Paul composed the letter to the Romans — one of the most studied books in the Bible — around 55-58 CE from Corinth, making it one of the seven letters that virtually all New Testament scholars accept as authentically his. But Paul did not physically write it. A man named Tertius did — and he signed his name in Romans 16:22, making him one of the few scribes in the Bible to identify himself within the text he copied.
“I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.”
That single line opens a window into how Paul’s letters were actually produced. They were collaborative acts — dictated, transcribed by a professional scribe, and carried across the Mediterranean by a trusted associate. In the case of Romans, that carrier was a woman named Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae. Understanding who wrote Romans in the Bible means understanding all three of these figures: the author who composed, the scribe who wrote, and the carrier who delivered and likely first interpreted the letter to its audience.
Paul’s Authorship: What the Evidence Shows
The scholarly consensus on Paul’s authorship of Romans is as close to universal as New Testament scholarship gets.
Unlike several other letters attributed to Paul — Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy, Titus) — Romans has never faced serious challenge. The vocabulary, rhetorical patterns, and theological arguments align closely with Paul’s other undisputed letters. The autobiographical details match what Paul reveals about himself in Galatians and the Corinthian correspondence. The theological preoccupations — justification, the relationship between Jewish law and Gentile inclusion, God’s faithfulness to Israel — run consistently through his authenticated writings.
Internal evidence anchors both the date and the location. Paul mentions Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1), the port city of Corinth. He names Gaius as his host (Romans 16:23) — the same Gaius he baptized in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:14). He says he has finished his work in the eastern Mediterranean and plans to deliver a collection to Jerusalem before traveling to Rome and then to Spain (Romans 15:23-28). These details converge on a date of roughly 55-58 CE and a Corinthian origin. For where Romans fits in the broader timeline of New Testament composition, see When Was the New Testament Written?
Why Paul Wrote to a Church He Had Never Visited
Paul did not found the church in Rome.
This makes Romans unusual. Most of Paul’s correspondence addresses communities he personally established — Thessalonica, Corinth, Galatia, Philippi. He had taught in those cities, knew the congregants, and responded to their specific problems. Rome was different. Paul was introducing himself to people who knew him only by reputation, and he needed something from them: support for his planned mission to Spain.
The letter served, in part, as a letter of recommendation — laying out his theological credentials for an audience that had not heard him preach. Robert Jewett, in his Hermeneia commentary on Romans (2007), argues that the entire letter functions as an ambassadorial appeal, designed to secure material support and hospitality for the Spanish mission. On this reading, Paul’s theological argument is not abstract. It serves a strategic purpose.
But the occasion produced something larger than a fundraising letter. Paul used the opportunity to compose his most sustained theological argument — moving from the universal human condition (chapters 1-3) through justification by faith (chapters 3-5) to the life of the Spirit (chapters 6-8) to an extended meditation on God’s faithfulness to Israel (chapters 9-11) to ethical exhortation (chapters 12-15). Where his other letters respond to specific crises, Romans develops a comprehensive account of Paul’s theology, unconstrained by a single local problem.
Scholars debate whether Paul also had a secondary audience in mind. Some, following the approach of F.C. Baur, have argued that Paul was addressing real tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome — tensions reflected in chapters 14-15, where Paul discusses disputes over food laws and holy days. Others see the letter primarily as Paul’s own effort to articulate his mature thinking for a new audience.
Tertius and the Mechanics of Ancient Letter-Writing
The use of a professional scribe — an amanuensis — was standard practice in the Greco-Roman world. Cicero dictated to his secretary Tiro. Pliny the Elder dictated to scribes while traveling. Paul appears to have used scribes for all or most of his letters.
What makes Romans 16:22 unusual is that Tertius names himself. Most ancient scribes remain invisible in the texts they copied. Tertius steps out of that anonymity with a brief personal greeting, and then disappears again. We know nothing else about him.
Scholars have debated how much compositional freedom ancient scribes exercised. At one end of the spectrum, a scribe transcribed dictation word for word. At the other, an author might outline general ideas and leave the scribe to draft the actual prose. Most scholars believe Paul’s letters fall toward the dictation end — the distinctive Pauline voice is too consistent across seven letters for the scribes to have had significant creative latitude.
Paul himself appears to confirm this practice elsewhere. In Galatians 6:11, he writes: “See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand.” In 1 Corinthians 16:21: “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.” These postscripts suggest Paul typically dictated the body of his letters but added a closing greeting in his own handwriting — a form of authentication, confirming to recipients that the letter was genuinely his.
Phoebe: Carrier and First Interpreter
Romans 16:1-2 introduces Phoebe, whom Paul calls a diakonos (deacon or minister) of the church at Cenchreae and a prostatis (patron or benefactor) of many, including Paul himself.
Most scholars believe Phoebe carried the letter from Corinth to Rome. The ancient world had no postal service for private correspondence. Letters traveled by hand, entrusted to someone heading in the right direction — and in this case, the person Paul trusted was a woman he describes with titles indicating leadership and financial support.
The carrier’s role went beyond delivery. In ancient practice, the person who carried a letter often read it aloud to the recipients and fielded questions about its meaning. If Phoebe performed this function — and scholars like Beverly Gaventa have argued that she almost certainly did — then she was the first person to interpret Paul’s densest theological arguments to a live audience. She would have explained passages, answered objections, and provided the kind of context that the letter itself could not convey.
Phoebe may be the first interpreter of Romans.
That possibility reframes the letter’s reception history. One of the most influential theological texts in Western history may have first been explained to its audience by a woman from a port town near Corinth, someone Paul trusted enough to carry his most ambitious composition across the Mediterranean.
Romans and the Question of Pauline Authenticity
Romans provides a useful baseline for one of the central problems in Pauline studies: which letters attributed to Paul did he actually compose?
The seven undisputed letters — Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon — share a recognizable vocabulary, argumentative style, and set of theological concerns. Scholars use these seven as the benchmark against which the disputed letters are measured. The Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy, Titus) contain over 300 words that appear nowhere in the undisputed letters. Ephesians uses sentences of extraordinary length — one runs to 202 words in Greek — in a style unlike Paul’s characteristic shorter, interrupted clauses.
The contrast with Hebrews is even sharper. Though Hebrews circulated under Paul’s name for centuries, its polished Greek rhetoric and priestly theology differ so dramatically from Romans that the 3rd-century scholar Origen of Alexandria concluded: “Who wrote the Epistle, only God knows.”
These comparisons illustrate why scholars treat the letters attributed to Paul as a collection requiring careful authorial analysis rather than blanket attribution. Romans, because its authorship is secure, serves as the anchor point for that analysis. For a broader look at how scholars approach the question of biblical authorship, see the hub overview.
What Romans Reveals About Paul
Paul composed Romans at a turning point. His eastern work was finished. A collection for the Jerusalem church was ready. His eyes were fixed on Spain and the western Mediterranean.
The letter reflects that moment. Paul was composing for an audience he wanted to persuade, and the result is his most architectonic work — the closest he ever comes to systematic theology, even as it remains shaped by the practical need that prompted it. He dictated to Tertius, entrusted the result to Phoebe, and sent it to a community he hoped would fund his next campaign.
Understanding that chain — author, scribe, carrier, audience — grounds the letter in the world from which it emerged. Romans arrived in Rome as a physical object, carried by a specific person, composed through a specific process, addressed to a community with its own internal dynamics. Uncanon’s Romans track places the letter in its composition-date sequence with scholarly context for each passage, so you can engage Paul’s arguments with the same kind of historical grounding that scholars bring to the text.