Let him be anathema, accursed. Maran Atha,[2] which, according to St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom, signify, the Lord is come already, and so is to be taken as an admonition to those who doubted of the resurrection, and is to put them in mind, that Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, is come already. The Rabbinical writers tells us, there are three curses among the Jews called by different names: that the first was niddui, which implied an expulsion from the synagogue for a time; the second was greater, such being quite cut off from the common society, called Cherem; the third, Maran Atha, the Lord cometh, is coming, or is come, which was followed by exemplary judgments and punishments. Thus Mons. Hure, in his Bible Dictionary, Mr. Legh, in his Critica Sacra, and also Mr. Nary. But whether this is better grounded than many other Rabbinical stories, let others judge. (Witham)

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Maran Atha, Greek: maran atha. St. John Chrysostom, Greek: ti de esti maran atha; o kurios emon elthe, &c. St. Hierom [St. Jerome], Epist. ad Marcellam. tom. ii. p. 706, and de nominibus Hebraicis. tom. iv. p. 78.

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