609"Mes ordonnances;" — "My ordinances." (continued)
John Calvin
10. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
10. Propterea debet mulier potestatem habere super caput suum, propter angelos.
11. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
11. Caeterum neque vir absque muliere, neque mulier absque viro in Domino.
12. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
12. Quemadmodum enim mulier ex viro, sic et vir per mulierem: olnnia autem ex Deo.
13. Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?
13. In vobis ipsis iudicate, deceatne mulierem retecto capite Deum precari. 14. Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
14. An ne ipsa quidem natura vos docet, quod si vir comam alat, dedecus illi sit?
15. But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.
15. Si vero mulier comam alat, gloria sit illi? quoniam illi coma instar velamenti data est.
16. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
16. Quodsi quis videtur contentiosus esse, nos talem consuetudinem non habemus, neque Ecclesiae Dei.
1. Imitators of me. From this it appears, how absurdly chapters are divided, inasmuch as this sentence is disjoined from what goes before, with which it ought to have been connected, and is joined to what follows, with which it has no connection. Let us view this, then, as the close of the preceding chapter. Paul had there brought forward his own example in confirmation of his doctrine. Now, in order that the Corinthians may understand that this would be becoming in them, he exhorts them to imitate what he had done, even as he had imitated Christ
Here there are two things to be observed — first, that he prescribes nothing to others that he had not first practiced himself; and, secondly, that he directs himself and others to Christ as the only pattern of right acting. For while it is the part of a good teacher to enjoin nothing in words but what he is prepared to practice in action, he must not, at the same time, be so austere, as straightway to require from others everything that he does himself, as is the manner of the superstitious. For everything that they contract a liking for they impose also upon others, and would have their own example to be held absolutely as a rule. The world is also, of its own accord, inclined