| Saint Prisca | |
|---|---|
| Died | late 1st century |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion |
| Major shrine | Santa Prisca |
| Feast | January 18 |
Saint Prisca was a Roman young woman allegedly tortured and executed for her Christian faith. Her dates are unknown. She is revered as a saint and a martyr by the Roman Catholic Church. Though some legends suggest otherwise, scholars do not believe she is the Priscilla (Prisca) of the New Testament couple, Priscilla and Aquila, who were friends of the Apostle Paul.[1]
Especially in England, she is honored as a child martyr. January eighteenth is the day which is sacred to her.
According to Catholic theologian Johann Kirsch, extant narratives are unhistorical and their details impossible.[1]
Legend says that Saint Prisca was of a noble family. At age thirteen, she was accused of Christianity before Emperor Claudius. He ordered her to make a sacrifice to the god Apollo. When she refused because of her Christian faith, she was beaten and sent to prison.
Upon her release from prison, she still held steadfastly to her faith in Jesus Christ. This time her punishment included flogging, the pouring of boiling tallow upon her, and a second imprisonment. She was at last thrown to a lion in the amphitheater, but it quietly lay down at her feet.
She was starved for three days in a slaves' prison house, and then tortured upon the rack. Pieces of flesh were next torn from her body with iron hooks, and she was thrown on a burning pile.[2]
She miraculously still remained alive, but was beheaded at the tenth milestone on the Via Ostiensis—the road from Rome to Ostia. The Christians buried her body in a catacomb at the place of her death. There still exists on the Aventine in Rome a church of St. Prisca. It stands on the site of a very early title church, the Titulus Priscoe, mentioned in the fifth century and built probably in the fourth.[1]