RSS
Home
The Christian virtue of hospitality
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Hospitality is an ageless virtue in the church. The earliest Christians said much about it long before modern separation into different denominations. Their counsel as to being hospitable therefore applies to all followers of Jesus.
Hospitality is the friendly and generous reception and accommodation of guests and visitors. Paul in Romans 12:13 encouraged his readers to be “given to hospitality” as well as to contribute to the needs of other Christians. First Peter 4:9 exhorts us to practice it ungrudgingly, and to engage in other forms of charity. One New Testament author and some other ancient Christian writers highly commended hospitality especially to strangers, of which more below.
In the middle of the second century A.D., a brother of a pastor-bishop of Rome produced a book called The Pastor of Hermas, which he said were revelations from the divine. In hospitality, the book said, is a fruitful field for goodness.
Half a century later, Clement of Alexandria in Egypt was dean of the world’s foremost Christian educational institution. He encouraged Christians to be “given to hospitality”, like Paul, in a long list of what he considered desirable conduct for Christians, such as helping the poor and weak. Clement also wrote “akin to love is hospitality”.
Clement’s successor as dean was Origen, the most outstanding Christian teacher, writer and preacher of the first three centuries. So great was his knowledge of the Christian faith that he was called upon as a theological consultant by pastor-bishops throughout the eastern Mediterranean. He regarded receiving guests as a Christian virtue, along with rescuing the innocent and helping the poor. He said that great grace is to be found in hospitality, with both God and people. Origen preached hospitality in the same list as justice, mercy, patience, gentleness and helping the poor.
Strangers were singled out as special objects of hospitality. Hebrews 13:2 says “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” The examples most in the writer’s mind were probably Abraham and his nephew Lot in Genesis 18 and 19. Clement called hospitality “a congenial art devoted to the treatment of strangers”, and also “Hospitality, therefore, is occupied with what is useful for strangers”.
Hospitality for Christian strangers was a standing institution. A first-century church manual called The Didaché prescribed detailed regulations for the reception and accommodation of traveling Christians, especially clergy. About the same time as Origen, the church father Tertullian placed hospitality to Christian travelers in the same class of Christian activity as relieving the poor and attending church at Easter. A little later, papyrus letters of recommendation for travelers indicate that there was a network of hospitality among the churches.
Although especially for strangers, hospitality was not confined to travelers. Clement widened the scope of the term “strangers” as a category: “guests are strangers; and friends are guests; and brethren [i.e. Christians] are friends.” In an even more universal statement, he wrote “And those are strangers, to whom the things of the world are strange.”
The early authors’ frequent listing of hospitality along with relief of the poor was probably not accidental. Christian hospitality, as well as Christian life in general, has always been concerned for people no matter what their financial circumstances, regarding them as brothers and sisters in Christ and as entitled to the same reception and accommodation as Jesus Himself. Origen exhorted his hearers to invite into their homes Christian friends, even the poor ones, and also people who have trouble expressing themselves, the retarded, and other persons that are intellectually impaired. Jesus Himself commanded: “when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13).
The New Testament and other early Christian writings and sermons were directed to all readers and to all people present in congregations, admonishing all of us to provide generously for people we barely know or even not know, simply for the name of Christ and without regard to their means, status, or circumstances. Jesus Himself provides a special blessing for the hospitable: in Matthew 10:11f and Luke 10:5 he instructed Christian travelers to salute and wish peace on the homes of hosts who showed them hospitality. These hosts might well have been hospitable to angels unawares. So might you.
