Claudia (Hastings' Dictionary)

A Christian lady at Rome, who, with Eubulus, Pudens, and Linus, was on intimate terms of friendship with St. Paul and Timothy at the time of St. Paul's second imprison- ment (2 Ti 4^'). The name suggests a connexion with the imperial household, but whether as a member of the gens Claudia or as a slave there is nothing to decide. Tradition treats her as the mother or, less probably, the sister of Linus {Apost. Const, vii.

46, AiVos 6 KXai'Slas) ; she may also nave become wife of Pudens, if they are to be identified with Claudius Pudens and Claudia Quinctilla, whose inscription to the memory of their infant child has been found between Rome and C)»tia {CIL yi. 15,000). Another very ingenious but precarious conjecture identifies her with Claudia Rulina, wife of Martial's friend, Aulus Pudens (Martial, Epirrr. iv. 1,3, xi. 53).

On this theory she would be of British origin, a lady of high character end cultivation, and the mother of three sons; perhap the daughter of the British king Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, who had taken the name of Rufina from Poiiii)onia, the wife of Aulus Plautus, the Roman commander in Britain, and had come to Rome in her train (T. Williams, Clnudia and Pudens, Llandovery, 1848; E. H. Phimptre in Ellicott, N.T. Comm. ii. p. 185; but against the theorv, Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, Clem. i. pp.

29 and 76 -79). W. LocK. CLAUDIUS (KXoi'ffios), the name by which the fourth emperor of Rome is commonly known. Tiberius Claudius Dnisus Nero Germanicus was the son of Nero Claudius Drusus and of Antonia, whose mother, Octavia, was a sister of the emperor Augustus. Bom at Lyons on 1st August, B.C. 10, he was of weak health and apparently feeble intellect (see the opinion of Augustus as given in Suet. Claud. 4, and the excuse of C. himself in Suet. Claud.

38) ; consequently he was kept in retirement, without being allowed to hold any but unimportant offices, until the reign of Gains, while the honours conferred upon him by the latter would scarcely seem to have been senously meant. His time was occupied in historical and literary studies, as well as in less creditable occupations (Suet. Claud. 33. 41-42), until the praetorian guards, by a freak which disappointed all previous expectations (cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 18.

7), raised him to the principate on 24th Jan. A.D. 41 — a position which he occupied until he was murdered by his wife Agrippina, on 12th Oct. 54. Recent inquiry has conclusively shown that the government of the Roman Empire under Claudius compares not unfavourably with that of the other early emperors.

It is pointed out that C, although originally appointed through military influence at a time when the restoration of the republic was being seriously discussed, managed to conciliate the Senate and to obtain a permanent reputa- tion as a constitutional ' princeps ' ; while, at the same time, considerable advances were made under his rule towards concentrating power more completely in the hands of imperial officers. The views of C.

on the citizenship (see the speech quoted in Fumeaux, Annals of Tacitus, ii. 208) show him to have been very different from the colourless figure to which traditional historians, following exclusively one side of the picture drawn by Tacitus and Suetonius, have reduced him. It might, however, be argued that the present re- action in his favour is going too far.

He allowed his wives, Messalina and Agrippina, whether through their influence over him, or even with- out his knowledge, to interfere with the course of justice, and to do incalculable harm in Rome ; ht entrusted power to subordinates in a way which (in spite of the just remarks of Bury, Student'* Mom. Emp. 244) shows him to have been but a weak ruler ; and it is probable that C.

should be considered to have haA good intentions in certain respects, but to have been, for most practical pur- poses, powerless ; while the efifects of his reign, for good or evil, will have to be mainly set down to the credit of his leading freedmen, over whom he had proverbially little control (cf. Seneca, Ludut de morte Ctaudii, vi. 2). For the events mentioned in NT which fall in the reign of Claudius, see Chronolooy OF THB New Te.stament.

The emperor is twice mentioned by name : — (I) In Ac 11"* the prophecy by Agabus of a famine ' over the whole world ' is said to have been fulfilled 'in the time of C. ' Meyer and others protest against interpreting these words of any other famine than that to which Joseohus refers (Ant. XX. ii. 5, v. 2) as occurring uimer Cuspius Fadiis and TiWrius Alexander. Wieseler (Chron. apost. Zeit. p. 159), though puzzled by the allusion CLAUDIUS LYSIAS CLAY 447 in Ant. III. xv.

3 to the high priest Ishmael, fixes the date of this famine, with considerable prob- ability, at A.D. 45, adding that it may well have lasted for more than one year. There seems to be no reason to doubt that this famine is the one referred to in Ac 11^. At the same time it must be noted that famines seem to have been unusually prevalent during the reign of C. (see, for instance, Dio, Ix. 11 ; Eus. Chron. ii. p. 152, ed. Seh. ; Suet. Claud. 18, 'assiduie sterilitates ') ; the person of C.

was in danger from this cause (Tac. An7i. xii. 43), and the emperor became so sensitive on the point as to allow a dream, which was interpreted as foretelling dearth, to bring about the ruin of two Kom. knights (Tac. Ann. xi. 4). The carelessness of Gaius as regards the com supply (Sen. de Brev. Vit. xviii. 5 ; Dio, lix. 17. 2) catised great difficulties to C. on his accession, and very vigorous measures were at once taken by the latter, and continued throughout his reign (Suet. Claud, xviii.

20 ; cf. Lehnjann, Claudius, p. 135). When it was noticed that, in spite of the.se special precautions, famines were a characteristic of^ the time of C, it is not hard to see how the prophecy may have come to be regarded as amply fulfilled, even if taken in the widest sense. (2) St. Paul met at Corinth two Jews, Aquila and his wife Pri.scilla, who had come thither ' be- cause C. had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome' (Ac IS''). Suetonius says (Claud. 25) that C.

' Juda'08 iirijiulsore Chresto assidue tumul- tuantes expulit.' Dio (LX. vi. 6), perhaps correct- ing Suet., asserts that the Jews, whose numbers were so great as to make expulsion difficult, were not indeed expelled, but only forbidden to assemble together. The general policy of C. towards the Jews was favourable, as is shown by the two edicts, one relating to Alexandria, the other to the whole empire (Jos. Ant. xix. V. 2, 3 ; cf. the edict of Petronius in XIX. vi.

3), which granted to them religious toleration, exemp- tion from the hated military service, and some measure of self-government. But we are expressly told that he wjis influenced by his jiersonal feeling towards Herod Agrippa I. (id. ib. XX. i. 1 ; cf. XIX. V. 2), to whom the emperor was indebted at the time of his accession (XIX. iv. 5).

Not only did Agrippa receive ' consular honours ' and such ex- tensions of territory as to make his dominions coincide with those of Herod the Great, but his brother was given ' praetorian rank,' the rule over Chalcia, and, subsequently, certain other di.stricts, as well as the oversight of the temple { Dio, LX. viii. ; Jos. Ant. XX. vii. 1, i. 3), while his son is described as having ^eat influence at court (Jos. Ant. XX. i. 2; cf. VI. lii. ).

Anger has accordingly shown that the edict of Ac 18' must be put during the years when Agrippa II. was absent from Home. As he remained m the capital till A.D. 50 (Wieseler, p. 67 n., 124), and had relumed before the end of 52 (Jos. Ant. XX. vi. 3), tlie.se limits may be re- garded as reasonably certain ; but the attemnt of Wieseler (pp. 125-8) to fix the date absolutely by a coni]iarison with Tac. Ann. xii. 52. 3, though interesting and ingenious, is hardly convincing.

\t Ij no doubt true that the Jews often practised magic (e.q. Ac 8"), and Jews and magicians are often mentioned together, but they are, as Wieseler admits, clearly distinct, and "facitus does not mention the Jews at all in this connexion. IjtTRRATt'RR.— l^hniann, CUiudixu und Mine Ztit, Lcipzic, 1877 (pp- l-*ifl p'ivf an ftcc^iint of the ori(final authoritioM) ; FiirTH-aux, The AunaU of Tacitiu, vol. ii,; Mulniiisen, ProviiiCft of limn. Evip. ch. xi. (Knc- tr. ); Wieseler, Ckronol. d. apogt.

X^tnlt. ; NoHireii, Ajn»ti-lttnichic.hte (on Ac U.cc., where re lertncca to modern works iire niven). P. V. M. Ben'ecke. CLAUDIUS LYSIAS (KXai'.5io5 Awrfoj), the mili- tary tribune of the Koman cohort in Jerus., who is mentioned in Ac 21-23. Hearing that all Jerus. was in confusion, he came down with soldiers and centurions to investigate the cause of the uproar, and bound St. Paul with two chains. As the ' sicarii ' had recently become very prominent in Juda-a (cf. Jos. Ant. XX. viii.

5, 6), and were especially in evidence during the great festivals (id. liJ II. xiii. 3, 4), he imagined, the .season being Pente- cost, that St. Paul was an Egyptian who had recently led out 4000 'assassins' mto the wilder- ness (Ac 21**), and who is descril)ed by Jos. (BJ II. xiii. 5) as having had .SO, 000 associates in all. On discovering his mistake, L. allowed St.

Paul to address the people from the castle stairs ; but the mention of the Gentiles renewed the disturbance, so that the tribime w.as obliged to bring him into the castle, and was onlj' prevented from examining him by scourging through receiv- ing the news that he was a Rom. citizen, and therefore by the Lex Porcia exempt from such treatment. L. next arranged an interview between St.

Paul and the Jewish Council, but a dispute be- tween the Sadducees and Pharisees was the only result ; subsequently he learned that a conspiracy had been formed with the object of killing St. Paul, so he sent him to Ciesarea by night under an escort of 200 foot-soldiers, 70 horsemen, and 2t)0 ' spearmen ' (5f{ioXd/3oi, see Meyer on Ac 23=^). The letter given in Ac 23-''"*' as written by L.

to the procurator Felix on this occasion has been con- sidered by some eminent critics to be an invention by the historian. The letter would alnmst cer- tainly have been WTitten in Latin, and the word TiSiros (v.*") would seem to imply that only the general sense is given. But it must be noticed that in v." L. represents himself as having rescued St.

Paul because he discovered him to be a Roman, a falsification and inconsistency with Ac 23^'-'' of which the author of Ac, had he been inventing, would not have been guilty (see, on opposite sides, Wendt and Nosgen on Ac 23-'). The admission of L. that he had gained Rom.

citizenship 'for a large sum ' (implying his incredulity that a native of Tarsus should be a citizen and yet apparently so poor) illustrates the * avarice of the Claudian times,' and the traffic in honours by Messalina and the imperial freedmen, partly due, no doubt, to a desire to replenish the trea-sury, partly to even more questionable motives, on which Dio Cassius indignantly comments (Ix. 17. 6). See Citizen- ship. P. V. M. Benecke.