Caesar Augustus . . .
Caesar
Augustus—the same Caesar Augustus whose imperial decree sent Mary and Joseph
scurrying off to Bethlehem—had only one biological child. He went on to adopt several others; but his
only natural child was a daughter named Julia.
To say that their relationship was strained would be an understatement. Indeed, on the day of Julia’s birth, Augustus
announces that he is divorcing her mother.
How’s that for a welcome to the family?
Julia grows
up being shuttled from one relative to another, and at the tender of age of
fourteen, she finds herself getting married.
It is an arranged marriage, which doesn’t last particularly long,
because her husband is killed in battle just two years into it. Her second marriage lasts a bit longer, but
is no happier, and eventually he, too, is killed in battle. She is married for a third time at the age of
twenty-eight to a man named Tiberius, who had previously been adopted by Augustus
himself—so, in effect, she winds up marrying her own stepbrother!
Of all of her
marriages, this one is by far the worst.
Julia and Tiberius are so ill-suited for one another that they can
barely stand being in the same room, let alone the same relationship. Finally, when Tiberius has had enough of her,
Julia is sent into exile. She meets a
man, falls in love, and has a child out-of-wedlock. Her name is Claudia.
Upon hearing
the news that his wife has been unfaithful, Tiberius is so outraged that he refuses
to give Julia the pleasure of motherhood.
He sends for the little girl and immediately has her brought back to
Rome, where, much like her mother’s upbringing, she is shuttled from one
relative to another. For his part,
Tiberius loathes the very sight of her, since she is a constant reminder of
Julia’s affair.
At the age of
sixteen, Claudia meets a young soldier, just back from the front. His name is Pontius Pilate. In time, the two of them approach Tiberius (who,
by this point, has become the Emperor) and ask for his permission to get
married. As a wedding present for this couple
whom he clearly detests—and please note the mean-spiritedness of this—Tiberius gives
Pontius Pilate the lowest and most undesirable position available at the
time. He is appointed Prefect of Judea!
What happens
to Claudia after that is anyone’s guess.
She simply fades from the canvas of history. However, she makes a brief cameo appearance
in Matthew’s Gospel. As Pilate is
contemplating the fate of a certain Galilean preacher, Claudia alerts her
husband to the fact that she’s been having some troubling dreams about Jesus of
Nazareth. “Have nothing to do with this
innocent man,” she writes to him.
It seems
strange to dream about someone you’ve never known, which leads me to wonder
whether, at some point, she had actually met Jesus, or at least seen him. It’s pure speculation on my part, of course. But given that she, too, had suffered the sting
of rejection, through no fault of her own, maybe she recognized a kindred
spirit when she looked into Jesus’ eyes.
Maybe the reason she is trying so hard to keep her husband out of this
whole sordid affair is because she has experienced what it is to be a scapegoat
herself!
The only
other time that the name Claudia occurs in the New Testament is in 2nd
Timothy, where she is greeted by Paul as a sister in Christ. Although we can’t be certain that this is, in
fact, Pilate’s wife, it’s an intriguing possibility. Perhaps there came a day when she started
following this man who kept haunting her dreams.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home