id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
grbs-12511	Williams, George Huntston	The Role of the Layman in the Ancient Church	1958	34	.pdf	application/pdf	12170	466	60	The first difference, then, between the ante- and the post­ Nicene situation in respect to the laity is that, where Christians had once worked out their tensions in terms of priesthood and laity, in the Constantinian era they fought it out in terms of Church and State, that is, specifically, as episcopate over against sacral kingship. The recognition of Christianity by Constantine, as for so much else in church history, clearly ends a period in the evolution of the laity as a true order (taxis) with its own often distinctive liturgical, constitutional, disciplinary, elee­ mosynary, and witnessing role; and marks the climax of the gradual differentiation of the laos tou theou into laity and clergy, and the accompanying atrophy of lay functions.	cache/grbs-12511.pdf	txt/grbs-12511.txt