Drama of The Lost Disciples - EDICT OF EMPEROR CLAUDIUS

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 this 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 this website.



Keith Hunt

..........



To be continued with "Jesus or Jupiter?"