On the whole, although the identity of St. Paul's Pu- dens with any legendary or heathen namesake is not abso- lutely proved, yet it is difficult to believe that these facts add nothing to our knowledge of the friend of Paul and Timothy. The identity is favored by Alford, Convbeare and Howson, and others. Objections to the details of the story do not seem to be insuperable. The difficulty is that so much is pure conjecture. In the Acts of Pastor, the wife of Pudens, and mother of his children, is named Savinilla. The Welsh legends are said to affirm Pudens's marriage with Gladys, the daughter or niece of Caracta- cus. The facts and arguments are treated at great length in a pamphlet entitled Claudia and Pudens, by archdea- con Williams ( Llandoven-, 1848), p. 58 ; and more briefly by dean Alford, Greek Testament (ed. 1856), iii, 104; and by Convbeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul (ed. 1858), ii, 594 ; also by Lewin, St. Paul, ii, 392 sq. They are in- geniously woven into a pleasing romance by a writer in the Quarterly Review, xcvii, 100-105. See Prof. Smyth in the Bibliotk. Sacra, 1875. p. 174 sq. ; also Usher, Keel. Brit. Antiquitales, § 3, and Stilliugtleet, Antiquities.
Pudentiana, St. Among the Roman families who, in the 2d century, emhraced the Christian faith, one of the most distinguished seems to have been that of the senator Pudens, his mother Priscilla, and his daughters Pudentiana and Praxedis. Pudens is fre- quently alleged to have been a disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul, and there is really a Pudens named in the second letter to Timothy; but this Pudens seems not to be identical with the father of Pudentiana and Praxedis. According to the Bollandists, our Pudens was converted by pope Pius I, who lived in the middle of the 2d century. After the death of his wife, the new convert had his house transformed into a church. He taught his two daughters the doctrines and all good works of Christianity, in which they soon distinguished themselves, converting to their new faith, with the as- sistance of the pope, who used to say mass in the now consecrated building, not only the members of their family and inmates of their house, but a large number of other pagans. We do not know when Pudens and his holy daughters died. Pudentiana, as well as Praxe- dis, had churches in Rome in the earliest times. See the Bollandists on May 19, where a learned commenta- ry is given about Pudens and his two daughters, with the documents relating to them. See Pudens.
Fudicitia (Ai'owf), a personification of modesty, was worshipped both in (ireece and at Rome. At Ath- ens an altar was dedicated to her (Pausan. i, 17, § 1). At Rome two sanctuaries were dedicated to her, one under the name of Pudicitia patricia, and the other under that of Pudicitia plebeia. The former was in the Forum Boarium, near the temple of Hercules. When the patrician Virginia was driven from this sanctuary by the other patrician women, because she had married
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the plebeian consul L.Volumnius, she built a separate sanctuary to Pudicitia plebeia in the Vicus Longus (Livy, -x. 23; Festus, p. 242, ed. Miiller). No woman who had married twice was allowed to touch her statue; and Pudicitia, moreover, wa9 considered by some to be the same as Fortuna Muliebris. She is represented in works of art as a matron in modest attire. See llirt. Mythol. Bilderb. p. 114, tab. 13.— Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Mythol. B. v.
Flier natus in Bethlehem. Thisjoyous Christ- mas hymn, which belongs to the 14th century, of a beautiful simplicity, and absorbing easily so much the- ology in iis poetry, continued long a great favorite in the Lutheran churches of Germany, well-nigh to this day. The original is given l>y Daniel. Thesaurus, i. 334; Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, p. '."7: Simrock, Laudes Sion, p. 42; Konigsfeld, Hymnen, ii. 304. Eng- lish translations arc given in Li/rn Missiiuiini. p. ss: Christian Life in Song, p. 173 ; Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 50. German translations arc given by Simrock and Konigsfeld, and especially by Hoffmann von Fallersle- ben in his GeschicM des deutsch. Kirchenliedes, p. 340 sq. See also Trench, Daniel, and especially Wackernagel, who, in his Das deutsche Kirehenlied, i, 198 200, gives ten forms of this hymn. (B. P.)
Pueri (boys), a name often given in the Latin Church to catechumens (q. v.). They Merc also called Audi- elites, Incipientes, Noviiii, Rudes, Tirones.
Pueris Similes (lib: boys) is a sect of Anabaptists mentioned by Bullinger in his treatise on Anabaptism (q.v.). They practiced childish tricks, under the no- tion that this was being childlike, as required by the Gospel precepl of entering into the kingdom of heaven
by becoming as a little child. Hence they would ride
upon sticks and hobby-horses, and take oil' their clothes thai they might practice the innocence of childhood; ending, of course, in extremely immoral excesses.
Puffer, Isaac, a well-known pioneer preacher of American Methodism, was horn in Westminster County, Mass.. in June. 1784. As a hoy he came with his par- ents to Central New York. At fifteen he was converted. Ten years later he joined the New York Conference as a travelling preacher, and was .appointed to the Otsego Circuit, then a far-reaching territory, which in the fol- lowing year was incorporated in the Genesee * 'i mtii - cure. That conference was then made to cover not only much of Northern and Western New York, hut also the Upper and Lower Canadas. In this large held Puffer labored for full forty years with remarkable per- severance, and had the pleasure of seeing the mosl won- derful results that ever crowned the labor of any Meth- odist preacher. Though his early advantages must have been inconsiderable, he became one of the most useful, it might almost he said one of the most popular, preachers of his time. His great strength lay in the ease and skill with which he quoted the Scriptures.