4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks very much to everyone for your suggestions. I consider "heathen" to be strongly disrepectful, and would only use it if I was sure that the text intended this. For me "heathen" is a word that it is only used in English with the express intention of devaluing non-Christian beliefs, and it has a strong flavour of "barbaric" to it. "Pagan" is etymologically a respectful term, but I think it is misunderstood by far too many people to be used without caution similar to that for "heathen". It can´t be "pre-Christian" here, because Latin authors from the 2nd C are included in this. I was actually planning to use Armorel´s "secular" until I came to fit into the sentence, when "classical" seemed to work much better."