GENTILE

The Hebrews called the Gentiles גויים , ἔθνη, the nations , that is, those who have not received the faith or law of God. All who are not Jews, and circumcised, are goiim . Those who were converted, and embraced Judaism, they called proselytes. Since the Gospel, the true religion is not confined to any one nation or country, as heretofore, God, who had promised by his prophets to call the Gentiles to the faith, with a superabundance of grace, has fulfilled his promise; so that the Christian church is now composed principally of Gentile converts; and the Jews, too proud of their particular privileges, and abandoned to their reprobate sense of things, have disowned Jesus Christ, their Me iah and Redeemer, for whom, during so many ages, they had looked so impatiently. In the writings of St. Paul, the Gentiles are generally denoted as Greeks, Rom. i, 14, 16; ii, 9, 10; iii; x, 12; 1 Cor. i, 22–24; Gal. iii, 28. St. Luke, in the Acts, expre es himself in the same manner, Acts vi, 1; xi, 20; xviii, . 2. St. Paul is commonly called the Apostle of the Gentiles, 1 Tim. ii, 7, or Greeks; because he, principally, preached Jesus Christ to them; whereas Peter, and the other Apostles, preached generally to the Jews, and are called Apostles of the circumcision, Gal. ii, 8. The prophets declared very particularly the calling of the Gentiles. Jacob foretold that the Me iah, he who was to be sent, the Shiloh, should gather the Gentiles to himself. Solomon, at the dedication of his temple, prays for “the stranger” who should there entreat God. The Psalmist says, that the Lord would give the Gentiles to the Me iah for his inheritance; that Egypt and Babylon shall know him; that Ethiopia shall hasten to bring him presents; that the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, the kings of Arabia and Sheba, shall be tributary to him, Psalm ii, 8; lxvii, 4; lxxii, 9, 10. Isaiah abounds with prophecies of the like nature, on which account he has justly been distinguished by the name of “the prophet of the Gentiles.” Gentiles, Court of the. Joseph us says there was, in the court of the temple, a wall, or balustrade, breast-high, with pillars at particular distances, and inscriptions on them in Greek and Latin, importing that strangers were forbidden from entering farther; here their offerings were received, and sacrifices were offered for them, they standing at the barrier; but they were not allowed to approach to the altar. Pompey, neverthele , went even into the sanctuary, but behaved with strict decorum; and the next day he commanded the temple to be purified, and the customary sacrifices to be offered. A little before the last rebellion of the Jews, some mutineers would have persuaded the priests to accept no victim not presented by a Jew; and obliged them to reject those which were offered by command of the emperor, for the Roman people. The wisest in vain remonstrated with them on the danger this would bring on their country; urged that their ancestors had never rejected the presents of Gentiles; and that the temple was mostly adorned with the offerings of such people; at the same time, the most learned priests, who had spent their whole lives in the study of the law, testified that their forefathers had always received the sacrifices of strangers. From the above particulars, we learn the meaning of what the Apostle Paul calls “the middle wall of partition,” between Jews and Gentiles broken down by the Gospel.