Against Hotels: Calvin on Gen. 18.1-8
Somewhat curiously, Calvin judged "the great number of inns"
populating the landscape of his day to be rather obvious "evidence of our
depravity" -- the "our" in question being, in the first instance, early modern Europeans.
What prompted such disapproval of something as seemingly innocuous, if not
romantic to modern eyes, as the early modern inn? Early modern inns provided
food and lodging for travelers, as well as a convenient place, especially in
urban settings, for locals to gather, have a drink, and take in the recent
gossip. Such being so, it's tempting to assume Calvin's disparagement of inns
stemmed from simple aversion to drinking and gossiping as such. Or perhaps the
innkeeper's wish to turn a profit in providing food, drink, and accommodation
to others prompted Calvin's censorial comments. Calvin, after all, was known to
take a swing now and then (cf. his commentary on Isaiah 58.7) at those who
pursued their vocation toward the end of padding their pockets rather than
serving their fellow man -- no matter the efforts of certain folk to enlist Calvin
as a champion for modern day economies which make peace with, or even endorse,
human greed.
But no. Whatever Calvin's views on (excessive) drinking,
gossiping, and profiting/profiteering, his distaste for inns stemmed from other
considerations. Calvin disapproved of inns because he believed that persons
travelling -- i.e., those who frequent inns -- should be offered food, drink, and
accommodation cost-free in private homes. Inns, simply put, testify to the
failure of (Christian) folk to extend hospitality -- that is, food, drink, and
accommodation -- to those in need. Inns, in other words, "prove...that the
principal duty of humanity has become obsolete among us."
Calvin's admittedly brief tirade against inns and insight
into what the same say about the ethical state of a culture follow from
observation of Abraham's apparent zeal for hospitality as evidenced by the
events of Genesis 18.1-8. In that text Abraham spots "three men" (vs. 2) -- three travelers -- making
their way past his home and prevails on them to stop, rest, and eat. In doing
so he proves to be the perfect model of hospitable behavior. And Calvin judges hospitality,
in turn, to be utmost proof and the
principal instance of charity towards others.
"Hospitality," the reformer writes, "holds the chief place
among [the] services [of charity]" which one might perform in relation to
another. Why so? "Because it is no common virtue to assist strangers, from whom
there is no hope of reward. For men in general are wont, when they do favors to
others, to look for a return; but he who is kind to unknown guests and persons,
proves himself to be disinterestedly liberal." Abraham's actions toward the
three passersby of Gen. 18 are, then, perfect illustration of the disinterested
liberality which exists at the heart of hospitality: "Wherefore the humanity of
Abraham deserves no slight praise; because he freely invites men who were to
him unknown, through whom he had received no advantage, and from whom he had no
hope of mutual favors."
So remarkable, in fact, is Abraham's apparent disinterested
liberality in Gen. 18, that Calvin questions -- following other unnamed
interpreters -- whether Abraham recognized those whom he served to be more than men. The biblical narrative,
of course, eventually unmasks two of these three men as angels, and the other -- at
least in Calvin's judgment -- as Christ in pre-incarnate human form (i.e., a Christophany).
But Scripture also leads Calvin to reject the notion that Abraham recognized the
genuine identity of the three persons before him. There is, firstly, the
statement of Gen. 18.2 that Abraham looked and beheld "three men" before him.
There is, secondly, the statement of Heb. 13.2 that certain persons in
salvation history have "entertained angels unawares,"
which statement Calvin reads as a direct reference to Abraham and the events depicted
in Gen. 18.
The angels of Gen. 18 were, then, "received by the holy man
as by one who intended to discharge a duty towards men.... It was therefore a merely human and civil honor which he
paid them." Of course, the fact that Abraham initially recognized (and fed) his
guests as men doesn't preclude the
reader from recognizing their true identity from the first, and so from asking -- as
Calvin does -- how beings without natural (or permanent) bodies can eat food at
all, or what happened to the food they ate when their temporary human bodies
were discarded! Calvin seems to entertain the possibility that when these
beings laid aside the human form with which they were temporarily entrusted,
the food they had eaten remained, dropping to the ground in whatever state of
digestion it had reached in those temporary bodies. But he concludes otherwise:
"As God speedily annihilated those bodies which had been created for a
temporary use, so there will be no absurdity in saying that the food itself was
destroyed together with their bodies."
However speculative and ultimately unfruitful Calvin's
thoughts on angelic digestion might be, his comments on hospitality (or the
lack thereof in modern cultures) bear much practical import for present day
persons. If Calvin judged early modern Europe depraved on account of the
presence of numerous inns, what would he make of modern day America, with its
cluster of hotel and motel chains competing for business at nearly every exit
on the nation's freeways?
Whether the number of hotels, motels, lodges, and inns at
any given location is really inversely proportionate to a nation's moral health
is, of course, debatable. Regardless, Calvin recalls us to a virtue -- namely,
hospitality -- which is decidedly biblical and, arguably at least, much neglected
in the present. The author of Hebrews states our obligation rather bluntly: "Do
not neglect to show hospitality to strangers." Most of us, I'd wager, struggle
to muster up the moral energy to extend hospitality to persons we don't know all
that well in our own churches. Extending hospitality to those who occupy even
more remote circles of our attention -- to those who genuinely have very little if
anything, even appreciation, to offer us in return -- never crosses our minds. On
this score we might take a lesson from Abraham, and from Calvin who highlights
the patriarch's remarkable charity to what at (his) first glance appeared to be
nothing but tired travelers -- persons least in a position to reciprocate
kindnesses received.