{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-93","native_reference":{"book_number":530,"chapter_from":11,"chapter_to":11,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":3,"verse_to":3},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: This is a warning that no one ought to rely on oneself. She who was made as a helper needs the protection of the stronger. In this sense \"the head of the woman is the man.\" Yet while he believed that he would have the assistance of his wife, he fell because of her. Hence no one ought to entrust himself lightly to another unless he has first put that person's virtue to the test. Neither should he claim for himself in the role of protector one whom he believes is lesser to his strength. Rather, each one should share his special grace with the other. Especially is this true of the man, who is in the position of greater strength, who plays the part of protector.<br/><i>— On Paradise, 4.24</i></p><p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: God is the head of Christ because he begat him; Christ is the head of the man because he created him, and the man is the head of the woman because she was taken from his side. Thus one expression has different meanings, according to the difference of person and substantive relationship.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Apostolic Constitutions</b>: Let the wife be obedient to her own proper husband, because \"the husband is the head of the wife.\" [1 Corinthians 11:3] But Christ is the head of that husband who walks in the way of righteousness; and \"the head of Christ is God,\" even His Father. Therefore, O wife, next after the Almighty, our God and Father, the Lord of the present world and of the world to come, the Maker of everything that breathes, and of every power; and after His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom glory be to God, do thou fear thy husband, and reverence him, pleasing him alone, rendering thyself acceptable to him in the several affairs of life, that so on thy account thy husband may be called blessed, according to the Wisdom of Solomon, which thus speaks: \"Who can find a virtuous woman? for such a one is more precious than costly stones. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her...\"<br/><i>— Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 1</i></p><p><b>Apostolic Constitutions</b>: We do not permit our \"women to teach in the Church,\" [1 Corinthians 14:34] but only to pray and hear those that teach; for our Master and Lord, Jesus Himself, when He sent us the twelve to make disciples of the people and of the nations, did nowhere send out women to preach, although He did not want such. For there were with us the mother of our Lord and His sisters; also Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Martha and Mary the sisters of Lazarus; Salome, and certain others. For, had it been necessary for women to teach, He Himself had first commanded these also to instruct the people with us. For \"if the head of the wife be the man,\" [1 Corinthians 11:3] it is not reasonable that the rest of the body should govern the head.<br/><i>— Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 3</i></p><p><b>Apostolic Constitutions</b>: Now, as to women's baptizing, we let you know that there is no small peril to those that undertake it. Therefore we do not advise you to it; for it is dangerous, or rather wicked and impious. For if the \"man be the head of the woman,\" [1 Corinthians 11:3] and he be originally ordained for the priesthood, it is not just to abrogate the order of the creation, and leave the principal to come to the extreme part of the body. For the woman is the body of the man, taken from his side, and subject to him, from whom she was separated for the procreation of children. For says He, \"He shall rule over thee.\" [Genesis 3:16] For the principal part of the woman is the man, as being her head. But if in the foregoing constitutions we have not permitted them to teach, how will any one allow them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of a priest? For this is one of the ignorant practices of the Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ. For if baptism were to be administered by women, certainly our Lord would have been baptized by His own mother, and not by John; or when He sent us to baptize, He would have sent along with us women also for this purpose. But now He has nowhere, either by constitution or by writing, delivered to us any such thing; as knowing the order of nature, and the decency of the action; as being the Creator of nature, and the Legislator of the constitution.<br/><i>— Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 3</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: For the man is the head of the woman in perfect order when Christ who is the Wisdom of God is the head of the man.<br/><i>— AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.12.16</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: But additions of other people's hair are entirely to be rejected, and it is a most sacrilegious thing for spurious hair to shade the head, covering the skull with dead locks. For on whom does the presbyter lay his hand? Whom does he bless? Not the woman decked out, but another's hair, and through them another head. And if \"the man is head of the woman, and God of the man,\" how is it not impious that they should fall into double sins? For they deceive the men by the excessive quantity of their hair; and shame the Lord as far as in them lies, by adorning themselves meretriciously, in order to dissemble the truth. And they defame the head, which is truly beautiful.<br/><i>— The Instructor Book 3</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: As far as respects human nature, the woman does not possess one nature, and the man exhibit another, but the same: so also with virtue. If, consequently, a self-restraint and righteousness, and whatever qualities are regarded as following them, is the virtue of the male, it belongs to the male alone to be virtuous, and to the woman to be licentious and unjust. But it is offensive even to say this. Accordingly woman is to practise self-restraint and righteousness, and every other virtue, as well as man, both bond and free; since it is a fit consequence that the same nature possesses one and the same virtue. We do not say that woman's nature is the same as man's, as she is woman. For undoubtedly it stands to reason that some difference should exist between each of them, in virtue of which one is male and the other female. Pregnancy and parturition, accordingly, we say belong to woman, as she is woman, and not as she is a human being. But if there were no difference between man and woman, both would do and suffer the same things. As then there is sameness, as far as respects the soul, she will attain to the same virtue; but as there is difference as respects the peculiar construction of the body, she is destined for child-bearing and housekeeping. \"For I would have you know,\" says the apostle, \"that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. For neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord.\" ... The ruling power is therefore the head. And if \"the Lord is head of the man, and the man is head of the woman,\" the man, \"being the image and glory of God, is lord of the woman.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 4</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: Further, the broad gold mitre indicates the regal power of the Lord, \"since the Head of the Church\" is the Saviour. The mitre that is on it is, then, a sign of most princely rule; and otherwise we have heard it said, \"The Head of Christ is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.\"<br/><i>— The Stromata Book 5</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Jerusalem</b>: The Head suffered in the \"place of the skull.\" O great and prophetic appellation! The very name all but reminds you to think not of the crucified as a mere man. He is the head of every principality and power. The Head which was crucified is the Head of all power.<br/><i>— Catechetical Lecture 13:23</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the cloth that had been over his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up separately in one place. What do we believe it means, brothers, that the cloth from the Lord's head is not found with the linen cloths in the tomb, except that, as Paul attests, God is the head of Christ, and the incomprehensible mysteries of his divinity are separated from the knowledge of our weakness, and his power transcends the nature of creation?<br/><i>— Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 22</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: \"You did not anoint my head with oil.\" If we understand the feet of the Lord as the mystery of his incarnation, fittingly his divinity is designated by his head. Hence also through Paul it is said: \"The head of Christ is God.\" For the Jewish people professed to believe in God, and not in him as if in a man. But it is said to the Pharisee, \"You did not anoint my head with oil,\" because he neglected to proclaim with worthy praise even that very power of his divinity, in which the Jewish people pledged to believe.<br/><i>— Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 33</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"But I would have ye know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.\"</p><p>This is his account of the reason of the thing, and he states it to make the weaker more attentive. He indeed that is faithful, as he ought to be, and steadfast, doth not require any reason or cause of those things which are commanded him, but is content with the ordinance alone. But he that is weaker, when he also learns the cause, then both retains what is said with more care and obeys with much readiness.</p><p>Wherefore neither did he state the cause until he saw the commandment transgressed. What then is the cause? \"The head of every man is Christ.\" Is He then Head of the Gentile also? In no wise. For if \"we are the Body of Christ, and severally members thereof,\" and in this way He is our head, He cannot be the head of them who are not in the Body and rank not among the members. So that when he says, \"of every man,\" one must understand it of the believer. Perceivest thou how every where he appeals to the hearer's shame by arguing from on high? Thus both when he was discoursing on love, and when on humility, and when on alms-giving, it was from thence that he drew his examples.</p><p>\"But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.\" Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if \"the man be the head of the woman,\" and the head be of the same substance with the body, and \"the head of Christ is God,\" the Son is of the same substance with the Father. \"Nay,\" say they, \"it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.\" What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression. However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage? \"Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, \"so also the Father, Christ.\" Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. \"For the head of every man,\" we read, \"is Christ.\" And who could ever admit this? For if the superiority of the Son compared with us, be the measure of the Fathers' compared with the Son, consider to what meanness thou wilt bring Him. So that we must not try all things by like measure in respect of ourselves and of God, though the language used concerning them be similar; but we must assign to God a certain appropriate excellency, and so great as belongs to God. For should they not grant this, many absurdities will follow. As thus; \"the head of Christ is God:\" and, \"Christ is the head of the man, and he of the woman.\" Therefore if we choose to take the term, \"head,\" in the like sense in all the clauses, the Son will be as far removed from the Father as we are from Him. Nay, and the woman will be as far removed from us as we are from the Word of God. And what the Son is to the Father, this both we are to the Son and the woman again to the man. And who will endure this?</p><p>But dost thou understand the term \"head\" differently in the case of the man and the woman, from what thou dost in the case of Christ? Therefore in the case of the Father and the Son, must we understand it differently also. \"How understand it differently?\" saith the objector. According to the occasion. For had Paul meant to speak of rule and subjection, as thou sayest, he would not have brought forward the instance of a wife, but rather of a slave and a master. For what if the wife be under subjection to us? it is as a wife, as free, as equal in honor. And the Son also, though He did become obedient to the Father, it was as the Son of God, it was as God. For as the obedience of the Son to the Father is greater than we find in men towards the authors of their being, so also His liberty is greater. Since it will not of course be said that the circumstances of the Son's relation to the Father are greater and more intimate than among men, and of the Father's to the Son, less. For if we admire the Son that He was obedient so as to come even unto death, and the death of the cross, and reckon this the great wonder concerning Him; we ought to admire the Father also, that He begat such a son, not as a slave under command, but as free, yielding obedience and giving counsel. For the counsellor is no slave. But again, when thou hearest of a counsellor, do not understand it as though the Father were in need, but that the Son hath the same honor with Him that begat Him. Do not therefore strain the example of the man and the woman to all particulars.</p><p>For with us indeed the woman is reasonably subjected to the man: since equality of honor causeth contention. And not for this cause only, but by reason also of the deceit which happened in the beginning. Wherefore you see, she was not subjected as soon as she was made; nor, when He brought her to the man, did either she hear any such thing from God, nor did the man say any such word to her: he said indeed that she was \"bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh:\" but of rule or subjection he no where made mention unto her. But when she made an ill use of her privilege and she who had been made a helper was found to be an ensnarer and ruined all, then she is justly told for the future, \"thy turning shall be to thy husband.\"<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Corinthians 26</i></p><p><b>Novatian</b>: Scripture states: \"And the two shall be but one flesh,\" so that what was once one may become one again.… The head matches its own limbs and the limbs their own head, a natural bond uniting both in complete harmony, lest the closeness of the divine covenant be shattered by some sort of discord arising from the division of members.… Husbands are to love their wives even as Christ loved the church, and wives are to love their husbands as the church loves Christ.<br/><i>— IN PRAISE OF PURITY 5</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: But the eyes of the wise man, of which it is said that they are enlightened by the commandments of God, are in his head, in Christ, because \"the head of the man is Christ,\" says the Apostle. The capacity to think proceeds from Christ.<br/><i>— DIALOGUE WITH HERACLIDES</i></p><p><b>Pelagius</b>: The man is head of the woman in the natural order but not in Christ, in whom there is neither male nor female. Nevertheless, Paul wanted women to be subject to their husbands. God is the head of Christ's humanity, because the divinity which was in the human Jesus controlled his doings.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 11</i></p><p><b>Severian of Gabala</b>: Since man did not make woman, the question here does not concern the origin of woman. Rather it concerns only [the relation of] submission. The nature of God and Christ is the same. Similarly the nature of man and woman is the same.<br/><i>— PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: What sort of garland, however, I pray you, did He who is the Head of the man and the glory of the woman, Christ Jesus, the Husband of the church, submit to in behalf of both sexes? Of thorns, I think, and thistles,—a figure of the sins which the soil of the flesh brought forth for us, but which the power of the cross removed, blunting, in its endurance by the head of our Lord, death's every sting.<br/><i>— THE CHAPLET 14</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: \"The head of every man is Christ.\" What Christ, if He is not the author of man? The head he has here put for authority; now \"authority\" will accrue to none else than the \"author.\" Of what man indeed is He the head? Surely of him concerning whom he adds soon afterwards: \"The man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image of God.\" Since then he is the image of the Creator (for He, when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, \"Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness\"), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator there is no room in me for another head.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For is there not a natural propriety in saying of some personage greater (than yourself), That man is my face; he gives me his countenance? \"My Father,\" says Christ, \"is greater than I.\" Therefore the Father must be the face of the Son. For what does the Scripture say? \"The Spirit of His person is Christ the Lord.\" As therefore Christ is the Spirit of the Father's person, there is good reason why, in virtue indeed of the unity, the Spirit of Him to whose person He belonged—that is to say, the Father—pronounced Him to be His \"face.\" Now this, to be sure, is an astonishing thing, that the Father can be taken to be the face of the Son, when He is His head; for \"the head of Christ is God.\"<br/><i>— Against Praxeas</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: As, e.g., it is the custom of some to make prayer with cloaks doffed, for so do the nations approach their idols; which practice, of course, were its observance becoming, the apostles, who teach concerning the garb of prayer, would have comprehended in their instructions, unless any think that is was in prayer that Paul had left his cloak with Carpus! God, forsooth, would not hear cloaked suppliants, who plainly heard the three saints in the Babylonian king's furnace praying in their trousers and turbans.<br/><i>— On Prayer</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: If \"the man is bead of the woman,\" of course (he is) of the virgin too, from whom comes the woman who has married; unless the virgin is a third generic class, some monstrosity with a head of its own. If\" it is shameful for a woman to be shaven or shorn,\" of course it is so for a virgin. (Hence let the world, the rival of God, see to it, if it asserts that close-cut hair is graceful to a virgin in like manner as that flowing hair is to a boy.) To her, then, to whom it is equally unbecoming to be shaven or shorn, it is equally becoming to be covered.<br/><i>— On the Veiling of Virgins</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: The contraries, at all events, of all these (considerations) effect that a man is not to cover his head: to wit, because he has not by nature been gifted with excess of hair; because to be shaven or shorn is not shameful to him; because it was not on his account that the angels transgressed; because his Head is Christ. Accordingly, since the apostle is treating of man and woman-why the latter ought to be veiled, but the former not-it is apparent why he has been silent as to the virgin; allowing, to wit, the virgin to be understood in the woman by the self-same reason by which he forbore to name the boy as implied in the man; embracing the whole order of either sex in the names proper (to each) of woman and man.<br/><i>— On the Veiling of Virgins</i></p><p><b>Victorinus of Pettau</b>: \"And His head and His hairs were white as it were white wool, and as it were snow.\" On the head the whiteness is shown; \"but the head of Christ is God.\" in the white hairs is the multitude of abbots like to wool, in respect of simple sheep; to snow, in respect of the innumerable crowd of candidates taught from heaven.</p><p>\"His eyes were as a flame of fire.\" God's precepts are those which minister light to believers, but to unbelievers burning.<br/><i>— Victorinus Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"141e1a245823e6d9181e7bebb36248764db89465646bced6e521843e6262e69c","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":93,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"59b2952bebb65edfa7b2cdda39c10815da953f6fd583554e7c2affc255aaba59","translator":null,"work":null}