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 2^nd 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.