One cannot say anything stronger of
the strange old tale of St. Joseph and the Thorn than that it dwarfs
St. Dunstan. Standing among the actual stones and shrubs one thinks
of the first century and not of the tenth; one's mind goes back beyond
the Saxons and beyond the greatest statesman of the Dark Ages. The tale
that Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain is presumably a mere legend.
But it is not by any means so incredible or preposterous a legend
as many modern people suppose. The popular notion is that the thing
is quite comic and inconceivable; as if one said that Wat Tyler
went to Chicago, or that John Bunyan discovered the North Pole.
We think of Palestine as little, localized and very private,
of Christ's followers as poor folk, astricti globis, rooted to their
towns or trades; and we think of vast routes of travel and constant
world-communications as things of recent and scientific origin.
But this is wrong; at least, the last part of it is. It is
part of that large and placid lie that the rationalists tell
when they say that Christianity arose in ignorance and barbarism.
Christianity arose in the thick of a brilliant and bustling
cosmopolitan civilization. Long sea-voyages were not so quick,
but were quite as incessant as to-day; and though in the nature
of things Christ had not many rich followers, it is not unnatural
to suppose that He had some.
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