Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

was not enough to repute them as heathen, that never had been
Christians; for with such they might eat and drink, which with
excommunicate persons they might not do, as appeareth by the words
of St. Paul where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to
"company with fornicators";* but, because that could not be without
going out of the world, he restraineth it to such fornicators and
otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren; "with such a
one," he saith, they ought not to keep company, "no not to eat." And
this is no more than our Saviour saith, "Let him be to thee as a
heathen, and as a publican."*(2) For publicans (which signifieth
farmers and receivers of the revenue of the Commonwealth) were so
hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it, as that publican
and sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing; insomuch as
when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a publican,
though it were to convert him, yet it was objected to him as a
crime. And therefore, when our Saviour, to heathen, added publican, he
did forbid them to eat with a man excommunicate.
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* I Corinthians, 5. 9, 10, etc.
*(2) Matthew, 18. 17
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As for keeping them out of their synagogues, or places of
assembly, they had no power to do it but that of the owner of the
place, whether he were Christian or heathen. And because all places
are by right in the dominion of the Commonwealth, as well he that
was excommunicated as he that never was baptized, might enter into
them by commission from the civil magistrate; as Paul before his
conversion entered into their synagogues at Damascus, to apprehend
Christians, men and women, and to carry them bound to Jerusalem, by
commission from the high priest.*
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* Acts, 9. 2
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By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an
apostate, in a place where the civil power did persecute or not assist
the Church, the effect of excommunication had nothing in it, neither
of damage in this world nor of terror: not of terror, because of their
unbelief; nor of damage, because they returned thereby into the favour
of the world; and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate
than they which never had believed. The damage redounded rather to the
Church, by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of
their malice.
Excommunication therefore had its effect only upon those that
believed that Jesus Christ was to come again in glory to reign over
and to judge both the quick and the dead, and should therefore
refuse entrance into his kingdom to those whose sins were retained;
that is, to those that were excommunicated by the Church. And thence
it is that St. Paul calleth excommunication a delivery of the
excommunicate person to Satan. For without the kingdom of Christ,
all other kingdoms after judgement are comprehended in the kingdom
of Satan. This is it that the faithful stood in fear of, as long as
they stood excommunicate, that is to say, in an estate wherein their
sins were not forgiven. Whereby we may understand that excommunication
in the time that Christian religion was not authorized by the civil
power was used only for a correction of manners, not of errors in
opinion: for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but
such as believed and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge