In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul the Apostle enjoins the observance of certain ordinances, including the headcovering and the eucharist. The passage delivers the teaching that men are to "pray or prophesy" without a cap on the head, while women are to are wear a veil; the practice of headcovering by Christian women was countercultural as the surrounding pagan Greek women prayed unveiled and Jewish men prayed with their heads covered. Ezra Palmer Gould, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, noted Paul the Apostle's use of rhetoric to highlight the importance of the subject: "The long hair and the veil were both intended as a covering of the head, and as a sign of true womanliness, and of the right relation of woman to man; and hence the absence of one had the same significance as that of the other." This is reflected in the patristic homilies of the Early Church Father John Chrysostom, who explained the two coverings—the veil and the natural hair—discussed by Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 11: