Laity Lives

Abstract

Late antique Christianity had its share of celebrities: the martyrs, ascetics, theologians, preachers, pilgrims, and benefactors who left a rugged footprint on the religious landscape. Yet, how shall we describe the "other" Christians -that is to say, those who never held office, wrote a biblical commentary, or dwelled atop a pillar or in a monastic cell? They are generally referred to as the "laity." Yet can this term capture how these people learned to think, feel, move, and embody this emerging religion? This brief note examines how historians of religion have described and deployed this category, paying particular attention to recent efforts to shift this group from the periphery of religious studies to its center. I propose ways the notion of "laity" might still bear fruit for current efforts to understand late antique Christians as religious agents.The term "laity" derives from the Greek word laos ("people") and its cognate laikos/ Lat. laicus ("of the people"). 2 In Greek mythology, the term laos was associated with the stones (laas) post-diluvial survivors Deucalion and Pyrrha threw behind them as a way to repopulate the earth. 3 Already early on, a certain "thingness" haunted the term, as in archaic Greek