tation proposed in the present examination of the text differs entirely from this, but the motive assigned by those who hold it for modesty of carriage, is in perfect accordance with the word of God at large, and with a particular passage, which refers to the very same subject. It was the duty of all Christians to let their light so shine before men that they might see their good works and glorify their heavenly Father. It was reckoned a qualification of high importance in a bishop that he be well reported of them that are without, and Christian wives were to seek to win their unbelieving husbands to the faith by their chaste conversation, coupled with fear, and by wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, and so to act that the word of God might not be blasphemed; but the reasons for this conduct and for cireumspection existed, if not in greater, in as great force in other places as in Christian assemblies. If any persons ever entered these with a view of accusing and traducing Christians, they must have been comparatively few in number; whereas when the women appeared in public elsewhere they were surrounded by hundreds of prying observers ready to detect the least approach to impropriety of conduct, to make the most of it, and from the slightest manifestation of it in circumstances which imposed upon them the strongest possible restraint, namely the presence of watchful enemies of their faith, to conclude that it existed in a greater degree, and was manifested in a more glaring manner where, surrounded by friends, they could act with greater freedom. If also they were to endeavour to win their husbands to the faith, it was not by their deportment in Christian assemblies, to which their husbands seldom if ever went, but when in their society, either in public or private. These will, I think, be admitted as strong reasons why the Apostle, if their outward deportment was what he had in view, would have been likely to have used language which would not have limited his injunction to any particular times or places, much less to those in which an impropriety was least likely to occur, and least liable to misinterpretation, from the comparative absence of enemies; and if this reasoning required farther confirmation, it will be found in the circumstance, that in those other portions of Scripture which refer to the deportment of the women, we find no such limitation.

It must be admitted, that, without doing much violence to the language, we might imagine that the Apostle refers merely to their presence when he uses the word praying; because praying is an exercise in which one person may engage, not only in silence, but in which they can unite with or follow another as leader of their devotions; but how could this be predicated of prophesying or teaching, which is perfectly inconsistent with silence, or even

equality,

equality, not to speak of subordination, so that the interpretation, which understands the expression, as merely signifying the woman's presence, cannot be reconciled with the terms employed, or at any rate with the latter.

There is, however, another and an insuperable objection to this explanation, for it rests upon the supposition either that the women had not taken a prominent part in the devotional assemblies, or that St. Paul was ignorant of or did not intend to notice this abuse. But, from more than one prohibition against it, it is evident both that the women had taken a leading part, and that the Apostle knew of and strongly reprobated such a proceeding; and hence we are justified in concluding that, in speaking in the terms employed in the passage under consideration, he must have had this practice in view.

The difficulties and contradictions attending both the preceding explanations are so palpable that they have led some commentators to conclude, in contradiction to the plain and express words of the Apostle, that the women were allowed to prophesy in the church; but an examination of the fourteenth chapter will show this conclusion to be erroneous, for the express injunction that they be silent immediately follows the other directions with respect to prophesy. It is said, indeed, in the twenty-first chapter of the book of Acts, that the four daughters of Philip did prophesy; but this seems to have been in a different sense from that in which the word prophesy is used when connected, as in the passage under consideration, with other stated and public religious exercises, as praying

That the gift with which these virgins were endued was one which was not commonly or extensively bestowed, seems probable from the circumstance of the writer of the book of Acts taking special notice of it, which he would scarcely have done had it been a gift common to the ordinary members of the Christian churches, either male or female. It is therefore not unlikely that it was similar to the gift possessed by Agabus, who is mentioned immediately after them-namely, the prediction of future events; while the prophesying to which the Apostle refers in the present passage, and those parallel to it, was clearly of a different character, and seems, from its effects, to have been a peculiarly close and searching exposition and application to the conscience, of that word which is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and which is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; for in reference to it, and its superiority over unknown tongues, the Apostle says, 'But if all prophesy, and there cometh in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is

convinced

convinced of all, he is judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest, and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.' But of what character soever the gift possessed by the daughters of Philip was, we have no reason for inferring that they exercised it publicly, or at any rate in a mixed assembly of men and women, of sufficient force to be placed in opposition to the express prohibition of such a practice by the Apostle.

From these considerations, and the inconsistencies which such interpretations involve, I have been led to think that the Apostle's admonition is not directed against their mode of apparelling themselves at all, and in support of this opinion I would adduce the following arguments:

1st. According to the view which supposes the apparel to be the subject in question, the apostle is pursuing a double line of argument and admonition, and censuring not only the apparel of the woman, but that of the man also; and it would seem that an abuse had crept in, the origin of which cannot be rationally accounted for, the men having adopted the effeminate habit of wearing long hair, and veiling their heads when they prayed or prophesied in the church, and the women having assumed a proportionably masculine appearance when similarly engaged—a most extraordinary abuse certainly, and one which bears on the face of it such manifest improbability as to require very clear and decided testimony of its existence; and this testimony, it may I think be shown, does not exist in the passage itself.

It may be said, indeed, that the covering alluded to as worn by the man was not a veil; but it is evident that, if the Apostle is speaking of any material covering, it is the same, the use of which he approves of on the part of the woman, and reprobates in the man; and this receives farther confirmation from the connection between it and the long hair, which is also spoken of as censurable in the one case and commendable in the other, upon the same principles as the covering spoken of.

Unless it was a covering of this kind, the force of the Apostle's reasoning upon headship and subordination would be lost, for while a veil was looked upon as a mark of subjection, it was, I imagine, the only covering emblematic of this state, while many head-dresses were significant of the very reverse. Amongst ourselves, the wearing the covering of the head, while others are uncovered, is an emblem of authority of no mean order; and where not sanctioned by law or established usage, and from connection with office or decided eminence in rank, it is looked upon as an assumption of superiority, and regarded as offensive. It may be said in answer, that this arises from difference of custom, and

that

that from the practice of modern nations we can draw no inference with respect to those of antiquity; but this is untenable. What has its foundation in nature is equally binding on all nations and in all ages, and will be in all the same; and if the Apostle is referring to any practice of this kind, he supports his argument on this principle, that his reasons against it are based on the laws of nature, and not on an arbitrary custom; but even if this was the case, we know that many coverings of the head were indicative of the very reverse of subjection, and that no known covering was significant of subjection but a veil. A Christian soldier in his helmet, an Olympic victor with his crown, or a Jew with one of those horns worn by eastern nations-to which, as emblems of power, we find such numerous allusions in the Old Testamentwould have suggested a very different idea. Indeed the uncovering, and not the covering of the head, among some of the nations of most ancient origin, is still considered as a most degrading mark of subjection.

Hence we are, I think, justified in concluding that, if the Apostle had in view, their apparel, the wearing long hair and veiling their faces were the practices which he reproved in the men, and the reverse in the women.

It is evident, however, that if the women had laid aside their veils, and the men assumed them, they had not fully carried out the mutual transfer; for the women still wore long hair, and would have counted it disgraceful to have had it shorn; and here we have a strong argument against the supposition that their head-dress was the point in question, for the Apostle says that the long hair of the woman was a glory to her, for it was given her for a covering, and one of such a character as to be emblematic of the relation in which she stood to the man, and this covering and emblem she had not laid aside. Is it not then singular to suppose that he should censure the woman for the want of an artificial covering which their circumstances perhaps in some cases might not permit them to procure, while they wore the one provided by nature, which was as decidedly significant of subjection

a

'During the war which happened about ten years ago between the Towara and Maazy Bedouins, who live in the mountains between Cairo and Cosseir, a party of the former happened to be stationed here [at the well of Aban Szoueyra, in Sinai] with their families. They were surprised one morning by a troop of their enemies, while assembled in the sheikh's tent to drink coffee. Seven or eight of them were cut down; the sheikh himself, an old man, seeing escape impossible, sat down by the fire. When the leader of the Maazy came up, and cried out to him to throw down his turban and his life would be spared, the generous sheikh, rather than do what, according to Bedouin notions, would have stained his reputation for ever after, exclaimed, "I shall not uncover my head before my enemies;" and was immediately killed with the thrust of a lance.'-BURCKHARDT's Travels in Syria, p. 471.

as

as any they could assume? There is also indubitable evidence that in those times the men wore short hair; and therefore to suppose the reverse in the Corinthian converts involves the supposition, that, possessing the light of revelation, they had erred in a point in which the light of nature had guided their heathen brethren correctly, or that increased light had given rise to proportionate error.

The arbitrary introduction of a sense, with reference to the word head, differing from that in which the Apostle introduces it, and which we have no authority therefore for concluding that he intended it should bear in any part of the passage, and that a sense as different from the one which he positively attaches to it as headship is from a fleshly head; and the confusion of these two senses, according to the general interpretation, render it suspicious.

Thus the head with which the Apostle opens his address, is, he tells us, a mystical one; but by the interpretation which supposes the attire to be the matter in question, it is made, by a mere presumption, to signify quite a different thing-namely, a fleshly or natural head; and not only so, but it is then arbitrarily taken in one sense in one, and in another sense in the other clause of the succeeding verses. For instance, verse fourth, 'Every man, having his natural head covered, dishonoureth his spiritual or mystical head, that is Christ. But every woman praying or prophesying with her natural head uncovered, dishonoureth her social head, that is man.'

This sudden and unauthorized transition from the mystical sense attached to the word head by the Apostle, and the subsequent confusion of this mystical sense and that which has been thus obtruded, I consider inconsistent with the principles of sound exposition and accurate criticism, and therefore inadmissible, unless supported by unambiguous testimony from parallel passages, or worthy and direct historical evidence that such abuses prevailed.

The interpretation proposed in the present examination does not, however, exclude from the Apostle's meaning, in the passage at large, all allusion to a material covering or head-dress. It admits this to be the case, but goes to prove that this is not the object of the Apostle's censure, and that, where he makes an allusion of this character, he does so with a view of adducing it as an argument against another practice which he was condemning; and it possesses this consistency, that it does not introduce another sense than that indicated by the Apostle in reference to the word head, and then confound the two senses in an arbitrary manner.

b Horne's Introduction, iii. 405.