Ver. 3.
to
Ver. 5.
Greet Prisca[263] and Aquila (Ἀκύλας), my co-workers in Christ Jesus; the friends who (οἵτινες) for my life's sake submitted their own throat to the knife (it was at some stern crisis otherwise utterly unknown to us, but well known in heaven); to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the Churches of the Nations; for they saved the man whom the Lord consecrated to the service of the Gentile world. And the Church at their house greet with them; that is, the Christians of their neighbourhood, who used Aquila's great room as their house of prayer; the embryo of our parish or district Church. This provision of a place of worship was an old usage of this holy pair, whom St Paul's almost reverent affection presents to us in such a living individuality. They had gathered "a domestic Church" at Corinth, not many months before (1 Cor. xvi. 19). And earlier still, at Ephesus (Acts xviii. 26), they wielded such a Christian influence that they must have been a central point of influence and gathering there also. In Prisca, or Priscilla, as it has been remarked,[264] we have "an example of what a married woman may do, for the general service of the Church, in conjunction with home-duties, just as Phœbe is the type of the unmarried servant of the Church, or deaconess."
Greet Epænĕtus, my beloved, who is the firstfruits of Asia,[265] that is of the Ephesian Province, unto Christ; doubtless one who "owed his soul" to St Paul in that three years' missionary pastorate at Ephesus, and who was now bound to him by the indescribable tie which makes the converter and converted one.
Ver. 6.
Greet Mary—a Jewess probably, Miriam or Maria,—for she (ἥτις) toiled hard for you[266]; when and how we cannot know.
Ver. 7.
Greet Andronicus and Junias, Junianus, my kinsmen, and my fellow-captives in Christ's war (συναιχμαλώτους); a loving and mindful reference to the human relationships which so freely, but not lightly, he had sacrificed for Christ, and to some persecution-battle (was it at Philippi?) when these good men had shared his prison; men who (οἵτινες) are distinguished among the apostles; either as being themselves, in a secondary sense, devoted "apostles," Christ's missionary delegates, though not of the Apostolate proper, or as being honoured above the common, for their toil and their character, by the Apostolic Brotherhood; who also before me came to be, as they are, in Christ.[267] Not improbably these two early converts helped to "goad" (Acts xxvi. 14) the conscience of their still persecuting Kinsman, and to prepare the way of Christ in his heart.
Ver. 8.
to
Ver. 10.
Greet Amplias, Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord; surely a personal convert of his own.
Greet Urbanus, my co-worker in Christ, and Stachys—another masculine name—my beloved.