Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/178

166 166 ST. PRISCILLA took with him Aqiiila and Priscilla, as far as Ephesns, where he left them to instrnct the faithful and convert the heathen who were in that town. They were still at Ephesas three years after- wards, in the year 57, when the apostle returned there and greeted the Corin- thians in their name in his first epistle to them. It is probahle that St. Paul was again their guest at that time. He stayed at Ephesas about three years. They helped him in his efforts to extend and instruct the infant Church. He bears witness that they risked their lives for him. They were assisted in their kind- ness, charity and hospitality by their servants who were all Christians. They left Ephesus about the same time as St. Paul and returned to Rome in the fourth year of Nero, which was the sixth year of the banishment of the Jews. St. Paul went through Phrygia and Macedonia, to Corinth, whence he wrote his epistle to the Romans, in which he salutes Aquila and Priscilla first and praises them specially. It is not known whether they were still at Rome when St. Paul came there as a prisoner for the first time, but it is certain that they had returned to Asia at the time of his second imprisonment there, which was followed by his martyr- dom. They survived St. Paul, but the time and place of their death are not known with any certainty, although they are sometimes said to have been martyred at Rome. They are worshipped in the Greek Church, Feb. 13, and St. Aquila alone, July 14. Acts xviii. 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 19. Rom. xvi. 3, 4, 5. JB.M. BaiUet. St. Priscilla (2), Jan. 16, 1st century. A Roman matron. Mother of St Pudcns, the senator who was father of SS. Phax- KDis and PuDENTiANA. Priscilla received St. Peter at her house and was his dis- ciple and is said to have made at her expense the cemetery called by her name in the Via Salaria. Others say it was made by Pope St. Marcellus at the expense of another St. Puiscilla, early in the fourth century. It,M, AA,SS. Compare Claudia (1). St. Priscilla (3), Jan. 18, M. at Avitina. AA.SS. SS. Priscilla (4) and Luina, Jan. 16, c. 304. When Mazentius came to the throne, there were many Chiistimns in Rome and throughout Italy. He knew that they looked for indulgence from Constantine, who followed his father's example of toleration. Maxentius, to vie with Constantine, ingratiated himself with the Christians by stopping the persecutions and restoring the churches, and even protended at one time to join their religion. The Church took breath. The number of the faithful increased every day. Pope Marcellus made twenty- five new titles, like so many parishes, in the town of Rome, which were depart- ments for twenty-five priests to provide for all the baptisms and other spiritual needs of the converts. He also induced two rich and pious women named Pris- cilla and Luina, one to build a oemetery on the Via Salaria, the other to leave the Church heir to all her wealth. These donations did not tend to the well-being of the commanity. Maxentius, angry and jealous, threw off the mask, ordc^ Marcellus to sacrifice, and on his refusal, shut him up in his stables to clean tbe horses: there he died of the hardships. Le Beau, Bn« empire. This Priscilla is in the German Mar- tyrologies and in Ferrari us* Catalogue of Italian Saints, but Bollandus thought it was perhaps no other than Pbiscilla (2) mother of Padens, and that an error in the date had given rise to the story of another saint of a later generation. AAJSS., Jan. 16. St. Privata (l) or Privita, June 7, M. in Africa. AA,SS, St. Privata (2), May 2, M. AA£S. St. Privatula or Primiatula, Feb. 2, M. in Africa with thirty-seven others, commemorated in Jerome's and other old Calendars. AA.SS, St. Privita, Privata (1). St. Proba (l), Procla. SS. Proba (2) and Lollia, June 23, MM. end of 3rd or beginning of 4th century. Daughters of St. Gki^us and sisters of St. Urbanus. They lived at Lystra and were all converted and bap- tized by their uncle or grandfather, St. Eustochius, who had formerly been a heathen priest. They were taken with him to Ancyra to be tried as GhristianB.