PAUL, HEADSHIP, AND THE VEIL -  A CASE STUDY IN 1 CORINTHIANS 11:2-16. Much has been said and written about the concept of “male headship” and its ongoing place in the life of the Christian family and, by extension, Church. Although Paul uses the “body / head” metaphor more precisely in Ephesians (if indeed that letter is genuinely Pauline), a more complete and important discussion of “headship” is found in the apostle’s first letter the Corinthians. In chapter 11, after beginning by stressing the continuing importance of received traditions that he now hands on to the recipients of the letter, Paul introduces (in v.3) the much debated concept of headship. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man And the husband is the head of his wife And God is the head of Christ     Of immediate importance here, and to the remainder of the passage where it occurs on six further occasions, is the meaning of the word translated “head,” the Greek kephalé. This has been much discussed since Stephen Bedale contended (in a 1954 article for the Journal of Theological Studies, Vol.5, p.211-215) that kephalé does not signify ‘head’ in the sense of a ruler, or chieftain, of a community, but shares much of the same semantic circle as the word arché which means “beginning” or “source.” Bedale did not deny that the concept of authority in social relationships was present in Paul’s use of kephalé in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, but argued that the basis of this authority found its locus in the order of being, inasmuch as Adam was brought into existence prior to Eve.  Hence the apostle is “speaking only of men and women in their respective sexual differentiation and function, not of their spiritual status or capabilities” (Bedale 1954; 215). This new, somewhat revolutionary, understanding of kephalé has occasioned a frenzy of ink spilling (often in anger) throughout the ensuing decades, as the ‘second wave’ of feminism swept into the churches during the late 1960’s and the traditional concept of male headship (largely established upon this passage and the similar use in Eph 5:23) came under increasing attack.   The matter is complicated further by literary considerations. Each of the three occurrences of kephalé in v.3 have the force of double enttendre, in the sense that both the literal or unmarked meaning (ie. the actual human head) and a figurative or metaphorical meaning (drawn from the order of creation) are both present. On the latter (figurative) meaning, Kim Power (Veiled Desire, 1995: 24) is correct in observing of the socio-cultural conditions of the day “a man was considered woman’s head, both in the sense of dominance and in the sense of source”. Paul is certainly appealing to the Corinthian’s understanding of what is appropriate contra what is shameful culturally (v.4-6) in order to get his point across. The crucial consideration is whether the apostle intends this culturally conditioned understanding of ‘head’ to be assumed as a hierarchical principle to be observed perpetually in all subsequent Christian contexts.  Happily, in regards to this point, there is ample opportunity to examine Paul’s use of the head / body metaphor elsewhere in scripture so as to illuminate his use of it here. The image is one of the apostle’s favourites and he employs it extensively to illustrate the Christian’s overwhelming need for reciprocal relationships; one to another, and each (individually and collectively) to Christ. In the Pauline corpus of writings, kephalé is frequently a bound metaphor likening Christ and church (Eph 1:10), Christ and the entire cosmos (Col 1:18), husband and wife (Eph 5:23), to the components of a literal human body; when joined to the head we live fully, but if the body were to be severed from the head, we are unable to live. This is in full accord with the (Greek) ancient worlds belief that the mind was the ontological source and locus of a persons soul and being, providing life, growth, and cohesion to the body. The philosophical understanding is clearly present in Paul’s contemporary Philo of Alexandria; Now using the word “head” (kephalé) in an allegorical manner, we mean by it the  dominant part of the soul, that is, the mind, and we say that everything rests  or depends upon that. (Philo, On dreams 2:207).  This concept lies in the background to the body metaphor (1 Cor 12:12-27) which re-emerges in Ephesians and Colossians (often thought to be non-Pauline) under the headship of the cosmic Christ, who is the source and supplier of life to his body, the church (Eph 1:10; 1:23; 4:15. Col 1:18; 2:10; 2:19). The key motif is mutual dependence and  reciprocity; men and women need one another, as the collective ‘body’ (the church) needs its ‘head’ (Christ) and cannot exist at all without it.  Headship is not then “a unique image delineating a hierarchy of gender relationships but is one of Paul’s favourite metaphors for the process of Christian living” (Scanzoni & Hardesty, All We’re Meant To Be, 1992; 37). Further to this, if Paul is intending to establish a timeless, hierarchical structure of relationships in 1 Cor 11:3, the pattern of submission would be woman to man, as Christ to God. The latter raises a significant theological problem in that it surmounts to a form of subordinationism (the belief that Christ was in some way “less” than fully divine). This was the very view, articulated by Sabellius, Arius, and others, that was specifically refuted by the Council of Nicae (325). Ever since, Christian orthodoxy has insisted that Christ is not subordinate to the Father but “of one being” with the Father (the Nicene Creed) or, as the Athanasian resolution put it “in this Trinity none is before or after the other; none is greater or less than the other”.  Unless we are willing to locate a serious (and quite disastrous) doctrinal error in one of either Paul or traditional Christian Trinitarianism, it will be necessary to understand the three sets of relationships described here in 1 Corinthians (man to Christ; woman to man; Christ to God) in terms, not of hierarchies, but of sequential priority, inasmuch as each of the former has the latter as the source or origin of its being; this is indeed Paul’s argument in v.7-10.   The analogy is that, (i) as Adam (the man) was created by God and derives his being from God (ii) so Eve (the woman) was formed from Adam’s body – at least in the second  creation narrative, Gen. 2 - and hence came out of, and derives her being, from  Adam (the man) (iii) in the same way the incarnate Christ came from God. This does not surmount to a theological statement, nor should it be used as the basis for dogma or, worse, appropriated to perpetuate sociological or ecclesiastical order. That it cannot be a theological principle (but a literary device) at stake here is made clearly apparent by the non-hierarchical nature of the latter two examples; men and women are, theologically, ontological equals (especially in the first creation story; Gen 1:26-28, also Gal 3:28); both are tarnished by original sin, both are redeemed ‘in Christ’, both have equal access to baptism which initiates each into participation in the physical community of faith etc.  Similarly, the incarnate Christ, in the Nicene language, is of “one indivisible substance” with God the Father.  There is no divisibility between the two as they stand before God and no divine ordering of either the family, society, or the Church present. Hence, we conclude that the Pauline concept of “headship” is a literary metaphor invoking source or origin and not a statement about familial, social, or ecclesiastical hierarchies.           Paul’s instructions about women praying with their heads uncovered or unveiled (between v.4-6) reveals the real crux of the matter at hand in all of 1 Corinthians ch.11 – a chapter addressing conduct in public worship. Both the preceding allusion to ‘headship’ (v.3) and the theological rationale which follows (v.7-10) are complementary to, and dependent upon, the issue raised here (the veiling of women). The apostle’s point is made with two distinct sentences, each containing a clear contrast separated by the strong adversive alla (Greek: “but”) -  Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his  head, BUT any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled  disgraces her head - it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved.  (v.4-5). For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; BUT if it  is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should  wear a veil. (v.6). Paul requires the veiling of women here for a number of reasons; although the background to his directive is the usual synagogue practice, Gentiles (particularly Romans) are also familiar with the wearing of headcoverings in liturgical settings, and the sight of a veiled woman would not have been unusual in the cosmopolitan city of Corinth (it was in all likelihood quite commonplace), neither was it culturally or religiously offensive to either Jew or Gentile. Conversely, despite almost certainly drawing on his Rabbinic education and using Old Testament categories, Paul can no longer appeal to the ritual consequences of transgressing boundaries (uncleanness or impurity before the law; Lev 12-16) as a penalty for unveiling as this carries no theological or cultural import within the burgeoning Christian community and is meaningless to the Gentile. Hence Paul’s analogy must be culturally relevant and he subsequently claims that there is no distinction between a woman appearing and participating in public worship unveiled, and a woman who does so with her hair shaved off. Both are disgraceful and bring shame upon her according to Jewish custom of the time (Test. Job 19:2; 23:10; 24:10) and also in Graeco-Roman culture, where men and women accused of homosexuality had their head shaved and were paraded publicly as a form of social humiliation (Virgil, Aeneid 3:545; Juvenal, Satires 6:390; Lucian, Fugitivi 27). In the light of the Corinthian’s frequent weaknesses in matters of sexual morality, compounded by the well known moral corruption and promiscuity of pagan Corinthian society and the widespread presence of cultic homosexual prostitution, it seems most likely that Paul is here drawing on his experience in Rabbinic Judaism  to reconstruct the presence of clear, visible boundaries between the sexes, so as to ensure that no one is enticed to ‘stumble’ as a consequence of another (in this case, emancipated women) exercising spiritual ‘freedom’  (the force of his argument in ch.8).  What is clear is that 1 Cor 11:2-16 is an occasional and culturally conditioned passage, directed in an almost ad hoc manner to a Christian community in exceptional and severely strained circumstances. Although the socio-cultural context is entirely distinct from that of Western Christianity today, the principle inherent in both passages is still apparent and applicable; believers ought to avoid any practice that causes offence or shame to another – so a woman ought to wear a veil in public worship. In very few (if any) circumstances today would anyone in a Western Christian community be genuinely offended to the point of shame by the presence in their midst of an unveiled woman; neither should a woman speaking during public worship  excite such a reaction. We cannot, therefore, insist that either be affirmed as perpetual ordinances for all time, although we may legitimately invoke the underlying principle to maintain that one ought not (for example) wear a baseball cap whilst receiving communion, or (perhaps more pertinently) leave one’s mobile phone switched on during the sermon.