xenia

 

In the ancient world, hospitality towards strangers was incredibly important—and, therefore, highly codified, or ritualised. Such rituals provided a framework for transforming strangers into friends, created networks of shared resources, and helped to provide loose social cohesion (or alliances) between communities across significant geographic distances.

The Greek concept of ‘xenia’ placed certain obligations on both host and guest. If a stranger, on a journey, turned up at your door, you were obliged to offer them a bath; food and drink; to not ask too many questions about them, and none at all until they had eaten; perhaps to present them with gifts; and even to provide safe escort on the next leg of their journey. Guests were obliged not to be a burden to their host; not to repay hospitality with dishonour; to tell stories of the outside world (this was an important part of the code); and to reciprocate hospitality should their host turn up at their door at a future date. Indeed, this reciprocal obligation extended to the children and grandchildren of parties who had shared xenia.

Xenia was rooted in and upheld by the belief that Zeus, and also Athena, were patrons to all and any traveller on a journey—that travellers were under their protection —and that to treat a stranger badly would incur the wrath of the gods.

Any version or telling of ‘The Odyssey’ records several instances of Xenia, extended and received, and violated—by both hosts and guests. Much of what takes place is understood within this framework. For example, Aeolus, ruler of the winds, extends hospitality (as required and expected) to Odysseus and his men, which includes giving Odysseus the gift of a bag containing the wind that will carry him home (gift; safe escort to next destination). But when, within sight of Ithaca’s shore, Odysseus’ men open the bag, and the escaping wind blows them all the way back to Aeolus from whence they had come, he refuses to help them a second time, assuming that, in fact, Odysseus must have incurred the wrath of the gods (freeing Aeolus from obligation).

There is a parallel stranger-hospitality code in ancient Judaism, which dates back at least to Abraham (broadly-speaking a contemporary of Homer) who entertained three angels in human form—and perhaps even earlier to oral traditions of angels walking the earth and fathering giants and heroes by human women.

Both Jewish and Greek hospitality codes feed into early Christian hospitality codes. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds her recipients not to neglect showing hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels unawares. And, of course, all the letters that form much of the New Testament, such as the letters written by Paul and his travelling companions, were written, sent, and received under xenia expectations.

Jesus himself made the treatment of strangers, according to hospitality codes expectations, the basis on which the surrounding nations of the ancient world would be judged (the parable of the sheep and the goats).

My own society has lost sight of hospitality codes (perhaps because it has lost sight of a belief in any gods who might protect strangers and travellers) and has become fearful of strangers. Not only strangers who look different from ourselves, whose skin is dark, but indeed anyone not already personally known to us who might turn up at our door unannounced. We increasingly put signs on our doors saying that a long list of strangers are not welcome. And we have a now endemic health crisis of isolation, which takes a huge toll on our wellbeing. I live in a city where hospitality generally does not extend beyond the extended family, which leaves us exposed to isolation when extended family moves away.

What might a stranger-guest-hospitality code look like today?