Salute Prisca and Aquila. — These were two of St. Paul’s earliest friends after he had begun his great work for his Master. Originally of Pontus, they had taken up their abode at Rome, where Aquila exercised his trade of a tent-maker.
Driven out of Rome by the decree of Claudius, which banished the Jews from the capital, they came to Corinth, where St. Paul became acquainted with them. But they were evidently Christians when St. Paul first met them, about A.D. 51-2. We hear of them in company with St. Paul at Corinth, about A.D. 52-3 (Acts 18:2); at Ephesus, about A.D. 55 (1 Corinthians 16:19); and in the year A.D. 58 St. Paul sends greetings to them at Rome (Romans 16:3).
They were, evidently, among the many active and zealous teachers of the first days of the faith. That they possessed great ability as well as zeal is evident from the fact that it was from them that the eloquent and trained Alexandrian master, Apollos, learnt to be a Christian (Acts 18:26). In this place, and in several other passages, Prisca (or Priscilla) is named before her husband, Aquila. This would seem to hint that in this case the woman was the principal worker of the two in the cause of Christ. She, in fact, was one of that band of devoted holy women which the preaching of Christ and His disciples had called into existence: a representative of the great class of noble female workers which had no existence before Christ told the world what was the true position of women — until the same divine Master taught them that they, too, as well as men, had a work to work for Him here.
And the household of Onesiphorus. — St. Paul may have been aware that Onesiphorus was absent then from Ephesus; but this peculiar greeting, taken together with the words of 2 Timothy 1:16, leads us irresistibly to the conclusion that this friend of St. Paul’s was dead when the Epistle was written. (See Notes on 2 Timothy 1:16.)