In the year 43AD, just ten years after Jesus was crucified, the Roman army crossed the English Channel and began the conquest of Britain. For the next four hundred years it was to be a province of the Roman Empire. We know for certain that there were Christians in Roman Britain, but nobody knows exactly when or how the Christian faith arrived. Perhaps it was brought by missionaries from Gaul (as France was called at that time); or it may have come with soldiers from the southern part of the Roman Empire, where Christianity spread rapidly in the early days of the Church. However, an ancient legend suggests that the first Christians in England may have been linked directly to Our Lord Himself.
Do you remember that the Gospels mention a follower of Jesus called Joseph of Arimathea? After the crucifixion Joseph asked Pilate for Jesus’ body, and buried it in his own tomb.
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. (Matthew 27: 57-60)
All we know for certain about Joseph is that he was a wealthy and important man, a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. The Gospel of John tells us that when he buried the Lord’s body he worked alongside Nicodemus, another wealthy follower of Jesus. Together they wrapped the body of Jesus in linen mixed with spices and placed it in the tomb.
The Bible does not tell us anything about Joseph’s life after the Resurrection, but the following story has been told for over a thousand years. After the first Pentecost Jesus’ disciples scattered, taking the Gospel to many lands. It is said that Joseph of Arimathea travelled north to Gaul with the apostle Philip and in 63AD sailed with some companions from Gaul to Britain. One version of the story tells us that the small group of Christians journeyed overland through Cornwall, another that they sailed up the Bristol Channel. They agree that after a long and tiring journey the companions reached an island of inhabitable land around Glastonbury Tor, a great hill in the middle of the Somerset marshes. At the top of another, smaller hill – which later became known as Wearyall Hill – the travellers stopped and Joseph thrust his staff into the ground. The next morning the staff had sprouted into a white-blossomed thorn bush. To this day trees said to be descended from the Glastonbury thorn survive and flower every Christmas. Signs of God’s approval of their mission did not stop with the miracle of the thorn. The Angel Gabriel appeared to Joseph, instructing him to build on that spot a Church dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In faithful obedience, the companions constructed a little wattle-and-daub chapel, the first Christian Church in Britain.
One strand of the legend links it with another well-known story. It was said that Joseph had not come to Britain empty handed but had brought with him a great treasure – the cup used at the Last Supper, known as the Holy Grail. Later many stories came to be told about King Arthur, his knights and their search for the Holy Grail. Most of these were written more than one thousand years after the death of Joseph of Arimathea, and any grains of truth in them are hidden under layers of invention and embellishment. At the end of the twelfth century, monks from the great abbey that came to be built at Glastonbury found a deeply dug grave. Buried in a giant coffin hollowed out from a whole tree trunk were the bodies of an exceptionally tall man and a woman. Above the coffin was a lead cross bearing a Latin inscription: Hic iacet sepultus inclitus rex arturius in insula avalonia. “Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon”.
Another ancient story has also been told about St.Joseph of Arimathea and Glastonbury. Joseph was said to have been a trader, who travelled on occasions to Britain to buy tin from the mines of Cornwall. On at least one of these journeys he was accompanied by a young friend. Together they travelled through southern Britain and reached Glastonbury. The name of the young man was Jesus of Nazareth.
The stories of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur are set in a time when the thread of history connecting us to the past is weak, and were not written down for many hundreds of years. Four hundred years after St.Joseph was said to have arrived the Romans left Britain and the country descended into chaos. Christianity survived in the Celtic West, and a little wattle-and-daub chapel at Glastonbury dedicated to Our Lady survived with it. After this Dark Age had passed, the Anglo-Saxon conquerors built an abbey next to the little church, which was treated as a place of great holiness until it was destroyed by fire along with the abbey buildings in 1184. Even then the monks replaced it by building another Lady Chapel on the same spot, separate from the main abbey Church. The abbey fell into ruins after the Reformation, but the Glastonbury Thorn still flowers and Joseph is still remembered there. Underneath the ruins of the old Lady Chapel lie the ruins of another chapel dedicated to St.Joseph of Arimathea.
PRAYER:
Merciful God, whose servant Joseph of Arimathea with reverence and godly fear prepared the body of our Lord and Saviour for burial, and laid it in his own tomb: Grant to us, your faithful people, grace and courage to love and serve Jesus with sincere devotion all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
FEAST DAY: March 17th
POEM:
The poem Jerusalem is based on the story that Jesus visited England with Joseph of Arimathea.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
William Blake (1757-1827)
HISTORICAL NOTE:
While it is unlikely that the Glastonbury legends are anything more than myths, it is certain that the little chapel there did exist and was considered from an early date to be a very holy place. At the beginning of the seventh century archbishop Paulinus of York ordered a protective casing to be built round it.
FURTHER READING:
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston, Eleanore Jewett
© Kathryn Faulkner 2005. All rights reserved.
