Strife.

Strife.

In the early Church it was considered a privilege to make oblations to the Church, and a sort of lesser excommunication to be debarred from doing so. The officers would not receive the offerings of persons that were at enmity or variance with their brethren, neither at the altar nor into the treasury. This custom was grounded upon the rule of our Lord ( Matthew 5:23). Further, all open enmity and quarrelling, Strife, envy, and contention, were punished with excommunication, as tendencies towards, and lower degrees of, murder. See Bingham, Christ. Antiq. bk. 16, ch. 10, 17.