Discussion Main / SacredHospitality

When I first heard this term the definition used was helping people so that you could show off. Is that what is being talked about on this page?

I have a post on my Blog where I discus Hospitality and mention Scars Of Dracula http://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2015/06/hospitality-is-important-biblical-value.html

I wonder if I should update it and actually link to this T Vtropes page?

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During the German invasion of Russia, the Ukrainians were so glad to get rid of the Soviets they welcomed the German soldiers with bread and salt. Whatever the rank-and-file thought of the hospitality, the upper echelon didn't really care about it, since the Ukrainians were on their list of not-their-redefinition-of-Aryans. The Ukrainians were ticked off and went guerrilla on the Nazis' supply lines and rear.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett Hide / Show Replies

This sounds like a legit subversion, but I don't really know enough about it to comment, and adding a figure who's apparently revered in a major religion as a subversion might be a bad idea, so I'm putting it (and the conversation attached to it) in here for now:

• The Bible also has an aversion: When Sisera, a Canaanite general, was fleeing the field after being defeated by the Israelites, he spotted a nomad's tent; the woman in the tent, Yael, let him in, confirmed his name, gave him milk "in a lordly dish", and let him fall asleep on the tent floor. She then drove a tent peg through Sisera's head. Please note: this is considered heroic.
  • The Israelites always considered any behavior that benefited them heroic. Many modern Jews disagree.
  • Not enough that you don't get the passage about the heroism of the woman who betrayed her own city to slaughter by the Israelite army read at bat mitzvahs sometimes.

Edited by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo Hide / Show Replies

The beginning of Disney's Beauty And The Beast give you a hint of why hospitality was so important, if you think about it a bit. If the "old woman" had been only what she appeared to be, poor, homeless, begging shelter after a snowstorm, she would have died.

Back before the hospitality industry existed, hospitality could be the difference between life and death. That's why the Hospitality Code was so important.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton

Hi there. I've found a passage from Kingsley's translation of the Greek legend of Perseus that I think nicely illustrates the Greek concept of xenia: ..... So he returned home; and when he came to Seriphos, the first thing which he heard was that his mother was a slave in the house of Polydectes.

Grinding his teeth with rage, he went out, and away to the king's palace, and through the men's rooms, and the women's rooms, and so through all the house (for no one dared stop him, so terrible and fair was he), till he found his mother sitting on the floor, turning the stone hand-mill, and weeping as she turned it. And he lifted her up, and kissed her, and bade her follow him forth. But before they could pass out of the room Polydectes came in, raging. And when Perseus saw him, he flew upon him as the mastiff flies on the boar. 'Villain and tyrant!' he cried; 'is this your respect for the Gods, and thy mercy to strangers and widows? You shall die!' And because he had no sword he caught up the stone hand-mill, and lifted it to dash out Polydectes' brains.

But his mother clung to him, shrieking, 'Oh, my son, we are strangers and helpless in the land; and if you kill the king, all the people will fall on us, and we shall both die.'

Good Dictys, too, who had come in, entreated him. 'Remember that he is my brother. Remember how I have brought you up, and trained you as my own son, and spare him for my sake.'

Then Perseus lowered his hand; and Polydectes, who had been trembling all this while like a coward, because he knew that he was in the wrong, let Perseus and his mother pass. ..... Thus it is demonstrated. Ill-treatment of strangers and travellers is outrageous, blasphemous, and shocking, offensive to both men and Gods, so much so that our hot-blooded hero thinks nothing of grabbing a random household implement and threatening to bash the King's head in for it, and has to be talked down by his mother and the King's brother.

I think it's a very nice translation, as an aside; it's in the public domain, and available online in various places. But I wonder if this might be too clunky to be a good quote, even if it's illustrative of the mindset of the culture.

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