For if the woman is not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For if a woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. For here is not causal, but an emphatic continuative. It is as disgraceful for a woman to have her head uncovered as to have her hair cut short or cut off. Heretics infer from this that it is wrong for religious virgins to be shorn; but I deny that it follows; for the Apostle is speaking in general of women living in the world, especially of married women, who are seen in public in the temple: he is not speaking of religious who have left the world. These latter rightly despoil themselves of their hair, to show (i.) that they contemn all the pomp of the world, (2.) that they have no husband but Christ. This was the custom at the time of S. Jerome, as he says ( Ephesians 48 ad Sabin.). The Nazarites did the same (Num. vi5).
It may be urged that the Council of Gangra (can17) forbids virgins to be shorn under pretext of religion. I reply from Sozomen (lib. iii. c13) that this canon does not refer to religious, but to heretical women, ...
A woman does not acquire a man’s dignity by having her head uncovered but rather loses her own. Her shame and reproach thus derive from her desire to be like a man as well as from her actions.
Thus, in the beginning he simply requires that the head be not bare: but as he proceeds he intimates both the continuance of the rule, saying, for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven, and the keeping of it with all care and diligence. For he said not merely covered, but covered over , meaning that she be carefully wrapped up on every side. And by reducing it to an absurdity, he appeals to their shame, saying by way of severe reprimand, but if she be not covered, let her also be shorn. As if he had said, If you cast away the covering appointed by the law of God, cast away likewise that appointed by nature.
But if any say, Nay, how can this be a shame to the woman, if she mount up to the glory of the man? we might make this answer; She does not mount up, but rather falls from her own proper honor. Since not to abide within our own limits and the laws ordained of God, but to go beyond, is not an addition but a diminuation. For as he that desires other men's goods and sei...
