Gospel According to Claudia

Violins shimmer, kettledrums boom, and out of the phonograph throbs the prim soprano voice of TV Actress Marjorie (The Danny Thomas Show) Lord. She's playing Claudia Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate, a down-and-out Roman citizen who in better days was--yes, that's the one--the procurator of Judea. It's some time in the ist century. Claudia is dictating a letter to her friend Fulvia: "I am the wife of the man who condemned Christ Jesus to death. If even here children slink away from us, let me believe that somewhere, some woman will understand--even as she, the mother of Jesus, would have understood."

Biblical soap opera it may be, but Claudia's Letter is boffo in the California city of Pomona. This week, so the city fathers have decreed, the record will blare each noontime from loudspeakers along Pomona's new nine-block downtown mall. At least 15 Pomona churches plan to use it during Holy Week and Easter services, and some clergymen are treating it like a new Gospel. "It has a tremendous wallop and it just wrings you out," says Dr. Edward Cole of the First Baptist Church. "The first time I heard it I had to get up from my chair twice and look the other way while I fought back tears. It really bugged me."

Translated from a Latin manuscript into thee-and-thou English by Writer Catherine Van Dyke, the Letter tells how Claudia's son Pilo had his withered foot cured by Jesus. Overcome, Claudia tries to convert her husband to faith in Christ, but Pilate is an intellectual, and a nut about philosophy, and won't bite. From her vantage point near Herod's Palace, Claudia describes Christ's passion in gory detail: "Jesus, bound to a pillar, and standing in a red pool of his own blood." After the Crucifixion, Pilate loses favor with Rome, and ends his life a sick pauper, trembling on the verge of--is it faith? "Ye who pray," Claudia cries, at the thrilling climax, "pray now for Pontius.''

Kelley Norwood, president of the company that recorded the letter, stoutly claims that "there is no question about its authenticity." The Bible does not mention Claudia by name, although Matthew notes that Pilate's wife, after having a bad dream, warned him against condemning Jesus; some writings of the early Christian era do refer to Pilate's wife as Claudia Procula, and claim her as a convert.

Miss Lord stands to make some royalties from the Letter, but "money is not my main interest. For one thing, I really love the letter. For another, I need some recognition outside The Danny Thomas Show for my career's sake."

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