2 Timothy 4:21

2 Timothy 4:21. Before winter. The special reason for the urgency was, of course, that after October or November, the navigation of the Mediterranean was suspended, as we see in Acts 27:9; Acts 27:12. The prospect of the winter was doubtless connected also with the wish for the cloak left at Troas.

Eubulus, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia. Two of the names connect themselves with an interesting series of coincidences. Here it will be sufficient to give a brief summary of them. They may be found at length in an Excursus in vol. 3 of Alford's Greek Testament, and in a paper by the present writer in the Bible Educator (3 p. 245), and in a poem ‘Claudia and Pudens' in his Master and Scholar. (1) There are several epigrams by Martial in which a Pudens is mentioned as married to a Claudia, a foreigner, and of British desce nt (i. 32, iv. 13, v. 48, vi. 58). She is called Rufina as a second name. (2) A Roman inscription was found at Chichester, and is now at Goodwood, in which Pudens is named as giving a site for a temple erected to Neptune and Minerva by a king and chieftain Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus. The same Cogidubnus is named by Tacitus as ruling over cities in Sussex (Agricola, c. 14). (3) Pomponia, the wife of Aulus Plautius, who was connected with the Rufi, and had been commander in Britain (A.D. 57), was accused of having adopted an alien superstition (Tacit. Ann. xii. 32), which led her to habits of seclusion and melancholy, The description fits in with the supposition that she was a convert to the new faith, seeking sadly after a higher life. (4) The conclusion drawn from these facts is that Pudens served under Aulus Plautius in Britain, and was stationed in Sussex; that the wife of the commander took the daughter of Claudius Cogidubnus with her to Rome; that under her influence Claudia became a Christian; that St. Paul in his first imprisonment at Rome, through his frequent contact with the soldiers of the Praetorian guards, brought Pudens also to the faith, or found that he was already half convinced; that an affection which ended in marriage sprang up between the two. It is noticeable that Martial speaks with an unusual reverence both of the intellectual and moral character of Claudia.

Linus. The name occurs in the list of Bishops of Rome given by Irenæus (iii. 3, 3) and Eusebius (H. E. iii. 4) as next in succession to Clement.