Romans 16:16 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

From greeting them himself, he proceeds to exhort them to greet or salute one another: this he adviseth them to do with an holy kiss. You have the same exhortation, in 1 Corinthians 16:20 2 Corinthians 13:12 1 Thessalonians 5:26. This the apostle Peter calls a kiss of charity, 1 Peter 5:14. Kissing is accounted a great symbol of love and concord: q.d. You have been much troubled with dissensions, about meats and days, &c.; therefore I beseech you that, forgetting all former offences, you would manifest for the future all signs of love to and peace with one another. Kissing was an old custom amongst the Hebrews; we find it used by the patriarchs, Genesis 27:26, Genesis 29:11. It is still retained more or less in all countries. The primitive Christians did use it in their assemblies; so Tertullian testifieth, Lib. Dec.; and they did it especially in receiving the eucharist. So Chrysostom witnesseth, Hom. 77. in Joh 16. "We do well," saith he, "to kiss in the mysteries, that we may become one." This custom, for good reasons, is laid down, and the Romanists, in room of it, keep up a foolish and superstitious ceremony, which is to kiss the pax in the mass. The churches of Christ salute you: he sends, besides his own, the salutations of others also to the Christians at Rome; and that, first, of whole churches, and by and by of particular persons, Romans 16:21-23. By churches, here, he principally means, the churches in Greece, where he then was, of whose good affection to the Christian Romans he was well assured.