Claudius in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Tiberius Nero Drusus Germanicus; fourth Roman emperor; reigned from A.D. 41 to 54; successor of Caligula; son of Nero Drusus; born 9 B.C.; lived in privacy until he became emperor (A.D. 41) mainly through the influence of Herod Agrippa I (Josephus, Ant. 19:2, section 1, 3, 4), whose territory therefore he enlarged by adding Judaea, Samaria, and part of Lebanon. He appointed Herod's brother to Chalcis and the presidency over the temple at Jerusalem. In Claudius' reign occurred the famine in Israel and Syria (Acts 11:28-30) under the procurators Cuspins Fadus and Tiberius Alexander. Suetonius (Claud., 25) writes: "Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, as they were constantly raising disturbances under the instigation of one Christ" (this was between A.D. 50 and 52): a sample of the ignorance of pagan writers in respect to Christ and Judaism. Claudius was poisoned by his fourth wife, Agrippina Nero's mother (A.D. 54), after a weak reign in which, according to Suetonius (29), "he showed himself not a prince but a servant" in the hands of others.