John 9:22. The Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
According to the Talmud and the rabbit’s there were two, and perhaps three, grades of excommunication among the Jews. The first was called niddin, and those on whom it was pronounced were not permitted for thirty days to have any communication with any person save at a distance of four cubits. They were not prohibited from attending public worship, though they could not during the thirty days enter the temple by the ordinary gate. They were not allowed during that time to shave, and were required to wear garments of mourning. The second was called cherem, and was pronounced on those who remained contumacious under the first. It was of greater severity than the other, and required the presence of at least ten members of the congregation to make it valid. The offender was formally cursed, was excluded from all intercourse with other people, and was prohibited from entering the temple or a synagogue. The third was called shammatha, and was inflicted on those who persisted in their contumacy. By this they were cut off from all connection with the Jewish people, and were consigned to utter perdition. It is not clear, however, that there was any real distinction between the second and third grades here noted, Lightfoot suggests (in Horae Hebraicae, on 1 Corinthians 5:5) that the penalty of excommunication was probably inflicted for those faults for which neither the law nor tradition made any certain provision. The Talmud assigns as the two general causes of excommunication, money and epicurism. The first refers to those who refused to pay the moneys which the court directed them to pay; and the second refers to those who despised the word of God or of the scribes. Some rabbinical writers enumerate twenty-four different offenses for which excommunication was inflicted, some of them being frivolous in the extreme.
Excommunication is alluded to in Matthew 8:12; John 9:34; 12:42; and 16:2. Some think our Lord, in Luke 6:22, refers to the several grades above noticed: “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.”