These words refer to a member of a religion or culture outside one’ s own. In the early stages of Christianity’s growth, both heathen and pagan could refer indiscriminately to an adherent of a religion other than Judaism or Christianity, especially those unexposed or resistant to Christianization. Both suggested someone who belonged to a pre-existing culture that was alien and therefore inferior to that of the speaker: Chinese heathens ; Teutonic pagans ; Moslem heathens . By the 19th century, a difference in the use of the word was clear. Pagan could refer, less disapprovingly, to the ancient Greek or Roman who worshipped a polytheistic pantheon of gods before the advent of Christianity. By contrast, heathen referred more specifically to an adherent of an existing religion subscribed to by a primitive culture or one remote from Christianity. In practice, those peoples were called heathens who were actually being proselytized by Christian missionaries in the field. Thus, adherents of Islam might no longer be so described, even though members of sophisticated cultures like the Japanese and Chinese were still thought of as heathens . The word often was used, in fact, as though it were synonymous with savage. African heathens ; the cannibalistic heathens of New Guinea. In this century, a growing respect for the integrity of other cultures and religions has made any use of heathen suspect and out-of-date. Pagan, however, can be used for any individual, even within one’s own culture, who rejects metaphysical speculation and values a life of the intellect and, particularly, of the senses.

Barbarian comes from a Greek root that means foreign, rude or ignorant. It was in these terms that a sophisticated Greek viewed people from cultures other than his own. Historically, the word often refers to the Germanic people who overran the Roman Empire, and later uses reflect this in carrying implications of ruthlessness, cruelty, illiteracy and lack of civilized standards. Thus the word contrasts with others of this group in registering cultural rather than religious disapproval of an alien group. Except in historical reference, the word is seldom used except as a pejorative hyperbole for a crude, vulgar or violent person: educators who see the current contempt for knowledge and scholarship as fostering a new generation of barbarians . Infidel , like heathen , once emphasized disapproval of an established non-Christian conversion or expansion: a crusade to wipe out the Saracen infidel in the Holy Land. The word is often used to refer to what was corresponding Islamic attitude towards Christians: sultans who contributed to the war against the invading Christian infidel . More recently, the word could refer to any individual unbeliever, but even this use is now dated.

Gentile is the one word here that can currently be used in exact and neutral classification. Its most widely understood reference is to anyone not an adherent to Judaism: European gentiles who assisted Jews in escaping from the Nazis; a new spirit of tolerance between Jews and gentiles . In New Testament usage, the word can refer to someone both non-Jewish and non-Christian: Paul’s missions to convert the Gentiles to Christianity.