17 NOVEMBER 1894, Page 31

THE WORD "PARSON."

[TO THE EDITOR Or THE EPECTATO15...]

Sin,—In a volume published a few years ago, being a list of the "Somerset Incumbents" for a period of nearly six hundred years, it is found that the word " persona " occurs, in brackets, opposite the name of a good many of the earlier incumbents. In the case of vicars, the word " vicarius " occurs similarly, so that the title would seem originally to have been confined to rectors, the vicar being not a complete "persona," apparently. Etymologically, is not "persona," primarily a mark, then the personage or individual denoted ? The name was then given, naturally, to the clergyman as representing the parish, which was only an abstraction.—I am, Sir, &e., Timsbury Rectory, Bath, Nov. 12th. L. T. RENDELL.