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22. μάλιστα δὲ. There was something marked and emphatic about this message.
οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας. “Probably slaves and freedmen attached to the palace” (Lightfoot). It has been thought, on the other hand, that these persons were members of the imperial family, or at least grandees of the court; and this has been used either to prove a remarkable advance of the Gospel in the highest circles during St Paul’s imprisonment (and incidentally to evidence a late date for the Epistle in that imprisonment), or to indicate the spuriousness of the Epistle. Lightfoot (Phil., pp. 171–178) has fully shewn that “the Household of Cæsar” was a term embracing a vast number of persons, not only in Rome but in the provinces, all of them either actual or former imperial slaves, filling every description of more or less domestic office. He illustrates his statements from the numerous epitaphs of members of the Domus Cæsaris found within the last 175 years near Rome, most of them of the Julian and Claudian times. It is remarkable that the names in these epitaphs afford curiously many coincidences with the names in Romans 16; among them are Amplias, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, Tryphæna, Tryphosa, Rufus, Hermes, Hermas, Patrobas, Philologus, Julius, Nereis (a name which might possibly be that of the sister (Rom 16:15) of a man Nereus). It appears by the way very likely that both Aristobulus’ and Narcissus’ “households” (Rom 16:10-11) were in fact the slave-establishments respectively of the son of Herod the Great and of the favourite freedman of Claudius—transferred to the possession of the Emperor. Lightfoot infers a high probability that the “saints” greeted in Romans 16, as resident at Rome, were on the whole identical with “the saints of the Household” who here send greeting from Rome. Various as no doubt were their functions, and their nationalities, the members of the Household, as such, must have had an esprit de corps which made it likely, humanly speaking, that a powerful influence like that of the Gospel would be felt widely among them, if felt at all; and that it would be intensified by the difficulties of their surroundings; and that so that they would be in the way to make a united and emphatic expression of their faith and love on occasion.
This view of “the saints” here mentioned, as to their associations and duties, not only in the age of Nero but in the precincts of his court, and probably (for many of them) within the chambers of his palace, gives a noble passing illustration of the power of grace to triumph over circumstances, and to transfigure life where it seems most impossible. “Dieu laisse quelquefois ses serviteurs au milieu du monde, pour montrer la souveraineté de sa grace” (Quesnel on this verse).
A certain parallel to the Domus Cæsaris appears in the vast Maison du Roy of the French monarchy. But the Maison was for the nobility alone.