1st Century History

If you love history as I do perhaps this will be of interest to you. At present I am studying the truth about Welsh history and I have come upon some very interesting information.

If you are a Christian reader, you know the story of Linus and Timothy, friends of the apostle Paul. Well, I have some history for you. King Caradoc or in Latin Caractacus was a British (Welsh are the true Brits)1st century King who fought the Romans and lost. He was brought to Rome as a prisoner and they would have strangled him and thrown him in the Tiber River as was their habit.

Caradoc

But King Caradoc gave speech, immortalized by Tacitus the Roman historian who recorded it as given in front of the Emperor Claudius. The gist of the speech was kill me and the world forgets. Let me live and everyone remembers Claudius for it.  Claudius loved that idea and Caradoc (Caradawg in Welsh ) was allowed to live with this whole family on Esquilline Hill in Rome on condition he never raise up arms against Rome again.

Caradoc had a daughter named Gladys who was adopted into the Claudius family and renamed Claudia. She marred a  Senator named Rufus Pudens and became Claudia Pudens.  Claudia and Rufus had two daughters name for their grandparents, Prassede and Pudentiana. These two girls became martyrs for their faith and are responsible for the burial of over 3,000 Christian martyrs killed in Rome.

It is this Rufus Pudens, his wife Claudia(Welsh daughter of Caradoc) and Claudia's young brother Linus who are mentioned in the book of Timothy by Paul. Linus was a British prince of course and later became the first bishop of Rome. Their home became the first large church in Rome named after Claudia as Saint Pudentiana.  The church is there to this day and contains in the basement many Green Man masks(Druidism) from the time before the Caradoc 's entire family converted from paganism to Christianity.

We now know that Saul/Paul was a Jew, son of  Prassede a Benjamite from Tarsus who purchased Roman citizenship for himself and his entire family.  Now Paul's mother was widowed early on and remarried a  very wealthy and highly placed Roman official (probably Jewish) named Pudentinus. The result of her second marriage was a child named Rufus.  This is the Rufus Pudens that married King Caradoc's daughter, Claudia Pudens (Gladys Caradoc). 

So you will find in 2 Timothy "Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers and sisters"  This also explains the verse that says, “Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.” Rufus and Paul had different fathers but the same mother!

Paul stayed with Rufus in Rome and later traveled from there to Britain to teach! Britain was converted to Christianity not by Patrick but by Paul himself very early on.

If you go to Rome you can visit the Santa Pudentiana church which is steeped in history.  The 2nd century inscription reads:   “known as that of the Pastor, dedicated by Sanctus Pias Papa, formerly the house of Sanctus Pudens, the Senator, and the Home of the Holy Apostles.”

The Pudens home in Rome

Later on Caradoc returned to Britain to live with his oldest son Cyllin at Llan Illid (pronounced in Welsh Clan Ilid ). His eldest daughter had founded Cor-Eurgain  in  South Wales one of the first churches . It is there that Joseph of Arimathea is buried. His stone reads:

"To Britain I came after I interred the Christ. I taught. I rest."

I hope you found this interesting.

I also hope Blogger fixes the huge number of bugs in this awful revamp!!