legends that select a kinsman' of Pudens as a Roman missionary who first preached in Britain, thus bearing independent testimony to the truth of such criticism.

Here, then, we have strong presumptive, circumstantial, and indirect evidence, in favour of the hypothesis of the identity of Paul's Pudens with Martial's, and his connection with S. Paul; and with Pomponia Græcina the wife of Plautius; and with Titus Flavius Clemens, the son of the brother of the Emperor Vespasian; and with Claudia Rufina, the Briton; and with Domitilla, the niece of Domitian; and with Eubulus and Linus: and all more or less connected with Britain. If they were not the bearers themselves, how far then did they promote the Gospel in Britain ? This question brings us to the last section upon the subject of the introduction of Christianity to Britain.

VI.

Two of the oldest Churches in Rome2 are dedicated to the sainted virgins, Prudentiana and Praxides. S. Prudentiana had the pre-eminent honour for many years of being the only favour of King Church where the Eucharist was given. othe Bishop Evaristus "distributed the

Testimonies in Lucius and Tim

titles" where the Eucharist could elsewhere be offered. The altar of S. Prudentiana, which was of wood, was transferred to the Lateran by Pope Syl

1 Timotheus "Invenio in legenda sancti Timothei Apostoli, quod venerit in Brittanniam," etc. (Johan. Nau-Clerus Chonograpt, vol. 2, generat 6), quoted by Guest, p. 143.

2 Wiseman's Fabiola, 2, 10. (Quoted by Guest, p. 145.)

vester, and now forms the High Altar there. Now, who were these Holy Virgins? They were the sisters of Timotheus, and were daughters of Pudens and Claudia. Timotheus is said to be the son of Claudia. And who was Lucius? He was, in all probability, the son of Cogidubnus, the faithful ally of Rome.1 He would be contemporary with Bishop Evaristus, in whose time, according to Welsh tradition, Timotheus visited Britain and converted Lucius to the Faith, This happened, according to Nennius," " In the year of our Lord's incarnation 164" (167 or 144 in some MSS.). "Lucius, British King, with all the reguli of the whole of Britain, received baptism, a mission having been sent by the Emperors of the Romans and by the Pope Evaristus." Bede, on the other hand, says that Lucius sent Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, a letter praying that he might be made a Christian; and that this was done in A. D. 156, Marcus Verus and Commodus being Emperors.

Now Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome from A. D. 177-191; and Evaristus from about A. D. 100-109. That a British Chief should be allowed to retain the title King as late as the reign of Commodus seems very improbable. But that the son of the faithful Cogidubnus should retain it seems not at all improbable. Evaristus and he would have been contemporaries. There was a deputation sent by the Churches of Gaul to Eleutherius, and this deputation was headed by S. Irenæus. This deputation may have supplied the

5

writer, which Bede evidently follows, with the name of the Roman Bishop likely to be applied to by a British King, in the tradition that no doubt was in existence, of an application of this nature at some time or another. The name of Commodus would suggest the King's name-Lucius. Nennius, on the other hand, though undoubtedly having Bede before him, deliberately adopted the name of Evaristus; and though referring to Bede in other matters, may have in this case followed his own Welsh and more perfect tradition, in the name of the Bishop. Unless we recognize this, we cannot account for the name of Evaristus, being, as he was, one of the most obscure of Roman bishops.1

There is, then, a strong probability that a certain British King, in the first century of the Christian era, did request of a certain Bishop of Rome, on the ground of his being Bishop of the capital of the Empire, assistance for the conversion of his subjects. And the presumption that he was the son of Cogidubnus, and that the Bishop in question was Evaristus, is not at all improbable. The difference in date among the authors who relate the tradition does not disprove this. They all agree in the main fact, and the main fact and matter is the substance and soul of history. "And indeed all computation in the primitive time is very uncertain, there being then (and a good while after) an 'anarchy,' as I may term it, in authors' reckoning of years, because men were not subject to any one sovereign rule in accounting the year of our Lord; but every one followed his own arithmetic, to the great confusion of history and prejudice of truth."

It is worthy of notice that Archbishop Parker, in reminding Calvin that the British Church would retain her Episcopacy, refers to the mission of King Lucius as evidence against the pretensions of Rome that he owed her allegiance1 from the assumption that her Episcopacy originated with the mission of S. Augustine.

1 Strype's Abp. Parker, vol. i. p. 139.

CHAPTER III.

The Continuity of the Faith in Britain.

I.

We have now reviewed the names of those whom, many authors testify, were the first blessed heralds

Forty years

after the Ascen

of the Faith in the British Isles; and we have seen from the testimony of tradition, and of these authors, how strong the evidence is in favour of some of them having visited Britain. But, whether this be admitted or not, no one can deny that among such a mass of testimony there is some truth; nor can any one say that the traditions above referred to are merely the creation of diseased brains of monks of the middle ages. There are too many concurrent probabilities to allow of this; too many well-known facts and events harmonized; too much presumptive, circumstantial, and indirect evidence to permit it. But and if the name of the first herald cannot with absolute accuracy, which admits of no doubt whatever (though this be foreign to the spirit of history), be pointed to, what matters it? The grand central fact that underlies all this mass of evidence, the soul and spirit, the essence, the truth of it all, the kernel remains, viz. : That the Celts had the Gospel preached to them before the last decade of the first century. So that,