Claudia

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

(Κλαυδία)

Claudia was a Christian lady of Rome who was on friendly terms with the Apostle Paul at the date of his second imprisonment, and who, along with Eubulus, Pudens, and Linus ( qq.v. [Note: v. quœ vide, which see.]), sends a greeting to Timothy ( 2 Timothy 4:21). This is all we know with any certainty regarding her. The name suggests that she belonged to the Imperial household, and various conjectures have been made as to her identity, though there is very little in the nature of certain data. Probably she was a slave, but it is not impossible that she was a member of the gens Claudia . In the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) she is regarded as the mother of Linus (Λίνος ὁ Κλαυδίας). An inscription found on the road between Rome and Ostia ( CIL [Note: IL Corpus Inscrip. Latinarum.]vi. 15066) to the memory of the infant child of Claudius Pudens and Claudia Quinctilla has given rise to the conjecture that this was the Claudia of St. Paul and that she was the wife of the Pudens of  2 Timothy 4:21. Another ingenious but most improbable theory identifies Claudia with Claudia Rufina, the wife of Aulns Pudens, the friend of Martial ( Epigr . iv. 13, xi. 34), and thus makes her a woman of British race. This Claudia of Martial has again been identified with an imaginary Claudia suggested by a fragmentary inscription found at Chichester in 1722 which seems to record the erection of a temple by a certain Pudens with the approval of Claudius Cogidubnus, who is supposed to be a British king mentioned in Tacitus ( Agricola , xiv.) and the father of the Claudia who had adopted the name ( cognomen ) Rufina from Pomponia the wife of Aulus Plautins, the Roman governor of Britain (a.d. 43-52). E. H. Plumptre in Ellicott’s NT Commentary (ii. 186) confidently asserts the identity of the Claudia of St. Paul with the friend of Martial and the daughter of Cogidubnus. All such identification is, however, extremely precarious. The theory that Claudia is the daughter of the British prince Caractacus who had been brought to Rome with his wife and children is a product of the inventive imagination. Lightfoot ( Apostolic Fathers , I. i. 76-79) discusses the whole question of identification, and decides that, apart from the want of evidence, the position of the names of Pudens and Claudia in the text  2 Timothy 4:21 disposes of the possibility of their being husband and wife-a difficulty which Plumptre evades by the supposition that they were married after the Epistle was written. The low moral character of Martial’s friend Pudens can hardly be explained away sufficiently to make him a likely companion of St. Paul (cf. Merivale, St. Paul at Rome , 149).

Literature.-E. H. Plumptre, in Ellicott’s NT Com. , 1884, vol. ii. p. 185: ‘Excursus on the later years of St. Paul’s life’; J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers , 1890, I. i. 76-79; C. Merivale, St. Paul at Rome , 1877, p. 149; T. Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul 3, 1875, ii. 397; articles in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and Encyclopaedia Biblica  ; Conybeare-Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul , new ed., 1877, ii. 582, 594.

W. F. Boyd.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Mentioned ( 2 Timothy 4:21) with Pudens, whose wife she afterward became (Martial, 4:13; 11:54); he was a Roman knight; she was a Briton, surnamed Rufina. Tacitus (Agricola, 14) mentions that territory in S.E. Britain was given to a British king, Cogilunus, for his fidelity to Rome A.D. 52, while Claudius was emperor. In 1772 a marble was dug up at Chichester (now in the gardens at Goodwood) mentioning Cogidunus, with the surname Claudius from his patron the emperor's name. Pudens is also mentioned, Cogidunus' son-in-law. Cogidunus' daughter would be Claudia, probably sent to Rome for education, as a pledge of her father's fidelity.

There she was put under the patronage of Pomponia, wife of Aulus Plautius, conqueror of Britain. Pomponia was accused of foreign superstitions A.D. 57 (Tacitus, Annals, 3:32), probably Christianity. Claudia probably learned Christianity from Pomponia, and took from her the surname of the Pomponian clan, Rufina; so we find Rufus, a Christian in  Romans 16:13. Pudens in Martial, and in the inscription, appears as a pagan. He, or perhaps his friends, through fear, concealed his Christian faith. Tradition represents Timothy, Pudens' son, as taking part in converting the Britons.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

CLAUDIA . A Roman Christian, perhaps wife of Pudens and mother of Linus (  2 Timothy 4:21 ); but Lightfoot ( Clement , i. 76) shows that this is improbable. The two former names are found in a sepulchral inscription near Rome, and a Claudia was wife of Aulus Pudens, friend of Martial. If these are identified, Claudia was a British lady of high birth; but this is very unlikely.

A. J. Maclean.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Clau'dia. (Lame). A Christian woman, mentioned in  2 Timothy 4:21, as saluting Timotheus.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

A Christian woman, probably a convert of Paul at Rome  2 Timothy 4:21 .

Holman Bible Dictionary

 2 Timothy 4:21

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 2 Timothy 4:21

Morrish Bible Dictionary

See PUDENS.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( Κλαυδία , femn. of Claudius ) , a Christian female mentioned in  2 Timothy 4:21, as saluting Timotheus, A.D. 64. She is thought to have become the wife of Pudens, who is mentioned in the same verse (although Linus is named between). It has been supposed that this Claudia was a British maiden, daughter of king Cogidunus, an ally of Rome (Tacitus, Agricol. 14), who took the name of his imperial patron, Tiberius Claudius. Pudens, we gather from an inscription at Chichester, and now in the gardens at Goodwood, was at one time in close connection with king Cogidunus, and gave an area for a temple of Neptune and Minerva, which was built by that king's authority. Claudia is said in Martial (11, 53) to have been of British extraction (caeruleis Britannis edita). Moreover, she is there also called Rufina. Now Pomponia, wife of the late commander in Britain, Aulus Plautius, under whom Claudia's father was received into alliance, belonged to a house of which the Rufi were one of the chief branches. If she herself were a Rufa, and Claudia her protegee, the latter might well be called Rufina; and we know that Pomponia was tried for having embraced a foreign religion (superstitionis externae rea) in the year 57 (Tacitus, Ann. 12:32), so that there are many circumstances concurrent tending to give verisimilitude to the conjecture. On the other hand, it may be said that the attempt to identify this Claudia with the British lady Claudia, whose marriage to Pudens is celebrated by Martial (Epig. 4, 13), rests on no foundation beyond the identity of the names of the parties, and the fact that Martial calls Pudens "sanctus," and says he was a corrector of his verses.

But the identity of names so common as Pudens and Claudia may be nothing more than a mere accidental coincidence; as for the term "sanctus," it is precisely one which a heathen would not have applied to a Christian, whom he would have regarded as the adherent of a "prava superstitio" (Pliny, Ep. ad Traj.); and as respects Pudens's correction of Martial's verses, until we know whether that was a correction of their style or a correction of their morals (in which case Pudens really must have done his work very badly), we can build nothing on it. On the other hand, the immoral character of Martial himself renders it improbable that he should have had a Christian and a friend of Paul among his friends. Further, Paul's Pudens and Claudia, if husband and wife, must have been married before A.D. 67, the latest date that can be assigned to Paul's writing. But Martial's epigram must have been written after this, perhaps several years after, for he came to Rome only in A.D. 66; so that, if they were married persons in 67, it is not likely Martial would celebrate their nuptials years after this. In fine, if Paul's Pudens and Claudia were unmarried at the time of his writing, they must at least have been persons of standing and reputation among the Christians; and, in this case, can it be supposed that a poet meaning to gratify them would invoke on them the favor of heathen deities, whom they had renounced with abhorrence? See Archdeacon Williams's pamphlet, On Pudens and Claudia (Lond. 1848); an article in the Quart. Rev. for July, 11858, entitled "The Romans at Colchester;" and an Excursus in Alford's Greek Testament (vol. 3. prolegg. p. 104), in which the contents of the two works first mentioned are embodied in a summary form. See also Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul, 2, 484 n.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

klô´di - a ( Κλαυδία , Klaudı́a ): A member of the Christian congregation at Rome, who, with other members of that church, sends her greetings, through Paul, to Timothy ( 2 Timothy 4:21 ). More than this concerning her cannot be said with certainty. The Apostolical Constitutions (VII, 21) name her as the mother of Linus, mentioned subsequently by Irenaeus and Eusebius as bishop of Rome. An ingenious theory has been proposed, upon the basis of the mention of Claudia and Pudens as husband and wife in an epigram of Martial, that they are identical with the persons of the same name here mentioned. A passage in the Agricola of Tacitus and an inscription found in Chichester, England, have been used in favor of the further statement that this Claudia was a daughter of a British king, Cogidubnus. See argument by Alford in the Prolegomena to 2 Tim in his Greek Testament . It is an example of how a very few data may be used to construct a plausible theory. If it be true, the contrast between their two friends, the apostle Paul, on the one hand, and the licentious poet, Martial, on the other, is certainly unusual. If in  2 Timothy 4:21 , Pudens and Claudia be husband and wife, it is difficult to explain how Linus occurs between them. See argument against this in Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Clau´dia, a Christian female of Rome, mentioned in .