Long Hair on Men?

[JHow]

I really don’t have much to say about a man’s hair, although I spent 20 years in the military…

Military hair wasn’t always short. The main concerns there are: uniformity, hygiene (head lice), fits under helmet (Romans, middle ages, even today), doesn’t interfere with gas mask (shaving).

Does anyone think Jeb Stuart was feminine?

I say this (appropriate manly hair length) is cultural.

 

[Hesychios]

St. Paul spoke harshly against long hair on men in the Scriptures …

I don’t know for sure why he said what he did, but it seems pretty clear that at one point (at least once) he took the Nazirite vow himself.

So I suppose we have to assume that what he meant has to be taken in context.

 

[Sonic]

Long hair on men is associated with the cultural revolution beginning in the 1960’s which, among other things, attempted to confuse God given gender distinctions. Though certain individual men in our confused day and time may not have this same intention in wearing their hair long, this practice still makes a counter-cultural statement and not one in keeping with the order found in the Traditional Catholic Faith.

St. Paul spoke harshly against long hair on men in the Scriptures precisely because in his time, long hair was associated with women, as it is in our own. Thus, as a sacrifice to God, and to be more in keeping with Catholic order, the OP should not wear his hair long enough to be seen as participating in any way in the gender revolution and disorientation we are still living in. Besides the gender confusion we also have long hair on men related to the hard rock culture of drugs and promiscuity and anarchy. So there are various reasons men should have a neat and clean cut appearance.

Fortunately, not everyone with long hair is a hippie or a hard rock head-banger. In fact, lots of clergy and monks, particularly in the Eastern tradition, have long hair and beards (stemming from Leviticus19:27… Judges 16:17-19… Numbers 6:5-6).

newadvent.org/bible/lev019.htm
newadvent.org/bible/jdg016.htm
newadvent.org/bible/num006.htm

Very early images of Christ with long hair as was pointed out in a previous topic…

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3591947&postcount=35

Note to others reading post:
When reviewing 1 Corinthians 11:14, it’s a very good idea to apply the twenty-twenty rule to scripture. Read twenty lines above and twenty lines below the citation in order to gain it’s proper context. In other words, you need to concentrate on the meaning of St. Paul’s words and not just the individual citation.

Douay-Rheims Translation:

newadvent.org/bible/1co011.htm

New American Bible Translation:
usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians11.htm

The Douay-Rheims Bible translation says “nourish his hair”, while the modern translation says “long hair”. The older translation does not indicate long hair, but does suggest adorning or styling one’s hair (which would apply to styling short hair as well). At least that’s how I’m understanding it from what is written in the rest of the text.

As was pointed out in a question posted to This Rock magazine:

catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/St.%20Paul

Q:“
Aren’t all images of Jesus false? In 1 Corinthians 11:14 Paul tells us long hair is degrading to and unnatural for a man. All the pictures of Jesus show him with long hair, so they must be false images.
”
A:

The pictures we have of Christ do not derive from any physical description we have of him in the Bible, because there is none. The basic image comes from a long artistic and iconographic tradition. Nothing in that facial image contradicts the Bible.

Part of the problem here is how long is long? We know from archeological materials, such as Middle Eastern carvings and Egyptian tomb paintings, that Jews wore what we would consider today as long hair and beards. Hair reached down to the shoulders on men. Women wore hair down to the waist.

Paul was telling Corinthian men that wearing hair down to the waist as women did would be effeminate and unnatural. You assume the length and cut of a Jewish man’s hair in the first century was as it is for most men today, but that’s a misconception which results in your misinterpretation of Paul’s epistle.

 

[John_of_Woking]

I am balding. Am I glad God doesn’t judge my follicle deficiencies in the same way as my so called ‘friends’