Sue

Mark,

If you are the same Mark who is waiting for me to post on kephale on the LXX I am sorry but I am so busy with family right now. Such a distraction!!

But I have time for a more off the cuff response here. Not only does Cyril demonstrate that kephale is not uniformly understood as authority, but also Chrysostom and Augustine deny an authority submission relationship in the Godhead.

Chrysostom says that Christ cannot be “head of the Gentiles” because the Gentiles are not the body of Christ. Does he mean specifically that kephale cannot be related to the use in the LXX where David is the “Kephale to the Gentiles.” And what did that mean anyway. But the Gentiles are never the David’s people. This use of kephale is not comparable.

C. also says that the kephale relationship is not the same in the three pairs. He believes that man is an authority for his wife because of sin. Sin dictates that one person must have authority to avoid contention, so he must believe that male authority is the product of the fall. He also believes that women are inferior in some ways to men. But we don’t believe this anymore, I hope.

So C. said that God was the first cause of Christ and that kephale meant unity and like passions. Although C. believed in the submissive role of women he had a complex theology which does not support the notion that the Godhead is an authority and submission relationship.

Augustine also was clear absolutely clear that the Son was not unequal in authority to the Father.

So, what references are there to kephale referring to person a being the authority over person b. There is only David, the kephale to the Gentiles, which occurs in a passage of poetic Hebrew in which many words are translated overliterally. It is not native Greek.

And what else? There is Rezin the ruler of Damascus the capital of Syria. Perhaps the translator wished to preserve the rosh rosh parallelism of Hebrew poetry, in shich ruler and capital city can both be called rosh (head) but of course, this cannot be done in Greek, normally.

There is also Jephthah. These references are few and far between and do not reflect the normal pattern of translation from Hebrew to Greek, which was to use archon for rosh or some other word.

I propose that the phrase so often used in Orphic rituals refering to Zeus mught be a hint. He was the head, the middle and the end. It seem to mean beginning, origin or source.

Even if it were a choice, that we could see either source or authority, why then chose authority. We are not obligated, it is just a proposal, a human idea and suggested interpretation, don’t you think. It certainly cannot be proven, but must only be deduced from a knowledge that women are naturally not capable of authority. This might prove your case.