1 Corinthians 11:4

4. Every man praying… covered Either from the Corinthian letter or the messengers that brought it, Paul learned that the Christian rule of worship was unsettled. Men following the Hebrew or Roman custom probably prayed with the head covered. Women, doubting what under the Christian system was the law for their sex, in what they perhaps considered Christian freedom removed the customary hood from their heads. The notion of Ruckart and others, that the motive of these uncovering women was to display their beauty, has not one syllable in the apostle’s rebuke or argument to sustain it. On the contrary, his whole force of reasoning goes to show that a proper subordination truly belongs to the female sex; and it is solely a questioning of this truth which his argument presupposes. It does not appear that any real disorders occurred. They were holy women endowed with spiritual gifts, who would need these directions from the higher authority of their founder apostle.

Paul gives caution to the men first here and in 1 Corinthians 11:7. The ancient commentators held that St. Paul wrote to check the men as well as the women; but later writers, as Ruckart, Alford, and Stanley, say that he refers to the men merely, in illustration of the case of the women. We hold that the former are clearly correct. As we have shown, different customs for men on this subject prevailed among the different nationalities and religions which were now promiscuously crowded into Corinth. Jewish and Roman converts would be predisposed to pray with heads covered, while the Greeks would uncover. The fact that Paul treats the case of woman so much more fully is because it was a question of propriety; and of the proprieties and refinements of life, woman, being the special guardian, needed to be very fully set right. From all this it is clear that St. Paul decides for the covered head, not from any divine command, or any immutable propriety, but because, in the existing state of customs, the covered head was the symbol of modesty. It is the modesty that is the permanent principle; the covered head is the transient expression of the principle.

Dishonoureth his head Stanley makes head, here, possess a double reference, namely, to Christ and to the man’s own head. The latter, however, is doubtless Paul’s real meaning; the former can be brought in only by inference. Josephus says, “Izates, throwing himself to the earth, and dishonouring his head with ashes, fasted calling upon God.” To the Christian man belonged a triumphant, unblushing worship. Christ, his head, not being visibly present, there was no mere humanity before which it became him to cover. See note 1 Corinthians 11:7. In modern times men are uncovered in Christian worship in consequence of Paul’s rule, but not for his reason. It is now rather the uncovering of reverence for the Divine presence, or respect for the congregation or service, which a Jew expressed by putting off his sandals. To the universal modern Christian practice of bared heads in church, Stanley says that “Holland is the only exception. In Dutch congregations, men uncover their heads during the psalmody only.”