Junias; Junia

jōō´ni-as or jōō´ni-a (Ἰουνίας, Iounı́as, Ἰουνία, Iounı́a): One to whom, with Andronicus, greetings are sent by Paul at the close of his letter to the Romans (Rom 16:7). The name may be masculine, Junias, a contraction of Junianus, or feminine Junia; it is Iounı́an, the accus. form, that is given. In all probability this is the masc., Junias. Paul defines the two as (1) “my kinsmen,” (2) “my fellow-prisoners,” (3) “who are of note among the apostles,” and (4) “who also have been in Christ before me.”

(1) They were Jews. Paul calls the Jews “my brethren,” “my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3). Because Prisca and Aquila, a Jew and Jewess, are not designated as kinsfolk, Conybeare and Howson suppose “the epithet to denote that the persons mentioned were of the tribe of Benjamin.”

(2) They had been companions of Paul in some unrecorded imprisonment. The phrase denotes more than the fact that they, like Paul, had suffered imprisonment for the sake of Christ.

(3) This may mean (a) that they were well known to the apostolic circle (so Gifford and Weiss), or (b) distinguished as apostles. The latter is probably correct, “apostle” being used in a wide sense (compare 1Co 15:7). The prophetic ministry of the early church consisted of apostles, prophets and teachers (1Co 12:28; Eph 4:11), the apostles being missionaries in the modern sense (see Lindsay, Church and Ministry, chapter iii). Some apostles were missionaries sent out by particular churches (Act 13:2, Act 13:3; 2Co 8:23; Php 2:25).

(4) They were among the first converts, “early disciples” like Mnason of Cyprus (Act 21:16).

(Rom_16:7)

A person saluted by St. Paul and coupled with Andronicus. As the name occurs in the accusative (Ἰïõíßáí), it may be Junias, a masculine name contracted from Junianus, or Junia, a common feminine name; in either case a Latin name. If the name is that of a woman, she was the sister, or more likely the wife, of Andronicus. Other couples saluted in Romans 16 are Aquila and Prisca (Rom_16:3, the order, however, being ‘Prisca and Aquila’), Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister (Rom_16:15). Andronicus and Junia(s) are described as ‘kinsmen’ of the Apostle, as his ‘fellow-prisoners,’ as ‘of note among the apostles,’ and as having become Christians before St. Paul (see Andronicus). It is surely not at all impossible that St. Paul should include a woman among the apostles in the wider sense of accredited missionaries or messengers, a position to which their seniority in the faith may have called this pair. So Chrysostom understood the words (Hom. in S. Pauli Ep. ad Rom.).

T. B. Allworthy.