68. SAINT LUCIUS, KING IN BRITAIN

St. Lucius was descended from Bran the Blessed, of whom The Welsh Triads say: «There came with Bran the Blessed from Rome to Britain Arwystli Hen (the old man), Ilid, Cyndaw, men of Israel; Maw, or Manaw, son of Arwystli hen.» Arwytsli has been very tentatively identified with St. Aristobulus, the first Bishop of Britain, who, according to the Greek Menaion for March 15, «was chosen by St. Paul to be the missionary bishop of the land of Britain, inhabited by a very fierce and warlike race. By them he was often scourged, and repeatedly dragged as a criminal through their towns, yet he converted many of them to Christianity. He was martyred there after he had built churches and ordained priests and deacons for the island.»

Bran the Blessed is called by the Triads, «the first to bring the Faith of Christ to the Welsh from Rome, where he had been seven years as a hostage for his son Caradog». Caradoc, or Caractacus, was the leader of the heroic resistance of the Britons against the Roman invaders which was so vividly described by the Roman historian Tacitus. Caractacus was betrayed into the Romans» hands. But he defended himself with great dignity in the Roman senate, and Tacitus wrote: «Rome trembled when it saw the Briton, though in chains».

The exiled family of Bran the Blessed and his son Caractacus formed the nucleus of the first Gentile Christian community in Rome. Caractacus» daughter Gladys married a Roman senator and took the name Claudia after the Emperor Claudius, and it is under this name that the poet Martial alluded to her in his eleventh epigram:

Our Claudia, sprung, we know, from blue-eyed Britons.

Yet, behold, she vies in grace with all that Greece or Rome can show.

Claudia was the mother of several children, including the holy Martyrs Praxedes and Pudentiana.

The eldest son of Caractacus, Cyllinus, went back to his native land. He is mentioned in the family records of Jestyn ap Gwrgant, Prince of Glamorgan in the eleventh century: «Cyllin ab Caradoc, a wise and just king. In his days many of the Welsh embraced the Faith in Christ through the teaching of the saints of Cor- Eurgain, and many godly men from the countries of Greece and Rome were in Wales.»

St. Lucius (in Welsh: «Lleuver Mawr», «The Great Light») was the grandson of King Cyllinus. In the year 156 he sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius in Rome asking to be made a Christian. (Evidently apostolic succession had died out in Britain.) In accordance with his request, he was baptized by a deacon of the Roman Church by the name of Timothy. Moreover, the Pope sent two missionaries by the names of Fagan and Dyfan, who settled with twelve disciples in Glastonbury. Lucius himself

is said to have built the original church dedicated to the Archangel Michael on Glastonbury Tor, and is credited with having founded an archbishopric in Llandaff in Wales, having been the first to give «lands and the privilege of the country to those who first dedicated themselves to the faith in Christ.» The Churches of Gloucester and London (Cornhill) also claim Lucius as their founder. It is said that the second Bishop of London was Elfan, one of the messengers sent by Lucius to Rome.

According to Notker's Martyrology (894), St. Lucius later «abandoned the world, crossed the sea and converted many to Christ in Switzerland through his preaching and miracles». However, this is doubted by the Swiss scholar C. Simonett, who believes that the British King Lucius has been confused with a Lucius from Chur in Switzerland, where the «Brittoni», a Celtic tribe, were living, and who worked as a missionary against the Arians from about 550 to 600.

St. Lucius died on December 3, 201.

(Sources: Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I, 4; William of Malmesbury, De Antiquitate Ecclesiae Glastoniensis, 2; The Triads of Britain, 35, translated by W. Probert, London: Wildwood House, 1977; Notker, Martyrology; H.M. Porter, The Celtic Church in Somerset, Bath: Morgan Books, pp. 125–127; C. Simonett, Geschicte der Storolz Chur, 1. Teil, Chur: Calven-Verlag, 1976; Personal Communication, September 19, 1979)