Joseph of Ar-Mathea: Fact and Fiction

Alice C. Linsley

There is a great deal of medieval elaboration surrounding Joseph of Arimathea. One account says that he brought Jesus as a teenager to England. Local legends say that among the places they visited were St. Just in Roseland and St Michael's Mount. A 12th-century account connects Joseph to the Arthurian legends and names him as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. It is said that he hid it in a well at Glastonbury, now called the Chalice Well. There is no evidence to support these inventions. The association of Joseph with Glastonbury in Somerset added to the status of Glastonbury by associating it with a prestigious Christian who was known to have been in Cornwall.

In Matthew 27:57-8 and John 19:38-40, Joseph is described as a "man of means." Jerome's Vulgate version calls him nobilis decurio. The term decurion was often used for an official in charge of mines. It is also said to be part of Cornish tin-miners folklore that there is a saying and song that "Joseph Was a Tin-Man and the miners loved him well." Joseph apparently had business dealings in Cornwall where it is said he visited the Ding Dong Mine.

Mining in Cornwall and Devon began as early as 2150 BC. The Ding Dong Mine is one of the oldest mines. An old miner told A. K. Hamilton Jenkin in the early 1940's: "Why, they do say there's only one mine in Cornwall older than Dolcoath, and that's Ding Dong, which was worked before the time of Jesus Christ." (Hamilton Jenkin, A. K. Cornwall and its People. London: J. M. Dent; p. 347)

The inhabitants of Cornwall were involved in the manufacture of tin ingots. The area has prehistoric tin mines, stone monoliths, and iron age fortresses. Joseph probably had Jewish friends and family living in the area. The presence of Hebrew is evident in place names like Marazion, meaning "sight of Zion" and Menheniot, which is derived from the Hebrew min oniyot, meaning "from ships." Menheniot was a center of lead mining.

These metal workers and miners were among the Damoni, an early population of Cornwall. Dam-oni means "red people." Their ancestors were the builders of the great shrines like Carnac in Brittany because the stone monoliths in Damnonia are like those in Carnac, though smaller. On the Nile the ancient shrine at Karnak was built with huge stones by skillful craftsmen. Kar-nak means place of rituals. The red skin Annu/Onnu also built Heliopolis on the Nile, called "On" in Genesis 41. They were the builders of pyramids also.

Kar or car appears in many words for sacred mountains (Carpathians), shrines at high elevations and circles of standing stones. The original name for Cornwall was Kernow, which is related to the words Karnak and Karnevo.  According to Jasher 7:50, Abraham's father Terah had a wife who was the daughter of a man of Karnevo. Her name was Amsalai.

The ancient masters of stone monuments, tombs, and mining operations also built circles of standing stones in reverence to the Sun, the emblem of the Creator.

Joseph of the venerable clan of Mathea

Joseph was a kinsman of Mary and Jesus. They were of the Hebrew line of Matthew. It was a venerable lineage indicated by the Ar prefix. That is the meaning of the name Ar-Mathea. Ar in ancient Sumerian means "praiseworthy" or "venerable" and was used to describe sacred mountains, rivers, clans, and rulers. Many famous persons throughout history have been regarded as venerable, as is evident in their AR names: Arpachshad, Archelaos, Arwium (King of Kish), Ar-Shem, Arsames, Artix, Araxes, a Jebusite called Araunah, Artaxerxes, Artabanus, and Joseph Ar-Mathea. The name Arthur is especially interesting.

Some Hebrew examples include are Aroch (1 Chr 7:39, Ezr 2:5, Neh 6:18, Neh 7:10) and Ariel (Ezr 8:16, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:7). Ariel means “Scribe/Messenger of God.” 

The association of the name Ar with the scribal caste is suggested by the discovery of Aramaic scrolls from Arsames, the satrap, who wrote to his Egyptian administrator Psamshek, and to an Egyptian ruler named Nekht-Hor. (A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago, 1948, pp.116-117)

There is evidence that a group of warrior-priests were regarded as praiseworthy. Dr. Catherine Acholonu explains, "In Nigeria the caste under reference is the Ar/Aro caste of Igbo Eri priest-kings, who were highly militarized in their philosophy." 

Joseph is identified in the New Testament as being of Ar-Mathea. This identifies his venerable Hebrew lineage. The Mathean clan names include Mattai, Matthew, Mattatha, Matthat, and Mattathias. All of these names appear in reference to the family into which Jesus was born (Luke 3:23-31).

Joseph was a mining expert and a tomb builder who provided his own expertly excavated tomb for Jesus’ burial. His business took him to the Ding Dong Mine in Cornwall.

Mining in Cornwall has existed from the early Bronze Age around 2150 BC. In 1600 BC, Cornwall experienced a trade boom driven by the export of tin across Europe. Pytheas of Massilia, a Greek merchant and explorer, circumnavigated the British Isles between about 330 and 320 BC and produced the first written record of the islands. He described the Cornish as civilized, skilled farmers, usually peaceable, but formidable in war. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus named Cornwall Belerion, meaning “The Shining Land", the first recorded place name in the British Isles. Cornwall was one of the few parts of Britain where the dead were buried in ancient times.

As a member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Ar-Mathea was qualified to ordain priests with the written consent of two other members of the Sanhedrin (Nicodemus and James the Just?). Therefore, it is likely that Christian priests in Cornwall were ordained by him as early as 40 AD. Eusebius of Caesarea (AD 260-340) wrote of Christ's disciples in Demonstratio Evangelica, saying that "some have crossed the Ocean and reached the Isles of Britain." This was likely a reference to the Seventy who Christ commissioned (Luke 10) and Joseph is numbered among them, according to John Chrysostom (347-407), the Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote that Joseph was one of the Seventy Apostles.

According to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae there were Christians in Britain as early as 46 AD. Tertullian (AD 155-222) wrote in Adversus Judaeos that Britain had already accepted the Gospel in his lifetime. These Hebrew/Habiru Christians would have had priests among them. We know from the Bible that there were skilled metal workers among the Horite priests. Aaron fabricated a golden calf and Moses made the bronze serpent on a staff. The earliest high-ranking rulers in Cornwall would have served as priests with powers equivalent to bishops as early as 46 AD and probably earlier than this. The episcopacy of Evodius of Antioch dates to 53–69 AD. The episcopacy of James of Jerusalem must correspond to that, as he died before 69 AD, and the episcopacy of Linus, the first bishop of Rome, dates to 67-79 AD.


Related reading: Stonework of the Ancient World; The Priesthood in England 

What is a Priest?

Alice C. Linsley


The priesthood is verifiably the oldest known religious institution and appears to have originated in the Nile region. It is quite distinct from the other ancient religious office, that of the shaman. Underlying shamanism is the belief that spirits cause imbalance and disharmony in the world. The shaman’s role is to determine which spirits are at work in a given situation and to find ways to appease the spirits. This may or may not involve animal sacrifice. Underlying the priesthood is belief in a single supreme Spirit to whom humans must give an accounting, especially for the shedding of blood. In this view, one Great Spirit (God) holds the world in balance and it is human actions that cause disharmony. The vast assortment of ancient laws governing priestly ceremonies, sacrifices, and cleansing rituals clarifies the role of the priest as one who offers animal sacrifice according to sacred law. The priest was forbidden to consult the spirits of the ancestors as shamans do in trance states.

Priests are intermediaries between the Creator and the community, not between the spirits and the community. Both offices are intermediary, but their worldviews are quite different. When sickness, sudden death, or a great calamity such as flooding or plague affects the community, the shaman investigates the cause and seeks to balance benevolent and malevolent energies. When the community served by the priest experiences hardship, deprivation and loss, the priest calls the people to repentance and seeks to restore the community to the peace of God. In ancient times, this sometimes meant seeking out the offenders by using the binary system of divination represented by the Urim and Thummim. These represent numerous binary sets. The urim would have a number of associations which would be assigned the opposite meaning with the thummim. Using these tools involved more than yes-no questions. It involved deriving meaning from the directional poles, gender, numbers and reversals. The morehs or ancient prophets apparently used the same approach when rendering counsel such as that given to Abraham by the moreh at the Oak of Mamre (Gen. 12:6).

Despite what feminists and politically-correct academics might say, the priestly role was from the beginning the work of a select group of men (a caste, actually) whose devotion to the worship of the Creator involved, by today's standards, extreme asceticism. Contrary to the position of the Roman Church, these men were married and enjoyed sexual relations with their wives.  However they abstained from sex, shaved their bodies, fasted and entered periods of intense prayer in preparation for their time of service at the temple or shrine. They were known for their purity of life.

A survey of the world's religions helps us to understand the uniqueness of the priesthood.  Shinto "priests" are really shamans, not priests.  Priestesses of ancient Greek were really mediums or seers, not priests.  Anthropologically, the priesthood is defined by the caste of ruler-priests known as Horites.  These were Abraham's people and their idea of the priest was closely aligned to their understanding of blood as both potentially contaminating and potentially purifying.

The unique nature of the priesthood is inextricably linked to the nature of God.  God is the first priest (Gen. 3:21) and the priesthood, like God, is eternal. This is what stands behind the biblical references to Melchizedek. He was kin to Abraham and minister to Abraham after a time of battle. From their bloodlines came Son of God, Jesus Christ. He is our great High Priest who promises to make intercession on our behalf. He is the true Form which is reflected dimly in priests today since they have not sought purity and holiness.


The Horite Ruler-priests are Jesus Christ's Ancestors

Jesus Christ is the direct descendant of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew ruler-priests. Some of their ancestors are listed in Genesis 4 and 5. The early Hebrew had a unique marriage and ascendancy pattern which involved marriage between the ruling lines (endogamy). 

The highest ranking rulers had two wives and two firstborn sons. Their wives lived in separate settlements on a north-south axis.  So Sarah resided in Hebron and Keturah to the south in Beersheba. The first wife was a half-sister and her firstborn son ascended to the throne of his biological father. The second wife was a patrilineal cousin or niece and her firstborn son ruled in the territory of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. This is why certain names or titles reappear in different generations. We have Esau the Elder and Esau the Younger; Sheba the Elder and Sheba the Younger; Joktan (Yaqtan) the Elder and Joktan the Younger.

In his youth, the ruler-designate married his half-sister, as did Abraham with Sarah. Before ascending to the throne, he married his second wife, a patrilineal cousin or niece, as did Abraham with Keturah. The cousin wife named her first-born son after her father, a pattern which begins in Genesis 4 and can be traced to the priestly lines of Joachim (Mary's father) and Mattai, the patriarch of Joseph's line. The pattern of ruler-priests having two wives disappeared among Jews with the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.

The origins of the faith of Christ, the Son of God, came to Abraham, not as special revelation, but as a tradition received from his forefathers. The distinctive traits of this tradition align remarkable well with the key features of catholic faith and practice:

• Male ruler-priests who were mediators between God and the community
• A binary (versus dualistic) worldview
• Blood sacrifice at altars (sometimes falcon-shaped) for propitiation and atonement
• Expectation of the appearing of the Son of God in the flesh
• God's will on earth as in heaven - interpreted by morehs (prophets)
• Belief in an eternal and undivided Kingdom delivered by the Father to the Son.

Because of God's promise in Eden, Abraham and his ancestors lived in expectation of the Son of God and taught their children to do so. Their priestly lines intermarried exclusively in expectation that the Seed of the Woman would come of their priestly lines. The Edenic Promise was a central belief of the Horite family-tribal tradition. They believed that the son would be born of the chosen Woman (not called Eve in Gen. 3:15). They believed that he would be killed by his own brother and that he would live again.

The Virgin Birth is one of many signs that the One born to Mary is the Son of God. This is not about the birth of the Sun at the winter solstice. This is not a reworking of the Egyptian tale of Horus. The Horus archetype provides the pattern whereby Abraham's descendants would recognize Messiah. It points us to the Virgin who gave birth to the Son of God under humble circumstances. In the Horus myth, Hat-Hor gives birth in a cave. In Orthodoxy, icons of the Nativity show the Theotokos with the newly born Christ in a cave.

Christianity is an organic religion that emerges out of a belief that God made a promise in Eden and that He has been busy fulfilling that promise in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The core of Christianity can be traced to the beliefs of Abraham and his ancestors. It predates all the great world religions. Christianity isn't original, but what it lacks in originality it makes up for in great antiquity, and herein rests its authority.


The Christian Priest

The Christian priest stands at altar as the person of Christ at the Last Supper.  He also represents the Father, by whose faith his spiritual children are offered up through the Spirit. The Christian priesthood is thoroughly Trinitarian.

I'd like to challenge the prevalent idea that the Last Supper must be understood as a Passover meal. We, with Isaac, should ask "But where is the lamb?" (Gen. 22:7)

It may be that the best context for understanding the Last Supper is neither the passover meal nor the chaburah meal, but the events that unfolded on Mount Moriah. There was no lamb, only the Father and the Son. After the offering up of the Son, a ram appears. The ram is the lamb come to full strength and maturity. Among Abraham's ancestors the lamb-ram sequence was associated with the rising and setting of the Sun, the symbol of the Creator. The temporal sacred center was noon, a time of no shadows. (James says He is the Father of Lights in whom there is no shadow.) The spatial sacred center was the mountain top, between heaven and earth. Perhaps the Last Supper is the sacred center where we meet God about to cross over to redoubled strength, destroying death by His death.

In relation to the sun, Horus was said to rise in the morning as a lamb or calf and to set in the evening as a ram or bull. When Abraham bound his Issac, believing perhaps that he was the Lamb of God, a ram was provided in Issac's place. To Abraham the Horite this would have meant that his offering was accepted. It would also have meant that Isaac was not the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham's ancestors in Genesis 3:15. Isaac was not the "Seed" of the Woman who would make the curse of death void, crush the serpent's head, and restore Paradise. That promise was to be fulfilled in the future, just as the ram was associated with the western horizon, the direction of the future.

On the third day Father Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off (Gen. 22:4) and again he lifted up his eyes and he saw a ram (Gen. 22:13).

St. Paul says, "For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that He would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith." (Rom. 4:13)


None of the Apostles were Priests

As far as we know none of the original 12 apostles were priests who served at the temple. That does not mean that they did not have Horite blood, however. Most Jews have Horite blood, as do some Arabs. This raises a question about the priestly charisms being passed by the laying on of hands through apostolic succession. If this is true, the source is Jesus, the Priest-King, not the apostles, seeing that none of the 12 were priests themselves. Clearly, the priesthood is of the essence of Christ as the sole mediator of salvation. This is an historically accurate statement, not only a theological statement. Historical, because Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Horite expectation first expressed in Genesis 3:15. He is the Seed that falls to the ground and dies in order to crush the serpent's head and give life to the world.

That said, there were priests among Jesus' followers. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (of the Horite line of Matthew) are named in the New Testament. As members of the Sanhedrin they had to be in the ruler-priest caste. Joseph traveled to Cornwall as a mining expert and he would have been qualified as a member of the Sanhedrin to ordain Christian priests there. This would mean that the Anglican priesthood is easily as old as that of Rome and Constantinople.

The legend concerning Joseph of Ar-Mathea's connection to Britain has support from the sciences. Genetic studies have confirmed that the Horite Ainu dispersed widely across the ancient world. Some migrated to Hokkiado and Okinawa. Others came to the British Isles and Scandinavia. From there, some migrated to Greenland, Labrador, and Eastern Canada where they came to be called "Miqmac" by the French. The Ainu have a Nilotic origin and are described as having a red skin tone.

An early population living in the region of Cornwall were Dam-oni which means red people. Dam-oni is likely a reference to the red skin Ainu, some of whom are called "Edomites" in the Bible. They were the builders of the great shrine city of Heliopolis, Biblical On. The Horite rulers of Edom are listed in Genesis 36. Edom was called Idumea by the Greeks, which means "land of red people."


Related reading:  What is the Priesthood?; Is a Presbyter a Priest?; Growing Consensus that Women Priests Must be Addressed; Why Women Were Never Priests; Jesus: From Lamb to Ram; Who Were the Horites?; Did Abraham Believe Isaac to be Messiah?; Priests and Shamans: Two Models of Leadership; Gender Reversal and Sacred Mystery; C.S. Lewis on Priestesses in the Church