Anathema
The name was given by the ancients to certain classes of votive offerings, to the nets that the fisherman lays on the altar of the sea-nymphs, to the mirror that
Laïs consecrated to Venus; 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 in this sense that it 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 delivered to the demon if he dies without absolution. The Church has often lavished anathemas upon its enemies, though St. John Chrysostom has said that it is well to anathematize false doctrine, but that men who have strayed should be pardoned and prayed for. Formerly, magicians and sorcerers 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 door-step over which the thief or the sorcerer was to pass, and a plate of tin 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 that representing the guilty person is hot and glowing. But, as the devil is malicious, that is not enough. 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, the exorcist saying meanwhile: "Thou art 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 hazel tree of one year, 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. 66 Ancient War of the Knights, Commentary on the: (See Alchemy.) Andre, Francoise: (See France.) Andrews, Mrs.: (See Materialisation.)