Gentiles

"Do not go off into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter into a city of the Samaritans," the Lord says, turning us away from the contrary manner of life, since "the destruction of lawless men is evil.

that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of desire, even as the Gentiles too who do not know the Lord;

but by the "that he may save us" God showed the common consciousness of those of the Gentiles who had set their minds upon the Almighty, but had not yet believed.

"Because of you my name is blasphemed among the nations" (for from them began the infamy) — and in the intervening time, from Tiberius to Vespasian, they had not understood repentance, their land was made desolate, their cities burned up, their region devoured before their own eyes by strangers, the daughter of Sion forsaken and like a watchtower in a vineyard or a hut in a cucumber-field — from t …

" Well, however, that even the god of Marcion is claimed as the illuminator of the nations — by which he ought the rather to have descended even from heaven, and, if at all, to have descended into Pontus rather than into Galilee.

In short, "He shall judge," he says, "among the nations, and shall convict a numerous people" — namely not of the single nation of the Jews, but of the nations, who through the new law of the gospel and the new word of the apostles are judged and convicted in themselves of their former error, as soon as they have believed, and thereupon "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their pikes" (which …

Si nullus agnatus sit, eadem lex xii tabularum gentiles ad hereditatem uocat.

In the absence of agnates the same law of the Twelve Tables calls the gentiles to the inheritance.

Similarly the wider group of gentiles, § 17, consists of persons who, it may be supposed, would be under the power of some long-forgotten common ancestor, if he were alive.

The effect of the political maxim, Plebs Gentem non habet, “a Plebeian cannot be a member of a house,” was entirely to exclude the Plebeians from the Comitia Curiata.

This being so, the inference seems inevitable, that the cognisance of Wills by the Comitia was connected with the rights of the Gentiles, and was intended to secure them in their privilege of ultimate inheritance.

All the other branches of the family were excluded, and the inheritance escheated to the Gentiles, or entire body of Roman citizens bearing the same name with the deceased.

invites Sovereign Princes into this kingdom, in these terms, “Hear, O Jews, and Gentiles, hear, O earthly Sovereigns, I will not obstruct your authority, for my kingdom is not of this world.

that the Gentiles, not having the law, yet doing by nature the things contained in the law, become a law to themselves.

For what such thing shall I hold against you?

thus the third will be carried back to the first, transmitted through the second.

But now I shall turn these very same charges, plucked from our body, back upon you;

For because Jesus Christ was to bring the second people — which we, the nations, are, dwelling once in the desert of the world — into the land of promise flowing with milk and honey, that is, into the possession of eternal life, than which nothing is sweeter;

Behold, I have given you for the disposition of my race, for a light to the nations, that you may open the eyes of the blind — namely, of those who err — to loose the bound from their chains — that is, to free them from their offences — and from the house of prison — that is, of death — those sitting in darkness — namely, of ignorance.

For today the nations call upon Christ, who did not know him, and the peoples today take refuge in Christ, whom they once knew not.

"I testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the nations walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, through the hardness of their heart;

having shaken off from yourself and estranged the emptiness of your former conduct, just as the nations walk in the emptiness of their mind, darkened in their understanding and estranged from the glory of God, subjected to their desires and irrational impulses.

For neither shall we draw near to the opinions of the nations, which, if ever they are forced to confess a god, nevertheless wish for others beneath him too.

and because the nations were to pass over from the multitude of idols to the one God, that a difference might be established between the worshippers of the one and of the manifold divinity.

In fine, look at the sequel of pronouncements of this kind, and you will find that their definition pertains generally to the makers and worshippers of idols, so that the unity of the godhead may expel the multitude of false gods — yet having a Son, who, the more individual and inseparable he is from the Father, the more is he to be reckoned in the Father, even if not named.

But since the same prophet also shows the nations now reckoned as it were dust and spittle, now about to hope and believe in the name and in the arm of the Lord — are we deceived about the nations too?

" But to us both the way of the nations lies open—in which we have both been found and walk even to the end—and no city is excepted, whither throughout the whole world we preach;

Although we should rather understand GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD spiritually.

As is the custom of certain people, of making prayer with their cloaks laid aside;

Moreover, since the nations do the like, sitting down after worshipping their little images, on this very ground it deserves to be censured in us, because it is practised among idols.

Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the nations.

But the nations were never with God, save as a drop from a bucket, and dust from the threshing-floor, and always outside.

But what they preached — that is, what Christ revealed to them — I will here too prescribe ought to be proved in no other way than through the same Churches which the apostles themselves founded, themselves preaching to them, as they say, both by living voice and afterwards by epistles.

There you will set up also the synagogues of the Jews, the fountains of persecutions, before which the apostles endured scourgings, and the assemblies of the nations with their circus too, where they easily shout together, "How long this third race?