>>23905100perhaps not in the exact same manner
I don't actually know myself
it's a Germanic word meaning 'somebody not of the Christian faith', but the exact reasons the word came to mean this seem to have been lost to time
it literally refers to 'something of the heath', with a 'heath' being kind of like scrubland, or a parcel of land no-one is using to grow things, with the word still being in use (at least in the UK)
it might be like 'hillbilly', in the sense that that denotes the unsophistication of the people who dwell in the hills, except this is unsophisticated people who dwell on heaths?
or alternatively, it might be more like a metaphor used by Christians as the religion spread throughout Europe: those yet to be converted are uncultivated fields, who may *become* cultivated if they can be brought into the faith
maybe both of these at the same time
there's already a lot of symbolism in the religion around grains—'separating wheat from chaff', as representation of religious truth, spiritual sustenance, and so on—so extending that as a metaphor isn't a huge leap
>Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his fieldmaybe they could 'sow good seed' by proselytising to the barren heaths of the 'heathens', and grow food for the spirit?
I think it used to mean anyone non-Christian, but later changed to include only non-Abrahamics, as Christendom came to understand more about Jews and 'Moslems' (Islam was thought to be a different religion altogether for a long time)
