ON SS. AQUILA AND PRISCILLA,
SPOUSES, PERHAPS IN ASIA MINOR.
ABOUT THE YEAR 65 OR 69.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION
Cult; eulogies; manner of life; place; the time and manner of death.
Aquila, perhaps in Asia Minor (S.)
Priscilla his wife, perhaps in Asia Minor (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
It were to be wished that, just as in the sacred registers, Greek as well as Latin, frequent memory of these holy Spouses is set down, so likewise there existed somewhere certain monuments expressing the course of their life and their virtues; in the want of which some few things must be gathered from elsewhere, The cult of SS. Aquila and Priscilla; which pertain to them. Concerning these, says Baronius in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology, there treat on this same day Bede, Usuard, Ado, and others of the Latins; the Greeks, however, treat of Aquila in the Menology on the day before the Ides of July. The Roman Martyrology also has them on this eighth day: In Asia Minor, SS. Aquila and Priscilla his wife, of whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles. The printed Greek Menæa refer them to the thirteenth of February with a eulogy, to be produced a little later; concerning whom we too have spoken in the passed-over saints for that same day. The Greek-Muscovite Ephemerides thus sing of these holy Spouses on the fourteenth of this month.
Ἀκύλαν δεκάτῃ γε τετάρτῃ τύμβος ἔκρυψεν.
The bones of Aquila are laid in the tomb on the fourteenth.
[2] Was he renowned at Rome? Already from the most ancient times a solemn cult was bestowed on our Saints in the city of Rome, if we believe the Acts of St. Prisca, virgin and martyr, of whom treatment was made on the eighteenth of January; which relate that the most holy body of Blessed Prisca, virgin and martyr, was conveyed to the city of Rome with hymns and spiritual canticles, near the Roman Arch in the church of the holy Martyrs Aquila and Prisca; and that her most holy body was there laid. See moreover what was said on that same day concerning the church of St. Prisca, in §2 of the preceding Commentary, page 184; and Panciroli, number 684. That Prisca, unless I am mistaken, may have led Castellanus into error, when he appended to this day, the eighth of July, a little note assigning the fourteenth of this month for Aquila, and the eighteenth of January for his wife; on which day, however, we have said that not Priscilla, Aquila's wife, is venerated, but Prisca, virgin and martyr. The said author is longer in his notes to the eighteenth of January, where he has much concerning SS. Prisca and Priscilla; from which meanwhile it does not seem that it can be soundly concluded that this Prisca, wont to be venerated on the eighteenth of January, coincides with Priscilla, Aquila's wife—which is what Castellanus contends. Bollandus long ago distinguished the two in the said preceding commentary, number 8.
[3] But now in the Menæa there occurs St. Priscilla together with her spouse St. Aquila, Eulogy from the Menæa, on the thirteenth of February, honored with this eulogy after the following little verses:
Τμηθὲν γύναιον Ἀκύλας, φησί, βλέπων, Οὐκ ἀνδριοῦμαι πρὸς τομὴν ἀνὴρ κάρας;
Aquila, seeing his slender wife, says: Shall I not, as a man, put on courage at the cutting of my head?
St. Aquila was a tanner by trade; who, when the fame of the Apostle Paul had been brought to him, set out to him together with Priscilla his wife: and both, washed by him in the sacred font, thereafter ministered to him, accompanying the Apostle through all cities and regions, sharers of his perils and temptations. And so greatly did the great Apostle love them for their virtue and their faith in Christ, that he even made mention of them in his epistles. Having thus dwelt so peaceably and graciously with the Apostle, and after many miracles wrought, at last, seized by the infidels and beheaded, they consummated their course and thus, departing from earthly things, they inhabit the heavens. This announcement of them had gone before: Τῶν ἁγίων Ἀποστόλων καὶ μαρτύρων Ακύλα καὶ Πρισκίλλης. Of the holy apostles and martyrs Aquila and Priscilla.
On the fourteenth of this month St. Aquila alone, endowed with the title of apostle, priest, and martyr or witness, has this eulogy: His praises the divine herald Luke celebrated in the Acts. For since he was St. Paul's disciple and host, he was taught the divine mysteries by him. Whence also he spurned the deceits of Belial, and, made a priest and martyr (or witness) of the Lord's sufferings, received the crown from him. Nay more, he is also celebrated there in the Office, with the title of Apostle, ἑνὸς τῶν ο᾽, one of the Seventy, prefixed. In place of a coda let there be the little verses which are set before his eulogy, of which we have just now spoken.
Ἥπλωσεν ὡς δίκτυον ὁ Παῦλος λόγους, Ἤγραυσε δὲ ὡς θήραμα θεῖον Ἀκύλαν.
Paul used his discourse in place of a net, and caught Aquila as sacred spoils in the hunt.
[4] What of this? that the Holy Spirit himself, speaking through the mouths of Paul the Teacher of the nations and of Luke the sacred Herald of the Gospel, and by the sacred writings, willed to come into the company of those who extol the holy Aquila and Priscilla with praises. For truly, if it is a great thing to be praised by a praised man, how great will it be to be praised by the eternal Truth, and by God himself, most abundantly heaped with infinite praises? I shall report those testimonies in the same order in which I read them inserted in our Thomas Massutius in his Life of St. Paul the Apostle, book 7, chapter 1, from page 332; for the reason that he seems to me there to treat this matter in an orderly and lucid manner. Paul the Apostle, therefore, having set out for Corinth, did not care, he says, to approach the ample palaces of the rich. He understood, whether by God's inspiring, or by some good man's suggesting, that there was there a certain Jew who had been enrolled in the Church of Christ by St. Peter at Rome. This very thing he relates from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 18, verse 2: And Paul, finding a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had lately come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome), came to them. Then Massutius (having inserted a mention of the occasion for which the Jews were proscribed from Rome by Claudius's order), at that same time, he says, namely in the year of Christ 51, the ninth of the Emperor Claudius, a man named Aquila, a Jew by race, and surnamed Ponticus from the region of Pontus, when he had received at Rome from St. Peter the evangelical faith and the Christian sacraments, was likewise thence compelled to withdraw with his wife Priscilla, both because both were Christians by profession, and because they were born of Jews, whom all the edict of Cæsar indiscriminately comprehended.
[5] in no fixed place After these things the same writer of Paul's life, digressing a very little from the proposed narration of SS. Aquila and Priscilla, observes that Paul came to Corinth in the year next after the edict of Claudius, which is the year of Christ 52; and thus met there at that time the aforesaid holy Spouses: then he thus again proceeds to our matter: Moreover Aquila with his wife Priscilla, called also Prisca, who undertook journeys so long, to be made through regions so remote, namely from Rome to Corinth, and after some years, again from Corinth to Rome (as will appear from the Epistle to the Romans, of which a little below), truly could not have been men, though craftsmen, of slender fortune, whose hospitality the Apostle, having experienced it in various places, often commends them in his epistles, as he shows from the first to the Corinthians, where it is had: Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house; with whom also I lodge. A more recent French critical Legendary, following Tillemont from Estius and others, raises a suspicion lest the last clause, designating the lodging, was for some ages added to the sacred text. The same Paul to the Romans 16, verse 3: Salute, he says, Prisca and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus (who for my life laid down their own necks; to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles) and the church that is in their house. A brief indeed, but at the same time illustrious, praise of our Saints, especially in the Apostle's last words; upon which St. John
Chrysostom composed an entire homily, placed in tome 4 after the homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, where, as Massutius notes, since the apostolic words indicate it, he extols from three heads the virtues and exceptional probity of these hosts of Paul.
[6] with St. John Chrysostom, The first is drawn from the lowliness of their birth, joined with the highest munificence and liberality toward the servants of Christ. Priscilla, says Chrysostom, and Aquila, workers in skins, leading a poor and honest life, are proclaimed blessed above all: and while others puffed up with dignities and power are passed over, that skin-worker together with his wife is sung throughout the whole world. Moreover the oft-cited Author weighs that they were thus well-deserving not of Paul alone, but of many others also, whom by their alms, exhortations, and examples they aided in the Church of Christ, as is gathered from the Apostle's foregoing words: To whom not I only give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles: he commemorating them with an altogether glorious appellation as his helpers in Christ Jesus. Finally, as Massutius deduces from Chrysostom, because even at the peril of their own life they guarded the Apostle's life and safety, the Apostle adding: Who for my life laid down their own necks. By which words the same Massutius says there is indicated a grave persecution against Paul at Corinth, from which he was first freed by divine providence, and then also by the help of good men and faithful Christians, of whom these were the chief, namely the more ancient, and in whose house at Corinth he had now for a long while been lodged. But how great a praise accrued to the holy Spouses even from this alone, understand from Chrysostom.
[7] If Aquila and Priscilla had done that one thing only, he pursuing them with honorable praises; they were worthy of immense praise. For he who saved the general of an army saved also the soldiers; he who freed a physician from perils, restored to health also those laboring under diseases; he who snatched the helmsman from the waves, freed the whole ship from the billows. So therefore, they who saved the teacher of the world, and for him and for his safety shed their own blood, were also the benefactors of the whole world. And these are the things which Massutius has gathered, partly from the sacred Pages, partly from St. John Chrysostom, in praise of SS. Aquila and Priscilla.
[8] To these are added certain other divine oracles, testifying, and again from Holy Scripture. that a most sweet familiarity and daily intercourse passed between Paul and the aforesaid Saints, as also a singular communion of things done, of journeys, pilgrimages, pursuits, and wills. For Paul, when he had come to Corinth, not only met Aquila and Priscilla, as said above, and as is clear from chapter 18 of the Acts; but from the same place it is moreover clear that, because he was of the same trade, he abode with them and worked: for they were of the tentmaker's trade. Then, some things being interposed: Paul, when he had yet remained many days, taking his leave of the brethren, sailed into Syria (and with him Priscilla and Aquila), having shorn his head in Cenchreæ: for he had a vow. And he came to Ephesus, and left them there. But to which of these three persons the shearing, which is here related at Cenchreæ, otherwise Cenchreis, the Corinthian port, made in fulfillment of a vow, is to be referred, Massutius discusses from page 384. Concerning which also Baronius, tome 1, page 422. What of this? that they drank in and expressed the apostolic spirit of St. Paul, by fostering apostolic men and promoting their sacred labors, as is an argument that which they are related in the said chapter, from verse 24, to have done toward Apollos in these words.
[9] And a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, How well they deserved of Apollos. an eloquent man, came to Ephesus, mighty in the Scriptures. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and, being fervent in spirit, spoke and taught diligently the things that are of Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John. This man therefore began to act boldly in the synagogue. Whom when Priscilla and Aquila had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded to him more diligently the way of the Lord. And when he was minded to go into Achaia, the brethren exhorting, wrote to the disciples to receive him. Deservedly therefore did Paul, in the place cited above, call them his helpers in Christ Jesus. Why should they not have been exceedingly learned, who gave light to a man so learned in sacred knowledge. The same Teacher of the nations, moreover, in his second epistle to his most beloved Timothy, chapter 4, verse 19, abundantly signified how much he esteemed these Saints, and how dear, how deeply impressed on the inmost marrow of his fatherly heart, their memory was, writing near the end of the epistle a friendly greeting to them: Salute, he says, Prisca and Aquila. Where observe, that the same person is signified by Prisca and by Priscilla. For this word is the diminutive of that, as the Grammarians say.
[10] Their manner of life. But now what manner of life SS. Aquila and Priscilla professed, is had from what has been said before. They were therefore skilled in and practiced the art of making tents; for the Latin interpreter rightly renders from the Greek σκηνοποιοὶ τὴν τέχνην, that they were of the tentmaker's art, by the word scenofactorius, derived partly from the Greek σκῆνος, a tent, and from the Latin facere, to make. But of what material those tents were composed, it is not the place here to define at length. Massutius may be seen from page 333, discoursing learnedly on this matter, and showing that they were made of skins: whence above Aquila and Priscilla are named skin-workers by Chrysostom. Baronius in his notes to the Roman Martyrology observes that Dorotheus relates in his Synopsis that Aquila was prefect of the church of Heraclea, rightly adding that he had not found whence he took this.
[11] Of the place, It may here be asked, in what place, time, and manner of death our Saints met their last day. Of the place you can determine nothing certain. There are some, Motherius being witness, who say that they were put to martyrdom at Rome; but without any foundation. Thence they departed, like all the other Jews, by order of the Emperor Claudius, and withdrew into Asia Minor, where the Roman Martyrology places them, without the place of their death and burial being expressed: because nothing certain is settled about it. Some prejudice perhaps could be formed concerning their death at Rome (I doubt, however, whether it is sufficient, such as a certain more recent French Legendary wishes it to be)—some prejudice, I say, concerning their death at Rome could be formed, if it were quite certain that a temple had been built at Rome for their veneration, as the Acts of St. Prisca, virgin and martyr, hinted was done, above at number 2.
[12] Nor have I anything more certain to answer to one asking by what manner of death the holy Spouses departed from life; and of the manner of death by which they died. unless you except Chrysostom alone, who, by the words cited above, that SS. Aquila and Priscilla saved Paul the teacher of the world, and for him and for his safety shed their own blood, sufficiently indicates that he thinks they underwent martyrdom, or at least suffered something equivalent to martyrdom. The Greek Menæa agree, on the thirteenth of February; the words we have already given, number 3. But how will you solidly prove this from elsewhere? Rightly therefore might one say with Massutius, page 333, that nothing else is settled for us, save that both passed their life in holiness even to the end, and are read to be thus placed among the Saints in the Roman Martyrology on the eighth of July, with that tenor of announcement (which we gave at number 1) that abstains from the city which was the place of death, as also from the manner and time of death. Yet some light will accrue to the time of death from a brief chronology of the Saints' life, which I subjoin.
[13] Chronology In what precise year they were born, is not clear. Suppose their birth to coincide with the birth of the Lord; their conversion from Judaism to Christ with the year 44; in which they may conveniently be understood to have been joined at Rome to the Christian sacraments, Peter turning aside to his fellow-tribesmen the Jews, before he preached to the Gentiles; concerning which matter consult Baronius on this year, number 61. Proscribed from Rome by order of the Emperor Claudius, together with the Christians and Jews dwelling there, in the year of Christ 51, they set out for Corinth, as we mentioned above. In the following year 52, St. Paul, having departed from Athens to Corinth, came to them, practicing the tentmaker's art with them, as already said. In the year 54, having departed from Corinth, they sought Ephesus with St. Paul; and having remained there, when the said Apostle had set out for Cæsarea of Palestine. But in the year 57 the Teacher of the nations, two years being completed and a third begun, writes from Ephesus the first epistle to the Corinthians; and that our Saints even then were still remaining in that place, is clear from the words of the epistle, produced at number 5, Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, etc.; who in the year 58 of Christ again sought Rome, Claudius indeed with his edict, by force of which, as we said, they were ordered to depart thence, being dead, and Nero substituted in his place. For Paul, writing this year to the Romans from Corinth, gives most abundant greeting, and in the first place, to his most friendly hosts: Salute, he says, Prisca (that is Priscilla, as we intimated above) and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus, the rest being had at number 5.
[14] Finally, from Rome they again migrated into Asia, of their life. when St. Paul wrote the second epistle to Timothy, whether that writing is to be coupled with the year 59, as Massutius holds, page 678, from various and careful Authors, by the weight of reasons and the solution of objections of the opposite opinion, or with the year 69, as seemed good to many authors ancient and more recent; and that they were then at that time among the living, we have from the words of the Apostle, inserted in the aforesaid epistle, by which he bids Prisca or Priscilla and Aquila fare well. The words are reported at number 9. And these indeed are the marks fitting for arranging a chronology concerning our Saints; beyond which, how far I might advance, I have not; no more than whence I might establish how many years afterward they survived. It is believed, so far as I judge, that the Saints remained in Asia even to the end of their life: which may have furnished a handle to the Latin Martyrologists for announcing them in Asia Minor.
[15] Are Flavius Dexter, and his commentator Bivarius, and after both Tamayus, awake, or do they dream? While after their manner they foully spend their labor on monstrosities of histories, trifles, The errors of Dexter, Bivarius, and Tamayus are refuted. rubbish, and open falsehoods, they judge that SS. Aquila and Priscilla are to be claimed for Spain. I would not here say anything harsher against them. Enough has been said about these peddlers of trifles in the Papebrochian Responses, part 2, in the reply to article 18, from number 37, from the most Eminent Cardinal de Aguirre; and in the same place to article 21, from number 4. To have brought forth certain fragments from their writings is to have refuted them. Dexter, therefore, after he had said in the year 70, number 2, page 154: At Heraclea in Spain St. Aquila Ponticus preaches, sent by the Apostle Paul into the Spains for the sake of preaching; in the year 95, number 4, page 187, thus fables: At Arsa Mariana in Spain there suffer
Aquila and Priscilla. On which words Bivarius insipidly comments: An error crept into the manuscript Martyrology, so that for Arsa there was written Asia; which once admitted, the word Mariana, since it would not cohere with Asia, was easily changed into Minori; and so nearly all the printed copies read—the Roman, Ado's, and Usuard's. Tamayus, in his Spanish Martyrology, following these erring guides, thus announces the Saints as though from a tripod: At Arsa near the Marian mountains in Beturia of the Turduli of Bætica in Spain, SS. Aquila and Priscilla, spouses, who, seeking St. Paul the Apostle in Spain, came to Heraclea; afterward they met at Arsa, where, detained for the preaching of the Catholic faith, and exposed to torments, at last those whom one bond of wedlock had bound together, and one religion of faith had joined, an unfailing crown of victory also bound both together. I should breed loathing, if I pursued at greater length the ineptitudes sprinkled through his notes; as also through the Acts, toward the end, which, compiled from various sources, he published. Let it suffice that the said triflers have been thrashed elsewhere according to their desert.