Jesus and St Joseph of ArimathaeaArmine le Strange CampbellExtracted from The Glories of Glastonbury, Sheed & Ward, London, 1926. It is at Glastonbury that legend takes upon itself to go up not only to the beginnings of British Christianity, but also to the beginnings of Christianity itself. The legends of the spot go back to the days of the Apostles. The place is indeed unique, for from the very beginnings of Christianity it was hallowed ground. A legend even tells us that Christ himself as a boy walked upon the hills of Somerset. Such legends are not related to historical facts, but "the very existence of those legends is a very great fact". The immense number of fascinating stories which cling to the place could not have grown up had there not been some substratum of truth behind them. There is, in any case, more than enough of proved history to shew that Glastonbury was for centuries the most ancient and famous centre of Christianity in the land. For example, the legend of St Joseph of Arimathaea coming to England is of ancient date, and there is also that others lovely tradition that Christ himself in his boyhood came hither. Though improbable it is not impossible, for we know that the Phoenicians came to Britain seeking metals, several centuries before the Christian era. Herodotus, in the fifth century BC, speaks of Cornwall as the Tin Islands, and Greeks too came in search of ore. St Joseph may conceivably have been one of those merchants and have acquired his wealth thus, in which case he might have brought the Holy Child with him on one of his journeys. If he had had this former acquaintance with our island, it would account for Joseph's being chosen as a missionary to Britain by St Philip. Such traditions are stories to cherish, and this is one which William Blake has beautifully expressed in the following lines:
About the middle of the thirteenth century the traditions concerning the coming of St Joseph of Arimathaea to Glastonbury were written down as an introduction to William of Malmesbury's work On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury. We learn from these traditions that the Apostle St Philip sent Joseph of Arimathaea from Gaul with twelve companions to bring the gospel message to our ancestors. This cultivated and wealthy Jew left his home and possessions and all that he had, and now, a poor man, bearing with him the priceless treasures of the true faith and a relic of the Holy Blood, he braved the long and perilous journey which brought him in AD 63 to the shores of Wales and thence travelled across the inland sea [Severn Sea or Bristol Channel] and marshy ground [Somerset Levels] to the Isle of Avalon. In the Gospel of Nicodemus it is said that after the burial of our Lord the Jews took Joseph of Arimathaea and shut him up in a dark cell. They sealed the door and set a guard. But when they went again to the cell it was empty, and St Joseph was found at Arimathaea. The high priests begged him to return and relate the manner in which he had escaped. Whilst he prayed four angels had lifted the cell into the air and our Lord had appeared to him. Joseph had cried out "Rabboni Elias". The Lord said he was not Elias but Jesus and shewed him the sepulchre... so he knew that it was Jesus and he worshipped him. John of Glastonbury relates this story and adds that Joseph and his son Josephes were disciples of St Philip by whom they were baptised. While St John was at Ephesus St Joseph remained with our Blessed Lady and was present at her Assumption. Fourteen years later he went to St Philip in Gaul whither that Apostle had been sent after the Ascension, as Freculfus, bishop of Lisieux states. Josephes, whom the Lord had consecrated bishop in Sarath went with him. Then the Apostle sent twelve of his disciples to preach the faith in Britain and he placed at their head St Joseph and his son Josephes. Some writers state that they with a number of the faithful crossed the sea by a miracle on the shirt of Josephes and that St Joseph was imprisoned by the pagan king of North Wales but was afterwards set at liberty by king Mordrains. He then journeyed on to Glastonbury. The pagan king Arvigarus to whom they came rejected their teaching but gave them the island Ynyswitrin, or Glassy Isle, now called Glastonbury. He and two other kings subsequently gave them a further grant of lands known as the 'twelve hides' [one hide = 160 acres]. The legend says that St Joseph brought with him two cruets in which some of the sacred blood and the water which flowed from the wounds of our Blessed Lord was miraculously preserved.
His arms, the green cross raguly with the blood drops and the two 'ampulae' are seen in many places in Glastonbury, notably in the 16th century glass in the south window of St John's church [High Street], and in stone on the outside of St Patrick's chapel [at the Abbey], at the back of Sharpham Manor and on the church of St Benignus [St Benedict's, Benedict Street]. In Langport church in the east window there is a figure of St Joseph in 15th and 16th century glass, and he is again represented with his two cruets on the screen in the church of Plymtree, near Cullompton in Devon. At Weary-all Hill he and his companions rested, gazing down upon the valley where, at the foot of the Tor close by, he built what was probably the first Christian church above the ground that was ever raised. A later tradition also says that while resting he thrust his pilgrim's staff into the soil, and forthwith it budded, and a fair tree grew and flourished, and blossomed twice in the year. In the Life of Joseph of Arimathaea printed by Richard Pyerson or Pynson, the pupil of Caxton, in 1520, we read:
The holy thorn was cut down in 1653 by a zealous Puritan, but many slips [shoots] of it had been budded and its descendants still 'blossom at Christmas, mindful of our Lord'. The Archangel Gabriel appeared to St Joseph and bade him build a church in honour of our Lady's Assumption:
Thus did the first Apostle of Britain and his disciples make a little oratory 'of twisted twigs' to praise God at the foot of St Michael's Tor; it was 60ft long and 26ft wide, and from that wattle church dedicated to His Blessed Mother by our Lord Himself, they and their successors scattered far and wide the seed of the true faith, to north and south, to east and west; and like the seed of mustard it grew to a great tree whose branches spread over north-west Europe. In Tennyson's Holy Grail the monk Ambrosius tells Perceval that:
It is said that the once-wealthy Jew, the 'friend of Pilate and of the Lord', who had given the sumptuous sepulchre he had prepared for himself to Him Who had no place to lay his Head, slept his last sleep in the shadow of the poor and primitive church of reeds at Avalon, the first of those innumerable saints whose bodies have sanctified this soil. John of Glastonbury quoting a prophecy of the British bard Melkin, says that in Avalon's Island Joseph...
His [Joseph's] feast was formerly kept on July 27th and great was the concourse of pilgrims who flocked to pray before his statue. William Good, born at Glastonbury in 1527 and who, a member of the Society of Jesus [Jesuits], died at Naples in 1596, says that in a long subterranean chapel there was a most famous place of pilgrimage 'which was made to a stone image of St Joseph there and many miracles were wrought at it. When I was a boy of eight, for I was born there, I have served Mass in this chapel, and I saw it destroyed in the time of Henry VIII by a wickd man, one William Goals'.
An ancient writer thus refers to the reputed burial-place of St Joseph and his companions: 'We know not whether they really repose here, although we have read that they sojourned in this place for nine years; but here dwelt assuredly many of their disciples, ever twelve in number, who in imitation of them led a hermit's life until unto them came St Patrick, the great Apostle of the Irish and the first abbot of the hallowed spot. Here too rests St Benen, the disciple of St Patrick; here St Gildas the historian of the British; here St David, bishop of Menevia, and here the holy hermit Indractus with his seven companions, all sprung from the royal race. Here rest the relics of a band of holy Irish pilgrims who, returning from a visit to the shrines of Rome, turned aside to Glastonbury out of love for St Patrick's memory, and were martyred in a village named Shapwick [six miles west of Glastonbury]. Hither, not long after, their remains were brought by Ina, our glorious king! |
Isle of Avalon |
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