Priscus of Phrygia
The Holy Martyr Priscus of Phrygia
Martyr
Commemorated 21 September
Priscus was a martyr of Phrygia in Asia Minor, known only from the brief notices of the synaxaria, which record neither the year of his contest nor the persecutor under whom he suffered. The verses appointed to him in the Greek synaxarion imply a death by fire: bearing the living water in his heart, Priscus did not fear the burning of the flesh. His memory is kept on September 21.
Nothing survives of Priscus beyond the synaxarion notice assigning him to Phrygia and the distich sung over his name: "Bearing living water in his heart, Priscus feared not the burning of his flesh" — from which a death by burning is reasonably inferred, though no account of his trial or tortures has come down. No date is transmitted, and the era of his contest is unknown; this entry accordingly asserts none.
Feast and commemoration
September 21 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 4), at the leavetaking of the Elevation of the Cross. The Russian calendar joins him with the martyr Eusebius in a single line; the Greek synaxarion lists him separately. He has no proper service, and no proper hymns are transmitted.
Iconography
The stored image is the miniature of the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinople, 985): the martyr in a white tunic kneels amid the hills as the executioner's blade falls — the manuscript's beheading type. A portrait icon would show him as a martyr with the martyr's cross.
Disputed questions
- Manner of death. Only the verse quoted above witnesses to the fire; the notice itself records nothing. The inference is noted as such.
- Not to be confused with Priscus of Rome (martyr, June 7 in the Roman tradition) or the Priscus among the martyrs of Nicomedia; the name was common in the Roman East.