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To the Biblical data about him romance adds the following. Joseph was a
soldier of Pilate who gave him the cup from the
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| Joseph of Arimathea, from
a window in St. John's, Glastonbury. |
Last Supper. After the Resurrection, he was thrown
into a dungeon where Jesus appeared to him and gave him the cup which had
fallen out of his possession. After the fall of Jerusalem to Vespasian's
army, he was set free and, with his sister Enygeus and her husband, Hebron
or Bron, went into excile with a group of fellow travellers.
Joseph was said, not only to have come to Britain, but to have settled at
Glastonbury where he was given land by King Arviragus. A local tradition,
perhaps not older than the nineteenth century, says he buried the
cup of the Last Supper above the spring in Glastonbury and hence the water
has a red tinge. A tradition amongst certain metalworkers was that, sometime
before the Crucifixion, Joseph actually brought Jesus and Mary to Cornwall.
Joseph may be identical with Joachim, the father of the Virgin Mary in the
Protevangelium of James, an apocryphal work; but the two names are
quite distinct in origin. In the Estoire Joseph is given a son, Josephe.
In Sone de Nausay he had a son named Adam, while Coptic tradition
claims he had a daughter, Saint Josa.
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