1 Corinthians 11:2-16

VII. The Demeanour of Women in Public Worship. Chap. 11:2-16.

The apostle has just treated a series of subjects belonging to the domain of the Church's moral life, especially in connection with Christian liberty (chaps. 6-10). He now passes to various subjects relating to public worship, beginning with that which lies nearest the domain of liberty: the external demeanour of women in public worship. Then will follow the disorders which have crept into the celebration of the Holy Supper and into the administration of spiritual gifts. Such are the three subjects Paul conjoins in the closely connected chaps. 11-14.

The ancients in general laid down a difference between the bearing of men and that of women in their appearances in public. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. xiv.) relates that at the funeral ceremony of parents, the sons appeared with their heads covered, the daughters with their heads uncovered and their hair flowing. This author adds by way of explanation: “To mourning belongs the extraordinary,” that is to say, what is done on this occasion, is the opposite of what is done in general. What would be improper at an ordinary time becomes proper then. Plutarch also relates that among the Greeks it was customary for the women in circumstances of distress to cut off their hair, whereas the men allowed it to grow; why so? Because the custom of the latter is to cut it, and of the former to let it grow (see Heinrici, pp. 300, 301). According to several passages from ancient authors, while the long hair of the woman was regarded as her best ornament, the man who, by the care he bestowed on his hair, effaced the difference of the sexes, was despised as a voluptuary. The Greek slave had her head shaved in token of her servitude; the same was done among the Hebrews to the adulteress (Numbers 5:18; comp. Isaiah 3:17). In regard to acts of public worship there existed a remarkable difference between the Greeks and the Romans. The Greek prayed with his head uncovered, whereas the Roman veiled his head. The ancients explain these opposite usages in various ways. Probably in the Roman rite there was expressed the idea of the scrupulous reverence which should be brought into the service of the deity, while the Greek rite bespoke the feeling of liberty with which man should appear before the gods of Olympus. The Jewish high priest officiated with his mitre on his head, and the Jew of the present day prays with his head covered, no doubt in token of reverence and submission. It appears from all these facts what an intimate relation the feeling of the ancients established between the worshipper's demeanour, as regards the noblest part of his being, the head, and his moral and social position. “The point here was not only,” as Heinrici well says, “a matter of decorum.” His conduct in this respect corresponded to a profound religious feeling.

This is the point of view at which we must place ourselves to understand the following discussion. St. Paul was accustomed to say: “In Christ all things are made new; there is neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, neither Greek nor Jew.” How easy was it from this to jump to the conclusion: Then there is no longer any difference, especially in worship, where we are all before God, between the demeanour of the male and that of the female. If the male speaks to his brethren or to God with his head uncovered, why should not the female do so also? And with the spirit of freedom which animated the Church of Corinth, it is not probable that they had stopped short at theory. They had already gone the length of practice; this seems to be implied by 1 Corinthians 11:15-16. The apostle had learned it, not from the letter of the Corinthians, to which he does not here make any allusion (as in 1 Corinthians 8:1), but probably from the deputies of the Church.

He begins with a general commendation in regard to the manner in which the Church remains faithful to the ecclesiastical institutions he had established among them.