Anathema

Anathema, from the Greek meaning a thing set apart or devoted, corresponds to the Hebrew cherem, the solemn dedication of persons or things to God, sometimes involving their destruction. In the Old Testament, items devoted to God under cherem could not be redeemed; they were either destroyed or transferred permanently to the sanctuary (Lev. 27:28–29; Num. 18:14). The term carried both the sense of sacred consecration and irrevocable judgment.

In the New Testament the word carries a primarily negative force: to pronounce something anathema is to declare it under divine curse and cut off from the community. Paul invokes this sense when he declares that anyone who preaches a different gospel should be anathema (Gal. 1:8–9), and when he describes his willingness to be accursed for the sake of his kinsmen (Rom. 9:3). The phrase Anathema Maranatha in 1 Corinthians 16:22 combines a curse with the Aramaic invocation of the Lord's coming.