ANATHEMA

(Gr. kvaS i/Mt.) Properly, a thing laid by, consecrated, or devoted: hence a person upon whom the ban of the church is laid, is said to be anathematised,or in the Jewish phrase, to be "anathema." St. Paul says, " If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached, let him be anathema:" and upon the authority of this and similar pa ages, the church a umed from the first the power of anathematising or excommunicating evildoers and heretics. ANATlD-ffi. The name of a family of web-footed birds, of the swan, goose, and duck kind, of which the genus Anas is the type. [s. 58]