Prisca (Priscilla)

When did Prisca die?

Prisca (Priscilla) is dated d. later 1st c. (trad., Rome or Asia) in the archive, which places Prisca in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Prisca?

Prisca (Priscilla) is named in 5 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Paul, Luke the Evangelist, Origen of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Prisca from?

The archive associates Prisca (Priscilla) with Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.

Who were Prisca’s contemporaries?

The archive links Prisca (Priscilla) to 8 other figures, including Aquila of Pontus, Apollos of Alexandria, Paul of Tarsus and The Author of Hebrews. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for my life laid down their own necks…

Whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.

[The sermon exists because of this greeting. Chrysostom opens by naming the objection he expects from his own congregation — that Romans 16 is a list of salutations and so the least rewarding part of the epistle — and answers it with the thesis that in the Scriptures **nothing is superfluous, not one iota, not one stroke of a letter**. He then turns to the greeting itself: “Greet Priscilla and Aquila … my fellow-labourers in the Lord.” Does it not seem, he asks, a simple greeting, indicating nothing great or noble? The whole sermon is the answer to that question, and it is the earliest sustained argument that a bare name in a list of greetings is worth a preacher’s full attention. Rendered here from Kroeger’s translation, quoted only in brief because no public-domain English exists.]

Chrysostom's *De salutatione Priscillae et Aquilae*, the first of two sermons he preached on Romans 16:3–4 — a separate occasional sermon, not part of his verse-by-verse series on the epistles, and so not held in this library. Greek text: Migne, *Patrologia Graeca* 51.187C–196B. **No public-domain English translation exists.** Two modern translations have been made, both in copyright: Catherine Clark Kroeger's, published by CBE International, and a newer one by David Ford, who notes he was assisted by Kroeger's unpublished draft and describes the sermon as otherwise never having appeared in English.

“And with him Priscilla” — **lo, a woman also** — “and Aquila.” But these he left at Ephesus. **With good reason, namely, that they should teach.** For having been with him so long time, they were learning many things … for he did not wish to take them about with him, but left them at Ephesus. But they subsequently dwelt at Corinth, and **he bears high testimony to them**, and writing to the Romans, salutes them. Whence it seems to me that they afterwards went back to Rome, in the time of Nero, as having an attachment for those parts whence they had been expelled in the time of Claudius. … **It was not for nothing that he left them at Ephesus, but for Apollos’ sake, the Spirit so ordered it**, that he might come with greater force to the attack upon Corinth. [Three claims worth separating. Chrysostom stops to register that a woman is named among Paul’s companions. He states that Paul left the pair at Ephesus *in order that they should teach* — a purpose, not an accident. And he reconstructs their movements across three cities and two reigns: expelled from Rome under Claudius, left at Ephesus, later at Corinth, and back at Rome by the time of Romans 16 — reading the greeting as evidence of a return.]

Chrysostom's Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, preached at Constantinople c. AD 400. Critical Greek: *Patrologia Graeca* 60. English translation by J. Walker, J. Sheppard and H. Browne, revised by George B. Stevens, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 11 (1889), public domain.