On Veiling Virgins

​Certainly the contraries of all these things effect that a man should not veil his head, namely because he has not naturally obtained the redundancy of hair, because to be shorn or shaved is not shameful to him, because the angels did not go astray on his account, because he is the glory and image of God, and because his head is Christ. Therefore, when the apostle treats of the man and the woman, why she ought to be veiled but he indeed not, it is apparent why he also kept silence about the virgin, namely leaving the virgin to be understood in the woman by the same reason by which he did not name the boy as one to be reckoned in the man, having embraced the whole order of each sex by their own proper words, “woman” and “man.” Thus also Adam, while still an intact man, was named in Genesis: “She shall be called,” he says, “woman, because she was taken from her man.” Thus Adam was a man before the marital intercourse, just as Eve was a woman. On both sides the apostle has pronounced sufficiently for the universal species of each sex, both briefly and fully with such an instructed definition: “Every,” he says, “woman.” What is “every” except of every kind, of every order, of every condition, of every dignity, of every age? If indeed “every” is whole and intact and lacking in no part of itself. And a virgin is a part of the woman. Equally also concerning the man not to be veiled, he says, “Every.” Behold two different names, “man” and “woman.” Each is “every.” Two laws mutually subject, on this side of veiling, on that side of laying bare. Therefore, if by that which was said, “every man,” the name of man is common also to him who is not yet a man, the unclad male, and since the name is common according to nature, the law of not veiling is also common to him who is a virgin among men according to discipline, why has it not been priorly judged likewise that every virgin woman is contained in the name of “woman” when it is nominated, by the partnership of the name, so that she may also be contained in the community of the law? If a virgin is not a woman, neither is the unclad one a man. If the virgin is not covered because she is not a woman, let the unclad one be covered because he is not a man. Let there be an equal indulgence of the same virginity. Just as virgins are not forced to be veiled, so let boys not be ordered to be unveiled. Why do we acknowledge the apostle’s definition as absolute on one part concerning every man, nor re-examine why he did not also name the boy, but on the other part we prevaricate, where it is equally absolute concerning every woman? “If anyone,” he says, “is contentious, we have no such custom, nor the church of God.” He shows that there was some contention about this matter, for the extinguishing of which he used a total compendium, not naming the virgin so that he might show that there was no doubt about her being veiled, and naming “every woman,” which was as if he had named the virgin. Thus also the Corinthians themselves understood it. Finally, today the Corinthians veil their virgins. What the apostles taught, those who learned approve.