Joseph of Arimathea

Pontius Pilate, who was reassured by a centurion that the death had really taken place, allowed Joseph's request. Joseph immediately purchased fine linen (Mark 15:46) and proceeded to Golgotha to take the body down from the cross. There, assisted by Nicodemus, he took the body and wrapped it in the fine linen, sprinkling it with the myrrh and aloes which Nicodemus had brought (John 19:39).

Jesus being taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea
(larger image)

⁵³ Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.

Joseph's role in the Gospels

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth.

In the Qumran community's Great Isaiah Scroll, dated at ca 100 BC the words are not identical to the Masoretic Text:

And they gave wicked ones his grave and [a scribbled word, probably accusative sign "eth"] rich ones in his death although he worked no violence neither deceit in his mouth.

Is the "Man of Sorrows" assigned a shameful grave with the rich and wicked? Or are the wicked and rich given his grave? The question cannot be resolved simply from the three parallel surviving manuscript traditions.

Historical development

Christian interpretations

³ He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:3

Biblical text amplifies both the characteristics of Joseph, and the involvement he had with the burial of Christ. According to Dwight Moody in Bible Characters (p. 115ff) seldom is anything mentioned by all four Evangelists. If something is mentioned by Matthew and Mark, it is often omitted by Luke and John. However in the case of Joseph of Arimathea, he and his actions are mentioned by all four writers:

Matthew 27:57-60, Mark 15:43-46, Luke 23:50-55 and John 19:38-42.

Gospel of Nicodemus

And likewise Joseph also stepped out and said to them: Why are you angry against me because I begged the body of Jesus? Behold, I have put him in my new tomb, wrapping in clean linen; and I have rolled a stone to the door of the tomb. And you have acted not well against the just man, because you have not repented of crucifying him, but also have pierced him with a spear.(Gospel of Nicodemus, Translated by Alexander Walker).

The Jewish elders then captured Joseph, and imprisoned him, and placed a seal on the door to his cell after first posting a guard. Joseph warned the elders;

The Son of God whom you hanged upon the cross, is able to deliver me out of your hands. All your wickedness will return upon you.

Once the elders returned to the cell, the seal was still in place, but Joseph was gone. The elders later discover that Joseph had returned to Arimathea. Having a change in heart, the elders desired to have a more civil conversation with Joseph about his actions and sent a letter of apology to him by means of seven of his friends. Joseph travelled back from Arimathea to Jerusalem to meet with the elders, where they questioned by them about his escape. He told them this story:

On the day of the Preparation, about the tenth hour, you shut me in, and I remained there the whole Sabbath in full. And when midnight came, as I was standing and praying, the house where you shut me in was hung up by the four corners, and there was a flashing of light in mine eyes. And I fell to the ground trembling. Then some one lifted me up from the place where I had fallen, and poured over me an abundance of water from the head even to the feet, and put round my nostrils the odour of a wonderful ointment, and rubbed my face with the water itself, as if washing me, and kissed me, and said to me, Joseph, fear not; but open thine eyes, and see who it is that speaks to thee. And looking, I saw Jesus; and being terrified, I thought it was a phantom. And with prayer and the commandments I spoke to him, and he spoke with me. And I said to him: Art thou Rabbi Elias? And he said to me: I am not Elias. And I said: Who art thou, my Lord? And he said to me: I am Jesus, whose body thou didst beg from Pilate, and wrap in clean linen; and thou didst lay a napkin on my face, and didst lay me in thy new tomb, and roll a stone to the door of the tomb. Then I said to him that was speaking to me: Show me, Lord, where I laid thee. And he led me, and showed me the place where I laid him, and the linen which I had put on him, and the napkin which I had wrapped upon his face; and I knew that it was Jesus. And he took hold of me with his hand, and put me in the midst of my house though the gates were shut, and put me in my bed, and said to me: Peace to thee! And he kissed me, and said to me: For forty days go not out of thy house; for, lo, I go to my brethren into Galilee. (Gospel of Nicodemus, Translated by Alexander Walker)

According to the Gospel of Nicodemus, Joseph testified to the Jewish elders, and specifically to Chief priest Caiaphas and Annas that Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven and he indicated that others were raised from the dead at the resurrection of Christ (repeating Matt 27:52-53). He specifically identified the two sons of the high-priest Simeon (again in Luke 2:25-35). The elders Annas, Caiaphas, Nicodemus, and Joseph himself, along with Gamaliel under whom Paul studied, travelled to Arimathea to interview Simeon's sons Charinus and Lenthius.

Other Medieval texts

1. Joseph is portrayed as the founder of British Christianity (even before it had taken hold in Rome).
2. Joseph is thought to be the original guardian of the Holy Grail.

Legendary accounts: 1st century evangelist?

.all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons--inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ.

Tertullian doesn't say how the Gospel came to Britain before AD 222. However, Eusebius, (C.E. 260-340) Bishop of Caesarea and father of ecclesiastical history wrote in Demonstratio Evangelica Bk. 3;

The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called the Britannic Isles. St. Hilary of Poitiers (C.E. 300-376) also wrote (Tract XIV, Ps 8) that the Apostles had built churches and that the Gospel had passed into Britain. This claim is echoed by St. John Chrysostom (C.E. 347-407), the Patriarch of Constantinople in Chrysostomo Orat. O Theos Xristos;

The British Isles which are beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received virtue of the Word. Churches are there found and altars erected .. Though thou shouldst go to the ocean, to the British Isles, there though shouldst hear all men everywhere discoursing matters out of the scriptures, with another voice indeed, but not another faith, with a different tongue, but the same judgement.

Hippolytus (AD 170-236), considered to have been one of the most learned Christian historians, identifies the seventy whom Jesus sent in Luke 10, and includes Aristobulus listed in Romans 16:10 with Joseph and states that he ended up becoming a Pastor in Britain. This is further argued by St. Hilary in Tract XIV, Ps 8.

These earliest references to Christianity’s arrival in Britain resulted in interest and later research by medieval writers who wanted to explain these references. Rabanus Maurus (AD 766-856), Archbishop of Mayence states in the Life of Mary Magdalene that Joseph of Arimathea was sent to Britain, and he goes on to detail who travelled with him as far as France, claiming that he was accompanied by the two Bethany sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus (who was raised from the dead), St. Eutropius, St. Salome, St. Cleon, St. Saturnius, St. Mary Magdalen, Marcella (the maid of the Bethany sisters), St. Maxium or Maximin, St. Martial, and St. Trophimus or Restitutus.

An authentic copy of the Maurus text is housed in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. manuscripts MSS Laud 108 of the Bodleian.

Rabanus Maurus describes their voyage to Britain :Leaving the shores of Asia and favoured by an east wind, they went round about, down the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Europe and Africa, leaving the city of Rome and all the land to the right. Then happily turning their course to the right, they came near to the city of Marseilles, in the Viennoise province of the Gauls, where the river Rhone is received by the sea. There, having called upon God, the great King of all the world, they parted; each company going to the province where the Holy Spirit directed them; presently preaching everywhere .. His claim is that Joseph, Mary and others followed the well-known Phoenician trade route to Britain as described by Diodorus Siculus.

Cardinal Caesar Baronius (C.E. 1538-1609), Vatican Librarian and historian, recorded this voyage by Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Marcella and others in his Annales Ecclesiatici', volume 1, section 35.

Many of the details repeated by medieval writers were originally recorded in Historia de Rebus Brittannicis by a 6th century Welsh bard, Maelgwn (aka Melkin or Melchinus). Maelgwn's work was well known to Medieval writers but was destroyed when the Abbey at Glastonbury burned in 1184 AD.

Legendary accounts: the Holy Grail

The origin of the association between Joseph and Britain is not entirely clear, but it is probably through this association that Boron attached him to the Grail. Interestingly, in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, a vast Arthurian composition that took much from Boron, it is not Joseph but his son Josephus who is considered the primary holy man of Britain. Later authors sometimes mistakenly or deliberately treated the Grail story as truth – John of Glastonbury, who assembled a chronicle of the history of Glastonbury Abbey around 1350 claims that when Joseph came to Britain he brought with him a wooden cup used in the Last Supper, and two cruets, one holding the blood of Christ, and the other sweat from Jesus, washed from his wounded body on the Cross. This legend is the source of the Grail claim by the Nanteous cup on display in the museum in Aberystwyth, however it should be noted that there is no references to this tradition in ancient or medieval text.John further claims King Arthur was descended from Joseph, listing the following imaginative pedigree through King Arthur's mother;

Helaius, Nepos Joseph, Genuit Josus, Josue Genuit Aminadab, Aminadab Genuit Filium, qui Genuit Ygernam, de qua Rex Pen-Dragon, Genuit Nobilem et Famosum Regum Arthurum, per Quod Patet, Quod Rex Arthurus de Stirpe Joseph descendit.

Legendary accounts: the flowering staff

"Continuing her flight to Ely, Etheldreda halted for some days at Alfham, near Wintringham, where she founded a church; and near this place occurred the "miracle of her staff." Wearied with her journey, she one day slept by the wayside, having fixed her staff in the ground at her head. On waking she found the dry staff had burst into leaf; it became an ash tree, the "greatest tree in all that country;" and the place of her rest, where a church was afterwards built, became known as 'Etheldredestow.'" (King 1862)

Is there any merit to the legends of Saint Joseph? Perhaps. Tin, an essential ingredient of bronze, was highly valued in ancient times, and Phoenician ships imported tin from Cornwall. It is not unreasonable to believe that some first-century Jewish Christians might have been investors in the Cornwall tin trade. Christianity gained a foothold in Britain very early perhaps, in part, because of the commerce in tin. If so, then the early British Christians would have a tradition that they had been evangelized by a wealthy Jewish Christian. Having forgotten his name, they might have consulted the Scriptures and found that Joseph and Saint Barnabas fit the description. Because much of the life of Barnabas was already described by the Acts of the Apostles, making him an unlikely candidate, only Joseph was left. Thus, Christians seeking an immediate connection with Jesus, grasped on to Joseph as their evangelizer.

Arimathea

Additional Notes

"Likewise fabulous is the legend", continues the Catholic Encyclopedia, that Joseph of Arimathea was the uncle of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and a merchant involved in the tin trade with Britain who took Jesus there at some time in his life. After the Crucifixion, around the year AD 63, he was said to have returned to Britain as one of the first Christian missionaries to visit the country. He carried the Holy Grail with him, concealing it somewhere in the vicinity of Glastonbury Tor for safekeeping when he established the first church in the British Isles, which developed into Glastonbury Abbey. When Joseph set his walking staff on the ground to sleep, it miraculously took root, leafed out, and blossomed as the "Glastonbury thorn". There is little historical substance for any of this legend, but its retelling did encourage the pilgrimage trade at Glastonbury until the Abbey was dissolved in 1539, at the English Reformation. More information about the debate about the suggested connection of Joseph of Arimathea with Britain can be found in Celtic Christianity.

Author Glenn Kimball further links the arrival, in Britain, of Joseph of Arimathea by 63 AD to the revolt of Boudica in England at nearly precisely that time (61 AD).

References

• Miller, Complete Gospels, p. 51
• The Catholic Encyclopedia asserts that "the additional details which are found concerning him in the apocryphal Acta Pilati ("Acts of Pilate"), are unworthy of credence."
• John Chrysostom, Homilies of St. John Chrysostum on the Gospel of John.
• "Likewise fabulous is the legend", continues the Catholic Encyclopedia, "which tells of his coming to Gaul A.D. 63, and thence to Great Britain, where he is supposed to have founded the earliest Christian oratory at Glastonbury. Finally, the story of the translation of the body of Joseph of Arimathea from Jerusalem to Moyenmonstre (Diocese of Toul) originated late and is unreliable."
• Moody, Dwight Lyman. 1997. Moody’s Bible Characters Come Alive. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. p. 115 ISBN 0-520-04392-8.
• An Answer to the Jews. Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall. Retrieved 3/09/2009
• Eusebius of Caesarea: Demonstratio Evangelica. Tr. W.J. Ferrar (1920) -- Book 3. Retrieved 3/09/2009
• NPNF2-09. Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus. Retrieved 3/09/2009
• Hippolytus Romanus, www.ccel.org. Retrieved 3/09/2009
• manuscripts MSS Laud 108 of the Bodleian. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 3/09/2009
• Modern History Sourcebook: Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. 1533, r. 1558-1603). Retrieved 3/09/2009