1. properly, a thing set up or laid by in order to be kept; specifically a votive offering, which after being consecrated to a god was hung upon the walls or columns of his temple, or put in some other conspicuous place: 2 Macc. 2:13 (Plutarch, Pelop c. 25); Luke 21:5 in L T, for ἀναθήμασι R G Tr WH; for the two forms are sometimes confounded in the manuscripts; Moeris, ἀνάθημα ἀττικῶς, ἀνάθεμα ἑλληνικῶς. Cf. ἐπίθημα, ἐπίθεμα, etc., in Lob. ad Phryn., p. 249 (cf. 445; Paral. 417; see also Lipsius, Gram. Unters., p. 41).

2. ἀνάθεμα in the Sept. is generally the translation of the Heb. חֵרֶם, a thing devoted to God without hope of being redeemed, and, if an animal, to be slain (Leviticus 27:28, 29); therefore a person or thing doomed to destruction, Joshua 6:17; Joshua 7:12, etc. (Winer's Grammar, 32); a thing abominable and detestable, an accursed thing, Deuteronomy 7:26. Hence, in the N. T. ἀνάθεμα denotes a. a curse: ἀναθέματι ἀναθεματίζειν, Acts 23:14 (Winers Grammar, 466 (484); Buttmann, 184 (159)).

b. a man accursed, devoted to the direst woes (equivalent to ἐπικατάρατος): ἀνάθεμα ἔστω, Galatians 1:8; 1 Corinthians 16:22; ἀνάθεμα λέγειν τινα to execrate one, 1 Corinthians 12:3 (R G, but L T Tr WH have restored ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦς, namely, ἔστω); ἀνάθεμα εἶναι ἀπό τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Romans 9:3 (pregnantly equivalent to doomed and so separated from Christ). Cf. the full remarks on this word in Fritzsche on Romans, vol. ii., 247ff; Wieseler on Galatians, p. 39ff; (a translation of the latter by Prof. Riddle in Schaff's Lange on Romans, p. 302ff; see also Trench, § v.; Lightfoot on Galatians, the passage cited; Ellicott ibid.; Tholuck on Romans, the passage cited; BB. DD., under the words, Anathema, Excommunication).