied, not rise again; one even goes so far as to threaten the violator that what is said in Ps. 109 may befall him, or that he may receive the a. from the 318 Fathers (of the Council of Nicaea).
The use of such formulas appears at the end of the 4th century and develops in the 5th and subsequent centuries, enduring also in the Middle Ages, where such imprecations are repeated to lend greater firmness to documents.
In the East, St. Gregory Nazianzen composed 81 epigrams against violators of tombs, even threatening them with the torments of Tantalus, of Tityus, of Tartarus (PG 38, 99).