The Literary Apologetic

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Priscilla
Scripture & Biblical Figures

Priscilla

1st century AD

“When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” — Acts 18:26

The Argument

Priscilla appears in Acts and Paul's letters as one of the most prominent women in the early church. She and her husband Aquila are tentmakers who travel with Paul, host a church in their home, and together take Apollos — an eloquent preacher — aside and explain to him the way of God more accurately. The text puts Priscilla's name first in this account, consistently deviating from ancient convention that named husbands first.

Priscilla is an example of what the New Testament takes for granted about women in the early church: that they taught, that they led, that they hosted the communities in which the Gospel was proclaimed, and that their names were remembered.

The tendency to domesticate or minimize figures like Priscilla in the later tradition is a hermeneutical choice, not an exegetical necessity.

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