Saints Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus

Saints Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem and disciples of Jesus. After his death on the cross they took down his body, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them together on August 31. All that is known of them for certain comes from the Gospels.

Joseph came from Arimathea, which the Gospel according to Saint Luke calls a Jewish town; its location is uncertain today. The evangelists describe him as a rich man, a distinguished member of the council, good and righteous, who was awaiting the kingdom of God. He had not consented to the council’s plan and its action against Jesus. The Gospel according to Saint John adds that he was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews.

Nicodemus is known only from the Gospel according to Saint John. He was a Pharisee and one of the leaders of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night, and Jesus called him the teacher of Israel and told him that no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. Nicodemus did not understand him at once. In the same conversation come the words about God, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Pope Francis saw in them the core of Jesus’ revelation and of his saving mission.

Later Nicodemus spoke up for Jesus before the chief priests and Pharisees who wanted to arrest him. He asked them whether the law allows a man to be condemned before he has been heard and his deeds examined. In reply he heard the mocking question whether he too was from Galilee. The Catechism of the Catholic Church names Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea as secret disciples of Jesus among the religious authorities of Jerusalem.

When Jesus had died, toward evening on the day of preparation before the Sabbath, Joseph courageously went to Pilate and asked for his body. Pilate was amazed that Jesus was already dead, made sure of it with the centurion, and gave the body to Joseph. Nicodemus also came, bringing about a hundred pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes. Together they wrapped the body in linen cloths with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom. They laid it in Joseph’s new tomb, hewn out of the rock, in a garden near the place of the crucifixion, where no one had yet been buried, and Joseph rolled a stone against the entrance. Benedict XVI, meditating on this scene before the Shroud of Turin in 2010, recalled Joseph’s courage.

Nothing certain is known of the later lives of the two disciples; the dates and places of their deaths are unknown. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, also called the Acts of Pilate, and the medieval legends of Joseph’s journey to Gaul and Britain, of the church at Glastonbury, and of the Holy Grail have no historical value. The Church has venerated both as saints for centuries. The Roman Martyrology formerly commemorated Joseph on March 17 and the finding of the relics of Nicodemus on August 3; the present edition joins them in a common commemoration.