Claudius of Colchester

I spent a happy day this summer in the Essex city of Colchester, or Coal-chist-a, as the locals are pleased to pronounce it. It was here that the Romans first settled after their invasion and built their massive temple to the Emperor Claudius, who had authorised the landings. The current castle is built on that great temple’s foundations, and recycles some of its building materials. Those bricks and stones that were not burnt down by Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, that is.

And here is the man himself, below, the divine Claudius, son of God, ruler of the world, based on a bust found in a Suffolk River, which was probably plundered from his temple when Queen Bee attacked it.

Claudius was as decent an emperor as one was likely to find, but he was not divine. Sheltering in his temple saved no lives, and he himself succumbed to death, being probably murdered by his heir’s wife. While he was alive, however, the real Son of God, the divine Christ, and the Ruler of the Cosmos, really walked the earth. Born about six years after Claudius, the Lord Jesus would not have been known to the great ones in Rome, being of humble Jewish stock in a faraway province. Today, He is far better known, and often loved, more than the Romans princeps. No-one worships Claud now, but many bow the knee to Christ. The day is coming when this emperor, too, will bow the knee to the Jew of Galilee, confessing Him as Lord and God.