Gloucestershire and Saint Paul
Did Saint Paul visit Gloucestershire? We examine some interesting evidence.
About 43 years after the birth of Christ, Claudius, the Roman Emperor, sent plautius, a preator, across Europe to concquer the Britons.
This would prove to be rather more difficult than was first envisaged. Tacitus, a Roman historian , records that “powerful armies were
set in motion” however, Plautius pushed his conquest until he arrived at the banks of the River Severn.
The Roman army needed to establish a communication post on the bank of the Severn while it conducted war in South Wales.
The area on which Gloucester now stands was seen to be the most suitable and a fort was built in an area of now known as Kingsholm.
In the year AD 45, Plautius married a British woman by the name of Gladys. After the marriage her name was changed to Pomponia.
She was a princess of Silures, a tribe of South Wales and sister of Caradoc, better known as Caractcus, and since Gloucester stood
between Siluria and Roman Briton, this would be the logical place to conduct the wedding. About three or four years later, at the end
of his military service, Plautius returned to Rome with his wife and was replaced by Ostorius Scapula.
Tacitus reveals in his Annals 13:32 that in AD 57 Pomponia was accused of foreign superstitions i/e being a member of the Christian
faith. It is also interesting to note that Tacitus gives mention of the wedding. Pomponia died in about AD 83.
The Encyclopedia Americana says of Caractacus (English Caradoc) that he was a British Chieftain and after many battles against the
Romans established himself in South Wales among the Silures, taking every opportunity of harassing the invaders. Indeed, Caractacus
was a thorn in the side of Rome during the four years Plautius was Preator. It may well have been that the marriage of Plautius to
Pomponia was, at first, political in order to forge an alliance. Whatever, it didn’t work.
At the marriage of Plautius to Pomponia was an officer of the Roman army by the name of Rufus Pudens Pudenta.
Pudens, as we shall call him, was second in command of the Roman forces in Britian and a friend of the Spanish poet Martial.
At the wedding he meet a young woman by the name of Claudia. She was the daughter of Caractacus and niece to
Pomponia and although only a teenager at the time, Claudia Rufina was beautiful and well educated. As a point of interest we
should add here that several volumes of her poetry and hymns are known to have been in existence as late as the 13th century.
It is not known that Pudens married Claudia in the Gloucestershire area or in Rome, but given the nature of the times it is more than
likely he did. Martial writes of his friend Pudens the following, “Oh Rufus, my friend Pudens marries the foreigner Claudia” and
“Claudia Rufina has sprung from the azure Britons, how come she has the feeling of a Latin maid? Thanks to the gods, she has born
many children to her holy husband”. From this there is absolutely no question that Claudia was British. One of the children mentioned by
Martial was a son by the name of Linus.
It is now we can make the connection with the Apostle Paul in his second letter to Timothy 4:21. Quote, “Make every effort to come
before winter. Greetings to you from Ebulus, Pudins, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers and sisters.