Priscilla is an English female given name adopted from the Roman Prisca, derived from the Latin priscus . One suggestion is that it is intended to bestow long life on the bearer.
It appears in the New Testament of the Christian Bible variously as Priscilla and Prisca, a female leader in the early Church. The name appears in English literature in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1596) and was adopted as an English name by the Puritans in the 17th century. The use of the name began to decline during the 1960s, possibly because of an association with the slang term prissy, in the sense of meaning prim or prudish.
Diminutive forms of the name include Lily, Cilla, Pris, Prissy, Prisk, Pru/Prue and Scilla.
Priscilla may refer to:
Saint Prisca was a young Roman woman allegedly tortured and executed for her Christian faith. The dates of her birth and death are unknown. She is revered as a pre-schism Western saint and martyr by the Orthodox Church and as a saint and a martyr by the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. 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.
Especially in England, she is honored as a child martyr. January 18 is her feast day.
According to Catholic theologian Johann Kirsch, extant narratives are unhistorical and their details impossible.
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.
Prisca (died 315) was the Empress of Rome (286–305) and wife of Emperor Diocletian. Nothing is known of her family background. Although she was a Christian or favorably disposed to Christianity, she was forced to sacrifice to the gods during the Great Persecution of 303.
When Diocletian retired to Spalatum in 305, Prisca stayed with her daughter, Galeria Valeria and son-in-law, Galerius in Thessalonica. When Galerius died in 311, Licinius was entrusted with the care of Prisca and her daughter Valeria. The two women, however, fled from Licinius to Maximinus Daia. After a short time, Valeria refused the marriage proposal of Maximinus, who arrested and confined her in Syria and confiscated her properties. At the death of Maximinus, Licinius had Prisca and her daughter killed.