Locksley
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For those interested in coin collecting and bible history an early church has been found.
Quintus Servilius Pudens THE PUDENS LEGEND
Archaeologists Find 'Very Unusual' Ruin
By MARTA FALCONI,AP
Posted: 2007-07-20 07:16:32
Filed Under: Science, World
ROME (July 19) - Archaeologists said Thursday they have partly dug up a second-century bath complex believed to be part of the vast, luxurious residence of a wealthy Roman.
The two-story complex, which extends for at least 5 acres, includes exceptionally well-preserved decorated hot rooms, vaults, changing rooms, marble latrines and an underground room where slaves lit the fire to warm the baths.
Statues and water cascades decorated the interiors, American archaeologist Darius A. Arya, the head of the excavation, said Thursday during a tour of the digs with The Associated Press. Only pedestals and fragments have been recovered.
Arya spoke as students and experts were brushing off earth and dust from ancient marbles, mosaic floors and a rudimentary heating system, made of pipes that channeled hot air throughout the complex.
"The Romans had more leisure time than other people, and it's here in the baths that they typically spent their time," Arya said. "Because you could eat well, you could get a massage, you could have sex, you could gossip, you could play your games, you could talk about politics - you could spend the whole day here."
However, he added, "to have a bath complex of this size, this scale, it's very unusual."
The complex is believed to be part of a multiple-story villa that belonged to the Roman equivalent of a billionaire of today, a man called Quintus Servilius Pudens who was friends with Emperor Hadrian, Arya said. It is not clear if the baths were open to the public or reserved to distinguished guests of the owner.
"These people lived a magnificent existence and were able to provide entertainment," to others, said Arya, who is also a professor at the American Institute for Roman Culture.
Excavations at the Villa delle Vignacce park lasted a total of 10 weeks, and it is planned to continue, he said. Decisions, including whether the site will be opened to the public, are still to be made.
Ancient Romans put a great deal of emphasis on bathing, turning the art of the soak into a ritual.
Meeting at communal bath houses, they would go through a series of rooms of alternating temperatures at a leisurely pace, dipping themselves in hot and cold baths. It was a social event, but also a way to purify their bodies of toxins and a form of relaxation.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/archaeolog ... 01#cmntbgn
Pudens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Pudens is a Roman cognomen meaning "modest", borne by a number of individuals, including:
Aulus Pudens, a centurion and friend of the poet Martial
Saint Pudens, an early Roman Christian mentioned in 2 Timothy in the New Testament
Lucius Arrius Pudens, consul in 165
Quintus Servilius Pudens, consul in 166
Gaius Valerius Pudens, a Roman general of the 3rd century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudens
Aulus Pudens
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Jump to: navigation, search
Aulus Pudens was a native of Umbria and a centurion in the Roman army in the late 1st century. He was a friend of the poet Martial, who addressed several of his Epigrams to him. He is identified by some with Saint Pudens, an early Roman Christian.
Martial writes of Pudens' marriage to "Claudia Peregrina" ("Claudia the Foreigner") in Epigrams IV:13, who is likely identical with Claudia Rufina, a Briton he writes of in Epigrams XI:53. Martial also writes of Pudens's passions for young male slaves, his desire to own original copies of Martial's poems, and his ambitions of being promoted to Primus Pilus, the chief centurion of a Roman legion. In one poem (Epigrams VI:58) he writes of a nightmare that Pudens had been killed in action in Dacia.[1]
[edit] Identification as Saint Pudens
It has long been speculated that Pudens and his wife Claudia may be identified with the Claudia and Pudens mentioned in 2 Timothy in the New Testament.[2] William Camden's 1586 work Britannia makes this identification, citing John Bale and Matthew Parker.[3] Camden's contemporary, the Vatican historian Caesar Baronius, came to the same conclusion in his Annales Ecclesiastici,[citation needed] and it was followed by ecclesiastical historians such as James Ussher[4] in the 17th century and John Williams[5] in the 19th.
However, beyond the coincidence of names - the name Claudia was borne by every female member of the gens Claudia, a prominent aristocratic Roman family,[6] and Pudens was not uncommon as a Roman cognomen[7] - there is no evidence of a link between the Claudia and Pudens mentioned by Martial and the Claudia and Pudens referred to in 2 Timothy. Martial wrote in the 90s, while 2 Timothy is traditionally dated to the 60s. Some scholars consider the Pastoral Epistles to be pseudepigraphical,[8] which would allow them to be dated to the 90s, but make their contents doubtful. The fact that the names Claudius and Pudens are separated in 2 Timothy by the name Linus also suggests they were not a married couple. Whether or not the Pudens of 2 Timothy is the same person as the saint of that name is also disputed.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aulus_Pudens
Saint Pudens was an early Christian saint and martyr.
He is mentioned as a layman of the Roman Church in 2 Timothy 4:21.[1] According to tradition, he lodged Saint Peter and was baptised by him, and was martyred under Nero (reigned 54-68). He is commemorated on April 14 in the Eastern Orthodox Church calendar and May 19 according to the Dominican Martyrology.
He is said to have been the son of Quintus Cornelius Pudens, a Roman Senator. He is said to have had two sons, Novatus and Timotheus, and two daughters, Praxedes and Pudentiana, all saints, but if Pudens life is documented, those of his daughters is derived only by the existence of two ancient churches, Santa Prassede and Santa Pudenziana in Rome.
The acts of the synod of Pope Symmachus (499) show the existence of a titulus Pudentis, a church with the authority to administer sacraments. It is possible that a wrong interpretation of the titulus led to the creation of the figure of Pudentiana, and that the "church of Santa Pudenziana" was actually a "church of Pudens".
THE PUDENS LEGEND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pudens
The name of a certain Pudens occurs in St. Paul�s Second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21): �Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens and Linus and Claudia.� He is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, but a large number of traditions have grown up about him, which connect him with St. Peter rather than with St. Paul; and in these traditions there is in all probability a basis of historical fact. In modern times the theory met with strong support, especially among English writers, that Pudens was the husband of Claudia. They were identified with the Pudens and Claudia of Martial�s �Epigrams� (iv. 13, xi. 53), and Claudia was held to be a British maiden and a daughter of a British chief named Cogidubnus (Martial, xi. 53, �CIL.� vii. 11). But it is needless to discuss this hypothesis, for it has been conclusively shown that the �Epigrams� were not written until many years after the death of St. Paul. The name Claudia moreover was then not uncommon, and the fact that the names Pudens and Claudia in the salutation are not coupled together, but separated by the name Linus, is a strong objection prima facie to their being husband and wife.496496See Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, part i. vol. i. pp. 76�79.
The ground document for the Pudens Legend is the very ancient �Acts of SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis,� or as it is sometimes called �the Acts of Pastor and Timothy.�497497Bollandist Acta SS. Maii, iv. 297�301. These �Acts� consist of a letter from a presbyter named Pastor (this Pastor appears in the �Liber Pontificalis� as brother of Pope Pius I) to another presbyter named Timothy and the reply of the latter. The letters are followed by a short appended narrative. The date of these �Acts� is uncertain, and the letters in their present form are undoubtedly fictitious, but they embody, as can be proved by existing memorials, a genuine tradition treated as to its details with the usual inventive freedom and chronological inexactitude.
245
The story as told in these �Acts� is as follows: a certain Pudens, whose mother was named Priscilla, a Christian of property, who had shown great zeal in entertaining Apostles and strangers, after the death of his wife consecrated his house as a church of Christ. This church in the house of Pudens in the Vicus Patricius was erected into a Roman parish under the name of titulus Pastoris (the Pastor who wrote the letter being the presbyter placed in charge of this parish). Here with his two daughters Praxedis and Pudentiana, who as chaste virgins spent their lives in prayer, fasting, and charitable deeds, Pudens passed his remaining days. The daughters after his death not only obtained the consent of Pope Pius to the building of a baptistery adjoining the church, but the bishop drew the plan with his own hand, and frequently visited the church and offered there the sacrifices to God. On the decease of Potentiana the letter of Pastor informs us that he and the surviving sister Praxedis placed the body by the side of that of her father in the Cemetery of Priscilla498498It is evidently intended that the Priscilla who gave her name to the cemetery was the mother of Pudens. on the Via Salaria.
Here begins what in some MSS. is called the �Acts of Praxedis.� Many noble Christians including Pope Pius came to console Praxedis on her loss, among them a certain Novatus, described as the brother of Timothy, but nowhere in these �Acts� as the brother of Praxedis and Pudentiana. This is an important point to remember, for most modern writers following later Martyrologies describe Novatus and Timothy as sons of Pudens.499499A note in the Bollandist Acta SS. Maii, iv, p. 301, states for instance: Colitur S. Novatus 20 Iunii etiam Martyrologio Romano adscriptus et dicitur �filius S. Pudentis Senatoris et frater Sancti Timothei Presbyteri et Sanctarum Virginum Praxedis et Potentianae, qui ab Apostolis eruditi sunt in fide,� quorum nihil probamus. Novatus having fallen ill, Praxedis and Pastor visited him in his sickness, and the issue was that he left to them the whole of his property. The letter containing all this information was sent to Timothy to know what he would wish that they should do in the matter of his brother�s estate. Timothy replies that he is rejoiced at what his brother has done, and leaves the entire disposition in the hands of Praxedis and Pastor. The contents of these letters in fact make it absolutely clear that there was no relationship between the sisters Praxedis and Potentiana and the brothers Novatus and Timothy.
After the letters comes a narrative by the hand of Pastor of what followed, Praxedis asked Bishop Pius that the Baths of 246Novatus, which at that time were not in use, should be consecrated as a church. Pius consented and dedicated in the name of Praxedis the Baths, as a church, within the city in the Vicus Lateranus and he erected it into a Roman parish, titulus, and consecrated a baptistery to it. That this is the true meaning of the original and that the words in brackets are a later gloss interpolated by the writer to explain the existence in his days of a church of St. Pudentiana in the Vicus Patricius as well as a church of St. Praxedis in the Vicus Lateranus is almost self-evident. It runs thus: �Quod et placuit Sancto Pio Episcopo; thermasque Novati dedicavit ecclesiam sub nomine beatae Virginis [Potentianae in vico Patricio. Dedicavit autem et aliam sub nomine sanctae Virginis] Praxedis infra urbem Romam, in vico qui appellatur Lateranus.� The �Acts� had already given an account of the dedication of the church in the Vicus Patricius at a much earlier period before the death of Novatus. The �Acts� conclude with an account of the burial of Praxedis by Pastor in the cemetery of Priscilla by the side of her father and sister.
The mistake, which led to the interpolation above mentioned caused the following note to he appended to the biography of Pope Pius in two MSS. (and their derivatives) of the �Liber Pontificalis�: �Hic [Pius] ex rogatu beate Praxedis dedicavit aecclesiam thermas Novati in vico Patricii, in honore Sororis suae sanctae Potentianae, ubi et multa dona obtulit; ubi saepius sacrificium Domino offerens ministrabat�; Duchesne commenting on this writes: �L�auteur de la note para�t avoir mal compris le texte des Acta, car il ne parle que de l�une des deux �glises, rapportant � celle du Vicus Patricius ce qui est dit de l�intervention de Prax�de et des thermes de Novatus� (Duchesne, �Lib. Pont.� i. 133). This note has also misled most modern writers on the subject.500500See De Rossi, Bullettino di Arch. Crist. 1867, pp. 49�65; Marucchi, El�ments d�Arch. Chr�t. ii. 364 ff.; Mem. degli Apost. Pietro e Paolo, pp. 110�116; Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 110�115; Barnes, St. Peter in Rome, pp. 72�78; Spence-Jones, Early Christians in Rome, pp. 263�7, &c. The two Churches of St. Pudentiana and St. Praxedis are at this day two of the most interesting churches in Rome, and undoubtedly stand on the sites of those mentioned in the �Acts,� and there is a record of St. Pudentiana having been restored by Pope Siricius (384�398 A.D.). It is quite certain, however, that this church was not named after a daughter of Pudens but after Pudens himself. An inscription �Hic requiescit in pace Hilarus Lector tituli Pudentis� bears the date 528 A.D. and shows that this was 247the correct style. Another inscription of 384 A.D. is �Leopardus Lector de Pudentiana � and in the mosaic of the apse (the oldest mosaic in a Roman church) the Saviour holds an open volume with the words �Dominus conservator ecclesiae Pudentianae.� As Lanciani remarks (�Pagan and Christian Rome,� p, 112): �In course of time the ignorant people changed the word Pudentiana, a possessive adjective, into the name of a Saint; and the name Sancta Pudentiana usurped the place of the genuine one. It appears for the first time in a document of the year 745.� An inscription of 491 A.D. speaks of certain presbyters �Tituli Praxedis.�
The existence, however, of both sisters receives substantiation from the fact that their tombs and that of Pudens are mentioned in the �Liberian Calendar� and in the �Pilgrim Itineraries� as existing in the fourth and fifth centuries in the Cemetery of Priscilla, where according to the �Acta� they were buried. Paschal I in his great translation of the remains of saints from the catacombs into the city in 817 A.D. brought the sarcophagi of SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis from the catacomb to the Church of St. Praxedis, and the names of both are recorded on a catalogue inscribed on a marble slab to the right of the altar and their portraits appear in the mosaics of this date, which adorn the Church (Marucchi, �El�m. d�Arch. Chr�t.� iii. 325�332).
It is thought that Justin Martyr, when on his trial in 160 A.D. he declared, being interrogated by the Judge as to his dwelling place, that he lived close to the baths called �the Timotine,� may have been referring to the baths of Novatus as the place where he was accustomed to worship. As Timothy was the brother of Novatus it is a possible supposition.
The question now arises, was this Pudens of the �Acta� identical with the Pudens of the 2nd Epistle to Timothy. The Bollandists say No. De Rossi, Marucchi, and many others say Yes, and they get over the chronological difficulty by urging that Pudentiana and Praxedis may have lived to a very advanced age. But the probabilities against such a view are almost insuperable. It is much more likely that the Pudens of the Epistle and the Pudens of the �Acta� were father and son. At one time it was the opinion of De Rossi and his school that the first-century cemetery of Priscilla was the property of the family of Pudens. He and his daughters were buried in the cemetery and his mother�s name is given in the �Acta� as Priscilla. But the discovery of the crypt of the Acilian gens in this catacomb seemed to render it almost certain that the cemetery must have 248belonged to the family of Acilius Glabrio, the Consul of 91 A.D., in which the names of Priscus, Priscilla and Prisca are found. De Rossi therefore suggested that Pudens may have himself been an Acilius. I have however already made another suggestion, i.e. that Priscilla the mother of Pudens according to the �Acta� was an Acilia, and perhaps the aunt or sister of M� Acilius Glabrio.
The traditions which connect the name of Pudens with the early history of the Church in Rome are persistent and numerous quite apart from what is recorded in the �Acta� that we have been considering. It is said that the house of Pudens (the elder Pudens mentioned by St. Paul) was during his stay in Rome the home of St. Peter. The sella gestatoria, or St. Peter�s chair, the oak framework of which is of great antiquity, is said to have been originally the senatorial chair of Pudens. The wooden altar at the St. John Lateran again has been in continuous use there since the fourth century, when it was removed from St. Pudentiana, and that despite the fact that Pope Sylvester in 312 A.D. ordered that all altars should henceforth be of stone. Many indeed had been so before, for the word titulus which signifies a consecrated parish church implies its possession of a stone altar. In the Church of St. Pudentiana at the present time there is preserved within the altar a single wood plank reputed to have been left at that church as a memorial when the altar itself was removed. When Cardinal Wiseman was titular cardinal of St. Pudentiana he had the plank examined and found that the wood was identical with that of the altar at the Lateran Church. The reason of its preservation was the tradition that this altar had been used by St. Peter when he celebrated the Eucharist in the oratory in Pudens� house. When St. John Lateran replaced St. Pudentiana as the Cathedral Church of Rome the bishop and the altar moved there together.501These 249traditions have historically small value in themselves, but it may safely be said that they could never have arisen and obtained the vogue which we find them to have had in comparatively early times, had not the Pudens of Apostolic times and his family after him been active and leading members of the primitive Christian community in Rome.502502 Bianchini in his Anastasius Bibliothecarius (edn. of Liber Pontificalis in 1718) made the suggestion that Pudens was a member of the Gens Cornelia. In 1778 in the primitive Christian oratory discovered in immediate proximity to the Church of St. Prisca (supra, p. 243) a bronze tablet was found to one Caius Marius Pudens Cornelianus offered to this man by a town in Spain expressing gratitude for services rendered during the time when he filled the office of legate, and stating that he (Pudens) had been chosen as �patron� by the citizens. The date of this tabula patronatus is 222 A.D:, and its presence gives strong grounds for assuming that the house containing the Christian place of worship was his property.
The following inscription is of great interest as it belongs to the reign of Vespasian and contains the names of an Amaranthus, a T. Flavius, a Q. Cornelius Pudens, and a Chrestus. Marucchi (Rom. Sott. N.S. i. p. 30) states that immediately adjoining the Cemetery of Domitilla excavated beneath Flavian property lies a property known as Tor Marancia from a certain Amaranthus; on this are a number of pagan sepulchres belonging to the Bruttian family; while Eusebius tells us that he derived his information about the Flavian Christians from an historian named Bruttius [see Note D, p. 256, and Note F, p. 279). HILARITATI PVPLIC � � �
IMP � CAES � VESPASIANI � � �
SACRVM
TRIBVL � SVCC � CORP � IVN *
� � � � �
T : COMINIVS AMARANTH : : : �
T : FLAVIVS � T : F : LVSCV : : : �
Q : CORNELIVS � Q : F : PVDENT : : �
CVRATORES : LIBEROR : TRIB : SVC : COR : IVNIOR : : � �
On the other face occur the words: PONEN � CVR �
C � NYMPHIDIVS � CHRESTVS �
� � � � � �
DEDIC � XVII K � DEC �
L � ANNIO � BASSO �
C CAECINA � PAETO � COS � (i.e. 70 A.D.)
* Tribules succussani. Corpus juniorum.�Muratori, tom. i. p. cccviii. 250
THE FAMILY CONNEXION OF CLEMENT THE BISHOP.
A Tabular Statment of the Scheme of Relationship (set forth in Lecture VIII) between the
Arrecinian and Imperial Flavian Families.
498It is evidently intended that the Priscilla who gave her name to the cemetery was the mother of Pudens.
Quintus Servilius Pudens THE PUDENS LEGEND
Archaeologists Find 'Very Unusual' Ruin
By MARTA FALCONI,AP
Posted: 2007-07-20 07:16:32
Filed Under: Science, World
ROME (July 19) - Archaeologists said Thursday they have partly dug up a second-century bath complex believed to be part of the vast, luxurious residence of a wealthy Roman.
The two-story complex, which extends for at least 5 acres, includes exceptionally well-preserved decorated hot rooms, vaults, changing rooms, marble latrines and an underground room where slaves lit the fire to warm the baths.
Statues and water cascades decorated the interiors, American archaeologist Darius A. Arya, the head of the excavation, said Thursday during a tour of the digs with The Associated Press. Only pedestals and fragments have been recovered.
Arya spoke as students and experts were brushing off earth and dust from ancient marbles, mosaic floors and a rudimentary heating system, made of pipes that channeled hot air throughout the complex.
"The Romans had more leisure time than other people, and it's here in the baths that they typically spent their time," Arya said. "Because you could eat well, you could get a massage, you could have sex, you could gossip, you could play your games, you could talk about politics - you could spend the whole day here."
However, he added, "to have a bath complex of this size, this scale, it's very unusual."
The complex is believed to be part of a multiple-story villa that belonged to the Roman equivalent of a billionaire of today, a man called Quintus Servilius Pudens who was friends with Emperor Hadrian, Arya said. It is not clear if the baths were open to the public or reserved to distinguished guests of the owner.
"These people lived a magnificent existence and were able to provide entertainment," to others, said Arya, who is also a professor at the American Institute for Roman Culture.
Excavations at the Villa delle Vignacce park lasted a total of 10 weeks, and it is planned to continue, he said. Decisions, including whether the site will be opened to the public, are still to be made.
Ancient Romans put a great deal of emphasis on bathing, turning the art of the soak into a ritual.
Meeting at communal bath houses, they would go through a series of rooms of alternating temperatures at a leisurely pace, dipping themselves in hot and cold baths. It was a social event, but also a way to purify their bodies of toxins and a form of relaxation.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/archaeolog ... 01#cmntbgn
Pudens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Pudens is a Roman cognomen meaning "modest", borne by a number of individuals, including:
Aulus Pudens, a centurion and friend of the poet Martial
Saint Pudens, an early Roman Christian mentioned in 2 Timothy in the New Testament
Lucius Arrius Pudens, consul in 165
Quintus Servilius Pudens, consul in 166
Gaius Valerius Pudens, a Roman general of the 3rd century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudens
Aulus Pudens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Aulus Pudens was a native of Umbria and a centurion in the Roman army in the late 1st century. He was a friend of the poet Martial, who addressed several of his Epigrams to him. He is identified by some with Saint Pudens, an early Roman Christian.
Martial writes of Pudens' marriage to "Claudia Peregrina" ("Claudia the Foreigner") in Epigrams IV:13, who is likely identical with Claudia Rufina, a Briton he writes of in Epigrams XI:53. Martial also writes of Pudens's passions for young male slaves, his desire to own original copies of Martial's poems, and his ambitions of being promoted to Primus Pilus, the chief centurion of a Roman legion. In one poem (Epigrams VI:58) he writes of a nightmare that Pudens had been killed in action in Dacia.[1]
[edit] Identification as Saint Pudens
It has long been speculated that Pudens and his wife Claudia may be identified with the Claudia and Pudens mentioned in 2 Timothy in the New Testament.[2] William Camden's 1586 work Britannia makes this identification, citing John Bale and Matthew Parker.[3] Camden's contemporary, the Vatican historian Caesar Baronius, came to the same conclusion in his Annales Ecclesiastici,[citation needed] and it was followed by ecclesiastical historians such as James Ussher[4] in the 17th century and John Williams[5] in the 19th.
However, beyond the coincidence of names - the name Claudia was borne by every female member of the gens Claudia, a prominent aristocratic Roman family,[6] and Pudens was not uncommon as a Roman cognomen[7] - there is no evidence of a link between the Claudia and Pudens mentioned by Martial and the Claudia and Pudens referred to in 2 Timothy. Martial wrote in the 90s, while 2 Timothy is traditionally dated to the 60s. Some scholars consider the Pastoral Epistles to be pseudepigraphical,[8] which would allow them to be dated to the 90s, but make their contents doubtful. The fact that the names Claudius and Pudens are separated in 2 Timothy by the name Linus also suggests they were not a married couple. Whether or not the Pudens of 2 Timothy is the same person as the saint of that name is also disputed.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aulus_Pudens
Saint Pudens was an early Christian saint and martyr.
He is mentioned as a layman of the Roman Church in 2 Timothy 4:21.[1] According to tradition, he lodged Saint Peter and was baptised by him, and was martyred under Nero (reigned 54-68). He is commemorated on April 14 in the Eastern Orthodox Church calendar and May 19 according to the Dominican Martyrology.
He is said to have been the son of Quintus Cornelius Pudens, a Roman Senator. He is said to have had two sons, Novatus and Timotheus, and two daughters, Praxedes and Pudentiana, all saints, but if Pudens life is documented, those of his daughters is derived only by the existence of two ancient churches, Santa Prassede and Santa Pudenziana in Rome.
The acts of the synod of Pope Symmachus (499) show the existence of a titulus Pudentis, a church with the authority to administer sacraments. It is possible that a wrong interpretation of the titulus led to the creation of the figure of Pudentiana, and that the "church of Santa Pudenziana" was actually a "church of Pudens".
THE PUDENS LEGEND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pudens
The name of a certain Pudens occurs in St. Paul�s Second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21): �Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens and Linus and Claudia.� He is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, but a large number of traditions have grown up about him, which connect him with St. Peter rather than with St. Paul; and in these traditions there is in all probability a basis of historical fact. In modern times the theory met with strong support, especially among English writers, that Pudens was the husband of Claudia. They were identified with the Pudens and Claudia of Martial�s �Epigrams� (iv. 13, xi. 53), and Claudia was held to be a British maiden and a daughter of a British chief named Cogidubnus (Martial, xi. 53, �CIL.� vii. 11). But it is needless to discuss this hypothesis, for it has been conclusively shown that the �Epigrams� were not written until many years after the death of St. Paul. The name Claudia moreover was then not uncommon, and the fact that the names Pudens and Claudia in the salutation are not coupled together, but separated by the name Linus, is a strong objection prima facie to their being husband and wife.496496See Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, part i. vol. i. pp. 76�79.
The ground document for the Pudens Legend is the very ancient �Acts of SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis,� or as it is sometimes called �the Acts of Pastor and Timothy.�497497Bollandist Acta SS. Maii, iv. 297�301. These �Acts� consist of a letter from a presbyter named Pastor (this Pastor appears in the �Liber Pontificalis� as brother of Pope Pius I) to another presbyter named Timothy and the reply of the latter. The letters are followed by a short appended narrative. The date of these �Acts� is uncertain, and the letters in their present form are undoubtedly fictitious, but they embody, as can be proved by existing memorials, a genuine tradition treated as to its details with the usual inventive freedom and chronological inexactitude.
245
The story as told in these �Acts� is as follows: a certain Pudens, whose mother was named Priscilla, a Christian of property, who had shown great zeal in entertaining Apostles and strangers, after the death of his wife consecrated his house as a church of Christ. This church in the house of Pudens in the Vicus Patricius was erected into a Roman parish under the name of titulus Pastoris (the Pastor who wrote the letter being the presbyter placed in charge of this parish). Here with his two daughters Praxedis and Pudentiana, who as chaste virgins spent their lives in prayer, fasting, and charitable deeds, Pudens passed his remaining days. The daughters after his death not only obtained the consent of Pope Pius to the building of a baptistery adjoining the church, but the bishop drew the plan with his own hand, and frequently visited the church and offered there the sacrifices to God. On the decease of Potentiana the letter of Pastor informs us that he and the surviving sister Praxedis placed the body by the side of that of her father in the Cemetery of Priscilla498498It is evidently intended that the Priscilla who gave her name to the cemetery was the mother of Pudens. on the Via Salaria.
Here begins what in some MSS. is called the �Acts of Praxedis.� Many noble Christians including Pope Pius came to console Praxedis on her loss, among them a certain Novatus, described as the brother of Timothy, but nowhere in these �Acts� as the brother of Praxedis and Pudentiana. This is an important point to remember, for most modern writers following later Martyrologies describe Novatus and Timothy as sons of Pudens.499499A note in the Bollandist Acta SS. Maii, iv, p. 301, states for instance: Colitur S. Novatus 20 Iunii etiam Martyrologio Romano adscriptus et dicitur �filius S. Pudentis Senatoris et frater Sancti Timothei Presbyteri et Sanctarum Virginum Praxedis et Potentianae, qui ab Apostolis eruditi sunt in fide,� quorum nihil probamus. Novatus having fallen ill, Praxedis and Pastor visited him in his sickness, and the issue was that he left to them the whole of his property. The letter containing all this information was sent to Timothy to know what he would wish that they should do in the matter of his brother�s estate. Timothy replies that he is rejoiced at what his brother has done, and leaves the entire disposition in the hands of Praxedis and Pastor. The contents of these letters in fact make it absolutely clear that there was no relationship between the sisters Praxedis and Potentiana and the brothers Novatus and Timothy.
After the letters comes a narrative by the hand of Pastor of what followed, Praxedis asked Bishop Pius that the Baths of 246Novatus, which at that time were not in use, should be consecrated as a church. Pius consented and dedicated in the name of Praxedis the Baths, as a church, within the city in the Vicus Lateranus and he erected it into a Roman parish, titulus, and consecrated a baptistery to it. That this is the true meaning of the original and that the words in brackets are a later gloss interpolated by the writer to explain the existence in his days of a church of St. Pudentiana in the Vicus Patricius as well as a church of St. Praxedis in the Vicus Lateranus is almost self-evident. It runs thus: �Quod et placuit Sancto Pio Episcopo; thermasque Novati dedicavit ecclesiam sub nomine beatae Virginis [Potentianae in vico Patricio. Dedicavit autem et aliam sub nomine sanctae Virginis] Praxedis infra urbem Romam, in vico qui appellatur Lateranus.� The �Acts� had already given an account of the dedication of the church in the Vicus Patricius at a much earlier period before the death of Novatus. The �Acts� conclude with an account of the burial of Praxedis by Pastor in the cemetery of Priscilla by the side of her father and sister.
The mistake, which led to the interpolation above mentioned caused the following note to he appended to the biography of Pope Pius in two MSS. (and their derivatives) of the �Liber Pontificalis�: �Hic [Pius] ex rogatu beate Praxedis dedicavit aecclesiam thermas Novati in vico Patricii, in honore Sororis suae sanctae Potentianae, ubi et multa dona obtulit; ubi saepius sacrificium Domino offerens ministrabat�; Duchesne commenting on this writes: �L�auteur de la note para�t avoir mal compris le texte des Acta, car il ne parle que de l�une des deux �glises, rapportant � celle du Vicus Patricius ce qui est dit de l�intervention de Prax�de et des thermes de Novatus� (Duchesne, �Lib. Pont.� i. 133). This note has also misled most modern writers on the subject.500500See De Rossi, Bullettino di Arch. Crist. 1867, pp. 49�65; Marucchi, El�ments d�Arch. Chr�t. ii. 364 ff.; Mem. degli Apost. Pietro e Paolo, pp. 110�116; Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, pp. 110�115; Barnes, St. Peter in Rome, pp. 72�78; Spence-Jones, Early Christians in Rome, pp. 263�7, &c. The two Churches of St. Pudentiana and St. Praxedis are at this day two of the most interesting churches in Rome, and undoubtedly stand on the sites of those mentioned in the �Acts,� and there is a record of St. Pudentiana having been restored by Pope Siricius (384�398 A.D.). It is quite certain, however, that this church was not named after a daughter of Pudens but after Pudens himself. An inscription �Hic requiescit in pace Hilarus Lector tituli Pudentis� bears the date 528 A.D. and shows that this was 247the correct style. Another inscription of 384 A.D. is �Leopardus Lector de Pudentiana � and in the mosaic of the apse (the oldest mosaic in a Roman church) the Saviour holds an open volume with the words �Dominus conservator ecclesiae Pudentianae.� As Lanciani remarks (�Pagan and Christian Rome,� p, 112): �In course of time the ignorant people changed the word Pudentiana, a possessive adjective, into the name of a Saint; and the name Sancta Pudentiana usurped the place of the genuine one. It appears for the first time in a document of the year 745.� An inscription of 491 A.D. speaks of certain presbyters �Tituli Praxedis.�
The existence, however, of both sisters receives substantiation from the fact that their tombs and that of Pudens are mentioned in the �Liberian Calendar� and in the �Pilgrim Itineraries� as existing in the fourth and fifth centuries in the Cemetery of Priscilla, where according to the �Acta� they were buried. Paschal I in his great translation of the remains of saints from the catacombs into the city in 817 A.D. brought the sarcophagi of SS. Pudentiana and Praxedis from the catacomb to the Church of St. Praxedis, and the names of both are recorded on a catalogue inscribed on a marble slab to the right of the altar and their portraits appear in the mosaics of this date, which adorn the Church (Marucchi, �El�m. d�Arch. Chr�t.� iii. 325�332).
It is thought that Justin Martyr, when on his trial in 160 A.D. he declared, being interrogated by the Judge as to his dwelling place, that he lived close to the baths called �the Timotine,� may have been referring to the baths of Novatus as the place where he was accustomed to worship. As Timothy was the brother of Novatus it is a possible supposition.
The question now arises, was this Pudens of the �Acta� identical with the Pudens of the 2nd Epistle to Timothy. The Bollandists say No. De Rossi, Marucchi, and many others say Yes, and they get over the chronological difficulty by urging that Pudentiana and Praxedis may have lived to a very advanced age. But the probabilities against such a view are almost insuperable. It is much more likely that the Pudens of the Epistle and the Pudens of the �Acta� were father and son. At one time it was the opinion of De Rossi and his school that the first-century cemetery of Priscilla was the property of the family of Pudens. He and his daughters were buried in the cemetery and his mother�s name is given in the �Acta� as Priscilla. But the discovery of the crypt of the Acilian gens in this catacomb seemed to render it almost certain that the cemetery must have 248belonged to the family of Acilius Glabrio, the Consul of 91 A.D., in which the names of Priscus, Priscilla and Prisca are found. De Rossi therefore suggested that Pudens may have himself been an Acilius. I have however already made another suggestion, i.e. that Priscilla the mother of Pudens according to the �Acta� was an Acilia, and perhaps the aunt or sister of M� Acilius Glabrio.
The traditions which connect the name of Pudens with the early history of the Church in Rome are persistent and numerous quite apart from what is recorded in the �Acta� that we have been considering. It is said that the house of Pudens (the elder Pudens mentioned by St. Paul) was during his stay in Rome the home of St. Peter. The sella gestatoria, or St. Peter�s chair, the oak framework of which is of great antiquity, is said to have been originally the senatorial chair of Pudens. The wooden altar at the St. John Lateran again has been in continuous use there since the fourth century, when it was removed from St. Pudentiana, and that despite the fact that Pope Sylvester in 312 A.D. ordered that all altars should henceforth be of stone. Many indeed had been so before, for the word titulus which signifies a consecrated parish church implies its possession of a stone altar. In the Church of St. Pudentiana at the present time there is preserved within the altar a single wood plank reputed to have been left at that church as a memorial when the altar itself was removed. When Cardinal Wiseman was titular cardinal of St. Pudentiana he had the plank examined and found that the wood was identical with that of the altar at the Lateran Church. The reason of its preservation was the tradition that this altar had been used by St. Peter when he celebrated the Eucharist in the oratory in Pudens� house. When St. John Lateran replaced St. Pudentiana as the Cathedral Church of Rome the bishop and the altar moved there together.501These 249traditions have historically small value in themselves, but it may safely be said that they could never have arisen and obtained the vogue which we find them to have had in comparatively early times, had not the Pudens of Apostolic times and his family after him been active and leading members of the primitive Christian community in Rome.502502 Bianchini in his Anastasius Bibliothecarius (edn. of Liber Pontificalis in 1718) made the suggestion that Pudens was a member of the Gens Cornelia. In 1778 in the primitive Christian oratory discovered in immediate proximity to the Church of St. Prisca (supra, p. 243) a bronze tablet was found to one Caius Marius Pudens Cornelianus offered to this man by a town in Spain expressing gratitude for services rendered during the time when he filled the office of legate, and stating that he (Pudens) had been chosen as �patron� by the citizens. The date of this tabula patronatus is 222 A.D:, and its presence gives strong grounds for assuming that the house containing the Christian place of worship was his property.
The following inscription is of great interest as it belongs to the reign of Vespasian and contains the names of an Amaranthus, a T. Flavius, a Q. Cornelius Pudens, and a Chrestus. Marucchi (Rom. Sott. N.S. i. p. 30) states that immediately adjoining the Cemetery of Domitilla excavated beneath Flavian property lies a property known as Tor Marancia from a certain Amaranthus; on this are a number of pagan sepulchres belonging to the Bruttian family; while Eusebius tells us that he derived his information about the Flavian Christians from an historian named Bruttius [see Note D, p. 256, and Note F, p. 279). HILARITATI PVPLIC � � �
IMP � CAES � VESPASIANI � � �
SACRVM
TRIBVL � SVCC � CORP � IVN *
� � � � �
T : COMINIVS AMARANTH : : : �
T : FLAVIVS � T : F : LVSCV : : : �
Q : CORNELIVS � Q : F : PVDENT : : �
CVRATORES : LIBEROR : TRIB : SVC : COR : IVNIOR : : � �
On the other face occur the words: PONEN � CVR �
C � NYMPHIDIVS � CHRESTVS �
� � � � � �
DEDIC � XVII K � DEC �
L � ANNIO � BASSO �
C CAECINA � PAETO � COS � (i.e. 70 A.D.)
* Tribules succussani. Corpus juniorum.�Muratori, tom. i. p. cccviii. 250
THE FAMILY CONNEXION OF CLEMENT THE BISHOP.
A Tabular Statment of the Scheme of Relationship (set forth in Lecture VIII) between the
Arrecinian and Imperial Flavian Families.
498It is evidently intended that the Priscilla who gave her name to the cemetery was the mother of Pudens.
