From Fruit to Root - A Genealogy of "Radical" Hospitality

Chapter Four.

[Continued from Chapter Three]

The “Least of These” in Roman Catholic Interpretation, Practice, and Philosophy

Before moving forward to the decades prior to Butterfield’s publication of TGH, we must first move farther back in time to understand “radically ordinary hospitality” and how it seamlessly connects to the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the postmodernists. In order to do this, we must look at the notion of hospitality that was accepted by the French Roman Catholic Existentialists and Personalists, Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa — the Roman Catholic doctrine of hospitality.

Regarding this teaching, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that

The Council of Trent in its twenty-fifth session, cap. viii, De Ref., enjoins “all who hold any ecclesiastical benefices, whether secular or regular, to accustom themselves, as far as their revenues will allow, to exercise with alacrity and kindness the office of hospitality, so frequently commended by the holy Fathers; being mindful that those who cherish hospitality receive Christ in the person of their guests”.¹

According to the encyclopedia, “this sums up the teaching and tradition of the Church with regard to hospitality.”² Extensive evidence to support its claims is not given, but it does reference “the ‘Didascalia Apostrum’ (ii, 3-4), a work of the second half of the third century.”³

Yet while the Didascalia Apostrum does issue a general teaching as to how Christians ought to show kindness to those in need, it does not interpret “the least of these” in Matt 25:31-46 to mean any person who is of a lower social status or is in need. Instead, the document interprets “the least of these” to mean fellow professors of faith in Christ. The document states — 

You shall not turn away your eyes from a Christian who for the name of God and for His faith and love is condemned to the games, or to the beasts, or to the mines; but of your labour and of the sweat of your face do you send to him for nourishment, and for a payment to the soldiers that guard him, that he may have relief and that care may be taken of him, so that your blessed brother be not utterly afflicted. For let him that is condemned for the name of the Lord God be esteemed of by you as a holy martyr, an angel of God, or God upon earth, even one that is spiritually clothed with the Holy Spirit of God; for through him you see the Lord our Saviour, inasmuch as he has been found worthy of the incorruptible crown, and has renewed again the witness of (His) passion.

…if thou art rich, thou must minister to them according to thy power, or even give thy whole possession and redeem them from bonds; for they it is who are worthy of God, and the sons who perform His will; as the Lord has said: Every one that shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father [Mt 10.32]. And you shall not be ashamed to go to them where they are imprisoned. And when you do these things, you shall inherit everlasting life, for you become sharers of their martyrdom.⁴

Though the general injunction in the document is for Christians to freely give toward those who are in need and come seeking help, Matt 25:31-46 is understood correctly as having to do with Christians and not any person who happens to be poor, oppressed, or in need.

This shows us that interpretations of Matt 25:31-46 that identify “the least of these” as any person who is in need represent a deviation from the early church’s teaching. This is confirmed by a survey of commentaries written during the early post-New Testament era, as the work of Christine Marie Downing clearly establishes. In“The least of these?” The origins and evolution of a misunderstood group in Matthew 25, Downing explains that while early commentary on the text is scant, when such commentary does appear it consistently interprets “the least of these” as Christians, writing —

…it is in the Third Century that Christian writers actually began to investigate the identities of the “least of these,” which coincides with the Church’s attempt to fight “heretical Christological doctrines.”

[…]

Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) was the first of the eastern Christian theologians to equate the “least of these” in a blanket fashion with Christians. Origen (184-253 AD), who wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew including an important exegesis of Matthew 25:31-46, supported Clement’s viewpoint. Origen himself used what was known as the “allegorical method” in his interpretation of Matthew, putting forward the explanation that any deeds that are done to the disciples of Christ are done to Christ himself. In effect, for Origen, the disciples were “stand-ins” for their leader.⁵

Downing further explains that it was not until the Fourth Century that

…numerous Christian scholars would assert the much more sweeping socio-economic claim that the “least of these” were the poor and needy in general.  One of the foremost adherents of this view was (St.) John Chrysostom. He believed that the “least of these” were the poor, meek and outcasts of

universal humanity, thereby incorporating non-Christians into the category of the “least of these.” To John Chrysostom even the non-believer deserved to receive the charity of Christians. Note the reversal: Chrysostom now makes Christians the object of divine judgement; they are respectively the sheep or goats depending on their treatment of the poor.⁶

As Barry Gordon explains, the historical reasons for this change in thinking are 

Economic decline, the increasing identification of Christianity with Empire, and the emergence of monasticism [which] eventually combined to produce new approaches to the solution of the economic problem. One of these was the Solution by Charity…

…John Chrysostom (344-407), was also a proponent of the same Solution. However, Chrysostom…came to regard this Solution as a “second-best”. He put forward a type of Solution by Communism. Chrysostom’s view was influenced by what he understood to be the practice of the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem...⁷

[…]

His most-preferred solution was by way of communal ownership of property. [He] argued that if his urban congregations were to achieve the type of life envisaged for them by Jesus Christ, they had to rid themselves of the notion that what they had in their possession was somehow an extension of themselves, and thereby, exclusive of others. Further, if they were to act in terms of freedom of this notion, the community as a whole would benefit greatly. Chrysostom contends that private ownership breeds conflict in any society.⁸

Yet ultimately, as Gordon further notes,

Chrysostom’s [Utopian Communism] did not impress the congregations to which he preached. In addition, it does not seem to have impressed contemporaries among the Fathers. Even within the confines of patristic thought, there were ready objections to hand.⁹

This, in part, explains why his colleagues and “…medieval scholars [in large part] accepted the traditional viewpoint that the ‘least of these’ were the Christians in general.”¹⁰

What is more, during the Reformation Protestants did not agree with the later interpretation of Matt 25:31-46, espousing instead “the consensus view” of the Patristic authors which continued “into…subsequent centuries.”¹¹ This demonstrates that the later view was a historically late theological innovation formed to address a very specific socio-economic problem facing the Roman Catholic church. Nonetheless, once the church had canonized this erroneous interpretation, Roman Catholics proceeded to accept and propagate the misinterpretation widely.

The Benedict Effect

Among those who accepted and helped spread this misinterpretation, we find St. Benedict of Nursia. In his work The Rule of Benedict, he writes —

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt 25:35).

…All humility should be shown in addressing a guest on arrival or departure. By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored because he is indeed welcomed in them.

…Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received…¹²

Benedict, following the later interpretation of Matt 25:31-46, identifies any guest as Christ, conflating the Imago Dei and Imago Christi in this little book that would serve as the guidebook for all future generations of those who would choose to follow his path, whether within a monastery¹³ or in their homes.

Jacques Maritain & Radical Hospitality

Of the latter group, we find not only those indirectly influenced by Benedictine hospitality (such as Rosaria Butterfield herself¹⁴), but the French Existentialist philosopher, co-founder and contributor to Esprit, and continuing influence on Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, Jacques Maritain. As Ralph McInerny notes —

In September 1912, Jacques, Raïssa [his wife], and Vera [his sister-in-law] went to the Abbey of Oosterhout in Holland and were received as oblates of Saint Benedict by the abbot, Dom Jean de Puniet. …From that time on, the three formed the simulacrum of a religious community in their home.¹⁵

The Maritain family, following the way of Benedict, would offer

…hospitality in the households they set up in Versailles, Meudon, and Princeton, where their faith and their charity became “a little bridge¹⁶ thrown across the abyss.” They formed a little community, a lay apostolate dedicated to bringing the life of faith to those whom priests could not reach.¹⁷

The goal of showing hospitality, in other words, was to convert people to the Catholic religion. And as we have already seen, conversion to Catholicism was inextricably linked to the goal of radically changing the social order. As Mark and Louise Zwick explain —

Dorothy Day learned from the Maritains that the Revolution must come, but it begins with a Revolution in one’s heart. The goal of the Maritains and of Dorothy and Peter was to transform society by bringing Christian values to society and to ordinary people.¹⁸

Thus, Maritain viewed hospitality — as canonically defined and prescribed by the authoritative writings of the Roman Church, and in St. Benedict’s Rule — as a means of converting individuals to Roman Catholicism, with the hope of fundamentally changing the structure of society.

The social teaching of the Roman Catholic church is differentiated from the teachings of Marx and his followers, as it was for Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, on the basis of theology (and its attendant anthropology), not ethics. As Walter J. Schultz explains —

Rejecting the erroneous individualism of bourgeois 

democracy, Marxism seeks to create a more culturally pervasive democratic ideal. This ideal has an atheistic base, and Maritain thinks that for that reason it leads to man’s enslavement rather than to his liberation. Without a transcendent orientation, it is material individuality which is served, whether it be the body of an individual capitalist or the body of the proletariat. Refusing man a transcendent orientation, the Marxist, although perhaps motivated by an authentic thirst for communion, abolishes true personality and succumbs to the tyranny of economic necessity.¹⁹

We once again see an appeal made to the Imago Dei, albeit indirectly in the reference to personality, and the need for communion which can only be established by means of conversion. And one of the foundational supports for this appeal is found in the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matt 25:31-46.

Gabriel Marcel’s Metaphysics of Hospitality

Maritain’s colleague — and influence on Jacques Derrida — Gabriel Marcel did not serve as a Benedictine oblate, but he did articulate what he called a “metaphysics of hospitality,” which he described as “a kind of perfected virtue of hospitality, understood as an attitude of welcoming and reverence towards all persons. It is a matter of participating in the mystery of being.”²⁰ For Marcel, hospitality would be the means whereby the world would be “healed.”
As Schwarz explains — 

The connections and bonds that unite families and communities seem to be progressively disintegrating, leading to human beings feeling more and more alienated from each other. Marcel is convinced that the ultimate malady afflicting postmodern man is the dissipating sense of what he calls, the ontological mystery. The recovery of this sense of the mystery of being, then, is the remedy for healing the world’s brokenness. …Many people live disconnected from the mystery of being, and this blindness on the metaphysical level results in grave errors on the human and interpersonal one.²¹

Thus, although stated abstractly, the same understanding of hospitality — as a means of changing the heart of man in order to subsequently change the institutions of man — is present in Marcel’s philosophy as well.

The same thinking is also implicitly contained in the philosophy of Mounier, who taught that “a person must reach out to others in order to fulfill his or her goal of becoming fully human,”²² a “reaching out” that included the “decentralization of the self,” consideration of the point of view of “the other,” empathic reciprocity, and

The values of “generosity or self-bestowal,” of giving without measure, with no thought of reward. “The economic of personality is an economic of donation, not of compensation not of calculation.” …generosity opens up relationship as it “dissolves opacity and annuls the solitude of the subject” and this even if there is no reciprocation. Generosity disarms the other and the forgiveness and confidence we place in another person is able to liberate them.²³

These actions which Mounier identifies as “reaching out to others” exemplify those which are articulated by standard Roman Catholic teaching on hospitality, by Emmanuel Levinas’ teaching on hospitality, by Jacques Derrida’s teaching on “radical hospitality,” and on the putatively evangelical teaching on “radical hospitality” subsequent to the surge of interest in “radical hospitality” during the 1980s, and about two decades prior to the publication of The Gospel Comes With A House Key.

[Continued in Chapter Five]

1. “Hospitality”, New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07475c.htm. (emphasis added) [N.B: The use of the general phrase “their guests” indicates that it is to be understood universally. Note the conflation of the Imago Dei and the Imago Christi.]

2. ibid.

3. ibid.

4. “Didascalia Apostolorum”, Early Christian Writings, https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didascalia.html. (emphasis added)

5. Downing, Christine Marie, “‘The least of these?’ The Origins and Evolution of a Misunderstood Group in Matthew 25” (2021), Theses and Dissertations, 71-72. (emphasis added) [https://rdw.rowan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3904&context=etd]

6. ibid. ibid. [N.B: See also, Rhee, Helen. Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), xxx-xxxiii; and Pohl, Christine D. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, 47.]

7. The Economic Problem in Biblical and Patristic Thought (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989), 101.

8. ibid., 109.

9. ibid., 110.

10. Downing, The Least of These, 73. (emphasis added)

11. ibid.

12. The Rule of St. Benedict in English, ed. Timothy Fry (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1982), 73. (emphasis added)

13. For more on the practical use of this misinterpretation of Matt 25:31-46 within later monasteries, see Kerr, Julie. Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictienes in England, c.1070-c.1250 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007).

14. This is not only inferred from her dependence upon and recommendation of Christine D. Pohl’s work Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, itself admittedly heavily dependent on the work of Benedictine oblate Dorothy Day, but also from Butterfield’s own article for Core Christianity titled “10 Things You Should Know about Christian Hospitality”, https://corechristianity.com/resource-library/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-christian-hospitality/, in which she identifies “radically ordinary hospitality” as “the Benedict Option on Mission.”

15. “The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain”, University of Notre Dame, https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/RichHours3.html.

16. N.B. — This is also how Butterfield describes hospitality in the home. She writes —

…the purpose of radically ordinary hospitality is to take the hand of a stranger and put it in the hand of the Savior, to bridge hostile worlds, and to add to the family of God.

[…]

…Radically ordinary hospitality values the time it takes to invest in relationships, to build bridges, to repent of sins of the past, to reconcile.

[…]

One option is to build the walls higher, declare more vociferously that our homes are our castles, and, since the world is going to hell in a handbasket, we best get inside, thank God for the moat, and draw up the bridge. Doing so practices war on this world but not the kind of spiritual warfare that drives out darkness and brings in the kindness of the gospel. Strategic wall building serves only to condemn the world and the people in it. This kind of war betrays our faith as hollow, vapid, and powerless.

[N.B. — Note again how Butterfield sets walls up as an example of faithlessness and unChristian behavior that only damages the church’s reputation. Butterfield’s walls are placed in contradiction to her bridges.]

[…]

Christian hospitality brings together the mystery of union with Christ and the fellowship of the saints to gather in close the stranger and the outcast and the chronically lonely. We make gospel bridges into our home because we notice the people around us and their needs.

[…]

The same power that raised Jesus from the grave he has given to those who have committed their lives to him, so that we can serve gospel peace and be a bridge to the Lord himself in this dark world. But there is much work to do.

[…]

Hospitality reaches across worldviews to be the bridge of gospel grace.

(emphasis added)

17. Short, Edward. “The Maritain Way”, Washington Examiner, Oct 2, 2006, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-maritain-way.

18. “Jacques and Raissa Maritain Influenced The Catholic Worker”, Houston Catholic Worker, Nov 1, 1995, https://cjd.org/1995/11/01/jacques-and-raissa-maritain-influenced-the-early-catholic-worker/. (emphasis added)

19. “Jacques Maritain’s Social Critique and His Personalism”, PhD diss (McMaster University, 1982),100. (emphasis added)

20. Schwarz, Mary Fransesca. “Gabriel Marcel’s Metaphysics of Hospitality”, PhD diss (University of Dallas, 2020), 13-14. (emphasis added)

21. ibid., 111-112. (emphasis added)

22.  Sawchenko, Leslie. “The Concept of the Person: The Contributions of Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Mounier to the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur”, MA thesis (University of Calgary, 2013), 49.

23. ibid., 50.