Not much is known about the early Christians. Certainly, the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters provide a few tasty morsels, but these follow a brief and narrow path around some smaller portion of the Mediterranean. Even later, congregations are known in particular regions solely by a solitary letter, the writings of a prominent member (either orthodox or heretical), or the annals of the Roman Empire – but these snapshots are too brief, leaving far more tantalizing questions and mysteries than answers. One thing we do know something about, however, is their practice of virtue. The Christians, for the most part, treated fellow Christians and Jews, as well as pagans with kindness, generosity, and love. They pooled their limited resources to take care of widows, orphans, and the poor – to the extent that others might attempt to take advantage of them.[1] These practices, however, were a primary Christian emphasis from its inception as an early Jewish movement.

The Christian New Testament is almost tiresome in its insistence on behavioral transformation, and its leader’s insistence on a new way of looking at and understanding the world. Jesus’ so-called Sermon on the Mount/Plain try to overturn general conceptions about how the world worked: humility, generosity, and service were to be valued and flaunted above wealth, nobility, and power. The writer of the Gospel of John records a couple passages which seem to summarize Jesus’ instructions:

‘This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.’ [2]

And again:

‘In this is my father [god] glorified: that you bear much fruit – this is how you will be my disciples. […] This is my commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you.’ [3]

Care, concern, charity, and kindness for others were defining attributes of the early Christians – at least according to Jesus. The early writers whose manuscripts appear in the New Testament, maintained this emphasis, with James writing:

Religion that is pure and undefiled in the sight of our god and father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions… [4]

Or, take the author of 1 Peter:

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of god’s varied grace… [5]

It would be tedious to list all such passages, but we ought to make brief mention of Paul’s letters which, by and large, are written to either praise a community for their virtue, admonish another for their imprecision in learning to espouse a Christian worldview, or to instruct how Christian life ought to be live. Paul repeatedly emphasizes that this new way of living was a result of seeing the world in light of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Religion in the ancient world was a way of life: the focus was on a set of behaviors, the means by which an individual interacted with the environment. Christianity imposed a new perspective, demanding that on account of Jesus’ actions, you must choose to adopt his worldview and act in a manner appropriate with that new worldview. Certain behaviors no longer made sense, and others were given special significance. And, for the most part, Christians seem to have done just that.

Perhaps the greatest compliment came from none other than the emperor Julian, called ‘the Apostate’ for his efforts to return the Roman state to its pre-Christian days. One of the problems Julian observed was Christianity’s innate philanthropy, which he attempted to counter by ordering pagan priests including Arsacius, the high priest of Galatia, to adopt a culture of generosity, hospitality, and love:

The Hellenic religion does not yet prosper as I desire, and it is the fault of those who profess it…Why then do we think that this is enough, why do we not observe that it is [the Christian’s] benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism? I believe that we ought really and truly to practice every one of these virtues. And it is not enough for you alone to practice them, but so must all the priests of Galatia, without exception. Either shame or persuade them into righteousness, or else remove them from their priestly office, if they do not. [6]

Atheism here refers to the Christians – ‘atheists’ for neglecting the gods (it would have been fine if they had done both their Christian and pagan practices, but annoyingly they only did the former). I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of forcing the adoption of virtuous behavior without a deeper, underlying change in worldview, otherwise one is merely painting the house or rearranging the furniture when some deeper cleaning or alterations are necessary. I can see Julian hurriedly scribbling off desperate letters to the distant corners of his empire, envisioning himself as the savior of a soon-to-be-restored empire. He could bring about this change, only to be cut short by his untimely (or as many Christians thought, ‘timely’) demise a year later. Julian’s efforts, however, were doomed to fail: the Christian menace practiced virtue innately. It was part of their outlook, part of their culture. In the same letter, Julian goes on to describe the sort of activities which pagans would need to take over:

In every city establish frequent hostels in order that strangers may profit by our benevolence; I do not mean for our own people only, but for others also who are in need of money. I have but now made a plan by which you may be well provided for this. [The government will supply food and wine.] I order that one-fifth of this be used for the poor who serve the priests and the remainder be distributed by us to strangers and beggars. For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us. […] At any rate Homer makes Eumaeus say:

Nay my friend, the wrong were mine
To scorn a stranger, were he worse than you.
Strangers and beggars are in care divine
How small soe’er the grace to those we show
is precious.

Then let us not, by allowing others to outdo us in good works, disgrace by such remissions, or rather, utterly abandon, the reverence due to the gods. [7]

The Christians are not only taking care of one another, but the pagan poor as well. Julian is endeavoring to initiate government social programs, distributed through the priesthood and religious centers, to compete with existing Christian ones. He then cites Homer’s Odyssey, the Greek story describing Odysseus’ long journey home from the war at Troy, inciting the pagan priesthood to practice hospitality. I think hospitality as a concept merits further exploration, and so in the next few posts I want to explore hospitality in antiquity, especially as it appears in Greek stories and the Hebrew scriptures, before turning to its importance in the Christian New Testament.

  1. E.g., Lucian’s Death of Peregrinus.
  2. John 13.35
  3. John 15
  4. James 1.27
  5. 1 Peter 4.8-10
  6. Quoted from Stevenson (2012), Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church, AD 337-461, 66.
  7. Stevenson (2012), 66-67.