Paul and Jesus

The context of Paul’s declaration was a controversy over whether women in the Corinthian church should pray or prophesy in the group gatherings with their heads covered or uncovered. The covering referred to is not a cloth or veil, even though some English translations give that impression—it is the woman’s hair. Paul addresses the issues of both hair length and style.² He explains: “If a woman has long hair, it is her pride. For her hair is given to her for a covering [i.e., veil]” (1 Corinthians 11:15). Paul insists that if a woman has shorter hair, or puts her hair up in common Greco-Roman style, exposing her neck and ears, she is getting out of her place in God’s created order, as well as being immodest.³ In contrast, a man with long hair shames his head. Men submit themselves directly to God, while women are to bow their heads to their husbands, with their long hair as a sign of that submission: “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).

Paul bases his position on his assertion that there is a rigid hierarchy of the created order, moving from God, to Christ, to the man, and last of all, at the bottom of the chain of authority—the woman: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). For a woman to wear her hair immodestly dishonors her “head”—referring to her husband as her head, as well as her head itself, a kind of play on the word. Paul then says something commentators have puzzled over for the past eighteen hundred years. A literal translation reads: “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. On account of this a woman ought to have power [Greek exousia] on her head, because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:9–10). Some have taken this to mean a “symbol of authority,” that is her covered head, but grammatically the noun is active, not passive. The reference is to something the woman controls, not something that controls her. The idea is that the woman who covers her head exercises power or authority over her head, and thus does not expose it to immodesty—namely to the lustful gaze of the angels! Here Paul likely alludes to the story in Genesis where the angels or “sons of God” lusted after women, left their proper place in heaven, and came down to earth and impregnated them (1 Corinthians 11:10; Genesis 6:1–2).⁴ The woman was made for the man, not for these rebellious angels, so in the dynamic, charismatic manifestation of prayer and prophecy, when the heavens are open and the spiritual energy is flowing from heaven to earth and back again—a woman must guard herself.

Paul believed that angels, and possibly uninvited demonic spirits as well, were present in the charismatic gatherings of his followers as they invoked the Spirit of Christ, who shows his presence and power through manifesting various gifts of the Spirit.⁵ Eating at the “table of the Lord,” as Paul refers to their sacred meal, is an occasion of segregated holiness for the group, when the spiritual presence of Christ is quite literally imbibed through the bread and the wine (1 Corinthians 10:21). Paul entertains the possibility that demons might be brought along by those who might have also eaten recently at an idol’s temple and been unwittingly bonded with them (1 Corinthians 10:14–21). These spiritual realities and dangers make the proper conduct and modesty of women of vital importance to the well-being of the group as a whole. Paul had just warned the group that those who were punished in the days of Moses had eaten and drunk in holiness but then “rose up to dance” in sexually immodest ways (1 Corinthians 10:6–7).

Paul is adamant about his stance. His tone is strident and uncompromising. He sarcastically says that if women insist on cutting their hair they should just shave their heads like common prostitutes—and if they find that shameful, then they should cover their heads! (1 Corinthians 11:5–6).

Paul obviously anticipates that some women will object to his views, some perhaps because of Greco-Roman fashion, in which women routinely put their hair up above their neck and ears. However, it is possible that others object on the grounds of what Paul has taught them, that there was “no longer male or female” in Christ. If such was ever the case, would it not be so in the assembly, when all were gathered as one, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ’s body? Also, since these women were praying and giving prophecies ecstatically in the Spirit, were they not acting directly under the authority of Christ? Would they need any man as their “head” or mediator?