Hi there! I’m glad to have found your question & thoughts here. Question for you and Lashkmi… what do you make of Paul’s comments about our wearing head coverings “because of the angles”? TY both. Sarah
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Hi Sarah @BornAgainBride,
Welcome to the community! Thanks for your question. I wondered about it as well but did not delve deeply into it when we last discussed the passage. I appreciate @jimmy pointing us to Dr. Craig Evans’ position on the phrase “because of the angels” from a Second Temple Jewish literature perspective. Since you asked the question, I tried to study the verse some more and hope some of the information will be helpful to you. It’s a lengthy post but hope it helps. Let me start with the verse:
1 Cor 11:10 ESV That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
1 Cor 11:10 KJV For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
This seems to be one of those verses that has been highly debated, especially when it comes to understanding the phrase “authority” and its relationship with “headship” in the preceding verses and I will not be getting into that discussion. I have simply focused on the phrase “because of angels”, for which scholars offer different perspectives too, regardless of whether they hold an egalitarian or complementarian perspective. The Greek word ἄγγελος (angelos) can refer either to an angelic being or to a human messenger, and both understandings have been proposed since the earliest centuries of the church.
The Angel Perspective:
Tertullian (c. AD 220):
“It is on account of the angels, he says, that the woman’s head is to be covered, because the angels revolted from God on account of the daughters of men.”
John Chrysostom (c. AD 407):
“For although thou despise your husband, says he, yet reverence the angels.”
The NKJV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Walton and Keener, 2017) summarizes several major views:
“One proposal is that they refer to fallen angels attracted to human women (the most common interpretation of Gen 6:1-2) although this interpretation might suggest the danger of conceiving giants (Gen 6:4). Others, citing a similar idea in the Dead Sea Scrolls, suggest that the angels are simply angels present for worship, offended by immodest apparel. A further possibility is that Paul concisely evokes the angels mentioned earlier in his letter (6:3), implying that because these women will someday judge angels, they should use their authority … responsibly.”
Similarly, Dr. Thomas Constable, in his notes on 1 Corinthians, writes:
“Perhaps the Corinthian women needed to wear a head-covering because angels observe with great interest what is taking place among God’s people as they worship (1 Cor. 4:9; Eph. 3:10; 1 Tim. 5:21). Angels are the guardians of God’s created order, they are submissive to God, and they too praise God.”
Constable then offers reasons to reject alternative interpretations such as preventing fallen angels from being attracted to women as that would require women to wear a veil all the time and not just during prayer or prophecy, the main concern of 1 Cor 11. He ultimately concludes that Paul’s concern was tied to what an unveiled woman communicated within first-century Corinthian culture. Appearing unveiled could signify a rejection of accepted social norms concerning marital status and honor and angels believed to be present in a church gathering would recognize the social significance of such a practice in that culture.
Craig Evans and Stanley Porter, in Dictionary of New Testament Background, IVP, 2000, note that Second Temple Jewish literature often portrays angels as having oversight of the nations:
“…the special status of Israel as God’s ‘portion’ is declared over against the assignment of celestial beings to rule over the Gentile peoples… all these texts presuppose a function of angels as guardians of or advocates for the Gentile nations…” (p. 30)
The same volume also describes the honor-shame culture of Corinth:
“Closely related to the interpretation and exercise of power in the social world of early Christianity are the pivotal values of honor and shame… The male represents public space… The female represents the more circumscribed, private space of the household… Given the connection in antiquity between the right ordering of the city-state (polis) and the right ordering of the household (oikos), and given Paul’s determination to establish the community of Christians at Corinth as a kind of alternative polis, it was essential that an orderly and Christian pattern of social relations be laid down.” (pp. 1129–1130)
I find the “angelic witness” interpretation persuasive because Paul often speaks of the church being witnessed by heavenly beings, whether referring to faithful or fallen angels. Examples include 1 Corinthians 4:9, Ephesians 3:10, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Timothy 5:21, 2 Corinthians 11:14, and 2 Corinthians 12:7.
The Human Messenger Perspective:
Marg Mowczko in “1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Line by Line (4)” on her blog writes:
“I understand the aggeloi in verse 10 as being human messengers, people sent to investigate the goings-on in Corinthian churches, perhaps on behalf of their curious or suspicious masters. Maybe they were Christians who were concerned by some of the antics in the Corinthian church. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor believes the aggeloi were human envoys and fellow Christians, “visitors from other churches such as Chloe’s people, who no doubt were the ones who reported to Paul on what they found scandalous in the Corinthian liturgies (1 Cor. 1:11).” Or maybe the messengers were Judaizers who wanted to limit the freedom of Gentile Christians (cf. Gal. 2:4). Whoever they were, the aggeloi as human messengers is my preferred interpretation.”
Bruce Winter similarly suggests that these angeloi may have been “messengers” sent by interested outsiders to gather information about Christian meetings in Chapter 6 of After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (2001).
I am more persuaded by the “angelic witness ” interpretation as I have read somewhere that Paul does not normally use angelos for human messengers in his letters (unsure of reference). I too found when checking StepBible for Greek texts that when referring to messengers from churches, Paul uses terms such as apostolos (“sent one,” in 2 Cor. 8:23 and Phil. 2:25) or adelfos (“brother,” as in 1 Cor. 16:12). Although angelos can refer to human messengers elsewhere in Scripture (as in James 2:25), that does not appear to be Paul’s usual usage in his letters. He refers to himself as “angelos” in Gal 4:14, but there he specifically intended to convey that he was received as an angel of God/Christ.
Taking it all together, my current understanding of verse 1Cor 11:10 is that Paul’s instruction regarding head coverings was primarily about how Christian women in the gathered church were to balance their exercise of freedom with public witness within the social setting of first-century Corinth. The veil communicated modesty, marital status, and honorable Christian conduct in that culture. Through reverence for holy angels, they would be mirroring the worship of the holy angels themselves, whose ultimate purpose is to glorify God (Rev 22:9).
This is my current understanding based on a few commentaries I had access to. Getting clarity on “because of angels” was helpful but not to the degree I had hoped in interpreting the overall message of this debated chapter. Hope that helps!
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Hi Lakshmi!
Thank you for your very thoughtful and well-researched response. It is very helpful to me. It is a question I have pondered for years, and gone back and forth with.
I look forward to perusing the "uncommon Pursuit Community site some more in the near future.
Sarah
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Hi Sarah @BornAgainBride,
Thank you! Glad to hear it was helpful. I look forward to learning together with you through future discussions. God bless.
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@lakshmi this is such a well-researched and thorough answer! Even as a more than casual student of church history, I didn’t realize that the interpretation tied to Genesis 6 went back to Tertullian. Thank you for this work, sister!
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