Houeshold: "Head" as "Origin" or "Source"

I wrote in my previous post that the head was not the bodily organ responsible for intellect and control in Greek physiology. What, then, is the function of the head with regard to the body? The head was the life-giving source that animated the rest of the body. The body grew out of the head. If you observe that food and water enter the mouth, air enters the nose, sight enters the eyes, and sound enters the ears, this makes a lot of sense.

To give some historical examples of this notion of head, I will quote at length an article by Katherine Kroeger published last year, Toward an Understanding of Ancient Conceptions of "Head" (Priscilla Papers, Vol. 20, no. 3, Summer 2006). Leading up to this passage, she has pointed out that head can refer to the beginning point of something like the "headwaters" of a river.

Not only with respect to flowing water was the head considered the place of beginning. [headwaters] Aristotle himself declared that the head was the source of beginning of life, with human sperm being created in the head, traveling down the spinal cord, flowing into the genitals, and so procreating the human race. Thus, the ancient writers sometimes referred to sexual intercourse as “diminishing one’s head.” Artemidorus of Ephesus maintained that the head was the source of light and life for the whole body, so a father was the source of life for his son. “The head [kephale] is like one’s parents because it is the source or cause of one’s having life.” Shortly after the New Testament period, Plutarch told of those who thought the brain “to be the source of generation.” Philo, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus and Paul wrote, “As though he were the head of a living being. Esau is the progenitor of all those members who have been mentioned.”

Among other values, the head as the source of paternity was understood by the early Christian fathers. Irenaeus equates “head” with “source” when he writes of the head “head and source of his own being.” Hippolytus emphasized the productivity of this bodily member when he designated the head as the characteristic substance from which all people were made. He noted, “In the head is said to be the brain, formulating the being from which all fatherhood is produced.” Cosmas Indicopleustes (sixth century A.D.) called Adam the “head” of all people in this world because he was their source and father.

Photius, a ninth century Byzantine scholar, was renowned for his vast knowledge of classical authors and his preservation of numerous quotations from works that are now lost to us. He drew upon earlier scholars passionately committed to preserving classical Greek and promoting a continued knowledge of its words and forms. These works Photius edited and incorporated into a formidable lexicon intended as a reference book to aid later writers in understanding the vocabulary of classical and sacred authors. He quite specifically stated that “head” (kephale) was considered to be a synonym for procreator or progenitor. (p. 5)

Kroeger also presents this interesting quote from Augustine's commentary on Galatians 5:22-23:

The Apostle Paul, when he wishes to commend the fruit of the spirit against the works of the flesh, puts them at the head: “The fruit of the spirit is love,” he said; and then the rest, as springing up from the head, are twined together. There are joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, perseverance, self-control and charity. (Translated from the Latin text in Ralph McInerny, Let’s Read Latin: Introduction to the Language of the Church (South Bend, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books), 99.)

She also writes:

The myth of Athena springing from the head of Zeus is known in story form, mosaics, frescoes, and vase paintings. Ancient Orphic burials sometimes contained figurines of the soul reemerging into the world after remaining nine years under the bosom of Persephone, Queen of the dead. From the head of the goddess sprout up new little heads, some surrounded by leaf buds as they grow to full reincarnation status. The theme of the head as the starting point for growth is unmistakable. (5)

Two of the eleven New Testament instances of fictive head exemplify this metaphor for head.

Eph 4:15-16

15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Col 2:18-19

18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

It seems likely that the Ephesians passage has this idea of head in mind. "Growing up into the head" is like our notion of "sinking our roots down." The Colossians passage seems to be a very close match. So at least in some cases, New Testament fictive references to head appear to be related to the Greek anthropology of head as "life-giving source." But this metaphor does not seem to apply in other New Testament passages. We need to dig a little deeper.

(Also see Heads, you Win by Suzanne McCarthy and Heart and Soul by J. K. Gayle.)

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Comments

[Peter Kirk]

Interesting. The Philo evidence seems rather convincing, as well as that from Plotius.

I wonder whether the puzzling Trinitarian doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son can be linked with "God is the head of Christ" in 1 Corinthians 11:3; was this verse appealed to during Trinitarian controversies? As for "the husband is the head of the wife", there is an obvious sense in which he is the source of the semen received by her. But I await your further evidence.

[Peter Kirk]

Having now read her article, I see that Kroeger got in before me in referring to Trinitarian applications of 1 Corinthians 11:3, for this lies behind her Athanasius, Cyril and Chrysostom quotations. It is interesting that Chrysostom prefigured the modern controversy about how complementarianism is linked with functional subordination of the Son.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks Peter. I'll have more about 1 Cor. 11:3 later. Chrysostom's quote is interesting isn't it?

[J. K. Gayle]

Thanks for the link, Michael.

I wonder if it's not a bit too absolutely overstated to say "the head was not the bodily organ responsible for intellect and control in Greek." Could there not have been wordplay by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and others?

For instance: Although H. Rackham translates a phrase of Aristotle (from Nicomachean Ethics) with the usual sense you mention, he guides us to other possibilities. For example, Rackham translates "κεφαλὴν ἔχουσα ἐπιστήμη" as "consummated knowledge," but he footnotes this by saying: "Literally ‘knowledge having as it were a head,’ a phrase copied from Plato, Plat. Gorg. 505d." So we follow Rackham and Aristotle to something not just literal. There's another figurative use of "κεφαλῆς" or "head." Plato's Socrates is speaking to Callicles in The Gorgias, saying: "καταλείπειν, ἀλλ' ἐπιθέντας κεφαλήν, ἵνα μὴ ἄνευ κεφαλῆς περιίῃ. ἀπόκριναι οὖν καὶ τὰ λοιπά, ἵνα ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος κεφαλὴν λάβῃ" or "Why, they say one does wrong to leave off even stories in the middle; one should set a head on the thing, that it may not go about headless. So proceed with the rest of your answers, that our argument may pick up a head." And Callicles replies "ὡς βίαιος εἶ, ὦ Σώκρατες. ἐὰν δὲ ἐμοὶ πείθῃ, ἐάσεις χαίρειν τοῦτον τὸν λόγον, ἢ καὶ ἄλλῳ τῳ διαλέξῃ" or "How overbearing you are, Socrates! Take my advice, and let this argument drop, or find some one else to argue with."

Why does Socrates want Callicles to put a head on the argument? Is Socrates suggesting the head will provide authority to the argument? or will be its source somehow or something? Rather: Does an intelligent argument not need a head? Could this not be an early Greek association of head with argumentation, with dialectic, with rhetoric, with intelligence? (When it comes to figurative language, can we afford to make an absolute once-and-for-all determination of the possible range of uses and meanings?)

[Michael W. Kruse]

J. K. thanks for a fascinating quote. I have a few more posts to come that I hope will flesh some of this out more.

My point was that it does not appear to me that the head was the organ from which intellect/control sprang in the sense that we understand the brain to "rule" the body. That does not mean that "head" did not metaphorically symbolize aspects of intellect based on other conceptions of the significance of the head to the body. Maybe my next post will make things a little more clear.

[kerryn]

Michael
thanks for the great links. they have all been useful to read up on.
Cheers
Kerryn

[Suzanne]

I would suggest rather that head could be one end or the other. It is both ends and not the middle. The heading is at the top of the chapter, and the chapter must end with a summary or conclusion.

But, of the many words for which I have googled a definition, the English word "head" beats them all. It would not be suitable to enumerate them all, so I'll leave them all unsaid.

It really doesn't matter, since so many women today must go about without a "head" in any case, and don't suffer much for it.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks Suzanne. Do you have any particular ancient quotes in mind that would illustrate this? I'd love to learn more.

I know that both ends of a river were called the head. So the starting point of the Mississippi River in Minnesota would sometimes be called the head (where the water begins but the mouth of the river where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico could be called the head (because that was the origin point from which you might travel inland.)

[J. K. Gayle]

Didn't Hippocrates, the great Greek M.D., say that the head is not to be considered center or even the main end of the body? (And he had a lot to say about the head, physically and physiologically. Obviously, in Hippocrates we can also "read" what he says metaphorically, positionally and as a positing various things about what "head" means. But then again Hippocrates didn't have access to Grey's Anatomy or to that great growing body of works in English, however sexist much of it, which may be so easily accessed via googling of the internet.)

[Suzanne]

Michael,

I looked up some of it a while ago, but I have forgotten now where it is. I didn't keep notes, especially since it doesn't seem that relevant to translation. That is, I would still translate it head.

But, I often do think it means progenitor, that is, the husband is the father of the children.