Re: Deadly Nightshade

Ross Clark wrote:

(ii) The more common meaning of classical Latin pāgānus is ‘civilian,
non-militant’ (adjective and noun). Christians called themselves mīlitēs
‘enrolled soldiers’ of Christ, members of his militant church, and
applied to non-Christians the term applied by soldiers to all who were
‘not enrolled in the army’.

No. "Milites Christi" belongs to a much later age; the Crusades.
Scour the pages of Tertullian, St Augustine, other Church Fathers, and
you won't find it commonly used, if at all. Not even after Constantine's
victory at the Milvian Bridge.

Ed