Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Veils, Virgins, and the Tongues of Men and Angels: Women’s Heads in Early Christianity

  • Chapter
Book cover Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader

Abstract

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s wonderment at the preoccupation of early Christian male writers with women’s clothing—and, in particular, headdress—directs our attention to the real foreground of early Christian writings on women’s heads: the minds of men. For early Christian men, as, it seems, for men of antiquity in general, women’s heads were indeed sexual members, and at least two of these men, Paul and Tertullian, expended much thought and no little ink in efforts to enforce the sexual character of women’s heads. Their association of women’s heads and genitals seems to be entirely conscious; in the case of Tertullian, it is startlingly explicit. It is far from clear, on the other hand, that early Christian women experienced their heads as sexual organs. While it is possible to discern traces of the women’s religious clothing and hairdressing practices in the works of these men, we have no direct access to the meanings the women themselves gave them. Antiquity provides some clues suggesting that these meanings may have differed widely from male interpretations of women’s bodies and dress. But for the most part, the women of early Christianity are visible to later generations only through the eroticizing veil of the male gaze.

It appears very trifling for men, commissioned to do so great a work on earth, to give so much thought to the toilets of women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman’s Bible (1899)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Works Cited

  • Amelung, W. 1899. “Chiton.” Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 3(2):2309–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aseneth. See Philonenko.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avot de Rabbi Natan. See Goldin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Babbitt, Frank Cole. 1968. Plutarch’s Moralia. Loeb Classical Library 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balch, David L. 1972. “Backgrounds of I Cor. VII: Sayings of the Lord in Q; Moses as an Ascetic Theios anēr in II Cor. III.” NewTestament Studies 18:351–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bedale, S. 1954. “The Meaning of kephalē in the Pauline Epistles.” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 5:211–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betz, Otto. 1971. “Stigma.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Friedrich, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 7:657–64. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonfante, Larissa, and Evajaunzems. 1988. “Clothing and Ornament.” In Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome, ed. by Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger, 3:1385–1413. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boulanger, Andre. 1919. “Vestis.” Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, ed. by Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, 5:764–71. Paris: Librairie Hachette.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyarin, Daniel. 1993. “Paul and the Genealogy of Gender.” Representations 41:1–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, René. 1977. Deus Christianorum: Recherches sur le vocabulaire doctrinal de Tertullien, 2nd ed. Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooten, Bernadette J. 1977. “ Junia … Outstanding among the Apostles’ (Romans 16.7).” In Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration, ed. by L. Swidler and A. Swidler, 141–44. New York: Paulist.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooten, Bernadette J. 1985. “Paul’s Views on the Nature of Women and Female Homoeroticism.” In Immaculate & Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, ed. by Clarissa W. Atkinson, Constance H. Buchanan, and Margaret R. Miles, 61–87. Boston: Beacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooten, Bernadette J. 1988. “Response to Dennis Ronald MacDonald, ‘Corinthian Veils and Gnostic Androgynes.’” In Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. by Karen King, 293–96. Philadelphia: Fortress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, Peter. 1988. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burkert, Walter. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1987. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cardman, Francine. 1985. “Tertullian on Doctrine and the Development of Discipline.” Studia Patristica 16, ed. by Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Papers Presented to the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies, 1975), 136–42. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castelli, Elizabeth. 1986. “Virginity and Its Meaning for Women’s Sexuality in Early Christianity.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2(1):61–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castelli, Elizabeth. 1994. “Visions and Voyeurism: Holy Women and the Politics of Sight in Early Christianity.” Protocols of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies. Berkeley, Calif.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cyprian. See Hartel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dahl, Nils Alstrup. 1977. “Paul and the Church at Corinth according to 1 Cor 1:10–4:21.” Studies in Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission, 40–61. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danby, Herbert. 1933. The Mishnah. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Angelo, Mary R. 1988. “The Garden Once and Not Again: 1 Cor 11:11–12 as an Interpretation of Gen 1:26–27.” In Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden, ed. by Gregory Robbins, 1–42. New York and Toronto: Edwin Meilen.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Angelo, Mary R. 1990a. “Remarriage and the Divorce Sayings Attributed to Jesus.” In Divorce and Remarriage: Religious and Psychological Perspectives, ed. by William P. Roberts, 78–106. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Angelo, Mary R.1990b. “Women Partners in the New Testament.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 6(1):68–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dix, Gregory. 1937. The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus, Vol. 1. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eilberg Schwartz, Howard. 1995. “The Nakedness of a Woman’s Voice, the Pleasure of a Man’s Mouth: An Oral History of Ancient Judaism,” In Eilberg-Schwartz and Doniger, 165–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eilberg Schwartz, Howard., and Wendy Doniger, eds. 1995. Off With Her Head! The Denial of Women’s Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 1974. “A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of 1 Cor 11:10.” In Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament, 187–204. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. (First published NewTestament Studies 4 [1957–1958]: 48–58; reprinted with new postscript in Paul and Qumran, ed. by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, 31–47 [London: Chapman, 1968].)

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 1989. “Another Look at KEPHALĒ in 1 Corinthians 11:3” New Testament Studies 35:503–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, Robin Lane. 1987. Pagans and Christians. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galen. See May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleason, Maud. 1990. “The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in the Second Century C.E.” In Before Sexuality : The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. by David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin, 389–415. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldin, Judah S. 1955. The Fathers According to R. Nathan [Avot de Rabbi Natan]. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gryson, Roger. 1976. The Ministry of Women in the Early Church. Trans. Jean Laporte and Mary Louise Hall. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartel, G. (ed.). 1873. C. Thasci Caecilii Cypriani Opera Omnia. Corpus Scriptorum Eccle-siasticorum Latinorum 3.1 Vienna.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooker, Morna D. 1964. “Authority on Her Head: An Examination of 1 Cor. xi. 10.” New Testament Studies 10:410–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins, Keith. 1978. Conquerors and Slaves. Sociological Studies in Roman History 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurd, John C. 1965. The Origin of 1 Corinthians. London: SCM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jervis, L. Ann. 1993. “ ‘But I Want You to Know…’: Paul’s Midrashic Intertextual Response to the Corinthian Worshipers (1 Cor 11:2–16).” Journal of Biblical Literature 112:231–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johns, Catherine. 1982. Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome. London: British Museum Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraemer, Ross S. 1988. Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook on Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World. Philadelphia: Fortress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraemer, Ross S. 1992. Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions in Paganism, Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Küchler, Max. 1986. Schweigen, Schmuck und Schleier: Drei neutestamentliche Vorschriften zur Verdrängung der Frauen auf dem Hintergrund einer frauenfeindlichen Exegese des Alten Testaments im antiken Judentum. Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus 1. Freiburg (Schweiz): Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhnert, E. 1909. “Fascinum.” Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft 6(2): 2009–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefkowitz, Mary R., and Maureen B. Fant. 1982. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, Molly Myerowitz. 1995. “The Gendered Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair.” In Eilberg-Schwartz and Doniger, 76–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leyerle, Blake. 1993. “John Chrysostom on the Gaze.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1:159–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, Dennis Ronald. 1983. The Legend and The Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon. Philadelphia: Westminster.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, Dennis Ronald. 1988. “Corinthian Veils and Gnostic Androgynes.” In Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. by Karen King, 276–92. Philadelphia: Fortress.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, Dennis Ronald. 1987. “There Is No ‘Male and Female’”: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism. Harvard Dissertations in Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matter, E. Ann. 1994. “Monastic Women and Spiritual Autobiography: Exhibitionism, Voyeurism and Visionary Experience. A Response to Elizabeth Castelli.” Protocols of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies. Berkeley, Calif.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, Margaret Tallmage, trans. 1968. Galen: On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meeks, Wayne A. 1974. “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol.” History of Religions 13:165–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meeks, Wayne A.1983. The First Urban Christians. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miles, Margaret. 1989. Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West. Boston: Beacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mingana, A. 1933. Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord’s Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Woodbrooke Studies: Christian Documents 6, edited and translated with a critical apparatus. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. 1980. “Sex and Logic in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42:482–500.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neyrey Jerome. 1986. “Body Language in 1 Corinthians: The Use of Anthropological Models for Understanding Paul and His Opponents.” In Semeia 35: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament and Its Social World, ed. by John H. Elliott, 129–70. Society of Biblical Literature. Decatur, Ga.: Scholars Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padgett, A. 1984. “Paul on Women in the Church: The Contradictions of Coiffure in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 20:69–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Philonenko, Marc. 1968. Joseph et Aséneth: Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes. Studia Post-Biblica 13. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pomeroy Sarah. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prusak, Bernard. 1974. “Woman: Seductive Siren and Source of Sin? Pseudepigraphical Myths and Christian Origins.” In Religion and Sexism, ed. by Rosemary Radford Ruether, 89–116. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richlin, Amy. 1995. “Making Up a Woman: The Face of Roman Gender.” In Eilberg- Schwartz and Doniger, 185–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossi, Mary Ann. 1991. “Priesthood, Precedent and Prejudice: On Recovering the Women Priests of Early Christianity, Containing a Translation from the Italian of ‘Notes on the Female Priesthood in Antiquity’ by Giorgio Otranto.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7(1):73–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1983. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sissa, Giulia. 1990. Greek Virginity. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Revealing Antiquity 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stücklin, Christoph. 1974. Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis: Übersetzung, Einleitung und Kommentar, Ein Beitrag zur alikirchlichen Frauenfrage. Europäische Hochschuleschriften Series 23, vol. 26. Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tertullian. 1954. Quinti Septimi Flori Tertulliani Opera, Pars I Opera Catholica, Pars II Opera Montanistica. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 2. Turnhout: Brepols.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Cynthia. 1988. “Hairstyles, Headcoverings and St. Paul: Portraits from Roman Corinth.” Biblical Archaeologist 51:99–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tonneau, Raymond, and Robert Devreesse. 1949. Les homélies catéchétiques de Théodore de Mopsueste. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veyne, Paul. 1987. “The Roman Empire.” In A History of Private Life. I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. by Paul Veyne, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, 5–233. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, William O. 1975. “1 Corinthians 11:2–16 and Paul’s Views Concerning Woman.” Journal of Biblical Literature 94:94–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitaker, E. C. 1970. Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy. London: SPCK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkler, John J. 1990. The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece. New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wire, Antoinette Clark. 1990. The Corinthian Women Prophets. Philadelphia: Fortress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, Frederick Adam, and Lillian B. Lawler. 1970. “Dress.” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., 364–65. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yarbro Collins, Adela. 1988. The Gospel and Women. Orange, Calif.: Chapman College.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Mary Rose D’Angelo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Elizabeth A. Castelli

Copyright information

© 2001 Elizabeth A. Castelli

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

D’Angelo, M.R. (2001). Veils, Virgins, and the Tongues of Men and Angels: Women’s Heads in Early Christianity. In: Castelli, E.A. (eds) Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-04830-1_21

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation