Life & Wisdom Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken’s definition is a scalpel disguised as a dictionary entry: neat, authoritative in tone, and designed to draw blood. By pretending to be neutral, it weaponizes the reader’s expectation that reference books exist to clarify, not to provoke. The punchline lands on an almost childishly simple inversion: in a religion supposedly founded on humility and a suffering savior, the institution has engineered titles that outrank its own god. The joke isn’t theological; it’s bureaucratic.

The intent is classic Mencken: puncture reverence by pointing out status games hiding under sacred language. “Attained” is doing heavy lifting. It implies rank is a career achievement, a ladder you climb with the right patrons and the right vestments, not a spiritual condition. Christ, in this framing, didn’t “attain” anything because he refused the very logic of attainment. So the Church, meant to mirror him, instead builds a corporate org chart that quietly contradicts him.

The subtext is broader than bishops. Mencken is mocking any institution that sanctifies power by wrapping it in moral grandeur. The archbishop becomes a symbol of credentialed authority: someone whose influence depends on hierarchy, not holiness. Writing in an era when American Protestant piety and Catholic authority both carried enormous cultural weight, Mencken needles the public’s appetite for deference. The line works because it compresses a whole critique of clericalism into a single, icy comparison: the Church doesn’t merely represent Christ; it competitively out-promotes him.