Claudia

The rarest news that ever reached this little land was the news that came from Bethlehem, and what enthrals us as we think of this at Chichester is the possibility that the news was sent from Rome by a lady of this town who is mentioned in the Bible.

 

There is good reason to feel that at the end of Paul's life, when he was writing those famous and beautiful words, I have fought a good fight, he remembered a friend who had gone out to Rome from this little town in Sussex, and sent to her his greeting. It is all wrapped in mystery, but those who are wise will love to think there is something in the story we are now about to tell.

About the time when Christ was born the British King Cunobelin, Shakespeare's Cymbeline, was ruling from St Albans and Colchester in friendship with Augustus. Cunobelin was acknowledged by the Romans as King of Britain. He was a consistent supporter of a conciliatory attitude toward Rome, but the sons who succeeded him, Caractacus and Togodumnaus, felt that a time of conflict was bound to come. Come it did, and quickly, probably through their own disaffection toward Rome.

Aulus Plautius arrived in A.D. 43 with a Roman army, which never relaxed its advance till southern Britain had been conquered. Aulus Plautius overthrew Caractacus in a great battle. For nine years the patriot king continued a hopeless resistance, and was then betrayed into the hands of the Romans and paraded in a Triumph through the streets of Rome. Before the tribunal Caractacus appealed to the chivalry of Caesar in a speech which has become famous.

 

By this time Rome and Britain had become known to one another, easy of access. Along the roads to Rome came hostages from every part of the world where the Empire was at war. The children of British chieftains were sent to Rome to be held in honourable custody as a pledge that their fathers would remain loyal to their allegiance. With all this traffic of men of war and men in trade, what could be more certain than that the enthusiasm which in two or three generations was to shake the religious foundations of the Empire would be sure to travel to Britain?

Paul was a prisoner in Rome preaching to his guards ten years after the release of Caractacus. What could be more likely than that they would be British guards, recruited, as the custom was, from the bravest of the tribes Rome had conquered?

This brings us to what may well be more definite evidence that there were British Christians in Rome who were still in touch with Britain and with Paul, and were certain to send home the good tidings that had become their deepest comfort and their most exalted hope.

Now let us remember Cogidubnus, the British king who reigned in Chichester and believed in the Roman civilisation sufficiently to help Aulus Plautius even in his campaign against Caractacus. Our sympathies may be with Caractacus, but we do not know the reasons which guided Cogidubnus.

 

On a tablet of Purbeck marble, unearthed when digging for the foundations of the town hall at Chichester in 1723, is an inscription telling that the tablet belonged to a temple dedicated to Neptune and Minerva in favour of the Imperial Roman family by 'Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus', Legate of Augustus in Britain, and it is recorded that the donor of the site was one Pudens, son of Pudentius.

It was not unusual at that time for a Roman emperor to allow or confer the adoption of his names as a recognition of high worth and Tiberius Claudius was the name of the emperor who sent Aulus Plautius to invade Britain; the emperor himself arrived in Britain to share in the success of Plautius.

 

If Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus had a daughter her name by Roman custom would be Claudia. What would be more likely than that such a daughter might be sent to Rome as an honourable pledge of the continued fidelity of King Cogidubnus after Claudius had left Britain, as he did almost at once.

At a later period, but not so late as to disturb the possibility of these events, the Roman poet Martial in one of his epigrams commemorates the marriage in Rome of a centurion named Aulus Pudens with a lady named Claudia. Claudia, the fair one from a foreign shore, Is with my Punens joined in wedlock's band'. Claudia, says Martial, sprang From blue-eyed Britons, yet behold she vies In grace with all that Greece or Rome can show, As born and bred beneath their glowing skies.

 

Now we come to what is either a very strange coincidence or a most fascinating fact. The last writing we have of Paul is his second letter to Timothy. It was at the very close of his glorious career. He is on his final trial, and is expecting death: I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.'

 

It is not outside the bounds of possibility, it is not an extravagant assumption, that a British lady came into the mind of Paul as he wrote those famous words, for there follow some greetings from Christians in Rome whom Timothy knew: Eubulus, greeteth thee and Pudens, and Lirtus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. Strange, is it not? Can this be the centurion Pudens who married a British Claudia?

Can the Claudia be a Christian daughter of the king who erected a temple at Chichester to the Roman deities Neptune and Minerva, and can Pudens be the Pudens who gave the land on which the temple stood?

Why not? Is it not most likely that among the fruits of Paul's known ministry in Rome was this blue-eyed British lady ? And, further, among the legendary traditions of the Church is the belief that a century later, among the first preachers of the glad tidings in England, was a son of Pudens. Would it not be fitting that a son of Pudens and Claudia should visit the land of which he had heard so much during his childhood, and that he should be a messenger of Jesus to his mother's countrymen in Britain?

It is a fascinating theory and it seems to fit the facts as far as we know them.

 

 

 

 

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