On Gentiles and Pagans

The words we use to describe ourselves matter, and the word, pagan has never been an ideal term to describe the native religions of Europe. Nonetheless, these religions are so diverse that they defy simple classifications.

Pagan means villager. Pagani, for example, is a car company in Italy based on the founder's surname. "The Italian Pagani surname is thought to derive from the personal name Pagano, from the Latin word "paganus," meaning "village dweller." (Link) So, how did this term come to mean a worshipper of the native religions of Europe?

We owe much of that reason to Augustine of Hippo, who wrote the seminal Christian work, The City of God. The full name of the book, however, is 'De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos,' which means the City of God Against the Pagans. The terms Augustine contrasted here are the city dwellers and the village dwellers. Ancient readers would have noticed the play on words. If this were written today, it might be titled "The Metropolis of God: Against the Rednecks."

Christianity was seen as the civilized religion of the educated urban people. In contrast, the traditional religion was depicted as backward, rural, and uneducated. This is how the term pagan became synonymous with the native traditional religion. A similar comparison was made with the word heathen, which means 'someone who lives in the woods.'

However, this was not the only term ever used to describe the native religions of Europe, a much better word that has fallen out of use is Gentile.

Dictionaries today will tell you that Gentile means any person who is not Jewish, but that is a relatively modern interpretation.

"The Latin word [gentile] was used in the Vulgate to translate Greek ethnikos (see ethnic), from ta ethne "the nations," which translated Hebrew ha goyim "the (non-Jewish) nations" (see goy). Hence in Late Latin, after the Christianization of Rome, gentilis also could mean "pagans, heathens," as opposed to Christians." (etymonline)

This is also obvious much later in the 13th century works like Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles, which carries the alternative title, "Tractate on the universal faith against the pagans."

This connotation of Gentile, meaning the same thing as pagan, persisted until the Renaissance, when it gradually came to mean non-Jews. However, the term Gentilism has continued its meaning today as being synonymous with the pre-Christian native religions of Europe. For example, the book "Gentilism: Religion Previous to Christianity" by Augustus Thébaud in the late 1800s still carried this connotation.

Also, dictionaries haven't received the memo that Gentilism means non-Jewishness.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gentilis

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/gentilism

https://kingjamesbibledictionary.com/Dictionary/gentilism

So, given that Gentile and pagan can be used interchangeably, Why do we prefer Gentile to pagan?

For this, we must return to the root of the word Gentile. The word Gentile comes from the word "gentilis [meaning] "of the same family or clan, of or belonging to a Roman gens," (etymonline). The gens is the family unit within Roman society. Today this is our extended family, which includes all family members of the same surname. Our modern last names, or surnames, are a direct continuation of the Roman system of the nomen gentilicium or Gentile Names. So, in effect, all Europeans who carry an unchanging patrilineal surname are part of this Gentile system.

So Gentile, in its total sense, can represent a person belonging to the Roman family tradition who practices the native traditional faith of his ancestors and his ethnicity.

It is important to note that the family was not merely a social structure to the Romans but also a religious one. The Paterfamilias was the religious leader of the family as much as he was the head of household.

The only objection to this is that Gentile could be used to describe non-Europeans similarly. However, the connotation of the Roman Gens, or family tribe, suggests that someone would need to be a member of the Roman or Western world to embody the term comprehensively. Also, pagan is far less specific as a word and yet has come to mean the Native European religious traditions and not any others despite the fact it just means villager. There are villages outside of Europe, yet this term has gained a very specific meaning.

How do we use the term pagan?

There has been some confusion about how Gentile and pagan are used in our writings, so clarifying what we mean by these terms is worthwhile. If you disagree with our usage, please understand we do not care what you call yourself. This is about how we use these terms to describe ourselves and others.

We Romanists don't identify with the word pagan. We are Romanists, and we are Gentiles following the Gentile Religion. We use 'pagan' to describe the broad swath of unorthodox groups that follow ancient religious practices. By unorthodox, we mean those who reject or are ignorant of the Prisca Theologia in one form or another.

These pagans can have the term and keep it.

There may be some groups who self-identify as pagans and follow Orthodoxy. They are free to make that decision, although we would encourage them to consider using the term Gentile as a better and more noble representation of our ways. We will respectfully call them Gentiles regardless.

Generally, we use Gentile to refer to Romanists and other Orthodox Practitioners of the native European faiths. 

We practice Romanism, Gentile religion, or Gentilism, not paganism.