(Ῥόδη ‘rose’)
After St. Peter’s miraculous deliverance from Herod’s prison he went to the house of Mary the mother of Mark. When he had knocked, a young girl called Rhoda came to listen. In her joy at the sound of St. Peter’s voice, she forgot to open the door, and, returning to report his presence, she was accused of being mad, but persisted in her declaration (Acts 12:13-15). Nothing further is known of her. The name was a common slave name, and she may have been a Christian slave in the home where we find her.
Literature.-W. M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the NT, London, 1915, p. 209 ff.; Lady Ramsay, ‘Her that kept the Door,’ Expository Times xxvii. (1915-16) 217 ff., 314 ff.
W. F. Boyd