Ethnic-Christians

ETHNIC-CHRISTIANS. - Name by which one customarily designates the non-Jews converted to Christianity in the apostolic age ("Ἕλληνες: Acts 14:1; 17:4, etc.; Rom. 1:16; 2:9 ff.; Gal. 2:3, etc.; τὰ ἔθνη: Acts 10:45; 11:1, 18; 13:46; Gal. 2:12, 14).

The first was the centurion Cornelius (v.), baptized by Peter, after God's direct intervention, to overcome the Jewish mentality, which shrank from any contact, especially at table, with the gentiles, held to be impure (Acts 10-11:18). Peter's example was the signal for the preaching of the Gospel to the gentiles, in Palestine and outside it (the Apostles' departure for the world). The first Church formed with a predominance of ethnic Christians arose at Antioch, where the faithful were called "Christians" (Acts 11:19-26). Then followed all the communities that arose in the centers of the Empire through the work of Paul, at Rome and wherever the Gospel reached. The rigid mentality of certain converted Pharisees (the "Judaizers") sought to prevent the Baptism of the gentiles unless they had first been grafted by circumcision onto the Jewish people, maintaining that salvation remained the privilege of the descendants of Abraham alone. This claim, most dangerous for the conversion of the nations, was defeated by Peter's example, by the solemn apostolic decision (Acts 15) and by the apostolic energy of Paul, champion of the freedom of the nations in the face of Jewish claims (Gal. 2-5).

Francesco Spadafora