JORTIN, JOHN: Archdeacon of London; b. in London Oct. 23, 1698; d. there Sept. 5, 1770. He was the son of a Huguenot exile from Brittany, who in 1691 became a gentleman of the privy chamber. He received his education at the Charterhouse School, and at Jesus College, Cambridge (B.A., 1719; M.A., 1721), where he held a fellowship 1721-28. He was ordained in 1724, and presented to the college living of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, in Jan., 1727, which he resigned in Feb., 1731, to become preacher at a chapel in New Street, London. In 1731 he started a magazine entitled, Miscellaneous Observations upon Authors,

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Ancient and Modern, which continued for two years. In 1737 he was presented to the vicarage of Eastwell, Kent, which he soon resigned. In 1747 he resigned his position in New Street to accept an appointment to a chapel in Oxenden Street, where he preached till 1760. He was assistant to Warburton at Lincoln's Inn, 1747-50, and Boyle lecturer in 1749. In 1751 he was presented to the rectory of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East by Thomas Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, who gave him the Lambeth degree of D.D. in 1755. In 1762 he became chaplain to Thomas Osbaldeston, bishop of London, who gave him a prebend in St. Paul's and presented him to the vicarage of Kensington, which he held with St. Dunstan's. He was made archdeacon of London in 1764. Jortin was a scholar of liberal views, and wrote with an engaging lightness of style. His more important works are: Discourses on the Truth of the Christian Religion (London, 1746); Remarks upon Ecclesiastical History (5 vols., 1751-73); Six Dissertations (1755); The Life of Erasmus (2 vols., 1758-60); Sermons (7 vols., 1771-72); and Tracts, Philological, Critical, and Miscellaneous (2 vols., 1790).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Disney, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Jortin, London, 1792; A Memoir by R. Heathcote to the 3d ed. of Jortin's Sermons, ed. R. Jortin, ib. 1787; another to the edition of the Tracts, ut sup.; while a Life is prefixed by W. Trollope to an edition of the Remarks, 2 vols., ib. 1846. Consult DNB, xxx. 201-203.

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA: A wealthy and pious member of the Sanhedrin who begged the body of Jesus and laid it in his own tomb, which had not hitherto been used--a fact in which the Evangelists evidently see symbolic significance. The story is told in all four Gospels (Matt. xxvii. 57-60; Mark xv. 42-46; Luke xxiii. 50-54; John xix. 38-42), and the manner of telling betrays a warm interest in Joseph's personality, his courage, and his piety. Arimathea is probably to be identified with Ramah or Ramathaim (Josh. xviii. 25; I Sam. i. 1; I Macc. xi. 34), five miles north of Jerusalem. Won by the preaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God, Joseph openly joined himself to the disciples of Jesus, and he did not consent to the judgment of the Sanhedrin. The differences of the reports in the Gospels are probably to be solved as follows; Mark and Luke have in mind simply the fact that Joseph had prepared a worthy grave; how he had come to do it was not a question with which they concerned themselves. Matthew took this into account and explained that it had been prepared for Joseph himself. John, who appears to have had the other accounts before him, seems to have raised the question why Jesus was not laid in a grave of his own instead of in a stranger's, and answers it by reference to the nearness of the Sabbath, the consequent lack of time for preparations, and the handiness of the grave already prepared.

(K. SCHMIDT.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The subject is discussed in the sections devoted to the burial of Jesus in the principal lives cited under JESUS CHRIST, and in the Bible Dictionaries. Pertinent matter will be found in the discussions of the Gospel of Peter and the Acts of Pilate mentioned under APOCRYPHA, B, 7.