Although not written until the first century AD, Ovid’s ‘Baucis and Philemon’ provides us with a new perspective on hospitality, extending beyond the mandate to provide for the needs of a stranger. First, the stranger at your door might be a god (Zeus and Hermes). Second, there might be significant repercussions for not practicing hospitality, or, one might be the beneficiary of boundless blessings for being hospitable. Thus, the potential host is encouraged to treat strangers as though they were gods. In the Jewish Scriptures, hospitality to strangers is similarly encouraged, and for good reason. The Hebrews themselves spent years as guests in the Egypt, with their Egyptian hosts sometimes acting as Eumaeus, sometimes as Polyphemus. In their famed Exodus, they were strangers in every land they crossed – again, sometimes encountering Eumaeus, at other times Polyphemus. In the land of Canaan, they too are strangers.
Capital representing scenes from Genesis: Abraham entertaining the Angels. Stone, northern Catalunya, late 12th century. From a Catalan cloister. Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge [Public domain]
Canaan, their promised homeland, was an inherited promise, passing from the patriarchs: Jacob, from his father Isaac, from his father Abraham. All three dwelt as strangers. Abraham had left his homeland in Babylon, abandoning his family, friends, and gods — trusting in a new god’s promise.
Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Go out from your land and from your relatives, and from the house of your father, to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, making your name great. And you will be a blessing.'[1]
Childless, he enters this new land as a stranger, relying on the hospitality of others, both in Canaan and Egypt, referring to himself as a ‘stranger and sojourner'[2]. His son, Isaac, is similarly instructed:
Dwell as an alien in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants.[3]
And at Jacob’s death, the redactor lets us know that ‘Abraham and Isaac dwelt as aliens.'[4] The Hebrew word translated here as ‘alien’, ger (גֵּר), has the sense of a ‘stranger’ or ‘foreigner’, ‘a man who (alone or with his family) leaves village and tribe because of war, famine, epidemic, blood guilt, etc., and seeks shelter and residence at another place.'[5]
Isaac’s son Jacob had fled the anger of his brother, settling in Haran, outside of Canaan. He returned many years later as a stranger, relying on the hospitality of his brother, and eventually departs from Canaan to Egypt on account of famine, where he is treated graciously.
The importance of hospitality to strangers is, therefore, echoed in Torah (i.e., the Jewish Law):
And when an alien dwells with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. The alien is dwelling with you shall be like a native among you, and you shall love him like yourself, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your god.[6]
The Hebrews had relied on the hospitality of strangers for centuries, enjoying the kindness of hosts and suffering the very worst Polyphemus could summon. They knew, therefore, the value of being a welcoming, gracious host such that it was codified in their legal system. The Hebrews also had their own Baucis and Philemon, their own Eumaeus, their own exemplary hero who played host to the gods: Abraham.
Abraham had just made/renewed his contract/agreement/covenant with Yahweh, with circumcision as a sign when Abraham, while resting during the heat of the day, notices the approach of three strangers.
Yahweh appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre. Abraham was sitting in the doorway of the tent at the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and saw three men standing near him. He saw them and ran from the doorway to meet them. He bowed down to the ground, saying ‘My lord, if I have found favor in your eyes do not pass by your servant.’ The three men replied, ‘Do as you have said.'[7]
After insisting that these unknown (and as far as Abraham knows, human) strangers to indulge in a meal, he tells his wife, Sarah, to prepare bread while he kills a ‘tender and good’ calf and has it prepared for his guests. The reader receives the tip that somehow, in these three men, Yahweh is appearing to Abraham. The other two men are later identified as angels. This is reminiscent again of the Odyssey when Odysseus’ son Telemakhos along with the goddess Athena visit Nestor, king of Pylos in southern Greece. Upon seeing strangers, King Nestor, like Abraham, immediately provides for them:
[Telemakhos and Athena] found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his company round him were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of meat on to the spits while other pieces were cooking. When they saw the strangers they crowded round them, took them by the hand and bade them take their places. Nestor’s son at once offered his hand to each of them, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were lying on the sands near his father and his brother. Then he gave them their portions of the inward meats and poured wine for them into a golden cup, handing it to Athena first, and saluting her at the same time.
[…]
‘Now,’ said Nestor, ‘that our guests have done their dinner, it will be best to ask them who they are. Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and from what port have you sailed? Are you traders? Or do you sail the seas as rovers with your hand against every man, and every man’s hand against you?'[8]
King Nestor, while preparing to eat luxurious food with his family and those closest to him, observes weary travelers and hurriedly accepts them, providing them with choice food and seating. Only after does he even petition his guests for their identities and origin. Abraham and Sarah likewise provide hospitality, though they don’t have a chance to inquire as the identity of their three guests. One of Abraham’s guests informs his hosts that they will have a son, even at the elderly age of 100, revealing himself to be Yahweh, or at least the mouthpiece of Yahweh. Abraham has, like Baucis and Philemon, unwittingly played host to the divine.
Yet, for every Baucis and Philemon, there is also a Tyana that turns their backs on strangers or even seek their abuse, receiving divine retribution. And so, the account in Genesis refocuses on the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘And the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham was still standing before Yahweh.'[9] While Abraham and Yahweh discuss the wickedness and possible destruction of the city of Sodom (where Abraham’s nephew Lot dwells with his family), the two other men descend into the valley, entering the city to determine how righteous and hospitable it might be.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening where Lot was seated at the gateway. Lot saw them and stood up to meet them. He bowed down with his face to the ground, and said to them, ‘My lords, please turn aside into the house of your servant and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you can rise early and go on your way.’ And they said, ‘No, but we will spend the night in the square.’ But he urged them strongly, and they turned aside with him and entered his house. He made a meal for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.[10]
This passage almost precisely parallels the three men approaching Abraham. In this case, however, there are only two (the third having stayed with Abraham to discuss Sodom’s morality), and these two being revealed as divine messengers. In contrast to the city of Tyana which refuses to provide hospitality to Zeus and Hermes, Abraham’s nephew Lot does not give the other citizens an opportunity for their hospitality to be tested. Nevertheless, their inhospitality is revealed to be worse than the mere neglect of Tyana: men from the city surround Lot’s house, demanding that he send out his guests that the Sodomites might rape and abuse them. The aftermath is reminiscent of Tyana, as Baucis and Philemon gaze over the flooded ruins – albeit, in this case, there is no surviving temple. The land cannot be redeemed.
The two men said to Lot, ‘Who is here with you? Bring out from the place your sons-in-law, and your sons and your daughters, and all who are with you in the city. For we are about to destroy this place, because their cry has become great before Yahweh. Yahweh sent us to destroy it.’ Then Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were taking his daughters and said, ‘Get up! Go out from this place, because Yahweh is going to destroy the city!’ But it seemed like a joke to his sons-in-law. As the dawn came up the angels urged Lot saying, ‘Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are staying with you, lest you be destroyed with the punishment of the city.’ When he lingered, the men seized him by his hand and his wife’s hand, and his two daughters by hand, on account of the mercy of Yahweh upon him. And they brought him out and set him outside of the city. And after bringing them outside one said, ‘Flee for your life; do not look behind you, and do not stand anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountains lest you be destroyed.’
[…]
The next morning, Abraham looked down upon the surface of Sodom and Gomorrah, and upon the whole surface of the land, the plain. And he saw that, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a smelting furnace.[11]
Sodom and Gomorrah by Giusto de’ Menabuoi (Padua baptistery)
While there are many other interesting discussions and examples of hospitality in the Jewish Scriptures – from the Hebrew Exodus, Rahab, King David, the widow of Zarephath, and the inhospitality to the Levite in the book of Judges[12] which was included to show that the depravity of Israel had fallen to the level of Sodom – I want to next turn to the hospitality shown and discussed in the New Testament, particularly in the gospels. There, we will see Jesus both as a divine visitor (like Athena, Yahweh, Zeus, and Hermes) and as a hospitable host.
- Genesis 12.1 (all OT passages here based on LEB)
- Genesis 23.4; cf. Heb 11.8-9
- Genesis 26.3
- Genesis 35.27
- HAL
- Leviticus 19.33f
- Genesis 18.1f
- Odyssey 3
- Genesis 18.22
- Genesis 19.1f
- Genesis 19.12f
- Judges 19.16f