JESUS' DISCIPLES TO BRITAIN #7

DRAMA OF THE LOST DISCIPLES #7 by George Jowett (1961) EDICT OF EMPEROR CLAUDIUS, A.D. 42 "EXTERMINATE CHRISTIAN BRITAIN" THE past is so remote it seems inconceivable and perhaps insignificant to the indifferent Christians of today, basking in luxury and the comfort of security, that it is nineteen hundred and fifteen years ago when as the first armed challenge of a powerful world-conquering nation it was officially decreed to destroy Christianity at its core by the extermination of the Island British. It was ten years after the Scandal of the Cross had taken place and less than six years since Joseph, the Noblis Decurio, had proclaimed the Christ Way throughout Britain from his sanctuary on the Isle of Avalon. The Holy Crusade had spread so rapidly from Avalon to beyond the seas that Rome was so disturbed it could no longer ignore the challenge to its own pagan policies and imperial security. In the year A.D.42 Claudius, Emperor of the Romans, issued the fateful decree to destroy Christian Britain, man, woman and child, and its great institutions and burn its libraries. To this purpose Claudius equipped the largest and most efficient army ever sent by Rome to conquer a foe and led by its most able generals. In this edict, Claudius proclaimed in the Roman Senate that acceptance of the Druidic or Christian faith was a capital offence, punishable by death by the sword, the torture chamber, or to be cast to the devouring lions in the arena of the Colosseum. It is interesting to note that this ruling also included "any person descended from David". This meant the Jew, making no exceptions as to whether he be a converted Jew or one holding to the orthodox Judean faith. This indeed was a paradox. While the converted Jew embraced Gentile followers of 'The Way' as brethren, regardless of race, and died with them with equal courage, the orthodox Jew perishing in the arena by the side of the Christian, never relented in his bitter hatred. With his dying breath he spat on the Christian in malevolent scorn. In this peculiar manner British Christian and Jew now had one thing in common, the penalty of death. The Romans had not previously held any special enmity to the British. Actually, and perhaps grudgingly, they had held the Briton in respect. Association in commerce and culture had drawn them together for centuries and it was not uncommon for the children of the nobility on both sides to seek education in the institutions of each. It was the impetus the British had given to the new Christian faith that had cast the Roman die. The Romans had always despised the Jew, and oppressed though the Jews were under Roman domination, they hated the Roman with a burning vehemence which they displayed on the slightest pretext. They would never willingly break bread with a Roman, nor share their home, and on the street would not allow their clothing to touch that of their enemy. When flogged, the unforgiving Jews would spit out vile epithets at their torturers as they writhed or died in agony. The Romans could never understand why the Jewish religion could incite such hatred against members of other faiths, nor could they understand the disdainful contempt the Jews held for women. From the time of Abraham the marital life of the Hebrews was polygamous. While one woman would be named the wife, and be head of the household, yet Abraham had several concubines, sometimes referred to as handmaidens. At the time of our Lord it is stated that marital conditions among the Jews were at their lowest ebb. Women were regarded as mere chattels. Divorce was prevalent and declared at will without resort to law, with seldom any provision made for the divorced woman. It is recorded that it was common for Jew to consort with several women to the knowledge of his so-called legal wife. It amused and angered the Romans to note the hypocritical, puritanical attitude of the Jewish male toward adultery. A woman, be it one of his own consorts or not, was apt to be stoned to death if found guilty of adultery. The suspicion of it would cause her to be branded. The wish brand of adultery was to cause the woman to wear her hair in braids to be reviled and shunned by both Jewish sexes. There was no forgiveness in the Jewish male heart. Realizing these conditions at the time of our Lord, we can better understand the significance of the test of the cohorts of the Sanhedrin put to Jesus when they led before Him the adulteress to be judged. Under the circumstances our hearts can swell with pride at the courage of Jesus and the magnificent manner in which He made the decision by writing in the sand with His finger, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." With these words Jesus challenged each and every man present to prove his right to stone the woman to death. They slunk away. It was Jesus who set women free from this bondage. He freely forgave the adulteress and simply told her to sin no more. Contrary to common belief the Romans, though granted to be licentious, abhorred divorce. The wealthy Romans had many con- sorts, including the Emperors, but the wife held a sacred place as the head of the house which could not be disputed. Consorts were the common practice of the Romans, which found little ill-favour in the eyes of the legal wife. For centuries a divorce could not be obtained. The first record of a Roman divorce occurred five hundred and twenty years after the founding of the Roman dynasty. It was obtained by Spurius Carvilius Rugo on the grounds of sterility. The act so shocked the people that Rugo was shunned by all and so completely disgraced that he was obliged to leave Rome. Even though divorce was not recognized long before Christianity entered Rome, we can understand the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards divorce, being so embedded in the original Roman law. The attitude of the British Holy Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, stems from the words of Jesus. All this added to the Roman hatred of the Jew. Now a new hatred had developed, manifested in the Claudian Edict which accused them of being responsible for the Advent of Christ and for the rise of the new faith which had found its first converts among the people of Judea. The efforts of the Sanhedrin to eradicate 'The Way', in the calumny of the Cross and the terrifying persecution of the Followers by the Saulian Gestapo, was completely overlooked by the Roman Senate or ignored. Further to seek to inflame the populace against Christian and Jew, the Romans were the first to create the false slander that Christian and Jew alike practised human sacrifice in their religion. They knew better. They knew that the burnt offerings of Judean and Druid were animals, chiefly sheep, goats and doves. The Romans spread the ridiculous propaganda that the Jews devoured Gentile babies. Communist distortions of the truth and insinuating fabrications are not new. They are merely imitating the vile trickery of the Romans of Caesar's time. Probably because the Jews were unorganized and not militant like the British, the Roman campaign of extermination was not so widespread, less determined, and never as constant. The Jews were driven into ghettoes, where they could do no harm. The British were a dominating problem. They were a warrior nation skilled in the art of warfare on land and on sea. They were guided by intelligent rulers and commanders, all of whom were steeped in the invincibility of the spirit created by the passion in their faith that declared all men should be free. One of the earliest battle hymns of the Britons was "Britons never shall be slaves". The overwhelming rise of Christianity in populous Britain and Gaul was viewed with grave consternation at Rome. Britain was the seeding-ground where an ever-flowing stream of neophytes were tutored and converted by Apostles and disciples of Christ and sent out into other lands to teach the Gospel. This the Romans declared had to be stopped. To them, as to all dictatorships, might alone was right. Nevertheless, from past experience with British military ability they had good reason to fear this stubborn, valorous race, now inspired with the zeal of Christ. Forewarned, Rome built the mightiest army in its history to enforce the Claudian Edict to destroy Britain. The decree of Claudius was inspired by fear and with sadistic intentions. Rome believed from the experience of her other conquests that only violent persecutors would terrify the Briton into ultimate submission. How wrongly they judged their opponents they were soon to learn. Defamers of ancient Britain should turn back the pages of history and read the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who describes how in the year 390 B.C. Belinus and Brennus, sons of the most famed British King Dunwall, assaulted and captured Rome with a British army. And from 113 to 101 B.C. European observers affirm that the Cimbri-Keltoi of Britain were the terror of Rome and could have brought that Empire under their own subjection if they had so desired. They point out with emphasis that British aggressions were not inspired by wars of conquest but were punitive expeditions arising out of Roman depredation against their Gaulish brethren. Looking back on the pages of those bloodstained years the heart recoils in horror at the savagery, murder, massacre, rape and destruction inflicted upon the inhabitants and the land of the Sacred Isle. The Romans, who had ground so many nations under their despotic heel, looked upon all other nations with scorn as inferiors, labelling every enemy as barbarian, no matter how magnificent their culture. The records attest to the indisputable fact that the Romans of all people were the most barbarous and brutal in history. The people of the Christian democracies still shrink in horror at the blood-chilling viciousness of the Communistic purges. The soul faints before the terrifying pictures of the vile concentration camps, the gas ovens and the fiendish modes of torture inflicted upon the Jews, other peoples, and the Allied war prisoners by the diabolic Nazis and Japs. It makes one feel as though the Devil himself had scraped the bottom of his foul satanic barrel. But vile as it all was, the Nazis, the Japs and the Reds could have learned more dreadful forms of torture by studying the methods of Roman persecution during the pagan centuries. The slaughter of the British Kelts was not confined to the short but too-long period of War II. It endured from the time of the Claudian invasion, A.D.42, to the close of the horrible, infamous Diocletian savagery of A.D.320, nearly three hundred years. Where was the invincibility of the great Roman Caesars? Numerous as were the lives ravished in the Russian, Nazi, Jap purges and incredible tortures, the loss of life is small compared with the total sacrifice of British lives given entirely in the Cause of Christ during those three hundred years. Strange as it may seem, though Gaul was at various times invaded by the Romans and suffered great loss of life, no massed campaign was ever directed against them and never on religious grounds. Britain alone was the chief culprit and against them the vengeance of the bestial Roman knew no bounds. Britain is the only nation in history ever attacked by the full might of another powerful people in an effort to purge Christianity off the face of the earth. Rome sent her very best against the British legions. As they failed to subdue the British, Rome recalled many brilliant generals who had gained fame for the double-headed eagle in other foreign conquests, as she determinedly sought to wipe out one defeat after another to her armies. From the Claudian to the Diocletian persecution, extermination of Britain and all that was Christian was a Roman obsession. How satanic it was can be estimated in the brutal act which touched off the Diocletian campaign. The finest warrior battalions in the Roman army were the famed Gaulish Legions. On the order of Maximian, co-ruler with Diocletian, the Christian Gaulish veterans were slaughtered to a man in cold blood. His hatred of the Christian is stated to have exceeded that of Diocletian and to satiate it he butchered his finest soldiers. The martyrologies state that during the first two hundred years of Christianity over six million Christians were entombed within the catacombs of Rome - murdered. How many more were buried within the other unexplored catacombs is difficult to say. The total number would be appalling. It is claimed that if the passages of the catacombs of Rome were measured end to end they would extend to a length of 550 miles, from the city of Rome into the Swiss Alps. It seems almost incredible that while only about one million Christians today walk the streets of Rome, under their feet are over six million mutilated bodies which had testified for Christ. Let free men and women wherever they may be today, take stock of the price their Christian ancestors paid to obtain and make secure the freedom which they now enjoy. The ancient Britons appear to have better realized than does the present-day shirking Christian that Christianity sets men free and freedom can only be maintained in preserving the Christian faith. The present democracies of the English-speaking world owe all they have or ever will have to their Christian ancestors. Let us remember that, when it seemed as though Christianity was crushed on the Continent by the murderous Diocletian persecution, it was a British king with an army of Christian British warriors who crossed the seas and smashed the Diocletian-Maximian armies with defeat so catastrophic they never rose again. That British victory ended for all time Roman Christian persecution. Following the victory this British king marched his army of Christian warriors into Rome and there declared Rome Christian. From thence dates Roman national acceptance of Christianity. It was not Peter who nationally Christianized Rome but Constantine, the great-grandson of Arviragus, and son of the famous Empress Helen, a British princess. Surely we cannot afford to forget. .......... NOTE: Yes indeed the hitsory records show that Constantine came from Britain, though of Roman stock it was he that came over to Europe to do battle for the Roman Crown. He is supposed to have seen in vision, the cross, and was told to fight by that "standard- bearing" sign. This he did and won the Roman Empire Crown, upon which he then STOPPED all Christian persecution. Rome became so- called "Christian" - it was a very mixed truth and error Christianity, but the popular Christian people at least had no more persecution upon them. It was the start of the rise of the Holy Roman Empire. The true history of Britain and her fight against Rome from AD 42 is found in other studies on my website under this section of "history." Rome "occupied" Britain for 400 years or so, but NEVER "conquered" Britain, or her Celtic Christianity. The "picts" and "scots" of what is now called Scotland, would have nothing to do with even allowing Rome to occupy that part of the British land. So strong and mighty were the Scots fighting men Rome suffered many defeats at their hands, and would have marched down into what is called today England, and driven the Romans back to the continent of Europe, but the Roman General Adrian built a wall right across that northern part of Britain to keep the Scots from coming south of that wall. It is known in British history as "Adrian's Wall." A recent 2010 movie called "The Eagle" showed the story of a huge Roman army going into Scotland and never being heard of again, and the son of its General going after the "standard bearing Eagle" to bring it back to the Roman world. Whatever the truth or error of the movie, the fact in history is that the Romans could not win or defeat the natives of what is now called Scotland. It's time you and your family knew the truth of ancient history. Much of it is on my website. Keith Hunt .......... To be continued with "Jesus or Jupiter?"