An important member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, St. Joseph of Arimathea seems to have been won over to belief in Christ some time before the trial of the great Teacher, for, although he did not openly acknowledge Him, he did his utmost to prevent his colleagues from passing their unjust Judgment. The great tragedy at Calvary, however, and the dignified bearing of the Victim, so wrought upon his feelings that after the Master he had not dared to own publicly before was dead, he went openly to Pilate to ask permission to take away the body. It was granted, and St. Joseph hastened back to the sorrowing women to tell them the good news. It was then his privilege to aid the Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, and other disciples, in removing the sacred remains from the Cross and laying them in a new sepulcher on his own property, in which no other man had ever rested. This is all that is actually known of St. Joseph of Arimathea, but round about these few significant details have gathered some of the most beautiful legends of the early Church, which in their turn have inspired some of the greatest masterpieces of modern literature, for in them is enshrined the nucleus of the story of the Holy Grail, so dear to the Celtic imagination.
To the Gospel narrative of the mission of St. Joseph of Arimathea, St. Jerome adds the details that the place from which he took his name was a little settlement on Mount Ephraim, the Romathium Sophim of the Old Testament, and the birthplace of the prophet Samuel. St. Joseph was of very high rank in Jewish society, and as a decurion he had a right to be present at all Councils held at Jerusalem. St. Anselm says that the Blessed Virgin had confided to St. Joseph of Arimathea that nothing but honorable burial could assuage her grief for the crucifixion of her beloved Son as a malefactor, and Baronius in his ‘Annals’ relates that when St. Joseph placed the body in her arms, she kissed the dead free, exclaiming, ‘Oh, my Savior! Oh, my God! … all is at last accomplished!’ Then, turning to the decurion, she added, ‘It is for thee to place this Divine Form in the tomb and to render to It the last offices.’ According to tradition, St. Joseph of Arimathea was put into prison by the Jews after the Entombment, but be was rescued by an angel who hid him away till the fury of the people was overpast. When the Holy Sepulcher was found empty, the blame was of course thrown upon the man to whom it belonged, and the authorities sent to the prison with the intention of delivering him up to the fury of the populace. As he could not be found, the soldiers who had been on guard turned his absence to account by saying, ‘Give us Joseph, and we will give you the Christ,’ knowing all the time that the ‘benefactor of God,’ as the Christians called him, was out of reach.
As already related in connection with the family of Bethany, St. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have been cast adrift with them after the Ascension of the Lord; and, according to a legend dear to the hearts of the English, he wandered from France to Great Britain, evangelizing Brittany by the way, and in course of time arriving at the site of Glastonbury, where, on what is still called Weary Hill, he planted his pilgrim’s staff. This took root and became known as the Holy Thom, because it blossomed miraculously every Christmas Eve, until, in the time of Cromwell, it was cut down by a sacrilegious Puritan, fortunately, however, not before many offshoots of it had been planted and thriven elsewhere, notably one at Sutton Poyntz, near Weymouth. At Glastonbury St. Joseph founded the first Christian church in England, and, in spite of all vicissitudes, the district evangelized by him has never been without its place of worship, for the simple Basilica, with its roof of plaited rushes, was succeeded by one stately edifice after another, and the great Abbey, now in ruins, became the tomb of several English Kings.
When driven forth from Palestine, St Joseph of Arimathea is said to have taken with him two priceless treasures : the spear with which the Savior’s side was pierced and the cup which had contained the wine at the Last Supper, used by him also to receive the blood of the Lord in the deposition of the body from the Cross, or, as some say, only the water mixed with blood, with which the wounds were bathed. To this cup was given the name of the Sangreal, which is now taken to mean either the sacred vessel itself, or the blood which it contained. Treasured up by the successors of the original owner, it gradually became venerated, first as the symbol of spiritual strength and later as the very source of that strength; but, for some unexplained reason, it was lost, and could never be found again until sought by a knight of absolutely unstained purity. This was the origin of the celebrated romance, so variously told at different times, which has been the subject of many beautiful modem pictures, notably of the series of paintings by Edwin Abbey, in the Public Library of Boston, Massachusetts, and the unfinished painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. After a long residence in England, St. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have returned to Jerusalem, where he died a natural death, and where his remains rested until the time of Charlemagne, when they were removed by Fortunatus, Patriarch of Grade, to the Abbey of Moyen-Montier in the diocese of Toul.
The general characteristics by which St. Joseph of Arimathea may be identified in works of art are the cup he holds in his hand, in allusion to the Sangreal legend, and the staff he is about to plant in the ground. The important part he took in the sad scenes succeeding the Crucifixion has, of course, led to his introduction in nearly all representations of the Descent from the Cross, the Deposition, and the Entombment. In the first-named subject he generally aids Nicodemus in withdrawing the nails from the hands of the Victim, or he sustains the body, the head and arms hanging over his shoulder. In Rubens’ ‘Descent from the Cross,’ in the Cathedral of Antwerp, the figure of St. Joseph of Arimathea is remarkably fine. He holds part of the sheet which has been spread beneath the body in one hand, and rests the other under the drooping head with tender reverence; in one of Durer’s representations of the same subject he stands on a ladder, and is about to place the body in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, waiting at the foot of the Cross; and in the ‘Descent’ by Perugino and Filippino Lippi, now in the Florence Academy, he embraces the body, which has just been unfastened from the Cross by Nicodemus. In the so-called Depositions, St. Joseph of Arimathea is sometimes absent, or when present remains in the background, whilst the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Mary Magdalene are mourning over the lifeless form; but in the Entombment he is always one of the bearers, generally holding one end of the shroud and St. Nicodemus the other. This shroud, it is related, received the impress, not only of the general outlines of the sacred burden it sustained, but of every detail of the Master’s limbs and features, and is said to be still preserved in the Cappella di SS. Sudaria in the Cathedral of Turin. It is the private property of the Royal House of Savoy. At Besancon and elsewhere are treasured up other winding-sheets, each said to be the one used on the sad occasion.
Amongst the many celebrated pictures of scenes in which St. Joseph of Arimathea is an important actor may be named the Entombment, by Raphael, in the Borghese Gallery, Rome; that by Titian, in the Louvre; and the unfinished painting by Michael Angelo, in the National Gallery, London ; the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ by Perugino, in the Florence Academy; the same subject by Tintoretto, in the Venice Academy; and the triptych by Memlinc, in the Hospital of St. John, at Bruges, in which St. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are preparing the tomb to receive the body of the Lord ; the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ in the Duke of Abercorn’s collection, the same subject in the National Gallery, London, and the ‘Entombment,’ in the Dresden Gallery, all by Rembrandt.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints. By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901).