Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Romans 16:1

CHAPTER 16

Ro 16:1-27. Conclusion, Embracing Sundry Salutations and Directions, and a Closing Prayer.

1. I commend unto you Phoebebe our sister, which is a servant--or "deaconess"

of the church which is at Cenchrea--The word is "Cenchreæ," the eastern part of Corinth (Ac 18:18). That in the earliest churches there were deaconesses, to attend to the wants of the female members, there is no good reason to doubt. So early at least as the reign of Trajan, we learn from Pliny's celebrated letter to that emperor--A.D. 110, or 111--that they existed in the Eastern churches. Indeed, from the relation in which the sexes then stood to each other, something of this sort would seem to have been a necessity. Modern attempts, however, to revive this office have seldom found favor; either from the altered state of society, or the abuse of the office, or both.