(9) What Kind of Covering? Hair, or a Veil?
The “Hairstyle” Interpretation
Not infrequently it has been assumed that the main thrust of this
section of 1 Corinthians concerns women. The subtitle for example in the
Jerusalem Bible is “Women’s behaviour at services”. But there are nearly as many comments about a
man not being covered (verses 4, 7
and 14) as there are about a woman being covered. In neither case is there any
clear reference in the text to describe the kind of covering under discussion.
Although various Greek authors can be cited who use similar language,
it has not been possible to find any exact parallels.
The lack of any noun such as “veil” has encouraged re-examination
of the passage for any clues.
Verse 4, as translated in the RSV, says: “Any man who prays or prophesies with
his head covered dishonours his head”. Not only is there no noun to describe
the covering, there is no word for “covering” here in the Greek at all. The
phrase is kata kephales echon, which
literally means “having (something) down from head”. The “something” is not
specified. If Paul had meant to say “something on his head”, it is suggested by writers that he would not have used
kata (“down from”) but epi (“on”), the word used of the woman
in verse 10 “on her head”.
We think our previous explanation is more likely: that it refers
to a man with Roman style clothing coming down from his head, in the style of a
Roman priest at sacrifice. But verses 14 and 15 mention hair.
Does not nature
itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him but if a
woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her [long] hair is given to her for a covering. (1 Corinthians 11:14-15)
Some writers suggest that Paul is talking about long hair on the
man, left flowing down (kata) from
his head, to which Paul objects, and long hair on the woman wrapped up on her head in the style considered
acceptable in those times.
If so, this would obviously require a
different understanding from that suggested by us earlier when we looked at
veils, whether the toga pulled over his head by a Roman priest at prayer or a
veil worn by women to preserve them from masculine eyes.
The “long
hair” explanation would solve the problem of why Paul should appear to object
so vehemently to something which was normal in Jerusalem where the priests prayed with
something on their heads – turbans, caps, mitres or bonnets – (Exodus 28). Paul
(it is suggested) is not objecting to men praying with something on their heads but to their praying with
long hair flowing down from their heads. Pseudo-Phocylides,
(probably a Jewish writer in Alexandria,
c. 30 BC to 40 AD) advised parents:
If a child is a
boy, do not let locks grow on his head. Braid not his crown nor make
cross-knots on the top of his head. Long hair is not fit for men, but for
voluptuous women. Guard the beauty of a comely boy, because many rage for
intercourse with a man. (Pseudo-Phocylides 210-214)
Long hair on a man was regarded as effeminate: long hair, braided
on the top of the head was a feminine style. Philo criticised men for “the
provocative way they curl and dress their hair”, and he accused them of
falsifying “the stamp of nature” (Spec.
Leg. 3:36, 38).
Why, then, does Pseudo-Phocylides appear also to disapprove of
long hair on women in that he describes it as “fit ... for voluptuous women”? The answer may be in 1 Corinthians 11 as well as
in the archaeological evidence from ancient Corinth. Respectable women had long hair but
they wound it up on top of their heads. It was their hair, wound up, which was
their head-covering.
Short hair in a woman was considered
suspect from a sexual viewpoint. Lucian of Samosata (2nd century AD) wrote:
A woman with her hair
closely clipped in the Spartan manner, boyish looking and wholly masculine.... (Fugitive 27)
[Megilla’s head]
shaved close, just like the manliest of athletes....
(Dialogi meretrici 5.3)
In Euripides’ play The Bacchae (which means the followers of
Bacchus – in Greek mythology, Dionysus – the god of nature, emotional religion
and wine) women revellers abandoned home and husband and ran wild in ecstatic
dancing in a form of possessed worship. They let their hair down and followed
the god. Dionysus, also, annoyed convention by his long, flowing hair. The Bacchae
was written in the 5th century BC, but similar attitudes towards long hair on
men and free-flowing long hair in women seem to have continued – as did worship
of Dionysus. The female followers of Dionysus are sometimes represented in
Greek art as “raging with madness or enthusiasm, their heads thrown backwards,
with dishevelled hair”.
Paul mentions that in the ecclesia at Corinth
some had previously been influenced by pagan cults:
You know that when
you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols, however you may have been
moved. (1 Corinthians 12:2)
This statement is at the beginning of Paul’s description of the
spiritual gifts they received in Christ; could it be that free-flowing hair was
one of the problems which underlay Paul’s answer in chapter 11?
Verse 15 can fit this explanation: “… long hair is given to her as
a covering”. The word “as” is a translation of anti, which might better be translated “instead of”. The word
translated “a covering” is peribolaion,
something which is thrown round or wrapped round, which is how hair is shown on
portraits. It is wrapped round the woman’s head and tied or pinned in place.
This would then mean that a woman’s long hair is given to her instead of a
veil!
The NIV Margin Reading
An alternative translation
is offered in the NIV margin:
Every man who prays or prophesies with
long hair dishonours his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with no
covering [of hair] on her head dishonours her head – she is just like one of
the “shorn women” (verses 4 & 5).
This translation is drawn from Man
and Woman in Biblical Perspective by James B. Hurley, pages 168-171, where
the explanation is basically as follows: The word “uncovered” in 1 Corinthians
11 (akatakalyptos) occurs in the
Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which would have
been used by the ecclesia at Corinth. In Leviticus 13:45 the Hebrew reads
literally (of a leper) “his head shall be unbound”. The Septuagint
translates this “his head shall be akatakalyptos”.
The RSV translates the same phrase “let the hair of his head hang loose”. In
Numbers 5:18 when a woman is accused of adultery, she was to be brought before
the priest who would “unbind the hair of the woman’s head” (RSV). The verb used
in the Septuagint for unbind is akatakalypto
or akalypto. It is suggested
therefore that akatakalyptos in 1
Corinthians 11 means “with hair hanging loose” while the opposite “to cover the
head” (katakalyptesthai) means “to bind
hair up upon the head”.
Andrew Perry gives a detailed examination of Leviticus 13:45 and
Numbers 5:18 and argues that removing a covering from the head rather than
letting the hair hang loose is the meaning.
James Hurley’s argument that the covering is hair not cloth, is presented in
the appendix to his book, and is based on considerations of how the Hebrew
should be translated.
Several translations seem to think that the Hebrew refers to loosened hair
(NIV, GNB, RSV, NRSV) and since these are produced by people from varying
perspectives, there is no reason to see any theological bias in their
translation concerning hair. It is worth noting, however, that the latest
version of the NIV called TNIV (2004) has omitted this margin reading of 1
Corinthians 11:4-7.
One more passage, from the LXX Apocrypha,
has some bearing on the issue:
Now Susanna was a
woman of great refinement, and beautiful in appearance. As she was veiled (katakekalymmene), the wicked men ordered
her to be unveiled (apokalyphthenai),
so that they might feast upon her beauty. (Daniel and
Susanna 31-32)
This passage might make more
sense if she were wearing a veil which fully covered her head, for a hair style
would still enable her beauty to be seen. Perhaps, though, her long hair hanging
down would be regarded by the men as showing her beauty even more, as it says
in 1 Corinthians 11:15: “if a woman has long hair, it is her glory” (NIV).
Whether akatakalyptos (“uncovered”) means “unveiled” or “with hair hanging
loose” remains a matter for debate.
We conclude, therefore, that is not
possible to give a certain answer as to whether Paul is talking about veils or
about hair styles. We incline towards the view that a veil is intended. That
nothing clearer can be said is again an indication that local and time-related
practices are involved or we would have been given positive and clear details.
We need today to apply the principle behind these practices, but the actual
practice is no longer discoverable or relevant.
