Literary notes about laity (AI summary)
In literature, the term laity is employed to denote the non-ordained believers or common people distinct from the clergy, often serving as a foil to the institutionalized religious elite. Writers use the word to highlight contrasts in moral conduct and social roles—for instance, portraying the laity as occupying a peripheral, sometimes even degraded, position compared to the sanctified clergy [1, 2, 3]. It also appears in discussions of ritual practice and ecclesiastical change, where the distribution of sacred items to laity underscores shifts in authority and participation [4, 5]. Additionally, the laity is invoked in political and cultural debates to stress the differences in responsibility and power between the masses and their clerical leaders [6, 7].
- The place for the laity was around the choir outside.
— from A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.From the Earliest Times to the Present Day by James Fergusson - The morals of the higher orders of the clergy and of the laity were equally corrupted.
— from Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies. by John Robison - When, fifty years ago, all classes were drunkards, from the statesman to the peasant, the clergy were drunken also, but not half so bad as the laity.
— from Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: An Autobiography by Charles Kingsley - Luther had required that at the Lord's Supper the cup, in accordance with the original institution of Christ, should be given to the laity.
— from Life of Luther by Julius Köstlin - to have divine service performed in their own language, and to give the cup to the laity in the sacrament.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - In the early Church, as he points out, the laity were always recognised as constituent members of the government of the Church.
— from Outspoken Essays by William Ralph Inge - He abhorred the Revolution less as a rising up of subjects against their King than as a rising up of the laity against the sacerdotal caste.
— from The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3 by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
