The first and one of the foremost of the list of Christians in the last chapter of Romans (Romans 16:1-2). "A servant (Greek "deaconess") of the church at Cenchrea" (the eastern port of Corinth; where Paul had his head shorn for a vow: Acts 18:18). Pliny's letter to Trajan (A.D. 110) shows that deaconesses existed in the Eastern churches. Their duty was to minister to their own sex (1 Timothy 3:11 translated "deaconesses" literally, "women"). Phoebe was just going to Rome; Paul therefore commends her to their reception as "in the Lord," i.e. a genuine disciple: as becometh saints to receive saints; and to assist her in whatever she needed their help; for "she had been a succourer (by her money and her efforts) of many and of Paul himself." The female presbytery of widows above sixty is distinct from the deaconesses (1 Timothy 5:9-13). Phoebe was the bearer of this epistle, written from the neighbouring Corinth in the spring of A.D. 58.