The Drama of the Lost Disciples

"The Drama of the Lost Disciples" is a 1961 book by George Jowett, a former bodybuilder and fitness instructor, which purports to trace several of Christ's disciples and other associates, including Joseph of Arimathea, St. Paul, St. Simon, and even his mother Mary, to Britain, where they founded a Christian church which predates, and therefore has precedence over, the Roman Catholic Church. The book also espouses British Israelism, arguing that the Welsh and English are descended from two of the Lost tribes of Israel, and claiming that they preserved their genetic and religious purity more assiduously than the Jews. Theories based on Jowett's work are popular on the internet, and among British Israelites and adherents of the Christian Identity movement. However, the book is a pious fraud. He cites classical historians, early church fathers, medieval and early modern writers, but many of these citations are deliberate distortions.

Examples of distortion of sources

Jowett claims that Julius Caesar, in his "De Bello Gallico" [http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.4.4.html Book IV] , "refers in amazement to the number of populous cities, the architecture, universities of learning, the numerical population of England, and particularly to their religion with its belief in the immortality of the soul". While it is true that Caesar notes Britain's population and its status as a centre of druidical learning, and elsewhere in his commentaries notes the druids' belief in the immortality of the soul, he nowhere mentions British cities, architecture or universities.

He claims that "the early Christian and Roman records abound with the name and warrior fame of Arviragus" (supposedly a British Christian prince who led the defence against the Roman conquest), and quotes Satire IV of Juvenal as saying "Hath our great enemy Arviragus, the car borne British King, dropped from his battle throne?" as an example. This cryptic mention, in a satirical poem about Roman social life, is the only mention of Arviragus's name in the entirety of classical literature, and all other known references to him are derivative of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century "Historia Regum Britanniae", also an imaginative nationalist pseudohistory.

He claims that, of Caratacus's supposed "trial" before the emperor Claudius, "Tacitus tells us that his daughter Gladys refused to be separated from her father, though it was against the Roman law for a woman to enter the Senate..." Tacitus nowhere tells us any such thing. After Caratacus was pardoned, he claims "the famed Queen Agrippira (sic) rose from her dais, approaching the Pendragon, and his daughter Gladys, shaking hands with each according to the British fashion, then embracing them, according to the Roman." A footnote to this passage cites Tacitus's "Annals" [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078&layout=&loc=12%3A37 12:37] , which again says no such thing. He claims that Pomponia Graecina, the probably Christian wife of Aulus Plautius, was a Briton, also called "Gladys", citing Tacitus's "Annals" [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Tac.+Ann.+13.32 13:32] in support of this assertion; Tacitus does mention Pomponia, and the fact that she was accused of "foreign superstition", but nowhere does he call her "Gladys" or claim she was British.

He regularly cites the "Annales Ecclesiastici" of Caesar Baronius, the 16th century church historian. On one occasion he directly quotes him, regarding Joseph of Arimathea's journey, as saying, under the year AD 36, "In that year the party mentioned was exposed to the sea in a vessel without sails or oars. The vessel drifted finally to Marseilles and they were saved. From Marseilles Joseph and his company passed into Britain and after preaching the gospel there, died." Examination of the text for that year shows no sign of this passage.

On other occasions he will put a passage in quotation marks, but not cite its provenance. Where he does cite sources, as shown above, he can often be demonstrated to be taking enormous liberties with them.

References

* George Jowett, "The Drama of the Lost Disciples", Covenant Books, 1961
* Julius Caesar, "De Bello Gallico"
* Juvenal, "Satires"
* Tacitus, "Annals"
* Geoffrey of Monmouth, "Historia Regum Britanniae"
* Caesar Baronius, "Annales Ecclesiastici"