Romans 16:15

Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them.

Here again, five more people are mentioned, although Nereus' sister's name is not given. Both men and women are included. Julia was usually a feminine name, and the bearer of it might well have been the wife of Philologus, though not likely his sister, in view of Paul's use of that word a moment later. This was another group of Christians in Rome; and the impression is received that here was another household congregation. Not many of the Christians of that day would have owned a house large enough to accommodate such a congregation regularly; and, therefore, it would have been quite logical for them to have taken turns, Sunday by Sunday, worshipping in the homes of various members with houses large enough or convenient enough to supply the need. Such a possibility is certainly suggested by the lack that there are only four or five Sundays per month, corresponding exactly with the four or five persons mentioned in each of these groups. Of course, Prisca and Aquila were able to provide a place in their home as a regular meeting place for all the services of their group, being obviously more able than most others to do such a thing (see under Romans 16:3).

This roll of names, so sacred to the Christian religion, is here completed; and it is no mere list of dry syllables, for these are among God's redeemed ones from this earth. We do not know them, nor the distant world in which they lived; but it is our priceless privilege to know him in whom they lived and in whose service they lived and died. As Moule said:

The roll of names is over, with its music, that subtle characteristic of such recitations of human personalities, and with its moving charm for the heart due almost equally to our glimpses of information about one here and there and to our total ignorance about the others.[33]

There is only one other place on earth, apart from the New Testament, where one finds a record of such names as these. It was described by Moule, thus:

A place of burial on the Appian way, devoted to the ashes of Imperial freemen and slaves, and other receptacles, all to be dated with practical certainty about the middle of the first century, yield the following names: AMPLIAS; URBANUS; STACHYS; APELLES; TRYPHAENA; TRYPHOSA; RUFUS; HERMAS; PHILOLOGUS; JULIUS; NEREIS (this last a name which might have denoted the sister of a man named NEREUS.[34]

It is asking too much of the imagination to separate these names on the ashes of the dead from identity with the persons named by Paul in this astonishing chapter.

[33] H. C. G. Moule, op. cit., p. 429.

[34] Ibid., p. 424.