At first glance the final chapter of Romans offers little more than a list of names, of interest to Paul and his readers perhaps, but of doubtful consequence for modern readers. Of what significance after all, is a list of unidentified names? Is not a name about which we know nothing really no name at all? Is not our commentary reduced to an exercise in historical trivia at this point? Does not the strangeness of the names remind us how foreign and remote Paul’s world really is from ours, lessening the likelihood of this epistle’s speaking to us today?

The sixteenth chapter has a checkered history in the interpretation of the epistle. According to the testimony of Origen, already in the second century Marcion eliminated it (and chapter 15) from his edition of Romans (Commentary on Romans,…