February 22, 2025

12. Women in 1 Corinthians

52 minutes

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1 Corinthians 11:2-6, 10, 14-15; 14:34-36

Women in the City

Women attended the theater, went to the forum, and watched the games.

We have evidence from an inscription at Delphi mentioning three women who competed in 200 meter race in the Isthmian Games, including Tryphosa, Dionysia, and Hedea, who also won the war-chariot race in ad

Sometimes women became their own masters as when her father and husband had both died. This was probably the case for Junia Theodora and Phoebe.

Women had many limitations too. They could not vote or hold public office, and they had limited legal rights, depending on their fathers or husbands to enter contracts. Wealthier women of status led more restrictive lives, not going out in public unescorted. Elite women were to focus on running their estates, including managing their own families as well as freed persons and slaves. However, female slaves and freedwomen could work outside the home without any shame.

Standards for Christian Women in 1 Corinthians

Christian wives enjoyed a mutuality and fidelity from their husbands unparalleled in Roman society. They had authority over their husband’s bodies (7:4). As a result they did not compete with hetairai, the brothel, or female slaves in the household for the sexual attention of their husbands. Likewise Christian wives were obligated to be sexually faithful to their husbands.

Christian unmarried women (virgins) and widows were encouraged to remain single, though it was fine if they got married to a Christian (7:8-9, 25-26, 28). This opened up a new category for honorable women to choose singleness for Christ whether before every getting married or after their husbands died. Virgins and widows came to occupy esteemed roles in churches.

Headship and Head Coverings for Men

1 Corinthians 11:2-3 Husbands and wives are likely in view here. Some scholars like Wayne Gruden say “head” (kephale, κεφαλή) means authority over, others like Gordon Fee say it refers to source or origin, while others like Margaret MacDonald see it as a representative. The parallel in Ephesians 5:22-23 makes me think authority is the best option here.

1 Corinthians 11:4 Men who prayed or prophesied with their heads covered (capite velato) shamed their head (Christ).

Plutarch: “[I]t is more usual for women to go forth in public with their heads covered and men with their heads uncovered”1 (Plutarch, Moralia 267AB, Roman Questions 14)

Winter: “[M]en were depicted with the toga drawn over their head, the capite velato, while praying or offering up a libation to a god or gods. …Not all participants drew the toga over their heads, only those taking a leading part in a local pagan rite, i.e., sacrificing or praying. … [T]he social élite undertook this function.”2

David Gill: “The issue which Paul is dealing with here seems to be that members of the social élite within the church–the dunatoi and the eugeneis (1:26—were adopting a form of dress during worship which drew attention to their status in society. … Thus if men were to keep their heads uncovered whilst praying and prophesying it would help to emphasise the unity of the church. If they continued to wear the toga over their heads it would indicate that there was continuing inequality in the church; the uncovered head would restate that ‘the head of every man is Christ’ (v. 3).”3

Head Coverings for Women

1 Corinthians 11:5 Women (wives) praying or prophesying with their heads uncovered (capite aperto) shamed their heads (husbands).

Tacitus: “[O]n a specified day, with witnesses to seal the contract, a consul designate and the emperor’s wife should have met for the avowed purposes of legitimate marriage; that the woman should have listened to the words of the auspices, have assumed the veil, have sacrificed in the face of Heaven; that both should have dined with the guests, have kissed and embraced, and finally have spent the night in the licence of wedlock.”4

Cicero: “You put on the toga of manhood and promptly turned it into the badge of a harlot. You started out as a common whore. Your shame had a fixed price, and no mean one. But quite soon, along came Curio, who took you out of the prostitute’s trade, gave you a married lady’s robe [stolam] as it were, and settled you down in steady wedlock.”5 (Cicero, Philippic 44-45)

Horace: “What matter whether your partner is a married lady or a wench with a cloak [togata]? …I never insist, do I, on [someone]…descended from a mighty consul and veiled by a lady’s robe [stola]…So stop chasing married women or you may be sorry. You may well find the pain and hardship far outweigh any real pleasure. She may be decked in emeralds and snowy pearls, but that doesn’t give her a straighter leg or a softer thigh than Cerinthus boasts. And often the girl with the cloak [togata] is better still.”6 (Horace, Satire 2.62-3, 77-82)

Thomas McGinn: “As part of the established penalty, a woman convicted of adultery was to be publicly humiliated through open identification as a prostitute. This was mainly achieved by stipulating that the adultera damnata should wear the toga…In classical antiquity, you were what you wore.”7

Anthony Thiselton: The wearing of appropriate head covering (such as a hood) denoted respect and respectability. Within the semiotic clothing code of first-century Roman society (see above on Roland Barthes) “a veil or hood constituted a warning: it signified that the wearer was a respectable woman and that no man dare approach her,”e., as one potentially or actually sexually “available” (my italics).8

Judith Sebesta: “As the veil symbolised the husband’s authority over his wife, the omission of the veil by a married woman was a sign of her “withdrawing” herself from the marriage.9

Bruce Winter: “The very mention of the word ‘veil’ by Paul would automatically indicate to the Corinthians that the females under discussion in this passage were married. …The widow would no longer wear the marriage veil.”10

Women with Short Hair

1 Corinthians 11:6 Women (wives) who will not cover their heads should also cut their hair off.

Dio Chrysostom: “Cyprus too had its Demonassa, a woman gifted in both statesmanship and lawgiving. She gave the people of Cyprus the following three laws: a woman guilty of adultery shall have her hair cut off and be a harlot—her daughter became an adulteress, had her hair cut off according to the law, and practiced harlotry.…”11 (Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 3)

David Gill: “If women do not have their head covered, then they are seen to shame their head, that is to say their husband. …[I]f women in the church will not wear a veil, then they will be seen as dishonouring their husbands which might affect their place in society. If the wife insists on being unveiled then she might as well wear a sign of humiliation by having her hair cut. If she does not wish to bring such shame (αἰσχρον) to her husband, herself and her family then she should be veiled.”12

Because of the Angels

1 Corinthians 11:10 A woman (wife) should have authority over her head (a covering) because of the angels.

Option 1: Head coverings prevent sexually tempting angels.

Dale Martin: ”The bride [in a classical Greek wedding] unveils herself before the groom; she thus submits to his penetrating gaze; he and his family cross the household boundary by giving her gifts, thus making her a dependent of their household as she leaves that of her family. The usual term for “veil” is krēdemnon…In Homeric texts krēdemnon can refer to the stopper, seal, or cover of a wine jug. Since both medical writers, and it seems, popular opinion conceived of the uterus as an upside-down jug, krēdemnon could also connote the “closed” (in common opinion) uterus of a virgin; …For ancient Greeks, then, the veil (krēdemnon) not only symbolized but actually effected a protective barrier guarding the woman’s head and, by metanymic transfer, her genitals. …Paul fears that angels will be sexually tempted by the exposed women and may try to have relations with them.”13

Option 2: Messengers (angels) from curious wealthy people

Bruce Winter: “Augustus had legislated against the political activities of associations as soon as he had secured power, and all the emperors in the Julio-Claudian dynasty, apart from Gaius, remained highly suspicious of them.”14

Bruce Winter: “Those with civic status or wealth whose curiosity was aroused about the Christian faith would not go to any meeting without having a client or others first carry back reports of its activities. The treason trials under Tiberius had left an indelible fear on every Roman because guilty by association had had catastrophic consequences. …Paul states, the wife is under obligation to wear the sign of her marriage as she prays and prophesies because of what its absence signaled to the inquisitive outsiders—she portrayed herself as the promiscuous Roman wife, i.e., an unashamed adulteress.”15

Option 3: Retain proper etiquette because angels attend services

Fitzmyer: “Because of the (good) angels,” who are considered assisting at gatherings of public worship, as in Ps 138:1 (LXX: “…before angels shall I sing your praise”); cf. Tob 12:12; Rev 8:3, where an angel functions as a mediator of the prayers of holy people…These angels are explained further at times as cosmic guardians of the order of the world…or even as those addressed, when God said in Gen 1:26, “Let us make a human being” (as Philo held, De opificio mundi 24 §75, even though he never calls them angeloi, but rather God’s synergoi). …[T]he woman must have authority over her head and cover it, not only because she is in the presence of men, but because she is praying in the presence of God and His angels.”16

Evidence from Qumran indicates the Essenes though angels attend their worship services.17

Hair Length for Men and Women

1 Corinthians 11:14-15 Nature teaches that women have long hair and men have short hair.

Anthony Thiselton: “Pseudo-Phocylides, a hellenistic Jew who wrote between 30 BC and AD 40, advised parents, “Do not let locks grow on his head. Braid not his crown nor make cross-knots . . . long hair is not fit for men but for voluptuous women . . . because many rage for intercourse with a man” (Pseudo-Phocylides 210–14, my italics).18

Statues indicate men typically wore their hair short and women wore it long. Exceptions include statues of the gods with longer hair and portrayals of conquered barbarians portrayed with feminine long curly hair.

Women Remain Silent

1 Corinthians 14:34-36 Women should be silent and subordinate in the church service.

Some allege that these verses are not original to Paul (Gordon Fee) while most textual scholars recognize their inclusion due to the overwhelming manuscript evidence.19 Joseph Fitzmyer thinks Paul included them originally in the margin of his original letter to the Corinthians.

Paul can’t be saying women cannot speak during the worship service since he has already made provision for them to pray and prophesy in ch 11. There was some specific circumstance that prompted this instruction. Of course, the Corinthians knew what was going on, and Paul knew. However, for us, we are left to reconstruct the situation.

Option 1: Evaluating husbands’ prophecies (Winter), see v29

Option 2: Side talk due to a lack of understanding (Bailey)

Kenneth Bailey: “I have preached in village churches in Egypt…I preached in simple colloquial Arabic, but the women were often illiterate and the preacher was expected to preach for at least an hour—and we had problems. The women quickly passed the limit of their attention span. The children were seated with them and chatting inevitably broke out among the women. The chatting would at times become so loud that no one could hear the preacher. (These villages had no electricity and no sound amplification.) One of the senior elders would stand up and in a desperate voice shout, “Let the women be silent in the church!” and we would proceed. After about ten minutes the scene would repeat. … [W]hat can we imagine in Corinth in the days of Paul? Paul had just affirmed that the Corinthians were getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper and that the prophets and tongues speakers were all talking at once! It seems that some of the women gave up and started chatting. Who could blame them?”20

Option 3: Asking husbands clarifying questions (Keener, Schreiner)

Craig Keener: “What is almost certainly in view is that the women are interrupting the Scripture exposition with questions. This would have caused an affront to more conservative men or visitors to the church, and it would have also caused a disturbance to the service due to the nature of the questions.”21

Plutarch: “In all cases, then, silence is a safe adornment for the young man …but even if the remarks be none too agreeable, puts up with them, and waits for the speaker to pause, and, when the pause comes, does not at once interpose his objection, but, as Aeschines puts it, allows an interval to elapse, in case the speaker may desire to add something to what he has said, or to alter or unsay anything. But those who instantly interrupt with contradictions, neither hearing nor being heard, but talking while others talk, behave in an unseemly manner…It is quite necessary that in formulating questions the questioner should accommodate himself to… those matters “in which he is at his best”; not forcibly to divert one who is more concerned with the ethical side of philosophy, by plying him with questions in natural science or mathematics, or to drag the man who poses as an authority on natural science into passing judgement on the hypothetical propositions of logic… [T]hey are not willing to give themselves any trouble, but they give trouble to the speaker by repeatedly asking questions about the same things…For holding back the speaker on every possible occasion by their inane and superfluous questions, as in a company of persons travelling together, they impede the regular course of the lecture, which has to put up with halts and delays. ”22 (Plutarch, Moralia 39CD, 43BC, 48AB, On Listening to Lectures 4, 11, 18)

Paul offered two solutions to the disruptive behavior of women during the sermon. (1) Let the women remain silent (solved the short-term problem). (2) Let the women learn from their husbands (solved the long-term problem).

Craig Keener: “When Paul suggests that husbands should teach their wives at home, his point is not to belittle women’s ability to learn. To the contrary, Paul is advocating the most progressive view of his day: despite the possibility that she is less educated than himself, the husband should recognize his wife’s intellectual capability and therefore make himself responsible for her education, so they can discuss intellectual issue together.”23

Bibliography

Bailey, Kenneth E. Paul through Mediterranean Eyes. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011.

Chrysostom, Dio. Discourses 61-80, Fragments, Letters. Translated by H. Lamar Crosby. Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1951.

Cicero. Philippics 1-6. Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. First Corinthians. Vol. 32. The Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Gill, David W. J. “The Importance of Roman Portraiture for Head-Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1990): 245-60.

Horace. Satires and Epistles. Translated by Niall Rudd. London, England: Penguin, 2005.

Keener, Craig S. Paul, Women & Wives. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.

Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.

McGinn, Thomas A. J. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Plutarch. Moralia 1a-86a. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Henemann, 1928.

Plutarch. Moralia 263d-351b. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Vol. 4. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1962.

Sebesta, Judith L. “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman.” In The World of Roman Costume. Edited by Sebesta and Bonfante. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.

Tacitus, Cornelius. The Annals. Translated by John Jackson. Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1951.

Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Vol. 13. Nigtc. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.

Winter, Bruce. Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.

Winter, Bruce W. After Paul Left Corinth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.

Plutarch, Moralia 263d-351b, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, vol. 4, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1962), 27.
Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 122.
David W. J. Gill, “The Importance of Roman Portraiture for Head-Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16,” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1990): 250-1.
Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, trans. John Jackson, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1951), 295-7.
Cicero, Philippics 1-6, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb Classical Library (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 97.
Horace, Satires and Epistles, trans. Niall Rudd (London, England: Penguin, 2005), 9.
Thomas A. J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 156, 62.
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, vol. 13, Nigtc (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 828-9.
Judith L. Sebesta, “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman,” in The World of Roman Costume, ed. Sebesta and Bonfante (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 48.
Winter, 127.
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 61-80, Fragments, Letters, trans. H. Lamar Crosby, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1951), 47.
Gill 254, 6.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 234, 43.
Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 90.
Winter, 137-8.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, vol. 32, The Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 418-9.
Fitzmyer lists 1QSa 2.3-9; 1QM 7.4-6; 4 QMa 1-3.10; CD 15.15-17; 4QDb 17 i 6-8.
Thiselton, 825.
Codex Claromontanus (D, 6th cent.) and two of its descendants from the 9th cent. move vv34-35 to after v40. The theory is that these verses were in the margin and scribes worked them into the text in different places However, older, more accurate mss like P46 (2nd cent.), Codex Sinaiticus (א, 4th cent.), Vaticanus (B, 4th cent.), Alexandrinus (A, 5th cent.) and Ephraemi Rescriptus (C, 5th cent.) and most Byzantine mss. (maybe 500 total) have it in its normal place. We have no mss that omit vv34-35.
Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul through Mediterranean Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 414-5.
Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women & Wives (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 81.
Plutarch, Moralia 1a-86a, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Henemann, 1928), 213-5, 33, 57.
Keener, 84.

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