Episcopicide and Presbyterianism and episcopofactory

When you continue your study of "Epi," you just can't miss the Episcopalians. Like the Churches of that denomination sprinkled throughout city and town across America, the word is something that just arrests your eye. It goes on for nearly four columns in the OED, and appears in many forms and meanings.

A Preliminary Exercise

Before looking at some of those meanings, however, I thought I would check to see if the OED is "biased," by "favoring" the religion of the land of England by giving them more "space" than to other Protestant groups. Indeed, words relating to "Episcopal" cover more than one full page of the OED, while words relating to "Baptist" have fewer than three columns (three columns per page). I thought I might be onto something. Then, I decided to look up "Lutheran" and its relatives, and, presto, fewer than two columns. Wow. Already I was composing a mini-essay in my head regarding the unwitting bias of the OED. Then, I turned to the Presbyterians and the idea for my essay disappeared as quickly as it came. The Presbyterians have a solid seven columns of words and definitions relating to them. As with Moses and the burning bush, I simply had to "turn aside" to see, not why the bush was burning but not consumed, but why the Presbyterians got so much space in the OED.

At first I thought I had made a mistake in counting or, stated differently, that I had counted hastily and included in my seven columns of Presbyterian-related words the very common term, from ophthalmology, presbyopia (far-sightedness) and its relations. But no, I didn't. Seven solid columns it was. Ah, then, with some careful study the answer came to me about why the Presbyterians got so much "pres(s)" in the OED and the others did not. It is because the Presbyterians kept fighting among themselves and kept splitting, and the OED, being a good and dutiful dictionary, had to record the names of a few of those groups and tell about them. It is not for nothing that the Presbyterians have been known as the "fighting saints."

Now it makes sense. For, under the entry "Presbyterian" one not only has a defintion regarding the form of government of such a church, but ample articles on Reformed Presbyterian (kind of tautologous, isn't it?) and United Presbyterian. Then, the word "presbytery" has several significations, both in the Presbyterian system and in the general flow of Church History (since the word "Presbyter" means "elder," and Christianity has always been blessed with tons of old folks who governed the church).

Back to the Episcopalians

But the Episcopals never went through a series of schisms, and so they are missing a column on "Reformed Episcopals" or "Bible-Believing Episcopals" or whatever they would be. Most people think that if the Episcopals keep their focus on the Book of Common Prayer and their pastors never let their supply of sherry diminish, the denomination will never split. So it is that they only have their four columns in the OED.

But fewer columns does not mean fewer interesting concepts. For, one has not just the standard ones, which everyone knows, such as episcopacy (oversight or ecclesiastical authority) or episcopal (government by bishops) or episcopalian (a member of the denomination), but some interesting ones too. One can be an episcopal, of course, but to be episcopable means "qualified for appointment as a bishop." Just as one has words such as marginalia, to suggest marginal notes, or paraphernalia, to describe things lying around that one owns, we also have episcopalia, to mean Episcopal belongings, such as vestments or buildings.

Thus, when I went to my friend Tony's ordination to the "transitional Diaconate" in the Episcopal Church in July, I could say that lots of people participating in the ordination had brought their episcopalia in tow (no, they hadn't dragged any buildings along). Episcopation is the action of making a person a bishop, though I prefer the obsolete word to define the same thing: episcopofactory. Doesn't the latter word call to mind a big place, with crashing noises and whirring machines, where bishops are made? Well, they used to say that the University of Washington male crew members, who were all 6'4" and 190 pounds, were from "central casting." Maybe there is also such a place for Episcopal bishops, the "episcopofactory." Then, instead of saying "installed, 2004" to indicate when a bishop had begun his or her charge, it might better say "minted, 2004." Was it a defect in the episcopofactory that a gay Episcopal bishop was "minted" in 2003? Did someone pour a little too much of something into one of the vials? Or, possibly, did the workers in the factory finally get it right? The imagination keeps going on and on.

Finally to Episcopicide

But the most arresting word to me is episcopicide, which the OED defines as "the crime of murdering a bishop." It is attested in both the seventeenth and eighteenth century but, probably the more important question is whether it was ever practiced and not merely whether the word appears in the dictionary. I don't give any of that history here, but it does make one wonder why on earth one would ever need or want such a term. There is no entry for "presbytericide," even though the Presbyterians seemingly spent more time killing each other than the Episcopals did. But maybe in the "Vanity-Fairish" type of world of Thackeray, where clergy might have not been highly regarded, conversation on a cold night in the Midlands may have strayed into peoples' desires to "off" a bishop or two. And, then, since 19th century English scientists, all of whom were learned classicists, had ready Latin and Greek terms for almost everything else in creation at the time, it wouldn't have been much of a stretch for someone to say, "I just would love to kill the bishop." Response, "Episcopicide, m' lord?"