[UN-1 12.]
1. The quality of being unholy; lack of holiness or sanctity.
1534. More, Treat. Passion, ii. Wks. 1311/2. The vyces of vicious folke in Christes church, can not lette, but that hys catholike church … is for their vnholynes, his holy catholyke churche.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxxiv. § 2. She is not … in respect of any vnholinesse forbidden entrance into the Church.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., 36. Where an unfit mariage administers continual cause of hatred and distemper, there … cannot choose but much unholines abide.
1675. Brooks, Gold. Key, Wks. 1867, V. 195. Adam’s holiness was as natural … to him as any way of unholiness can be natural … to us.
1845. Corrie, in Encycl. Metrop., II. 880/1. All that blindness of heart, all that unholiness of affections,… which issue in overt acts of sin.
1871. Farrar, Witn. Hist., i. 11. Let us … beware that in us unholiness do not cloud the spiritual eye.
2. Applied to the Pope: cf. HOLINESS 2.
1682. G. Topham, Rome’s Tradit., 204. No sooner did the news of that bloody Butchery arrive his Unholiness [Gregory XIII.], but [etc.].
