Today, July 8, is the feast of Sts. Aquila and Priscilla, a married couple who appear six times in the New Testament as co-workers of St. Paul. Aleteia’s reflection on their feast highlights a reality modern readers sometimes overlook: married couples were not peripheral to the early Church. They were infrastructure. Aquila and Priscilla hosted house churches, evangelized publicly, and risked their lives for Paul. Their witness matters now because the domestic church matters now.
What we know about Aquila and Priscilla
Aquila was a Jewish tentmaker from Pontus (modern-day Turkey). Priscilla (also called Prisca) was his wife. They fled Rome around AD 49 when Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews, settling in Corinth. There they met Paul, who shared their trade and stayed with them while preaching (Acts 18:1-3, Douay-Rheims).
The couple traveled with Paul to Ephesus, where they instructed Apollos, a learned man who knew only the baptism of John, teaching him “the way of God more diligently” (Acts 18:26). Paul later writes that they “have for my life laid down their own necks” (Romans 16:3-4), though Scripture does not specify the incident. Eventually they returned to Rome, where a church met in their house (Romans 16:5).
Priscilla’s name often appears first in Scripture’s mentions of the pair, unusual for the time and possibly indicating her prominence in ministry. Both are commemorated as saints. The Roman Martyrology lists their feast on July 8.
Why this matters
Early Church history emphasizes martyrs and celibate monastics because their witness was dramatic and their writings survived. But the ordinary married Christians, the ones who opened their homes for Mass when it was illegal to gather publicly, are just as essential to the story. Aquila and Priscilla did not write epistles. They made tents, taught catechumens, and put their bodies between Paul and a mob. The Church grew in living rooms before it grew in basilicas.
Their feast is a corrective to the idea that holiness requires leaving the world. Marriage is a sacrament, not a compromise. The domestic church, the family as the basic cell of Christian life, is not a Vatican II invention. It is apostolic.
For Catholic readers
If you are married, ask Sts. Aquila and Priscilla to intercede for your household as a place of worship and witness. If you are single, thank God for the married couples who host, feed, and shelter the Church’s life today. Read Acts 18 and Romans 16:3-5 to see how Scripture honors their partnership.
Sources:
1. Aleteia — original reflection
