Bishop Lightfoot, in an Excursus in his edition of the Philippian Epistle,[261] has given us reason to think that not a few of the "Romans" named here by St Paul were members of that "Household of Cæsar" of which in later days he speaks to the Philippians (iv. 22) as containing its "saints," saints who send special greetings to the Macedonian brethren. The _Domus Cæsaris_ included "the whole of the Imperial household, the meanest slaves, as well as the most powerful courtiers"; "all persons in the Emperor's service, whether slaves or freemen, in Italy and even in the provinces." The literature of sepulchral inscriptions at Rome is peculiarly rich in allusions to members of "the Household." And it is from this quarter, particularly from discoveries in it made early in the last century, that Lightfoot gets good reasons for thinking that in Phil. iv. 22 we may, quite possibly, be reading a greeting _from_ Rome sent by the very persons (speaking roundly) who are here greeted in the Epistle _to_ Rome. A place of burial on the Appian Way, devoted to the ashes of Imperial freedmen and slaves, and other similar receptacles, all to be dated with practical certainty about the middle period of the first century, yield the following names: _Amplias_, _Urbanus_, _Stachys_, _Apelles_, _Tryphæna_, _Tryphosa_, _Rufus_, _Hermes_, _Hermas_, _Philologus_, _Julius_, _Nereis_; a name which might have denoted _the sister_ (see ver. 15) of a man Nereus.
Of course such facts must be used with due reserve in inference. But they make it abundantly clear that, in Lightfoot's words, "the names and allusions at the close of the Roman Epistle are in keeping with the circumstances of the metropolis in St Paul's day." They help us to a perfectly truthlike theory. We have only to suppose that among St Paul's converts and friends in Asia and Eastern Europe many either belonged already to the ubiquitous "Household," or entered it after conversion, as purchased slaves or otherwise; and that some time before our Epistle was written there was a large draft from the provincial to the metropolitan department; and that thus, when St Paul thought of personal Christian friends at Rome, he would happen to think, mainly, of "saints of Cæsar's Household." Such a theory would also, by the way, help to explain the emphasis with which just these "saints" sent their greeting, later, to Philippi. Many of them might have lived in Macedonia, and particularly in the _colonia_ of Philippi, before the time of their supposed transference to Rome.
We may add, from Lightfoot's discussion, a word about "the households," or "people"--of Aristobulus and Narcissus--mentioned in the greetings before us. It seems at least likely that the Aristobulus of the Epistle was a grandson of Herod the Great, and brother of Agrippa of Judea; a prince who lived and died at Rome. At his death it would be no improbable thing that his "household" should pass by legacy to the Emperor, while they would still, as a sort of clan, keep their old master's name. Aristobulus' servants, probably many of them Jews (_Herodion_, St Paul's kinsman, may have been a retainer of this _Herod_), would thus now be a part of "the Household of Cæsar," and the Christians among them would be a group of "the Household saints." As to the Narcissus of the Epistle, he may well have been the all-powerful freedman of Claudius, put to death early in Nero's time. On his death, his great _familia_ would become, by confiscation, part of "the Household"; and its Christian members would be thought of by St Paul as among "the Household saints."
Thus it is at least possible that the holy lives which here pass in such rapid file before us were lived not only in Rome, but in a connexion more or less close with the service and business of the Court of Nero. So freely does grace make light of circumstance.