Historical Head Covering: Clement of Alexandria – Head Covering: Man and Woman Restored in Christ

Clement of Alexandria had a great beard...assuming the picture is accurate!

Clement (150-215) was a Christian convert who taught theology and philosophy. There are two quotes below from his writings. One is from his book, The Instructor, and the other a fragment without context.

Here is the first quote

Going to Church.

Woman and man are to go to church decently attired, with natural step, embracing silence, possessing unfeigned love, pure in body, fit to pray to God. Let the woman observe this, further. Let her be entirely covered, unless she happen to be at home. For that style of dress is grave, and protects from being gazed at. And she will never fall, who puts before her eyes modesty, and her shawl; nor will she invite another to fall into sin by uncovering her face. For this is the wish of the Word, since it is becoming for her to pray veiled.

They say that the wife of AEneas, through excess of propriety, did not, even in her terror at the capture of Troy, uncover herself; but, though fleeing from the conflagration, remained veiled.

Clement of Alexandria: The Instructor, Book 3.11 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/.../clement...

Clement provides us with a great example of going "beyond what is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6).

In The Instructor, Clement writes about how Christians should live. A lot of what he says is good and wise, but he also often takes what the Bible says and pushes it further than the biblical writers do. (He tends to strictly regulate parts of life that the Bible doesn't even mention, as well).

What is the context of this quote?

As you can see, this section is headed up with the title, "Going to Church". Clement begins talking to both men and women about how they should go to church, but when he focuses on women, he looks beyond the church meeting.

The woman, Clement says, should be "entirely covered", and not just at church, but all the time, unless she is at home. This is in line with the following section, "Out of Church", where he complains that some Christians appear one way in church and another way out of church. He calls for consistency between the two.

Why entirely covered?

Clement believes women should be entirely covered for a couple of reasons:

1) it is appropriately "grave", (i.e., not frivolous), and

2) it is modest.

Modesty, in Clement's view, is linked to sexual sin. Covering a woman's face will protect her from falling into sin (the sin of pride? the sin of tempting others?), and it will protect others from sinning by looking at her face (presumably because of her beauty).

On what authority?

Clement then claims all this what Scripture says. He pulls out a positive affirmation based on 1 Corinthians 11:13:

For this is the wish of the Word, since it is becoming for her to pray veiled.

1 Corinthians 11:13

Clement is playing fast and loose with 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 here.

First, nothing in the biblical passage talks about covering a woman's face.

Second, while Clement uses 1 Corinthians 11:10 to (wrongly) argue covering prevents lust (see below), he completely ignores the main reasons Paul presents in the biblical passage.

In fact, Clement's second appeal to an authority strongly suggests that his understanding of head covering owes a lot to pagan culture.

LoreThey say that the wife of AEneas, through excess of propriety, did not, even in her terror at the capture of Troy, uncover herself; but, though fleeing from the conflagration, remained veiled.

Clement of Alexandria: The Instructor, Book 3.11 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/.../clement...

What do we do with this quote?

So, what use is this quote to advocates of the head covering tradition today?

It shows that the church in Clement's time still practiced head covering (and uncovering), even though it became somewhat distorted over a short time.

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Here is the second quote

Because of the angels. By the angels he means righteous and virtuous men. Let her be veiled then, that she may not lead them to stumble into fornication. For the real angels in heaven see her though veiled.

Clement of Alexandria: From the Books of Hypotyposes.
CEcumenius from Book III. On 1 Cor. xi. 10
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0211.htm

Since this is a fragment, we are unfortunately not able to read everything Clement had to say about 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Still, this quote explains how Clement imported sexual modesty into the tradition.

Sadly, based on the first quote, it seems to be his main take away from the whole passage.

What do we do with this quote?

Once again, we can use this quote to maintain that the head covering tradition was alive during Clement's time, but we can't say that it was particularly alive and well.