Phebe. — As the Roman Church is especially exhorted to receive Phebe, it has been inferred that she was one of the party to which St. Paul entrusted his Epistle, if not the actual bearer of it herself.
Our sister — i.e., in a spiritual sense — a fellow-Christian.
Servant. — Rather, a deaconess, keeping the technical term. Deacons were originally appointed to attend to the wants of the poorer members of the Church. This is the first mention of women-deacons, in regard to whom instructions are given to Timothy (1 Timothy 3:11). The necessity for an order of deaconesses would gradually make itself felt where women were kept in a stricter seclusion, as in Greece and some parts of the East.
Cenchrea. — The port of Corinth, at the head of the Eastern or Saronic Gulf, about nine miles from the city.