How Christianity in Britain started is still open to much debate, but many researchers believe/argue that in AD167, the British King Lucius requested that Pope Eleutherius send missionaries to the Island to preach the Gospel. It is said that Phagan and Deruvian brought Christianity to Britain having being sent by the Pope. Other legends state Paul, James, Peter, Simon Zelotes and Aristobulus as the original missionaries to Britain.

'Joseph of Arimathea' (See Joseph of Arimathea) had never appeared in the Abbey's written history (See Arthurian Places), or connected with any of the early missionary journeys' to Britain or with the building of the Old Church or with the original founding of the Abbey. Although legends are rife.

Until the thirteenth-century that the Abbey written texts mentioned only the Apostle Philip and his missionary efforts in Gaul (Freculf's Chronicle, AD830). It was claimed that the Old Church was built by the twelve disciples of Philip (mentioned in 'On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury' written in AD1124).

Legendary status as a disciple and missionary was gained from apocryphal writings, in such books as 'The Gospel of Nicodemus'. The Grail romances named him as Britain's apostle. The apocryphal mentions Joseph and connects him with resurrected Christ, Mary and Philip (the Gallic Apostle). Added to this were alleged missionary journeys to Spain and twice to France; during the second visit it was said he travelled with Lazarus, Mary Magdalene and Veronica in AD48.

'Gildas' (See also Mystical-WWW Mystical Time : Dates, 29 January), sixth-century, in 'De Excidio Britanniae' indicates Christianity being preached in England during the reign of 'Tiberius', or even possibly around the uprising of 'Boadicea'. According to 'Caradoc of Llancarfan' in his work entitled the 'Life of St. Gildas', Gildas spent the latter end of his life at Glastonbury Abbey. If this is true, he may have come across some very old inscriptions, (it is only really believed that it was the monks of the twelfth-fifteenth century that tried to invent or alter older texts). If Gildas did find some old writing/records whilst at the Abbey, possibly during the period between AD530-40, it does not prove a thing as we do not known anything from this concerning the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, but it does show how far back Christianity can be associated with Glastonbury.

By the twelfth-century, Robert de Borron in 'Joseph d'Arimathie' and later in the 'Estoire del Saint Graal', Joseph was shown to be a convert of Philip, Apostle of Britain, Guardian of The Grail and the founder of the line of Grail, his connection with Arthur, and his responsibility for the Grail, was already firmly established. Early in the thirteenth-century, monkish interpolators of 'William of Malmesbury's' book ('De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae') claimed that Joseph arrived in Britain in AD63, leading a band of missionaries. What should be remembered is that Joseph is not mentioned in William of Malmesbury's original writing, that is the original manuscripts of the De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae.

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