persons, who had an important role in providing meeting places for the worshipping community’.8 However, the words φιλόξενος and φιλοξενία have to do with welcoming strangers and visitors, not hosting meetings of fellow believers in one’s house (members of one’s own community could hardly be regarded as strangers).9 There is nothing in the passage or its wider context to indicate that anything other than ‘hospitality’ in its accepted sense is in mind. In Sim. 8.10.3, the pastor refers to those