Aristobulus Britannia

Description

Aristobulus of Britannia is a Christian saint named by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) and Dorotheus of Gaza (505–565) as one of the Seventy Disciples mentioned in Luke 10:1–24 and as the first bishop in Roman Britain.
From these traditions, it seems that Aristobulus was the founder of British Christianity. There is no evidence for any connection with Glastonbury and John Scott shows in An Early History of Glastonbury that the legend purporting that Joseph of Arimathea founded the Glastonbury Abbey there is of 12th or 13th-century origin and has no basis in fact. Rather, the early writings frequently centre on Aristobulus. There is no mention of Joseph prior to the Norman conquest of England. For this and other reasons, Smith also considers the account of Joseph of Arimathea a “superstitious fable of comparatively modern invention”.

John Williams identifies Aristobulus with Arwystli Hen, a “man of Italy”, and one of four missionaries believed to have brought Christianity to the British Isles. There is a tradition linking him to one of the medieval Welsh saints Arwstyl ap Cunedda. The title “Arwystli Hen”: 119  may have originated through a later British tradition.