THE FIRST CHURCH
In his 1601
Annales Ecclesiastici, the Vatican librarian, Cesare
Baronius, recorded that Joseph of Arirnathea first came to Marseilles
in AD 35, nine years before the Magdalene voyage. From there,
he and his company crossed to Britain. This was confirmed long
before by GiIdas Badonicus in his De Excidio Britanniae,
with earlier references by Eusebius of Caesaria (AD 260-340)
and Hilary of Poitiers (AD 300-367). The years AD 35-37, very
shortly after the Crucifixion, are thus among the earliest recorded
dates for Nazarene evangelism.
Another
important character in 1st-century Gaul was St Philip, who was
described in the De Sancto Joseph ab Arimathea, and in
the monastic records, as a colleague of Joseph and Mary Magdalene
in the West. The chances are that the Nag Hammadi Gospel
of Philip was written by Philip himself during this period.
He could also perhaps have authored the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
As confirmed by Freculphus, the 9th-century Bishop of Lisieux,
Archbishop Isidore of Seville (AD 600-636) wrote:
Philip
of the city of Bethsaida, whence also came Peter, preached
Christ to the Gauls, and brought barbarous nations and their
neighbours ... into the light of knowledge... Afterwards he
was stoned and crucified, and died in Hierapolis, a city of
Phrygia.
Upon their
arrival in the West of England Joseph and his twelve missionaries
were apparently viewed with scepticism by the native Britons,
but were greeted with some cordiality by King Arviragus of Siluria,
brother of Caractacus the Pendragon. In consultation with other
local chiefs, Arviragus granted Joseph twelve hides of Glastonbury
land - about 1,440 acres (about 582 hectares). Here, in AD 63-64,
they built a unique little church on a scale of the ancient
Tabernacle of Moses. These grants to Joseph remained holdings
of free land for many centuries thereafter, and were confirmed
in the Domesday Book of 1086: The Church of Glastonbury
has its own ville twelve hides of land, which have never paid
tax.
In that
1st-century era of Peter and Paul’s executions, Christian
chapels were hidden underground in the catacombs of Rome, but
when Joseph's wattle chapel of St Mary was built at Glastonbury
Britain could boast the first above-ground Christian church
in the world. Later called the Vetusta Eccesia (the Old
Church) it was cited in royal charters of King Ina in 704 and
King Cnut in 1032.
A monastery
was subsequently added to the .chapel, and the Saxons restructured
the complex in the 8th century. Following a disastrous fire
in 1184, Henry II of England granted the community a Charter
of Renovation in which Glastonbury was referred to as: 'The
mother and burying place of the saints, founded by the disciples
of our Lord themselves.' A stone-built Lady Chapel was constructed
at that time, and the complex grew to become a vast Benedictine
abbey, second in size and importance only to Westminster Abbey
in London. Prestigious figures associated with Glastonbury included
St Patrick (the first Abbot in the 5th century) and St Dunstan
(Abbot 940-946).
In addition
to the accounts of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, others
tell of his association with Gaul and the Mediterranean metal
trade. Abbot John of Glastonbury (14th-century compiler of Cronicasive
Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie) and John Capgrave (Principal
of the Augustinian Friars in England 1393-1464) both quoted
from a book found by Emperor Theodosius (AD 375-395) at the
Praetorium in Jerusalem. Entitled, De Sancto Joseph ab Arimathea,
it tells how Joseph was imprisoned by the Jewish elders after
the Crucifixion. This event is also described in the Acts of
Pilate section of the Gospel of Nicodemus. The historian,
Gregory of Tours (AD 544-595), also mentioned the imprisonment
of Joseph in his History of the Franks and it was recounted
yet again in Joseph d'Arimathie by the Burgundian Grail chronicler,
Sire Robert de Boron, in the 12th century. The Magna Glastoniensis
Tabula: and other manuscripts add that Joseph subsequently
escaped and was pardoned. Some years later, he was in Gaul with
his nephew Josephes, who was baptized by Philip the apostle.
It is likely
that Joseph of Arimathea's mining interest was the primary reason
for the generous land grant by King Arviragus. He was, after
all a well-known metal merchant and artificer in metals; a 'master
craftsman' (ho-tekton), as was his father, in the tradition
of the Old Testament characters Tubal-cain and Bezaleel.
The De Sancto Joseph states that Joseph of Arimathea's
wattle church was dedicated ‘in the thirty-first year after
our Lord’s Passion’ – that is AD 64. This conforms
with AD 63 as its date of commencement as given by the medieval
historian William of Malmesbury. But, since the dedication was
to St Mary (generally presumed to be Jesus’s mother), it
has long been a point of debate that a church should have consecrated
her so many years after her death, yet long before there was
any semblance of a Virgin Mother cult. As confirmed in the 12th
–century Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, however, AD
63 was the very year in which the other Mary – Mary Magdalene
– died at La Sainte-Baume.
From the
Magdalene Legacy by Laurence Gardner.
