Ungod, Ungodded, and Ungodding

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Earlier this month I wrote two posts on the un-prefix in words occurring in Joyce's Ulysses and in Webster's 1828 dictionary--there were many surprises, including an entire category of new words outside their original intentions. One example that came up today, flushed out while reading in a very erudite but long-nosed and very sniffily dismissive work by F.W. Bussell (Religious Thought and Heresy in the Middle Ages, published in 1918).  The author was a man of very deep and long learning who wrote a bit, thick-as-a-brick-or-two book of high physical appeal. It seemed to me though that his understanding of some "foreign" religions did not broaden his own appreciation of difference in cultures, as some of the heretical belief systems included Buddhism and Hinduism. 

As much as Bussell seems to put god into various religious equations, he more than occasionally proves judgmental in taking god out of others. Here's a sampel from Mr. Bussell:

It's a difficult go. 

And rightly or wrongly it brought up ungod/ungodded/ungoding, the words I bumped into in Webster's, and so their appearance in the OED:

UNGOD. To deprive of the qualities or position of deity; to undeify. (Common c1640–1740.)

 

1627   M. Wren Serm. 33   All slight and un~awful Expressions. Vngodding him no lesse..then does rash and unadvised blasphemie.

1658   W. Gurnall Christian in Armour: 2nd Pt. 61   Though men cannot come to pull God out of his Throne, and un-god him.

1677   W. Hughes Man of Sin ii. iii. 45   Is She not..God Un godded, and Christ Unchristed; in saying, That at death there is none other Hope but She?

1708   O. Dykes Moral Reflexions Eng. Proverbs 243   Attempting saucily to rival, to insult, or to ungod his Creator.

a1750   T. Gordon Another Cordial (1751) II. 203   The Jew crucifies his Saviour, the Socinian and Mahometan ungod him.

a1834   S. T. Coleridge Lit. Remains (1839) IV. 224   A consistent Socinianism..in ungodding the Saviour must deify cats and dogs.

1892   Gospel Watchman Dec. 191/1   God..will be dethroned and ungodded before it shall come to pass.

refl.

1672   Duke of Buckingham Rehearsal iv. 40   For fair Parthenope, Gods would, themselves, un-god themselves to see.

1685   J. Scott Christian Life: Pt. II I. ii. vii. §1   Which would be to destroy his own Being, and un-god himself.

1656   Beake in T. Burton Diary (1828) I. 59   It is a crime that deposes the majesty of God himself,..the ungodding of God.

1678   R. Cudworth True Intellect. Syst. Universe i. iv. 381   His Ungodding of the Sun, Moon and Stars.

1716   M. Davies Athenæ Britannicæ II. 407   What a horror the Primitive Christians had of the Notions, of Ungodding our Saviour.