A friend and I have been discussing the similarities between the Greek law of xenia and the Christian understanding of charity. In his most recent e-mail he also appended an interesting comment about a liberal and anti-Christian acquaintance of his who “has the ‘ethnomasochistic’ tendency to decry everything Christian or even Western while apologizing for anything non-Western and especially Islamic”. Here’s my response:

My comment about xenia is rooted in my own reading of the Greek classics and my annual teaching of them. I am, however, not an expert. I root my overall philosophy of comparative literature on an understanding of the unity of Man, which is present in the literary criticism of Tolkien, Lewis and Chesterton. I would recommend Louis Markos’ From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics, which I have read, and William F. Lynch’s Christ and Apollo: The Dimension of the Literary Imagination, which I haven’t. I also draw your attention to the review on page 39 of the latest issue of StAR on Simone Weil’s Apologetic Use of Literature: Her Christological Interpretations of Ancient Greek Texts by Marie Cabaud Meaney, a book we should both make a point of reading, I suggest.

I’m afraid that I can’t help on the subject of Islam, except that I can’t fathom how ethno-masochistic liberals can admire such a “homophobic” xenophobic religion, except of course that they admire anyone or anything that hates Christendom.