General Notes

(Rufus Pudens and St. Paul are shown to be half-brothers, with the same mother but different fathers. "His mother and mine." She thus appears to have been the mother of an elder son, Paul, by a Hebrew husband, and a younger son, Rufus, by a second marriage with a Roman Christian.)
Pudens, the Roman Senator and former aide-de-camp to Aulus Plautius, commander of the Roman forces in Britain, completed his army service at about this time and returned to Rome.

It seems that Pudens and Claudia had met in Britain, as Claudia's aunt Pomponia had married Pudens' commanding officer Plautius. They, Pudens and Claudia, married in about A.D. 53.

The Roman poet Martial, a friend of the couple, wrote some poetry on the occasion of the wedding. He also makes it evident that Pudens had served in Britain prior to his marriage. He speaks of Pudens suffering from the cold of "the Scythian (North) pole." A clear indication of his army service in Britain.

The poetry also strongly suggests that the couple were both converted Christians at the time of their marriage. Martial describes Pudens as the "sainted husband" of Claudia whom he writes of as having "sprung from the painted Britons."33 Elsewhere he asks, "Since Claudia wife of Rufus (Pudens) comes from the blue-set Britons, how is it that she has won the hearts of the Latin people."

The bright blue eyes of the Britons is also noted by Seneca. "The British lady, Claudia, to whom Martial addressed two or three of his epigrams, and others to Linus and Pudens, is supposed to be the very Claudia mentioned with Pudens and Linus, in Paul's second Epistle to Timothy. She is believed by Cambrian writers to be of the family of Caractacus, and, perhaps the first British Christian."34

Llin, described in Welsh records as a son of Caractacus, is thought by some to be the Linus mentioned by Martial and Paul, the brother of Claudia.

Roman writers mention the fact that Linus was ordained by Paul as the first bishop of Rome in A.D. 68. The significance of this event will be discussed in a later chapter.

"And he (Martial) addresses two or three of his epigrams to Linus, proving the connection of the three."35

The connection between the Pudens, Linus and Claudia mentioned by Martial, with their links with Britain, and a group of three related individuals having the same names described by Paul (II Tim. 4:21) has been noted by several authorities on the subject of church history.

"That there was a Pudens and Claudia living at Rome, both Christians we have it from... St. Paul himself. That this Claudia mentioned by St. Paul, then living at Rome, was the same Claudia, a Briton born, mentioned by Martial is the opinion and probable conjecture of many modern writers."36

We learn from Monocaxius: "That Claudia, mentioned by St. Paul, was Caractacus's daughter, and turned Christian, and after married to Pudens, a Roman Senator; whose marriage is celebrated by Martial in his noted epigrams to that purpose."37

There are several indications in the epigrams of Martial that the lifestyles of Pudens and Claudia were Christian rather than pagan. The poet, who seems to have been a family friend of the couple, does not mention their religion directly, and with good reason; during the later part of Nero's reign a Christian could be arrested and executed as an enemy of the state.

Roman poets often used the occasion of a wedding as an excuse for coarse jesting but Martial's poems relating to this couple are lacking in this type of humour.

`Claudia, the fair one from a foreign shore,

Is with my Pudens joined in wedlock's band.'38

O Concord, bless their couch for evermore,

Be with them in thy snow-white purity.

Let Venus grant, from her choicest store,

All gifts that suit their married unity,

When he is old may she be fond and true,

And she in age the charms of youth renew.'39

A little later, when children had been born to Claudia, he wrote:

Grant, O ye gods, that she may ever prove

The bliss of mother over girl and boy,

Still gladdened by her pious husband's love,

And in her children find perpetual joy.40

Martial, although perhaps having several friends amongst the Christians of Rome, was not himself of this faith, as is clearly demonstrated by his use of pagan terminology in his writings.

"But without insisting strongly on this argument, we may be able to infer, that the Claudia of Martial was connected with a circle at Rome, the members of which were imbued with Christian, rather than Roman principles."41

The epithet "Sanctus" or sainted applied by Martial to Pudens is much more likely to have been used in relation to a Christian than a non-Christian. The Apostle Paul uses similar terminology in his epistle to the Romans, written only a short time before Martial's epigrams, when he speaks of Christians at Rome "called to be saints" (Rom. 1:7).

Some have objected that because the epigrams were published during the reign of Domitian, who became emperor in A.D. 83, they could not have been related to individuals who were prominent during Nero's time some twenty to thirty years earlier.

"There is however reason to believe, as was remarked by Ussher, Collier and others, that many of the epigrams were written long before they were published, and consequently that the publication of the book was no test, of the age of the epigrams."42

Martial took up residence in Rome in A.D. 49 and left the city for Spain in A.D. 86. He would have been about thirty-eight years old when Paul wrote his second epistle to Timothy. There is nothing in the chronology of the period to indicate that the Claudia, Pudens and Linus of Martial were not the same individuals mentioned by Paul in his epistle.

Both writers were writing at about the same time, of individuals living in the same city. It is hardly likely that more than one group of three individuals having a close relationship with each other and having these names would have been living in the same city at the same time.

J. Williams in his comprehensive thesis on this subject remarks that: "It is therefore possible that the first Epigram to which I have alluded might have been written by Martial in the year 67, eighteen years after his arrival in Rome; being the same year in which the Apostle is generally supposed to have written the second Epistle to Timothy. And a broad margin of two or three years, on either side, may be allowed without interfering with the argument.43

Bale, and later Camden, identify Pudens and Claudia of II Timothy with the writings of Martial. The writings of the poet reveal that he had an intimate knowledge of events that took place in Nero`s reign.

Williams also makes the point that: "If the Pudens of St. Paul was the Pudens of Martial, and since the Pudens of Martial had married a British maiden, also called Claudia, it seems to me something more than probable that the Pudens of the inscription (Chichester Stone) was also the same identical person."44

"...there is no doubt that Pudens the husband of Claudia is mentioned in the Scriptures, for both are there, together with Linus, the brother of Claudia, in one sentence in II Timothy 4:21. The odds against the three being mentioned together, if they were not the members of the exiled family of Caractacus, must be very great."45

The residence of the couple at Rome, known as the Palatium Britannicum, seems to have been a regular meeting place for Christians. The high political and social status of Pudens and Claudia seems to have given them, for a time at least, a measure of freedom from persecution.

A series of Christian churches later occupied this site. The first was known as Titulus, the next Hospitium Aposolorum and finally St. Pudentiana, so named in honour of the martyred daughter of Claudia.

According to Cardinal Baronius: "It is delivered to us by the firm tradition of our forefathers that the house of Pudens was the first that entertained St. Peter at Rome, and that the Christians assembling formed the Church, and that of all our churches the oldest is that which is called after the name Pudens"46

The Jesuit Robert Parsons in The Three Conversions of England mentions that "Claudia was the first hostess or harbourer both of St. Peter and St. Paul at the time of their coming to Rome."

Roman tradition also relates that Pudens and Claudia retrieved the body of the apostle Paul following his martyrdom in about A.D. 68 and buried it in what was perhaps a family cemetery in the Via Ostiensis.

In later years the lives of this couple and their four children were clouded by sorrow. Claudia seems to have been the only member of the family to have died a natural death, in A.D. 97. Pudens and all of the children died as martyrs at various times during the closing years of the first century or the first half of the second.

A manuscript entitled "The Acts of Pastor and Timotheus," probably dating to the second century, describes some of the sad details: "Pudens went to his Saviour leaving his daughters strengthened with chastity and learned in all the divine law. These sold their goods and distributed the produce to the poor and persevered strictly in the love of Christ... They desired to have a baptistry in their house. Many pagans came thither to find the faith and receive baptism." The record mentions that their house "night and day resounded with hymns of praise."

When one of the young women was martyred, probably along with several other Christians, the manuscript relates: "Then Pudentiana went to God. Her sister and I wrapped her in perfumes, and kept her concealed in the oratory. Then after 28 days we carried her to the Cemetery of Priscilla and laid her near her father Pudens." Some sources give the date of her death as A.D. 107.

Several years later, a further wave of persecution claimed many more lives. The manuscript mentions that "That blessed Prassedis collected their bodies by night and buried them in the Cemetery of Priscilla... then the virgin of the Saviour, worn out with sorrow, only asked for death. Her tears and her prayers reached to heaven, and fifty-four days after her brethren had suffered she passed to God. And I, Pastor, the priest have buried her body near that of her father Pudens."

The two sons of Pudens and Claudia also died as martyrs during the first half of the second century. Timotheus is said to have been named after the evangelist Timothy, to whom Paul wrote two of his epistles.