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Joseph of Arimathea
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Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. A native of Arimathea, he was apparently a man of wealth, and probably a member of the Sanhedrin, which is the way bouleutes, literally "counsellor", in and is often interpreted. Joseph was an "honourable counsellor, who waited (or "was searching") for the kingdom of God", according to Mark 15:43.
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Joseph of Arimathea was, according to the Gospels, the man who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus after Jesus' Crucifixion. A native of Arimathea, he was apparently a man of wealth, and probably a member of the Sanhedrin, which is the way bouleutes, literally "counsellor", in and is often interpreted. Joseph was an "honourable counsellor, who waited (or "was searching") for the kingdom of God", according to Mark 15:43. In he was secretly a disciple of Jesus: as soon as he heard the news of Jesus' death, he "went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." The Scholars Version notes this act as "unexpected… Is Joseph in effect bringing Jesus into his family?"
Pilate, 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 that Nicodemus had brought (John 19:39). The body was then conveyed to a new tomb that had been hewn for Joseph himself out of a rock in his garden nearby. There they laid it, in the presence of Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women, and rolled a great stone to the entrance, and departed (Luke 23:53, 55). This was done speedily, "for the Sabbath was drawing on".
Joseph of Arimathea is venerated as a saint by the Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and some Anglican churches. His feast-day is March 17 in the West, July 31 in the East. The Orthodox also commemorate him on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers—the second Sunday after Pascha (Easter)—as well as on July 31. He appears in some early New Testament apocrypha, and a series of legends grew around him during the Middle Ages, which tied him to Britain and the Holy Grail.
Role in the Gospels
Christians interpret Joseph's role as fulfilling Isaiah's prediction that the grave of the Messiah would be with a rich man (Isaiah 53:9). The skeptical tradition, which reads the various fulfillments of prophecies in the life of Jesus as inventions designed for that purpose, reads Joseph of Arimathea as a story created to fulfill this prophecy in Isaiah, although the gospel accounts do not claim a prophecy fulfillment at that point. With this in mind, it is worth quoting the passage from Isaiah, chapter 53, the "Man of Sorrows" passage, because so much of the meaningfulness of Joseph of Arimathea hinges upon these words:
- 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.
The Greek Septuagint text is not quite the same:
- 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 c. 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
Since the 2nd century a mass of legendary detail has accumulated around the figure of Joseph of Arimathea in addition to the New Testament references. Joseph is referenced in apocryphal and non-canonical accounts such as the Acts of Pilate, given the medieval title Gospel of Nicodemus and The Narrative of Joseph, and in early church historians such as Irenaeus (125 – 189), Hippolytus (170 – 236), Tertullian (155 – 222), and Eusebius (260 – 340), who added details not in the canonical accounts. Hilary of Poitiers (300 – 367) enriched the legend, and Saint John Chrysostom (347 – 407), the Patriarch of Constantinople, was the first to write that Joseph was one of the Seventy Apostles appointed in Luke 10.
During the late 12th century, Joseph became connected with the Arthurian cycle as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. This idea first appears in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Britain. This theme is elaborated upon in Boron's sequels and in later Arthurian works. Later retellings of the story contend that Joseph of Arimathea himself travelled to Britain and became the first Christian bishop in the Isles.
Christian interpretations
Biblical text amplifies both the characteristics of Joseph, and the involvement he had with the burial of Christ, in reference to Isaiah 53:9. According to Dwight Moody in Bible Characters, 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: , , and .
Gospel of Nicodemus
The Gospel of Nicodemus, a text appended to the Acts of Pilate, provides additional, though even more mythologized, details. After Joseph asked for the body of Christ from Pilate, and prepared the body with Nicodemus' help, Christ's body was delivered to a new tomb that Joseph had built for himself. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Jewish elders express anger at Joseph for burying the body of Christ in the following exchange:
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:
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;
According to the Gospel of Nicodemus, Joseph testified to the Jewish elders, and specifically to chief priests 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 of Tarsus studied, travelled to Arimathea to interview Simeon's sons Charinus and Lenthius.
Other medieval texts
Medieval interest in Joseph centered on two themes, that of Joseph as the founder of British Christianity (even before it had taken hold in Rome), and that of Joseph as the original guardian of the Holy Grail.
Joseph and Britain
Legends about the arrival of Christianity in Britain abounded during the Middle Ages. Early writers do not connect Joseph to this activity, however. Tertullian (AD 155-222) wrote in Adversus Judaeos that Britain had already received and accepted the Gospel in his lifetime, writing:
Tertullian does not say how the Gospel came to Britain before AD 222. However, Eusebius, (AD 260-340) Bishop of Caesarea and one of the earliest and most comprehensive of church historians, wrote of Christ's disciples in Demonstratio Evangelica, Book 3 saying that "some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain." Saint Hilary of Poitiers (AD 300-376) also wrote (Tract XIV, Ps 8) that the Apostles had built churches and that the Gospel had passed into Britain.
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 Hilary in Tract XIV, Ps 8.
In none of these earliest references to Christianity’s arrival in Britain is Joseph of Arimathea mentioned. The first connection of Joseph of Arimathea with Britain is found in the 9th century Life of Mary Magdalene by Rabanus Maurus (AD 766-856), Archbishop of Mayence. Rabanus states that Joseph of Arimathea was sent to Britain, and he goes on to detail who traveled 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. Rabanus Maurus describes their voyage to Britain:
The route he describes is that of a supposed Phoenician trade route to Britain, described by Diodorus Siculus.
William of Malmesbury mentions Joseph going to Britain in one passage of his Chronicle of the English Kings. He says Philip the Apostle sent twelve Christians to Britain, one of who was his dearest friend, Joseph of Arimathea. William does not mention Joseph by name again, but he mentions the twelve evangelists generally. He claims Glastonbury Abbey was founded by them; Glastonbury would be associated specifically with Joseph in later literature. Cardinal Caesar Baronius (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.
Holy Grail
The legend that Joseph was given the responsibility of keeping the Holy Grail was the product of Robert de Boron, who essentially expanded upon stories from Acts of Pilate. In Boron's Joseph d'Arimathe, Joseph is imprisoned much as in the Acts, but it is the Grail that sustains him during his captivity. Upon his release he founds his company of followers, who take the Grail to Britain. 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. 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 his sweat, washed from his wounded body on the Cross. This legend is the source of the Grail claim by the Nanteos Cup on display in the museum in Aberystwyth; however, it should be noted that there is no reference 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:
Elizabeth I cited Joseph's missionary work in England when she told Roman Catholic bishops that the Church of England pre-dated the Roman Church in England.
Other legends
When Joseph set his walking staff on the ground to sleep, it miraculously took root, leafed out, and blossomed as the "Glastonbury thorn". The retelling of such miracles did encourage the pilgrimage trade at Glastonbury until the Abbey was dissolved in 1539, at the English Reformation.
The mytheme of the staff that Joseph of Arimathea set in the ground at Glastonbury, which broke into leaf and flower as the Glastonbury Thorn is a common miracle in hagiography. Such a miracle is told of the Anglo-Saxon saint Etheldreda:
Other legends claim Joseph was a relative of Jesus; specifically, Mary's uncle. Other speculation makes him a tin merchant, whose connection with Britain came by the abundant tin mines there. One version, popular during the Romantic period, even claims Joseph had taken Jesus to the island as a boy. This was the inspiration for William Blake's mystical hymn Jerusalem.
Another legend, as recorded in Flores Historiarum is that Joseph is in fact the Wandering Jew, a man cursed by Jesus to walk the Earth until the Second Coming.
Arimathea
Arimathea itself is not otherwise documented, though it was "a city of Judea" according to Luke 23:51. Arimathea is usually identified with either Ramleh or Ramathaim-Zophim, where David came to Samuel (1 Samuel chapter 19).
See also
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