Curiously, in applications deriving from the Vulgate, gentile came to mean in the fifteenth century, not ‘one who belongs to the same nation or clan’, but one who belongs to the opposite, specifically those who are not Jews. The Late Latin gentīlēs was used to translate Greek ethnikos, referring to ta ethne ‘the nations’, in turn translating Hebrew ha goyim, ‘the (non-jewish) nations’.There is some confusion here because Stones Concordance suggests that Hebrew goy regularly meant in the Old Testament any people in contrast to Israel.

From the same Latin root, we find gentle, originally meaning ‘well-born, belonging to a family with position’, as with the English rank of gentleman, which led to the meanings ‘courteous, noble’, leading to such meanings as ‘mild in disposition or behaviour; kind, tender’, most especially as applied to the ‘gentler sex’, namely women.

We thus see the seventh pillar of unwisdom in evidence here. But just like words pagan, heathen, and barbarian indicate, those who were not Christians or Jews were etymologically, at least, more peaceful and grounded in Nature than these disparaging terms would seem to suggest.