_BEHAVIOUR IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: MEN'S ATTITUDE OF BODY AND MIND:
WOMEN'S ATTIRE AND ORNAMENT._
"I desire, therefore, that the men pray in every place, lifting up
holy hands, without wrath and disputing. In like manner, that women
adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and
sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly
raiment; but (which becometh women professing godliness) through
good works. Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But
I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but
to be in quietness."--1 TIM. ii. 8-12.
In the preceding verses of this chapter, St. Paul has been insisting on
the duty of unselfishness in our devotions. Our prayers and
thanksgivings are not to be bounded in their scope by our own personal
interests, but are to include the whole human race; and for this obvious
and sufficient reason,--that in using such devotions we know that our
desires are in harmony with the mind of God, "who willeth that _all_ men
should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth." Having thus
laid down the principles which are to guide Christian congregations in
the _subject-matter_ of their prayers and thanksgivings, he passes on
now to give some directions respecting the _behaviour_ of men and women,
when they meet together for common worship of the one God and the one
Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus.
There is no reasonable doubt (although the point has been disputed) that
St. Paul is here speaking of public worship in the congregation; the
whole context implies it. Some of the directions would be scarcely
intelligible, if we were to suppose that the Apostle is thinking of
private devotions, or even of family prayer in Christian households. And
we are not to suppose that he is indirectly finding fault with other
forms of worship, Jewish or heathen. He is merely laying down certain
principles which are to guide Christians, whether at Ephesus or
elsewhere, in the conduct of public service. Thus there is no special
emphasis on "in every place," as if the meaning were, "Our ways are not
like those of the Jews; for they were not allowed to sacrifice and
perform their services anywhere, but assembling from all parts of the
world were bound to perform all their worship in the temple. For as
Christ commanded us to pray for _all_ men, because He died for all men,
so it is good to pray _everywhere_."[37] Such an antithesis between
Jewish and Christian worship, even if it were true, would not be in
place here. Every place is a place of private prayer to both Jew and
Christian alike: but not every place is a place of public prayer to the
Christian any more than to the Jew.[38] Moreover, the Greek shows
plainly that the emphasis is not on "in every place," but on "pray."
Wherever there may be a customary "house of prayer," whether in Ephesus
or anywhere else, the Apostle desires that prayers should be offered
publicly by the men in the congregation. After "pray," the emphasis
falls on "the men," public prayer is to be made, and it is to be
conducted by the men and not by the women in the congregation.
It is evident from this passage, as from 1 Cor. xiv., that in this
primitive Christian worship great freedom was allowed. There is no
Bishop, President, or Elder, to whom the right of leading the service or
uttering the prayers and thanksgivings is reserved. This duty and
privilege is shared by all the males alike. In the recently discovered
_Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles_ nothing is said as to who is to offer
the prayers, of which certain forms are given. It is merely stated that
in addition to these forms _extempore_ prayer may be offered by "the
prophets." And Justin Martyr mentions that a similar privilege was
allowed to "the president" of the congregation according to his
ability.[39] Thus we seem to trace a gradual increase of strictness, a
development of ecclesiastical order, very natural under the
circumstances. First, all the men in the congregation are allowed to
conduct public worship, as here and in 1 Corinthians. Then, the right of
adding to the prescribed forms is restricted to the prophets, as in the
_Didache_. Next, this right is reserved to the presiding minister, as in
Justin Martyr. And lastly, free prayer is abolished altogether. We need
not assume that precisely this development took place in all the
Churches; but that something analogous took place in nearly all. Nor
need we assume that the development was simultaneous: while one Church
was at one stage of the process, another was more advanced, and a third
less so. Again, we may conjecture that forms of prayer gradually
increased in number, and in extent, and in stringency. But in the
directions here given to Timothy we are at the beginning of the
development.
"Lifting up holy hands." Here again we need not suspect any polemical
purpose. St. Paul is not insinuating that, when Gnostics or heathen lift
up their hands in prayer, their hands are not holy. Just as every
Christian is ideally a saint, so every hand that is lifted up in prayer
is holy. In thus stating the ideal, the Apostle inculcates the
realization of it. There is a monstrous incongruity in one who comes
red-handed from the commission of a sin, lifting up the very members
which witness against him, in order to implore a blessing from the God
whom he has outraged. The same idea is expressed in more general terms
by St. Peter: "Like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves
also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, ye shall be
holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet. i. 15, 16). In a passage more closely
parallel to this, Clement of Rome says, "Let us therefore approach Him
in holiness of soul, _lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him_,
with love towards our gentle and compassionate Father who made us an
elect portion unto Himself" (_Cor._ xxix). And Tertullian urges that "a
defiled spirit cannot be recognized by the Holy Spirit" (_De Orat._,
xiii). Nowhere else in the New Testament do we read of this attitude of
lifting up the hands during prayer. But to this day it is common in the
East. Solomon at the dedication of the temple "stood before the altar of
the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and _spread
forth his hands toward heaven_" (1 Kings viii. 22); and the Psalmist
repeatedly speaks of "lifting up the hands" in worship (xxviii. 2;
lxiii. 4; cxxxiv. 2). Clement of Alexandria seems to have regarded it as
the ideal attitude in prayer, as symbolizing the desire of the body to
abstract itself from the earth, following the eagerness of the spirit in
yearning for heavenly things.[40] Tertullian, on the other hand,
suggests that the arms are spread out in prayer in memory of the
crucifixion, and directs that they should be extended, but only slightly
raised, an attitude which is more in harmony with a humble spirit: and
in another place he says that the Christian by his very posture in
prayer is ready for every infliction. He asserts that the Jews in his
day did _not_ raise the hands in prayer, and characteristically gives as
a reason that they were stained with the blood of the Prophets and of
Christ. With evident reference to this passage, he says that Christian
hands must be lifted up pure from falsehood, murder, and all other sins
of which the hands can be the instruments.[41] Ancient Christian
monuments of the earliest age frequently represent the faithful as
standing with raised hands to pray. Eusebius tells us that Constantine
had himself represented in this attitude on his coins, "looking upwards,
stretching up toward God, like one praying."[42] Of course this does not
mean that kneeling was unusual or irregular; there is plenty of evidence
to the contrary. But the attitude here commended by St. Paul was very
ancient when he wrote, and has continued in some parts of the world ever
since. Like so many other things in natural religion and in Judaism, it
received a new and intensified meaning when it was adopted among the
usages of the Christian Church.
"Without wrath and disputing:" that is, in the spirit of Christian peace
and trust. Ill-will and misgiving respecting one another are
incompatible with united prayer to our common Father. The atmosphere of
controversy is not congenial to devotion. Christ Himself has told us to
be reconciled to our brother before presuming to offer our gift on the
altar. In a similar spirit St. Paul directs that those who are to
conduct public service in the sanctuary must do so without angry
feelings or mutual distrust. In the Pastoral Epistles warnings against
quarrelsome conduct are frequent; and the experience of every one of us
tells us how necessary they are. The bishop is charged to be "no
brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious." The deacons must not
be "double-tongued." Women must not be "slanderers." Young widows have
to be on their guard against being "tattlers and busybodies." Timothy is
charged to "follow after ... love, patience, meekness," and is reminded
that "the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all, apt
to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting them that oppose
themselves." Titus again is told that a bishop must be "not self-willed,
not soon angry," "no brawler, no striker," that the aged women must not
be "slanderers," that all men are to be put in mind "to speak evil of no
man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness toward
all men."[43] There is no need to assume that that age, or that those
Churches, had any special need of warnings of this kind. All ages and
all Churches need them. To keep one's tongue and one's temper in due
order is to all of us one of the most constant and necessary duties of
the Christian life; and the neglect cannot fail to be disastrous to the
reality and efficacy of our devotions. Those who have ill-will and
strife in their hearts cannot unite to much purpose in common
thanksgiving and prayer.
And just as the men have to take care that their attitude of body and
mind is such as befits the dignity of public worship, in like manner the
women also have to take care that their presence in the congregation
does not appear incongruous. They must come in seemly attire and with
seemly behaviour. Everything which might divert attention from the
service to themselves must be avoided. Modesty and simplicity must at
all times be the characteristics of a Christian woman's dress and
bearing; but at no time is this more necessary than in the public
services of the Church. Excessive adornment, out of place at all times,
is grievously offensive there. It gives a flat contradiction to the
profession of humility which is involved in taking part in common
worship, and to that natural sobriety which is a woman's fairest
ornament and best protection. Both reverence and self-reverence are
injured by it. Moreover, it may easily be a cause of offence to others,
by provoking jealousy or admiration of the creature, where all ought to
be absorbed in the worship of the Creator.
Here again St. Paul is putting his finger upon dangers and evils which
are not peculiar to any age or any Church. He had spoken of the same
thing years before, to the women of Corinth, and St. Peter utters
similar warnings to Christian women throughout all time.[44] Clement of
Alexandria abounds in protests against the extravagance in dress so
common in his own day. In one place he says; "Apelles the painter seeing
one of his pupils painting a figure thickly with gold colour to
represent Helen, said to him; 'My lad, you were unable to paint her
beautiful, and so you have made her rich.' Such Helens are the ladies of
the present day; not really beautiful, but richly got up. To these the
Spirit prophesies by Zephaniah: And their gold shall not be able to
deliver them in the day of the Lord's anger."[45] Tertullian is not less
emphatic. He says that most Christian women dress like heathen, as if
modesty required nothing more than stopping short of actual impurity.
"What is the use," he asks, "of showing a decent and Christian
simplicity in your face, while you load the rest of your body with the
dangling absurdities of pomps and vanities?"[46] Chrysostom also, in
commenting on this very passage, asks the congregation at Antioch: "And
what then is _modest apparel_? Such as covers them completely and
decently, and not with superfluous ornaments; for the one is decent and
the other is not. What? Do you approach God to pray with broidered hair
and ornaments of gold? Are you come to a ball? to a marriage-feast? to a
carnival? There such costly things might have been seasonable: here not
one of them is wanted. You are come to pray, to ask pardon for your
sins, to plead for your offences, beseeching the Lord, and hoping to
render Him propitious to you. Away with such hypocrisy! God is not
mocked. This is the attire of actors and dancers, who live upon the
stage. Nothing of this kind becomes a modest woman, who should be
adorned with shamefastness and sobriety.... And if St. Paul" (he
continues) "would remove those things which are merely the marks of
wealth, as gold, pearls, and costly array; how much more those things
which imply studied adornment, as painting, colouring the eyes, a
mincing walk, an affected voice, a languishing look? For he glances at
all these things in speaking of modest apparel and shamefastness."
But there is no need to go to Corinth in the first century, or
Alexandria and Carthage in the second and third, or Antioch in the
fourth, in order to show that the Apostle was giving no unnecessary
warning in admonishing Timothy respecting the dress and behaviour of
Christian women, especially in the public services of the congregation.
In our own age and our own Church we can find abundant illustration.
Might not any preacher in any fashionable congregation echo with a good
deal of point the questions of Chrysostom? "Have you come to dance or a
levée? Have you mistaken this building for a theatre?" And what would be
the language of a Chrysostom or a Paul if he were to enter a theatre
nowadays and see the attire, I will not say of the actresses, but of the
audience? There are some rough epithets, not often heard in polite
society, which express in plain language the condition of those women
who by their manner of life and conversation have forfeited their
characters. Preachers in earlier ages were accustomed to speak very
plainly about such things: and what the Apostle and Chrysostom have
written in their epistles and homilies does not leave us in much doubt
as to what would have been their manner of speaking of them.
But what is urged here is sufficient. "You are Christian women," says
St. Paul, "and the profession which you have adopted is reverence
towards God (=theosebeian=). This profession you have made known to the
world. It is necessary, therefore, that those externals of which the
world takes cognisance should not give the lie to your profession. And
how is unseemly attire, paraded at the very time of public worship,
compatible with the reverence which you have professed? Reverence God by
reverencing yourselves; by guarding with jealous care the dignity of
those bodies with which He has endowed you. Reverence God by coming
before Him clothed both in body and soul in fitting attire. Let your
bodies be freed from meretricious decoration. Let your souls be adorned
with abundance of good works."
FOOTNOTES:
[37] So Chrysostom _in loco_: but this is an exaggeration respecting
Jewish limitations.
[38] See Clement of Rome, _Cor._ xli.
[39] _Didache_, x. 7; Just. Mart., _Apol._, 1. lxvii. Justin probably
uses the term "president" =ho proestôs= in order to be intelligible to
heathen readers.
[40] _Strom._, VII. vii.
[41] _De Orat._, xiii., xiv., xvii.; _Apol._ xxx.; Comp. _Adv. Jud._, x.
[42] _Vit. Const._, IV. xv. 1.
[43] 1 Tim. iii. 3, 8, 11; v. 13; vi. 11; 2 Tim. ii. 24; Tit. i. 7; ii.
3; iii. 2.
[44] 1 Cor. xi. 2-16; 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4.
[45] _Paed._, II. xiii.
[46] _De Cult Fem._, II. i. ix.