SG Heritage Dictionary

Anathema [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. Excommunication with curses. Hence, a curse or denunciation by ecclesiastical authority, accompanying excommunication. This species of excommunication was practiced in the ancient churches, against notorious offenders; all churches were warned not to receive them; all magistrates and private persons were admonished not to harbor or maintain them, and priests were enjoined not to converse with them, or attend their funeral.

2. There are two kinds of anathemas, judiciary and abjuratory. The former is pronounced by a council, pope or bishop; the latter is the act of a convert who anathematizes the heresy which he abjures.

3. In heathen mythology, an offering, or present made to some deity and hung up in a temple. Whenever a person quitted his employment, he set apart, or dedicated his tools to his patron-deity. Persons who had escaped danger remarkably, or been otherwise very fortunate, testified their gratitude by some offering to their deity.

Anathema [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication. Hence: Denunciation of anything as accursed.

2. An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.

3. Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by ecclesiastical authority.

Anathema Encyclopedia Britannica

ANATHEMA(ανάθεμα, from άνατίθημι, lit. anything offered up) is frequently used in classic Greek (in the form ανάθημα) to denote things consecrated to the gods, and deposited in a temple. In the LXX. it is the equivalent of the Hebrew β**>, which denotes an offering devoted to God absolutely, and therefore, in the case of a living creature, put to death. The idea of destruction or perdition thus became associated with the word, which gradually lost its primary sense of consecration. In the New Testament it signifies separated from the church and accursed, and it became the technical term for a form of excommunication at an early date.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 1, p. 798
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Anathema Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

from ἀνατίθημι, signifies something set apart, separated, or devoted, Mic. iv, 13, or the _formula_ by which this is effected. To anathematize is generally understood to denote the cutting off or separating any one from the communion of the faithful, the number of the living, or the privileges of society; or the devoting of an animal, city, or other thing, to destruction. See ACCURSED.

MARANATHA. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” 1 Cor. xvi, 22. Why these two words, one Greek and the other Syriac, were not translated, is not obvious. They are the words with which the Jews began their greater excommunication, whereby they not only excluded sinners from their society, but delivered them up to the divine _cherem_, or anathema, that is, to misery in this life, and perdition in the life to come. “Let him be Anathema” is, “Let him be accursed.” Maranatha signifies, “The Lord cometh,” or, “will come;” that is, to take vengeance. See See ACCURSED.