Early Christians' sectarian custom of marking themselves off from other groups through distinctive terminology continued on into the later periods when they constituted a significant minority, and then ultimately a majority, in the Roman Empire. "Pagan," one of these . demarcating terms, came into Christian usage as a pejorative synonym of the earlier, similarly negative term "Gentile." This article examines the use of the term paganusla, pagani/ae in ancient sources, notes the divisions among scholars regarding its application by Christians to polytheists as well as the persistently negative denotations and connotations of "pagan" and "paganism" in everyday speech in the modern period, questions the appropriateness of continuing to use the term in present-day scholarly discourse, and suggests "polytheist" and "polytheism" as a possible alternative while also recognizing the ambiguities attending demarcating terms.
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