The Curate’s Egg

It is always satisfying to find out exactly where a popular saying comes from. Often we are not sure, but in the case of this one we can be precise: “It’s like the curate’s egg - good in parts”.

Have you come across that expression? It is gradually fading from use, but was much repeated at one time. It came into being with the above cartoon from Punch magazine way back at the tail end of the 19th century.

A bishop has invited a lowly curate from one of the parishes in his diocese to tea. The curate is anxious to please. If he proves himself to be socially well adjusted - a good guest, in other words - the bishop may give him preferment in the future.

Problems arise almost immediately when the curate cuts through the shell of the egg. An objectionable sulphurous smell wafts across the room. The curate’s egg happens to have gone bad! The curate is terrified of doing the wrong thing. “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones,” comments the bishop. “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you!” the flustered junior cleric replies in haste. “Parts of it are excellent!”

Audiences were still chuckling at this comical reply decades after the cartoon was first published. Indeed, the Curate’s Egg became proverbial in English usage. Perhaps we would be less comfortable about it if we realised what it says about our society to this very day.

A conference speaker mentioned the saying and mused, 

“How would the apostle Paul have reacted? He wouldn’t have said the egg was 'good in parts'. He would have exclaimed straight out that it was a rotten one!”

Why did the speaker come to that conclusion? Because Paul was never mealy-mouthed. He called a spade a spade, especially where the ills of the sick and sinful society around him were concerned. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 he retorts,

“... do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (ESV)

Paul did not express himself that way because he enjoyed condemning people. His aim was to warn. It was also to encourage those new Christians who had those things in their background in the pagan society where they lived. For that reason he went on,

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

You may agree or disagree about the various groups mentioned above needing to be washed clean spiritually in order to be right with God. But there is no doubting the fact that today’s society does not encourage us to be forthright. It conditions us to avoid making reference to “rotten eggs”. It would instead urge us to call them “good in parts”.

And all the while, the foul smell that envelops the genteel dining table makes its own clear statement.