Sothli we ben togidere biried with him bi christendom [per baptismum, Vulg.] in to death.—Rom. vi. 4. Wiclif (earlier version).
He that might have his body wrapped in one of their old coats at the houre of death, it were as good to him as his christendom.—Tyndale, Exposition upon Matthew VI.
They all do come to him with friendly face,
When of his christendom they understand.
Sir J. Harington, Orlando Furioso, b. xliii. c. 189.
The draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my christendom; every unclean lust does as it were bemire and wipe out my contract with my Lord.—Allestree, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 161.
Church. Our Translators are often taxed with an oversight in that they have allowed ‘robbers of churches’ to remain at Acts xix. 37, as the rendering of ἱεροσύλους, sounding, as this does, like an anachronism on the lips of the town-clerk of Ephesus. Doubtless ‘spoilers of temples,’ or some such phrase, would have been preferable; yet was there not any oversight here. The title of ‘church,’ which we with a fit reverence restrain to a Christian place of worship, was in earlier English not refused to the Jewish, or, as in that place, even to a heathen, temple as well.
And, lo, the veil of the church was torn in two parts from the top downwards.—Matt. xxvii. 51. Sir John Cheke.
To all the gods devoutly she did offer frankincense,
But most above them all the church of Juno she did cense.