The Stranger at the Door

(Part three of a multipart series on Nolan's The Odyssey).

If the early Church Fathers were right, we should not be surprised to discover moments in The Odyssey where Homer sees something true about the human condition.

One of those moments is hospitality.

What the Greeks called xenia is far more than good manners. It is one of the moral pillars upon which Homer's world rests.

Zeus himself bears the title Zeus Xenios—Zeus, the Protector of Guests. He watches over the relationship between host and stranger, making hospitality not merely a social custom but a sacred obligation.

The responsibilities belong to both parties.

The host receives the stranger before asking many questions. Food is offered before names are exchanged. The weary traveler is given water to wash, a place to rest, and the safety of the household. Only then does the conversation begin.

The guest, in turn, is expected to respect the household, receive generosity with gratitude, and depart without exploiting the kindness that has been shown.

In the ancient Mediterranean, this was no small matter. Travel was dangerous. Inns were scarce. The stranger at the gate might be a merchant, a refugee, a messenger (or, in Homer's imagination, even a god in disguise).

Hospitality was not optional.

It was one of the practices by which civilization distinguished itself from barbarism.

That is why Homer judges nearly every major character by what happens when an unexpected traveler appears.

The Phaeacians encounter a shipwrecked man washed ashore, exhausted and unknown. Before asking his name, they feed him, clothe him, welcome him into their community, and eventually send him home with generous gifts. Only later do they discover that their guest is the famous Odysseus.

Eumaeus, the swineherd, offers perhaps the poem's clearest statement of this moral vision. Welcoming a ragged beggar into his modest home, he explains his actions with disarming simplicity:

"Strangers and beggars come from Zeus."

He has no expectation of repayment. The stranger possesses a claim upon him simply by being vulnerable.

Then there is Polyphemus.

The Cyclops does not merely fail to practice hospitality. He mocks Zeus himself. Instead of feeding his guests, he devours them. His rejection of xenia marks him not simply as cruel but as uncivilized. Homer tells us that the Cyclopes have no assemblies, no common laws, and no shared civic life. Their violence toward strangers reveals a deeper disorder.

The suitors are guilty of a different but equally destructive violation. They remain as perpetual guests, consuming another man's household while refusing every obligation that hospitality imposes. They transform welcome into exploitation.

It is remarkable how familiar all of this sounds to Christian ears.

The theological foundations are different, of course. Homer appeals to Zeus. Israel knows the Lord who delivered slaves from Egypt.

Yet the moral intuition is strikingly similar.

Abraham welcomes three unknown visitors beneath the oaks of Mamre before learning who they are.

Israel is commanded to love the stranger because Israel once lived as strangers in Egypt.

The Letter to the Hebrews urges believers not to neglect hospitality, "for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

And then Jesus speaks words that forever deepen the meaning of hospitality:

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

For Homer, the stranger deserves welcome because Zeus protects the guest.

For Christians, the stranger deserves welcome because Christ identifies himself with the guest.

The virtue remains.

Its horizon expands.

Hospitality becomes participation in the life of the God who crossed the infinite distance between heaven and earth to dwell among us.

That is why the early Church recognized in Homer's vision one of those "seeds of the Word."

Homer understood something profoundly true: the character of a person is revealed by the way she or he receives the stranger.

Homer makes an even bolder claim.

The character of a civilization is revealed in exactly the same way.