ETNICO-CRISTIANI. – Name used to designate non-Jews converted to Christianity in the apostolic age (“Ἑλληνός: Act. 14, 1; 17, 4, etc.; Rom. 1, 16; 2, 9 ff.; Gal. 2, 3, etc.; τὸ ἕβνη: Act. 10, 45; 11, 1.18; 13, 46; Gal. 2, 12.14).
Cornelius (v.), baptized by Peter after God’s direct intervention, in order to overcome the Jewish mentality, which recoiled from every contact, especially at table, with the gentiles, who were considered impure (Act. 10–11, 18). Peter’s example was the signal for the preaching of the Gospel to the gentiles, in Palestine and beyond (the departure of the Apostles for the world). The first Church formed with a predominance of e.-c. arose at Antioch, where the faithful were called “Christians” (Act. 11, 19–26). Then followed all the communities established in the centers of the Empire through the work of Paul, at Rome and wherever the Gospel reached. The narrow-minded attitude of certain converted Pharisees (the “Judaizers”) sought to prevent the Baptism of the gentiles unless they had first been incorporated into the Jewish people through circumcision, maintaining that salvation remained the privilege of the descendants of Abraham alone. This claim, extremely dangerous for the conversion of the nations, was defeated by Peter’s example, by the solemn apostolic decision (Act. 15), and by Paul’s apostolic energy, as champion of the freedom of the nations in the face of Jewish claims (Gal. 2–5).
BIBLI: A. Camerlynck, Commentarius in Actes Ap., Bruges 1923, pp. 53, 230, 264–86, 248 ff.; E. Jacquier, Les Actes des Apôtres, 2ª ed., Parigi 1926, pp. 311–53, 418–73, 631–37; J. Lignange, Épître aux Galates, 2ª ed., there 1926, pp. XXIX–XLV, 22–23; M. Van Wanroy, Eunuchus Antelope & diacono Philippo construx, in Verbum Domini, 20 (1940), pp. 288–93; F. Spadafora, Oos accretione Apostoli profecti sunt in anicerenum mundum, ibid., 21 (1941), pp. 281–86, 306–10. Francesco Spadafora