Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - St. Joseph and Popular Customs

St. Joseph And Popular Customs

The oddest popular custom involving St. Joseph is the practice of burying his statue upside down on real estate one hopes to sell. St. Joseph is being challenged to answer quickly so "he" won't stay standing on his head in the dirt. It's the survival of a medieval superstition known as "degradation of the saints," in which images were insulted until their tormentors' requests were granted.

Far more appealing — and less problematic — is the St. Joseph's Table (the tavola or cena di San Guiseppe). This Sicilian and southern Italian custom has emigrated to the United States and is starting to filter out beyond the old ethnic parishes. Originally the cena was a public festival held in the town square. There, a trio representing the Holy Family dined at a heavily laden central table, sharing their bounty with the poor. The day closed with bonfires and dancing. Public festivities continue here and abroad, although in America they may take the form of potlucks at the parish hall.

Italians everywhere also like to celebrate at home among family and friends. In fulfillment of vows, they erect home altars as thanksgiving for favors received from St. Joseph. These elaborate structures, built on three levels to honor the Holy Family and the Holy Trinity, are decked with greenery, flowers, fruit, and fantastic bread sculptures.

Priests bless them before festivities begin. Visitors are invited in to admire the altars and partake of the sometimes extravagant hospitality, which can include scores of different dishes, featuring special fried pastries. After donating money for the poor, guests take away mementos — fava beans for prosperity and bits of ceremonial bread as protection from storm or sudden death. S.M.

Sandra Miesel, a medievalist and a Catholic journalist, writes from Indianapolis.

© 2002 Morley Publishing Group, Inc.

Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - St. Joseph Thrives In the Counter Reformation

St. Joseph Thrives In The Counter-Reformation

St. Joseph, the stalwart family saint, meshed nicely with Counter-Reformation strategies for reevangelizing Christendom. His strength and dignity fit early modern ideals of patriarchal authority: Families were encouraged to imitate the harmonious order of the Holy Family headed by St. Joseph.
The saint's growing reputation also left its mark on Renaissance and Baroque art. At the turn of the 16th century, Italian paintings of St. Joseph's wedding to Mary exalted the religious significance of matrimony over its social and economic aspects. He became a model husband dutifully marrying in a Church ceremony, unlike Tuscan aristocrats who wed at home before a notary. Raphael's Betrothal of the Virgin (1504) is one famous example. This public relations campaign was rendered moot after the Council of Trent required everyone to marry before a priest and two witnesses.

In 1570 Johannes Molanus, the Counter-Reformation's arbiter of religious art, demanded a clean sweep of legendary material in Christian art. Among the subjects his writings denounced were the Holy Kindred and apocryphal accounts of St. Joseph's selection as Mary's spouse. Molanus insisted that St. Joseph be depicted as young and vigorous, with the Christ child firmly under his paternal authority.

Baroque artists didn't entirely obey these rules: St. Joseph kept his miraculous flowering staff and sometimes his grayness. But they did meet market demand for fresh images of St. Joseph, especially in the Hispanic world, where he enjoyed royal support. Among the masters, both El Greco and Zurbaran painted a strong, black-bearded St. Joseph walking hand in hand with the Holy Child. This motif of a man leading God by the hand would be often imitated because of the way it captured the saint's fatherly love for our Lord.

A more formal treatment is Zurbaran's Coronation of St. Joseph (1636), in which the risen Christ awards His foster father a floral crown of glory. Murillo's delightful genre scene The Holy Family with Little Bird and his tender St. Joseph with the Christ Child (1670s) depict the saint as a young, darkly handsome Spanish father.

Engravings made in the Spanish Netherlands spread such imagery throughout Catholic Europe and carried it to the New World. In Mexico and the Andes, where the Spanish Conquest and European diseases had left cruel scars, the Indians embraced St. Joseph as their own. Colonial artists created charmingly naïve paintings of their saint well into the 18th century, often depicting him with a bell-shaped Baroque crown and spangling his garments with gilt flowers.

More honors were showered on St. Joseph in early modern times. He was named official patron of Mexico (1555), Canada (1624), Bohemia (1655), Austria (1675), the Chinese missions (1678), and all of Spain's dominions, including Belgium (1689), which still remains under his patronage. Of course, St. Joseph continued to be invoked by families, carpenters and woodworkers, doubters, travelers, househunters, and the dying.

Although the Roman calendar had first listed St. Joseph's feast day in 1479, it wasn't until the 17th century that grandiose Latin hymns were written for this celebration. He received his own special office in the Roman Breviary in 1714, and his name was inserted in the Litany of Saints in 1729.

The first religious order dedicated to the saint was the Congregation of St. Joseph, founded in Le Puy, France, in 1650. Most of the three-dozen orders now operating under his name in the United States stem from that original French community.

But this glorious period of Joseph-centered piety was rudely disrupted by the French Revolution and the coming of the modern era. Familiar habits of hierarchy collapsed under pressure from industrialization, liberalism, and anticlericalism. As the backdrops of their lives changed, family, community, and the Church were under immense pressure throughout the Western world.

In troubled times, St. Joseph remained the refuge of the faithful. Not only were new religious orders dedicated to him, but the Little Sisters of the Poor, founded by the Breton Blessed Jeanne Jugan (d. 1879), made St. Joseph the de facto patron of all its homes for the aged.

Blessed Andre Bessette (d. 1937), a Canadian brother in the Congregation of the Holy Cross, reportedly healed thousands by rubbing them with "St. Joseph's oil."

Montreal's Oratory of St. Joseph, begun by Brother Bessette in 1904, grew into a huge basilica that still draws legions of pilgrims and promotes the saint worldwide.

Popes likewise saw St. Joseph as a prime healer of modern woes. In 1847, Blessed Pius IX ordered the feast of his patronage to be celebrated everywhere on the third Wednesday after Easter. In 1870, the same pope, now "the Prisoner of the Vatican," declared St. Joseph patron of the Church.

Leo XIII's 1889 encyclical on devotion to St. Joseph, Quamquam Pluries, invokes the saint against the religious and social crises of his day. Besides echoing familiar thoughts on the saint's singular virtues, Leo XIII asks the poor to take St. Joseph, not socialists, as their guide in seeking justice.

The rise of communism made this last thought more timely than even Leo could have predicted. In 1930, Pius XI named St. Joseph a special promoter of Russia to counteract Soviet persecution of the Church; he invoked him again in 1937 against atheist communism in general. In 1955, Pius XII replaced the Patronage of St. Joseph with a new feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1, the traditional holiday of the working class. (Since then, new images of the saint show him holding carpenter's tools rather than lilies.)

To draw blessings from the Church's patron, Pope John XXIII made St. Joseph patron of Vatican II (1961) and inserted his name in the canon of the Mass (1963). But John Paul II's apostolic exhortation Redemptoris Custos (1989) broadens his predecessors' concerns.

For John Paul II, the mystery of St. Joseph's heroic obedience to God plays out in the family, the "sanctuary of love and cradle of life." He emphasizes the reality of the saint's marriage and paternity despite the absence of sexual activity: Self-giving love is what matters most. Outside the family, St. Joseph "brought human work closer to the mystery of the Redemption." He's our model for harmonizing the active with the contemplative life. Inheritor of the Old Covenant, his association with Jesus and Mary in their "domestic church" makes him a fitting patron of the universal Church born of the New Covenant.

Redemptoris Custos places St. Joseph firmly in the foreground of efforts to renew family, society, and the Church. With married fatherhood disparaged, workers devalued, and the true faith fading, now more than ever we must "Go to Joseph."

Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - St. Joseph Takes His Place

St. Joseph Takes His Place

Still, this slowly building interest would not necessarily have brought St. Joseph to his later prominence. What propelled him to saintly stardom were the calamities of the 14th century. That era opened with unprecedented famine around the shores of the North Sea. The Hundred Years' War broke out between France and England. Civil war tore at Castile. Portugal, Scotland, and Poland-Lithuania battled for their national lives. Peasants and urban artisans rose in revolt from Tuscany to Flanders, England to Estonia.
Heresies, corruption, and religious hysterias disfigured the Church while she suffered the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Western Schism. And over all these miseries rode the Black Death, killing a quarter of Europe's people in its first assault alone.

The horrors inflicted on families and communities needed heavenly healing. Reform-minded French theologian Jean Gerson (d. 1429), chancellor of the University of Paris and a noted spiritual writer, turned the spotlight on St. Joseph as the ideal family model and protector. Gerson's 2,957-line poem about St. Joseph, the Josephina, promoted the saint and his marvelous virtues across western Europe.

Gerson's ideas were echoed by his contemporary, St. Bernardine of Siena, a spellbinding preacher and reformer of the Franciscan order. St. Bernardine labored to evangelize Italy's powerful city-states, whose proud consumerist culture let money distort marriage patterns among the elite. Sodomy and widespread attempts at contraception also disfigured these societies.

Gerson and St. Bernardine gathered up existing fragments of devotion to St. Joseph and rewrote his role in the Church. Rejecting the elderly St. Joseph of the Church fathers and the Greek Church, they declared that the saint must have been a strong young man, well able to care for the Holy Family. St. Bernardine struck an especially sympathetic note with his urban audiences by calling St. Joseph a "diligent administrator" who anxiously worked day and night to support his loved ones.

Furthermore, according to Gerson and St. Bernardine, St. Joseph was a virgin, not a widower, and he had been cleansed from original sin before birth so that he would be a fit spouse for Mary. Gerson and St. Bernardine also believed that St. Joseph was assumed into heaven after death. Thus the Holy Family had already been reunited, in body as well as in soul, maintaining the same bond of charity that had held them together on earth. Gerson wrote, "O venerable trinity Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, which divinity has joined, the concord of love!"

By the 16th century, devotion to St. Joseph was flourishing in Spain. St. Teresa of Avila became his great advocate because she believed his intercession had healed her of paralysis. Referring to "the glorious St. Joseph" as her "father and lord," St. Teresa praised him as a helper in every need and burned with eagerness "to persuade all to be devoted to him."

By the 1550s, St. Teresa was also dreaming of reforming her Carmelite order. She placed this difficult project — and the dangerous journeys it required — under St. Joseph's protection. Twelve of the 17 new monasteries she founded were dedicated to the saint, and all of them were adorned with his statue — honors hitherto unknown.

St. Teresa's enthusiasm spread to others, notably her friend and fellow Discalced Carmelite, Jeronimo Gracian. This friar's highly popular Josephina (1597) repeated earlier praises for the saint, adding the significant proposal that St. Joseph was the man who most resembled Christ in "countenance, speech, physical constitution, custom, inclinations, and manner." Gracian also plucked the command "Ite ad Joseph" ("Go to Joseph") from the story of the Old Testament patriarch Joseph (Genesis 41:55) and made it the New Testament saint's catch phrase, a quote that was often inscribed on his altars and images.
Carmelite devotion to St. Joseph spread to other orders within Spain and throughout the Spanish empire. The first foundation of St. Teresa's nuns in France (1604) planted her spirituality into the French "Century of Saints." In particular, her love of St. Joseph took root in St. Francis de Sales, the great champion of holiness in everyday life.

St. Francis built Joseph-based piety into the Order of the Visitation, which he founded with St. Jane de Chantal. The Visitandine nuns were directed to say a daily chaplet, litany, and meditative prayers to St. Joseph. St. Francis himself preached eloquently to them about his favorite saint.

Conference 19 in St. Francis's influential Spiritual Conferences celebrates the chastity, humility, courage, constancy, and strength of St. Joseph — virtues that are envisioned as flowers embroidered on his heavenly garments. As the Savior's guardian, St. Joseph had to be "more valiant than David and wiser than Solomon." As the human being closest to Mary in perfection, he was worthy of the special intimacy he enjoyed with Jesus.

St. Francis was also the liveliest advocate of a special resurrection and assumption for St. Joseph, following that of Christ. He presented the saint as "the glorious father of our life and our love," a tremendous intercessor and patron of parents, workers, and the dying.

Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - Out of Obscurity

Out Of Obscurity

While fashion was rearranging the Holy Kindred, illuminated manuscripts began giving St. Joseph slightly greater prominence. He now escorts Mary to St. Elizabeth's home for the Visitation and holds the Infant for the Presentation in the Temple, a role previously reserved for the Blessed Mother.

Medieval parents, however, continued to avoid the name Joseph. Only one Giuseppe appears on a list of 53,000 Tuscan householders collected before 1530, whereas that name is now one of the most popular Italian names. The first Catholic saints named for St. Joseph came along later still: Canary Islander Blessed Joseph de Ancheita (b. 1534) and Spaniard St. Joseph Calasanctius (b. 1556).
Nevertheless, small changes were accumulating in the script — changes that would drastically revise St. Joseph's part in the play.

One finds early evidence of positive attention being paid him in another piece of apocrypha, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, written in Egypt between the fourth and fifth centuries. Although it makes the saint a widowed father of six who is 90 years old when he marries twelve-year-old Mary, this story describes him as still hale and healthy up to his death at 111. Jesus tenderly consoles His dying foster father, mourns him, and promises to bless those who honor his memory. Coptic Christians did just that; they had given him his own feast day (July 20) by the end of the first millennium.

The year 1000 found St. Joseph mentioned on two or three local saints' lists in Germany and Ireland. Latin-rite Catholics celebrated his feast for the first time in Winchester, England, around 1030. The first oratory dedicated to St. Joseph was opened in Parma in 1074. Later, a church was dedicated to the saint in Bologna (1129) and a chapel in Joinville, France (1254).

St. Joseph's union with the Blessed Virgin was declared a true marriage during twelfth-century theological debates on matrimony. The Church decided that consent, not consummation, was the sacrament's essential element.

But these were isolated exceptions to general indifference, although St. Joseph did manage to attract the private devotion of Saints Bernard of Clairvaux, Gertrude the Great, and Birgitta of Sweden, as well as the Spiritual Franciscan Peter Olivi. He had entered the special Breviaries used among Servites, Franciscans, and Carmelites by the end of the 14th century, with his feast day celebrated on March 19.

Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - An Absent Father?

An Absent Father?

Scripture provides minimal material for a popular cult of St. Joseph. The gospels mention him by name (the name "Joseph" means "God adds" or "God gathers") only 15 times: He appears briefly in connection with the early life of Jesus, then simply disappears. The Evangelists record not a single word spoken by St. Joseph. And without a traditional burial place, he didn't even leave bodily relics.
None of the above would have necessarily pushed St. Joseph into the background. Imaginative histories were concocted for nameless New Testament cameo players later called Saints Longinus, Veronica/Bernike, and Martial.

But the early Church was anxious to defend the Virgin Birth and the perpetual virginity of our Lady. It seemed to many Christians that minimizing St. Joseph magnified Mary. The Church fathers remained studiously incurious about his life. Although they mention him occasionally in passing, there's not a single listing for St. Joseph in the saints' index to Migne's Patrologiae Latina, a 221-volume collection of Church writings up to 1216.

St. Joseph's obscurity in the East ensured that Mohammed never heard of him from Christian informants. The unmarried Virgin Mary, on the other hand, enjoys favorable attention in the Koran, where Surah 19 is titled "Mary."

Finally, the most influential of the apocryphal gospels, the Greek Protevangelium of James, assigned St. Joseph a less-than-flattering part. Here he's a timid, elderly widower with grown children. Even after the heavenly sign of a dove emerges from his staff, he tries to beg off marrying young Mary "lest I should become a laughingstock to the children of Israel," but the high priest insists. When Mary is found to be with child, St. Joseph frets that she's been deceived by Satan, as Eve was before her. Later in Bethlehem, St. Joseph is off looking for a midwife when Mary gives birth to Jesus with miraculous ease.

Although condemned by popes in the West, the Protevangelium provided the East with its preferred solution for the pesky "Brethren of the Lord" problem: Those identified as siblings of Jesus must have been children from St. Joseph's first marriage.

Redone in Latin as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew between the eighth and ninth centuries, the Joseph legends of the Protevangelium spread throughout Western Christendom. They appear in The Golden Legend (1298), the Middle Ages' favorite book about saints, where St. Joseph is discussed only on feasts of our Lord or our Lady because he lacked a feast of his own.

An elderly St. Joseph, subordinate to Mary, was a stock figure in medieval literature. For instance, in the 15th-century English mystery play Joseph, he's a querulous codger who fears he's been cuckolded.
The low point of St. Joseph's position in medieval devotion has to be the story of Blessed Herman Joseph of Steinfeld (d. 1240), a Norbertine priest. The culmination of the cozy apparitions he'd enjoyed from childhood was a mystical marriage with his "sweetheart," the Blessed Virgin. The holy man added "Joseph" to his birth name, Herman, symbolically taking St. Joseph's place in Mary's affections.

Despite his debut in an illustrative mosaic at St. Mary Major in Rome (circa 440), St. Joseph was marginalized in medieval art. He didn't rate a separate image, even in prayer books. Northern Gothic artists did give him an active part in caring for the Christ child — but only in menial tasks such as finding water, cooking, or swathing the Infant in his woolly hose.

Fourteenth-century Tuscan painters developed a peculiar motif known as the charivari of St. Joseph, in which Mary's disappointed young suitors — those whose staves failed to blossom or generate a dove in the High Priest's fitness test — watch angrily and make threatening gestures during the wedding of Mary and Joseph. These images reflect contemporary social problems that left many vigorous young men unable to marry while older men snapped up tender maidens with rich dowries.

Even at the end of the Middle Ages, St. Joseph was still being pushed to the background in the Holy Kindred — group portraits of our Lady's whole family that were popular in northern Europe. Like the other male relatives, he merely watches the reading women and playing children from behind a barrier. Only after 1500 does St. Joseph move into the circle of activity and get to touch Jesus.

Finding St. Joseph by Sandra Miesel - Introduction

Imagine a world where no Christian is named for St. Joseph, where no church or religious organization bears his name. Picture St. Joseph absent from the Mass, the Breviary, the Church's calendar, and the Litany of the Saints. No shrines, no special devotions, no hymns, no solo images, no popular customs, no festive foods pay homage to St. Joseph.

This world without St. Joseph was Christendom until the 14th century. Up to that point, St. Joseph was almost universally ignored, reduced to a mere spear-carrier in the pageant of Salvation.

He still remains in the background for Byzantine Christians today. Their tradition accords St. Joseph no independent cult or feast day but merely includes him among other holy ancestors of Christ remembered on December 16. In fact, St. Joseph is an ecumenical stumbling block for some Greek Orthodox, who rate him as only a minor figure in the story of Christ's life.

The long obscurity of this saint, whom we now account one of the greatest, seems incredible, especially to people who can remember when his altar stood on the Epistle side of every Catholic church. With all its twists and turns, St. Joseph's long march to fame is a fascinating episode in the history of Catholic spirituality — and one relevant to certain contemporary problems in the Church.

A Hymn in Honor of the Holy Family

A thousand lights their glory shed
On shrines and altars garlanded;
While swinging censers dusk the air
With perfumed prayer.

And shall we sing the ancestry
Of Jesus, Son of God most High?
Or the heroic names retrace
Of David’s race?

Sweeter is lowly Nazareth,
Where Jesus drew His childish breath—
Sweeter the singing that endears
His hidden years.

An Angel leads the pilgrim band
From Egypt to their native land,
Where Jesus clings to Joseph’s arm,
Secure from harm.

“And the Child grew in wisdom’s ken
And years and grace with God and men;”
And in His father’s humble art
Took share and part.

"With toil", saith He, “my limbs are wet,
Prefiguring the Bloody Sweat:”
Ah! how He bears our chastisement
With sweet content!

At Joseph’s bench, at Jesus’ side,
The Mother sits, the Virgin-Bride;
Happy, if she may cheer their hearts
With loving arts.

O Blessed Three! who felt the sting
Of want and toil and suffering,
Pity the needy and obscure
Lot of the poor.

Banish the “pride of life” from all
Whom ampler wealth and joys befall:
Be every heart with love repaid
That seeks your aid.

Glory to Thee, Jesu dear,
Model of holy living here!
Who reign’st, with Sire and Holy Ghost,
O’er heaven’s host.
Amen.

THE VIRGINITY OF SAINT JOSEPH IN THE LATIN FATHERS AND MEDIEVAL ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS by Fr. Florent Raymond Bilodeau

CONCLUSION

            From the preceding evidence given for Saint Joseph’s perpetual virginity, one necessarily notices that the arguments in favor of this doctrine involve two factors: 1) They show that Joseph was a virgin during all the time that he lived with Mary. 2) They adduce conclusive evidence that he was not the father of the “brethren of the Lord.”  Both these factors, taken separately, are clear, especially the first one.  However, when put together they do not constitute a very conclusive proof, because of certain secondary aspects entering into the question.  Did Joseph die before Mary?  Could he not have lost his virginity in another way?

            Very few of the statements we have adduced take all the different possibilities into consideration.  However, all these different aspects are excluded at one time or another, so that, as a whole, we have good evidence for the opinion that Joseph was always a virgin.  It seems that, as time went on, these two factors were united and included under specific declarations that Saint Joseph always remained a virgin.

            These two factors stand out as separate, especially in the Fathers, where the argument in favor of Saint Joseph’s virginity is mainly negative.  In the writings of the few Latin Fathers who speak about him, it appears that Joseph is not the natural father of Jesus, that he never had intercourse with Mary, and that he was not married before his betrothal to Mary.  Saint Jerome’s assertions, of themselves, bring out his perpetual virginity.

            It is to be noted that the Fathers keep very close to Holy Scripture.  Their ideas that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was a virginal union, a perfect marriage, and that the “brethren of the Lord” were cousins are nothing more than the clearer expression of what is definitely implied in Holy Scripture.

            Taken by themselves, the statements of the Medieval ecclesiastical writers do not present a very clear proof.  They must be interpreted in the light of their contexts.  Thus the statements comparing Joseph’s virginity to Mary’s  or declaring that such a doctrine is the general belief among the faithful, and affirmation that Joseph made a vow of virginity, must be joined to the view of these writers on the question of the “brethren of the Lord.”  Then we see that when these men said that Joseph was a virgin, their assertions included Joseph’s entire life.

            It is only with the late Medieval and Modern ecclesiastical writers that the argument is clearly formulated: Joseph was always a virgin; he had to remain a virgin in order to protect Mary’s virginity.  Such a doctrine is also very fitting because of the holiness and dignity of Saint Joseph, which flow from his mission as spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster father of Jesus.  This is also the argument presented today.

            It must be remembered that comparatively little attention was given to this question till the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Period.  The Latin Fathers and the Medieval ecclesiastical writers were concerned with more timely problems.  Often Saint Joseph’s virginity is mentioned, but not given further thought.  Yet it seems pretty clear that such a belief was in existence among these men who reflect the mind of the people to a great extent.

            How then would one classify this doctrine theologically?  There is indeed nothing defined on Saint Joseph’s virginity.  In fact, the pronouncements of the Holy See say nothing bearing directly on this question.  Now and again papal encyclicals refer to Saint Joseph as “the most chaste spouse of Mary,”1[99] and as a “witness of her virginity.”2[100] He is also called “the patron of virgins.”3[101]

            We may safely say, with regard to Saint Joseph’s perpetual virginity, that today it would be rash to deny this doctrine or to speak against it.  However, as Durand points out, not one theologian has ever claimed that this was a dogma of faith or even a doctrine that could be defined.4[102]  We can also say that, on this point, there is no general tradition which clearly reaches back to antiquity.  Indeed over a period as long as the one covered, the statements are comparatively few and far apart.  However, there is a basis for this doctrine in the writings of the Latin Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.

            If we were to characterize the teaching in favor of Joseph’s virginity, perhaps the best note we could give to this doctrine is that it is at least very probable.  The basis for this statement is Tradition, which includes not only the writings of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, but also, and perhaps more so, the belief of the faithful, which, since the time of Peter Damian, has become more and more pronounced in favor of this opinion.  Thus, today, this opinion has gained “all but the universal agreement of theologians.”5[103] They present many a reason for accepting this belief: in particular, the virginal marriage of Mary and Joseph, the near impossibility of the hypothesis that the “brethren of the Lord” are son of Joseph, and especially the dignity and holiness of Saint Joseph which flow from his mission as spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster father of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.6[104]

            Mueller’s view gives us a good outlook on the question of Joseph’s virginity.  After stating that the Fathers and later theologians have data from which Saint Joseph’s virginity can be deduced, he concludes his discussion in this manner:

            When due consideration is given to all these strikingly significant facts -- the high value placed upon virginity by Jesus and Mary, the eminent dignity of St. Joseph because of his most intimate association with our Savior, the Godman, who Himself was a virgin, and the Virgin Mother of God -- must it not then appear most unlikely, an utter anomaly, if in spite of all this, St. Joseph did not also share in this prerogative of perpetual virginity?  Thus it came to pass that this belief in St. Joseph’s perpetual virginity has worked its way finally to its general acceptance by Catholic Theology and by the joyful willing faith of the Catholic people. 7[105]

[99]  Leo XIII, “Quamquam Pluries,” A.S.S., 22, 65.  See also Pius IX, “Quemadmodum Deus,” A.S.S., 22, 324.  Decretum C.S.R. n. 4365, A.S.S., 13, 158.  Benedict XV, “Bonum Sane,” A.S.S., 12, 313.

[100]  Leo XIII, “Quamquam Pluries,” A.S.S., 22, 65.

[101]  Ibid.: “ Virgins can look to him for their pattern and as the guardian of virginal integrity.”  From the translation of Francis J. Filas, The Man Nearest to Christ, pp. 173 and 174.

[102]  Alfred Durand, “Fréres du Seigneur,” Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi Catholique, 2 (1911), 145: “Le sentiment de saint Jérôme est devenu commun dans l’Eglise, et on a bien pu dire, qu’eu égard à l’action directrice de l’Esprit-Saint sur la piété des fidèles et le culte Chrétien, il y aurait témérité à le (virginité de saint Joseph) révoquer en doute, et scandale à parler contre; mais pas un théologien n’a prétendu que ce fût là un dogme de foi, ni meme une doctrine définissable.”

[103]  Mueller, op. cit., p. 52.  See also R. Corluy, “Etudes religieuses,” as given in Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi Catholique, 2, (1911), 144: “Le sens Catholique s’est définitivement pronounce pour l’idée du grand interprète (saint Jérôme). Il serait donc désormais téméraire de révoquer en doute la perpétuelle virginité de l’époux de Marie.” See Blanco, art. Cit., p. 218; Filas, The Man Nearest to Christ, p. 25.

[104]  A. Michel, “Jésus-Christ,” Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 8 (1924), 1519: “L’opinion d’un marriage antérieur de saint Joseph, recueillie dans l’apocryphe, Protoévangile de Jacques, a eu, dès les premiers siécles de l’Eglise, quelque partisans parmi les Pères de l’Eglise.  Aujourd’hui, elle est complètement abandonee.  L’éminente sainteté de Joseph, la sublimité de sa mission, exigent de lui un amour de la chasteté poussé jusqu’à la virginité complete et perpétuelle. En fait d’ailleurs l’hypothése d’un premier marriage de Joseph d’où seraient issus les “frères du Seigneur,” se heurte à des difficultés telles que l’on peut conclure à son impossibilité.”

[105]  Mueller, op. cit., p. 54.

THE VIRGINITY OF SAINT JOSEPH IN THE LATIN FATHERS AND MEDIEVAL ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS by Fr. Florent Raymond Bilodeau

CHAPTER III

TESTIMONY FROM THE MEDIEVAL ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS

       

      During this period (circa 600-1300), as we would expect, the attention given to Saint Joseph stems mainly from texts of Saints Jerome and Augustine.  These writers speak of Augustine’s idea that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was a perfect marriage, one without divorce and fornication.  However, the ideas of Jerome with regard to this question have a greater influence.  These men adopt his solution of the question of the “brethren of the Lord” and emphasize his idea that Joseph “remained a virgin.”  From these two points, they deduce that Saint Joseph was perpetually a virgin.

      In general the ideas on this question during this period may be thus summarized: 1) Joseph’s virginity is compared to Mary’s: just as Mary is a virgin so also is Joseph.  2) It isthe general belief of the Church that Joseph was a virgin.  3) Joseph and Mary both made a vow of virginity.

       

A.     JOSEPH’S VIRGINITY COMPARED TO MARY’S

      Many writers of this period draw comparisons between Joseph’s virginity and that of Mary:  as Mary preserved virginity, so also did Joseph.  In some instances this idea is not clearly brought out, but it can be seen or at least certainly deduced from the statements of these writers.  One such example is Venerable Bede (673-735), who constitutes a fitting transition or link between the Fathers and Medieval ecclesiastical writers.  He tells us that “not only the Blessed Mother of God, but also the most holy witness and guardian of her chastity remained free from absolutely all marital acts.” [68]  By itself this statement does not necessarily show that Joseph was a virgin all his life.  However, after reading the context, one is led to draw this conclusion, for we see that Bede has just excluded the possibility of the “brethren of the Lord” as children of Joseph from a former wife, and the possibility of his having had other children from Mary.  He then adopts and develops Jerome’s solution of this problem:  the “brethren of the Lord” are not truly brothers and sisters, but cousins:

       There were indeed heretics who thought Joseph, the husband of the ever Virgin Mary, had generated from another wife those whom Scripture calls the ‘brethren of the Lord.’ Others, with still more cunning, thought that he (Joseph) would have given birth to others from Mary herself after the birth of the Lord.  But, my dearest brethren, without any fear on this question, we must know and confess that not only the Blessed Mother of  God, but also the most holy witness and guardian of her chastity, remained free from absolutely all marital acts; in scriptural usage, the ‘brothers and sisters of the Lord’ are called, not their children (of Mary and Joseph), but their relatives. [69]

Alcuin (735-804) repeats this statement of Venerable Bede practically verbatim when commenting on the gospels of Matthew and John. [70]

      Rabanus Maurus (d. 856) also takes over and amplifies Jerome’s interpretation of the “brethren of the Lord”: they are cousins and not children of Joseph. Then he adds: “Catholic devotion teaches and it must be admitted that the parents of Our Lord were always endowed with an unspoiled virginity.” [71]

      From this statement and in the light of his ideas on the “brethren of the Lord,” we can reasonably conclude that he believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary and Joseph.  The words, “Catholic piety teaches and it must be admitted,” show that this belief was widespread, and perhaps universal, in the ninth century.

      Abelard (1079-1142) tells us that “Joseph, as Saint Jerome recalled, remained a virgin, just as his spouse did.” [72]  Peter Comestor (d. 1179) brings out the same idea: “Joseph remained a virgin with a virgin.” [73] Peter Lombard (1100-1160) repeats Augustine’s idea that the marriage between Joseph and Mary was a perfect union: one wherein loyalty reigned, one without divorce or conjugal intercourse. [74]

       

B.     BELIEF OF THE CHURCH THAT JOSEPH WAS A VIRGIN 

      Saint Peter Damian (988-1072) took up the idea of Rabanus Maurus, that is was the belief of Catholics that Joseph and Mary were virgins, but expressed it more directly.  After stating that Christ had become man, not in the respectability of marriage, but in the closed womb of a virgin, he adds: “And if it does not suffice for you that not only the mother is a virgin, there remains the belief of the Church that he who served as the father is also a virgin.” [75]

      Hugh of Saint Victor (1100-1141) appeals to the general belief that Joseph was a virgin as proof that he was not the father of the “brethren of the Lord.” Commenting on the verse, “I saw none other of the Apostles except James the brother of the Lord,” [76] he says:

       Not a few affirm that he was thus called the brother of the Lord, because he was the son of Joseph, the putative father of the Lord, by another wife:  but this is not a proven fact, since Joseph is believed to have been a virgin; therefore another solution must be sought. [77]

      Then he gives Jerome’s solution to the problem of the “brethren of the Lord.”  In his commentary on Galatians, Peter Lombard (d. 1160) repeats the statement of Hugh of Saint Victor in very similar language. [78]

       

C. JOSEPH AND MARY BOTH MADE A VOW OF VIRGINITY  

      Saint Albert the Great (1206-1280) brings out a new idea on Joseph’s virginity, one which will be repeated by later theologians, among whom is his disciple Saint Thomas Aquinas:  Joseph and Mary both made a vow of virginity.  Albert the Great mentions this more than once.  He looks at the vow of virginity of Mary and Joseph as a “conditio sine qua non” for the virginity of this union, an idea that was to be repeated often by later theologians.  He brings out this idea very well in his explanation of the words “Mother, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Under the name “Joseph” he writes:

       Here is the fourth name which deserves the homage of virtue, because she (Mary) was espoused to the just Joseph, but not united to him in concupiscence.  Reflect also on the vow of virginity of both these spouses, for it is stated that the angel was sent by God to a virgin espoused to a man named Joseph.  And this is said because she was found to be with child before they were united.  Since therefore she had been espoused before this was revealed to her, that is since she had been entrusted to his care, as the Fathers repeat, up to the time when, because of her physical condition, she was found to be with child, this union would not have continued unless, by mutual consent, they had already made a vow of virginity. [79]

      Albert the Great looked upon Joseph’s virginity as only one of his virtues, as a necessary ornament of his holiness.  He refers to Joseph as the “dux virginitatis conjugis.” [80] In other places he states that Joseph made a vow of perpetual chastity, [81] an expression which he seems to use as practically synonymous with the expression, “vow of virginity.” In the text, he uses those two phrases interchangeably.

      In a general way, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the disciple of Saint Albert the Great, summarizes the opinions we have seen throughout this paper on the question of Joseph’s virginity.

      When commenting on the texts of Saint Augustine, he does emphatically state that Joseph had absolutely no relations with Mary.  However, he does not express his opinions as to whether or not Augustine’s statements, by themselves, warrant the conclusion that this virginity covered the entire period of Joseph’s life.  This can be seen in many of the Angelic Doctor’s statements, such as this one:

      We must answer to the second objection that Saint Joseph, as St. Augustine says (De Nup. Et Concup. Lib. I), called the Mother of God his wife only because of the promise of marriage that they had given one another, even though he had never known her, nor was he ever to do so. [82]

      However, when he comments on Saint Jerome’s text, he sees in it a clear indication that Joseph was always a virgin:

       With regard to Saint Joseph, as Saint Jerome states (Contra Helvid. c. 19), we must rather believe that he remained a virgin, because we see nowhere that he had another wife and because a saint does not succumb to fornication. [83]

       The above statement, with its context, gives us a general evaluation of the greater part of the evidence we have presented on the question of St. Joseph’s virginity.  Implied in that text are three ideas: 1) There is no evidence for the idea that the “brethren of the Lord” are sons of Joseph from a former wife. 2) Saint Joseph had absolutely no relations with Mary (this from the context; see 3, q. 28, a 3, ad 2; Opera 11, 524). 3) It is fitting that Saint Joseph be virgin because of his holiness and dignity.

      This third point, an argument of fitness, is expressed by Saint Thomas more directly in one of his other works.  His argument is that if Our Lord, when dying on the cross, required that it be a virgin, Saint John, who was to take care of His mother after his death, how much more fitting would it not be that he who was chosen to be the spouse of Mary be also a virgin and remain one. [84]

      Saint Thomas also repeats the affirmation of his predecessor, that both Mary and Joseph made a vow of virginity. Saint Thomas answers in the affirmative. Then he adds:

      It is not believed that the Mother of God made an absolute vow of virginity before her espousal to Saint Joseph… However, after her marriage, in accordance with the customs of her day, together with her husband, she made a vow of virginity. [85]

                    Further on in the same article, he insists that both Mary and Joseph made this vow. [86]

       

D.     LATE MEDIEVAL, MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY CONSPECTUS ON THIS QUESTION

      The preceding opinions of Saint Thomas and of his teacher, Saint Albert the Great, will serve as the basis for further speculations on this question.  Their ideas will be repeated and developed by later theologians.  We shall now give a brief resumé of what we believe to be the main ideas on this question from the thirteenth century to the twentieth.

      The ecclesiastical writers of the end of the Middle Ages and theologians of the Modern Period had more to say about Saint Joseph. Men such as Jean Gerson, Bernardine of Siena, Isidore Isolani, Suarez, and Saint Francis of Sales, contributed much to the development of the theology of Saint Joseph.  They upheld the doctrine of Joseph’s perpetual virginity.  Most of them said that his virginity was strengthened with a vow.  In any case, they look upon Joseph’s virginity as necessary to protect that of Mary.  Here they only bring out more clearly what had been implied in the works of Albert the Great and of others.  Suarez, Saint Francis of Sales, and Bossuet give us good illustrations of this view.

      After saying that the Holy Spirit had protected the union of Mary and Joseph in everything, especially in this “re gravissima,” that is, with regard to virginity, Suarez adds: “By the same revelation, the Blessed Virgin understood that her spouse had freely consented to perpetual virginity, in order that no harm would come to the protection of her own virginity.” [87]

      Saint Francis of Sales brings out the idea that both Joseph and Mary made a vow of virginity in order to help one another in their marriage:

       Both had vowed to remain virgins all their lives; and now God wants them to be united through the bond of a holy marriage, not in order that they break their promise or repent of their vow, but that they be strengthened and help one another to persevere in their holy endeavor;  that is why they renewed their vow of living virginally for their whole lives. [88]

      He also refers to Mary as a virginal tower which is reinforced with incorruptible wood, [89] a beautiful figure from the Canticle of Canticles illustrating the protective role of the virginal Joseph over his virgin spouse. [90]

      Coupled with this view that Joseph’s virginity was necessary to protect that of Mary is the idea that such a doctrine is also very fitting because of the holiness of Saint Joseph and the dignity of his mission.  This view, implied in Saint Thomas, was taken up by men such as Gerson, Suarez, Francis of Sales, and others.  It is the basis of the contemporary opinion on the virginity of Saint Joseph.

      Today, whenever theologians speak of Saint Joseph’s prerogatives, they include his perpetual virginity.  Many reasons are given for this truth, almost all of them are arguments of fitness.  Thus Mueller says that we should believe that Joseph was always a virgin because of the high value placed on virginity by Jesus and Mary, who always remained virgins, and because of the eminent dignity of Saint Joseph which flows from his most intimate association with our Savior. [91]

      Cardinal Lépicier sees a good indication of the fittingness of this doctrine in the analogy of the virginal disciple, an argument introduced by Saint Thomas: “As Christ dying (on the cross) did not entrust His mother to any man save a virgin (Saint John), so also God had to provide for her no spouse except a virgin.” [92]  His reason for this opinion is that the preservation of Mary’s virginity required a vow of perpetual virginity on Joseph’s part. [93]

      Louis d’Argentan and others say that both made a vow of perpetual virginity in order to protect one another’s virginity. [94] Later on, he repeats Gerson’s idea that the Holy Family on earth was an image of the virginal Trinity in Heaven. [95]

      Other writers want to draw an argument from Sacred Scripture.  They deduce it from Mary’s question: “How shall this happen since I do not know man?” [96]  Her question, they say, would be meaningless unless, as Catholic tradition holds, she made a previous compact with Joseph, unless, by a revelation from above, or from her intimate acquaintance with Joseph, she had been assured that her virginity would in no way be endangered. [97]

      In our mind Scheeben sums up very well the reasons given today for the virginity of Saint Joseph.  After saying that the doctrine of Joseph’s perpetual virginity could not be defined because it lacks dogmatic evidence, he immediately adds:

               It certainly may be presumed, partly from the sublime vocation of Joseph and the analogy with the virginal disciple who was assigned a similar and close relationship to Christ and Mary, partly from the fact that the virginal marriage of Joseph with Mary required from him also a vow of virginity.  The latter indicates a virginal inclination which ruled his whole life. [98]

68]  Expositio in sancti Joannis evangelium, Ch. 2; ML 92, 662C-D: “Non tantum beatam Dei genitricem, sed et beatissimum castitatis ejus testem atque custodem Joseph, ab omni prorsus actione conjugali permansisse immunem.”

 [69]  Ibid.: “Nec defuere haeretici qui Joseph virum semper beatae Mariae virginis putarent ex alia uxore geniuses eos quos fratres Domini Scriptura appellat.  Alii majore perfidia alios eum ex ipsa Maria post natum Dominum generasse putarent.  Sed nos, fratres charissimi, absque ullius scrupulo quaestionis scire et confiteri oportet, non tantum beatam Dei genitricem, sed et beatissimum castitatis ejus testem atque custodem Joseph, ab omni prorsus actione conjugali permansisse immunem; nec natos, sed cognates eorum more Scripturae usitato, fratres sororesque Salvatoris vocari.”

 [70]  Matt. 13:55-56: “Is this not the carpenter’s son?  Is not his mother called Mary and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Jude?  And his sisters, are they not all with us?”

            John 6:42:  “And they kept saying: ‘Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know’?”

            Alcuin, Commentarius in sancti Joannis evangelium, bk. 2, Ch. 3; ML 100, 771-772.

 [71]  Commentarius in Mattaeum, bk. 1, Ch. 1; ML 107, 753B: “Catholica pietas docet, sentiendum est, parentes nostri Salvatoris intemerata fuisse semper Virginitate praeclaros.”

 [72]  Sermo in annuntiationem Beatae Virginis Mariae, ML 178, 382A: “quem (Joseph) ut Beatus Hieronymus meminit, virginem sicut sponsam ipsius permansisse.

 [73]  Historia scholastica, bk. 1, Ch#. 3; ML 198, 1539A: “Cum virgine virgo permansit” (permanens).

 [74]  Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia, Ch. 11; ML 44, 421. Peter Lombard, Sententiarum bk. 4 De Ecclesiasticis sacramentis, dist. 28; ML 192, 1107C.

 [75]  Opusculum 17, De coelibatu sacerdotum, Ch. 3; ML 145, 384: “Et ne hoc sufficere videatur, ut tantummodo virgo sit mater, Ecclesiae fides est, ut virgo fuerit et is qui simulatus est pater.”

 [76]  Galatians 1:19.

 [77]  Quaestiones et decisions in epistolam ad Galatas, q. 5; ML 175, 555C: “Dicunt nonnulli quod ideo frater Domini dictus est, qui fuit filius Joseph de alia uxore, qui pater Domini putabatur: sed non est ratum, cum Joseph virgo esse credebatur; alia ergo quaerenda est solutio.”

 [78]  Commentarius in epistolam ad Galatas, Ch. 1; ML 192, 101C

 [79]  In evangelium secundum Matthaeum, Opera 9, 12: “Ecce quartum, quod pertinet ad virtutis laudem: Quod justo Joseph desponsata, sed non in concupiscentia juncta.  Et attende utriusque conjugium virginitatis propositum dicitur, quod Angelus missus est a Deo ad virginem desponsatam viro cui nomen (erat) Joseph. Et hoc dicitur quod inventa est in utero habens, antequam convenirent. Cum igitur esset desponsata ante annunciationem: et assignata ei, ut tradunt Patres, usque ad tempus quo per tumorem ventris inventa est in utero habens, non continuissent nisi pari consensus virginitatis habuissent propositum.”

 [80]  Ibid., p.13

 [81]  Ibid.

 [82]  Summa theologica, 3, q. 28, a. 3, ad 2; Opera 11, 524: “Ad secundum dicendum, quod sicut Augustinus dicit (De Nup. Et Concup. Lib I), conjux Joseph vocabatur Mater Dei ex prima desponsationis fide, quam per concubitum, non cognoverat, nec fuerat cogniturus.”  See also 3 q. 28, a. 3, ad 3, sed contra; Opera 11, 522; q. 29, a. 3, resp; Opera 11, 539

 [83]  Ibid., 3, q. 28, a. 3, ad 6; Opera 11, 527: “Joseph autem, sicut Hieronymous dicit, (Contra Helvid, c. 9), magis credendus virgo permansisse, quia aliam uxorem habuisse non scribitur, et fornicatio in sanctum virum non cadit.”

 [84]  Commentarius in epistolam ad Galatas, lectio 5; Opera 21, 185: “Si Dominus  matrem virginem noluit nisi virgini commendare custodiendam, quomodo sustinuisset sponsum ejus virginem non fuisse et sic perstitisse?”

 [85]  Summa theologica, 3, q. 28, a. 4, resp.; Opera 11, 528: “Mater Dei non creditur, antequam desponsaretur Joseph, absolute virginitatem vovisse… Postmodum vero, accepto sponso secundum quod mores illius temporis exigebant, simul cum eo votum virginitatis emisit.”

 [86]  Ibid., 3, q. 28, a. 4, resp.; Opera 11, 530: “sed post desponsationem ex communi voluntate simul cum sponso suo votum virginitatis emisit.”

 [87]  De mysteriis vitae Christi, p. 117: “Eadem autem revelatione intellexit B. Virgo suum sponsum libenter in perpetuum virginitatem fuisse consesurum, nullumque detrimentum perfectioni suae virginitatis allaturum.”

 [88]  Entretiens spirituals, Oeuvres 6, 356.

 [89]  Cant. Of Cant. 4:4; 4:7.

 [90]  Entretiens spirituals, p. 358. See also Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Premier panégyrique de saint Joseph, Oeuvres 2, p. 158.

 [91]  The fatherhood of Saint Joseph, p. 54

 [92]  Tractatus de Sancto Joseph, Sponso Beatissimae Mariae Virginis, p. 248: “Sicut Christus moriens non alteri quam virgini Matrem suam commendavit, ita enim non alterum quam virginem tanquam sponsum Deus ipsi providere debuit.”

 [93]  Ibid., p. 260.

 [94]  Conférences théologiques et spirituelles sur les grandeurs de la sainte Vierge Marie, mère de Dieu, 1 254.

 [95]  Ibid., p. 255.

 [96]  Luke 1:34.

 [97]  R. Ginns, O.P., “The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke,” A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, n. 784d, p. 941.

 [98]  Mariology, 1, p. 130.

THE VIRGINITY OF SAINT JOSEPH IN THE LATIN FATHERS AND MEDIEVAL ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS by Fr. Florent Raymond Bilodeau

CHAPTER II

EVIDENCE FROM THE LATIN FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

      We find no general tradition in the Latin Fathers on the question of Saint Joseph’s virginity.  In fact, the material on Saint Joseph in their writings is comparatively scant.  Very few speak at any length on this saint.[27] Our information, save a few scattered references, is practically confined to Saints Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine.  Refutation of heretics, sermons, scriptural commentaries, especially on Luke and Matthew, make up the general area from which knowledge pertaining to Saint Joseph may be obtained. On the specific question of Joseph’s virginity, their writings bring out four points with varying degrees of clarity:  1) Joseph did not generate Jesus.  2) He never had intercourse with Mary. 3) He was not married before his betrothal to Mary. 4) He always remained a virgin.

       

A.          JOSEPH NOT THE NATURAL FATHER OF JESUS

      Joseph certainly did not beget Jesus.  This is the unanimous opinion of the Fathers.[28] Not that most of them specifically mention Joseph with regard to this point, but they exclude the possibility of his having been the natural father of Jesus when they proclaim the divinity of Christ and assert that Mary was a virgin “in partu.”That Joseph did not generate Jesus is clearly stated in many places by Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine and not a few Greek Fathers.

      Saint Ambrose (d. 397) restates in a more pointed manner Saint Luke’s idea that the belief that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus was limited to the Jews of that period: 

      First of all no one should be surprised at the text, ‘who was thought to be the son of Joseph’. [29] For rightly was this just a supposition because by birth (Christ) was not (the son of Joseph); but the supposition existed because Mary who had brought Him forth was espoused to ‘Joseph her husband.’[30]  

      Saint Jerome (331-420) brings out the idea that the reason why Joseph was called the father of Jesus was to protect Mary’s reputation:

      The Evangelists call Joseph a father, Mary calls him ‘father.’  Not that he had been truly the father of Jesus, but that he was thus considered by all in order to safeguard Mary’s reputation.[31]

      Many comparisons are drawn between Mary’s motherhood and Joseph’s fatherhood: “just as Mary is virginally the mother, so also is Joseph virginally the father.”[32] Mary abstained from fleshly pleasure, Joseph likewise.[33] What the Holy Spirit has done for Mary with regard to the birth of Christ, this also He has done for Joseph.[34]

      Again, Augustine (354-430), in an analysis of Joseph’s fatherhood, brings out the idea that the husband of Mary is not the natural father of Jesus, though he is the true father of the Son of God.  One can be a father without physical generation.[35] Joseph is father by love, not by the flesh.[36]  The genealogies make of Joseph a true father, but not one according to the flesh.[37] Augustine’s Sermo 51 is replete with assertions that Joseph is not the natural father of Jesus.[38]

      There is no need to dwell any longer on this point; it is clearly asserted in the Fathers.

      B.     JOSEPH A VIRGIN WHILE WITH MARY

      Another prominent idea with regard to the question of Joseph’s virginity, is the often repeated assertion that he had no relations with Mary.[39] Indeed this statement is clear from the fact that the Fathers emphasize Mary’s perpetual virginity; but it is interesting to see how they bring out this idea.

      Jerome states that Joseph would not have dared to violate “a temple of God, a swelling place of the Holy Ghost, the Mother of his Lord.”[40] Ambrose says that “Joseph, a just man, would not have spread this folly that he had sexual relations with the Mother of the Lord.”[41] In the next chapter, he comments on the words of Ezechiel: “It will not be opened and it will be closed:”[42]

      It will not be opened by him to whom she was espoused, it will not be permitted, in fact, that she through whom the Lord will pass be opened.  And after Him (Christ), it will be closed, that is, Joseph will not open it.1[43]

            Saint Gregory the Great and many other Fathers refer to this saint as the “guardian and protector of Mary’s inviolate virginity.”[44]

            However, it is the great Saint Augustine who gives us the most information on this subject. His aim is to bring out more clearly an idea which we have already seen in our analysis of the scriptural references pertaining to Saint Joseph: the marriage between Joseph and Mary, though a true marriage, was virginal. Augustine uses the very expression “virginal marriage.”[45]  He states that such a union is just as much a marriage as one in which sexual relations take place.  Joseph’s and Mary’s marriage in which charity reigned instead of intercourse is thus a true marriage.[46] In another work, he states that is possible for spouses to decide to abstain forever from the use of carnal concupiscence.  Then the conjugal bond would not be dissolved, but rather strengthened because of the purer love and the absence of the desire for carnal pleasure.  Such, he concludes, was the case regarding the marriage of Mary and Joseph.[47] In many other places, Augustine brings out this same idea of a true marriage, but one free from intercourse.[48]

            He also gives us statements which would indicate that Joseph’s virginal chastity transcended the virginal marriage with Mary.  Some passages would lead us to conclude that Joseph not only never knew Mary during her entire life, but also had no relations with any other woman, at least from the time of his betrothal to Mary.  After stating the idea that the marriage of Mary and Joseph, a virginal union, is nonetheless a real marriage, Augustine draws the following conclusion:

            Thus every good of marriage was fulfilled in the parents of Christ: offspring, loyalty, and the sacrament.  We recognize the offspring in Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; the loyalty, in that no adultery occurred; and the sacrament (that is, the indissolubility) because of no divorce.2[49]

            Showing Saint Joseph as an example of a man who did not despise servile work, Augustine tells a group of monks that “this just man chosen to be a witness of perpetual conjugal virginity, he to whom was espoused the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ, was a carpenter.”3[50]

            After saying that Saint Joseph could not possibly have broken the bond of marriage when he saw that Mary was pregnant, Saint Augustine adds that Joseph “did not judge the bond of conjugal faith to be broken thus because the hope of sexual intercourse was absent.”4[51] Augustine also eulogizes Joseph’s great purity: 

            Let his greater purity confirm his fatherhood; let not holy Mary reprimand us, for she was unwilling to place her name before that of her husband, but said, ‘Thy father and I have been seeking thee sorrowing.’ Therefore, let not perverse murmurers do what the virginal wife did not do. Let us count (the generations of Christ) through Joseph, because as he was a virginal (chaste) husband, so was he a virginal (chaste) father.5[52]

 Another text, supposedly of Augustine,6[53] gives us the idea that Joseph was a virgin: 

            Preserve, O Joseph, together with Mary your wife, the virginity of your members, for out of virginal members is begotten the power of angels.  Let the spouse Mary be the mother of Christ in the flesh, by preserving her virginity; you, however, are also to be the father of Christ by safeguarding her chastity and honor.7[54] 

C.     “BRETHREN OF THE LORD”

            So far we have but expressed in greater detail, and with more precision two ideas from the gospels: Joseph was not the natural father of Jesus, and his marriage with Mary was a virginal union.  One would logically ask whether or not the Latin Fathers speak of Joseph’s life before he was betrothed to the Blessed Virgin.  Here many Fathers and ecclesiastical writers denied Joseph’s virginity by their declarations that the “brethren of the Lord” were his children from a former marriage.  They are Origen, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theophylact, Theodoret, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary of Poitiers.8[55]  This list, at first sight, seems to outweigh the evidence we have just presented.  However, a closer look at the statements of these men gives us a different impression.  First of all it is important to note that most of them, save Ambrose and Hilary of Poitiers, were Greek Fathers.  The Eastern Fathers were highly influenced by the Apocrypha, a group of writings of a religious character which at times made pretensions to divine authority.9[56] These writings elaborate on Saint Joseph. Very little of what they say is of historical value.  The Apocrypha, however, are significant in that they represent an attempt to supplement the comparatively few details of the gospels on the subject of the hidden life.  They attest to the fact that devotion to Saint Joseph was alive in the first centuries.  All of them, save the gospel of the Nativity of Mary, ascribe to Saint Joseph children from a former marriage.

            Under the influence of these spurious writings, many subscribed to the idea that the “brethren of the Lord” were the children of Joseph by a previous wife.  It is important to note that none are emphatic in holding this point.  They adopt it because it is an easy solution to the thorny question of explaining the relationship between Our Lord and His so-called “brothers,” James, Joseph, Simon and Jude.10[57] Another reason why they take up this view is to safeguard the perpetual virginity of Mary.  Origen (185-253), for instance, states that it is precisely in order to protect Mary’s virginity, that some call the “brethren of the Lord” sons of Joseph:

            Induced by the report of the Gospel named after Peter or the Book of James, some affirm that the ‘brethren of Jesus’ are sons of Joseph by a former wife whom he wedded before Mary.  However, those who make this assertion ultimately wish to safeguard the dignity of Mary’s virginity in order that the body chosen to minister to the Word… might never know man’s consortship.11[58]

            Ambrose incidentally alludes to the “brethren of the Lord” as being most probably the sons of Joseph, but he finds ample proof of Mary’s virginity in the fact that the word “brother” can also signify “cousin”: 

            The ‘brethren of the Lord’could have been born from Joseph and not from Mary.  This indeed anyone will find if he looks at the question more diligently.  We have not thought to investigate those things because the name “brother”is evidently common to many.12[59]

             In another work Ambrose alludes to the same idea: the “brethren of the Lord” are the sons of Joseph by a previous wife, then he indicates the reason for his statement:  the protection of Mary’s virginity: 

            Some people, guided by stupidity, make the impious assertion that these are the true brothers of the Lord and that they were born from Mary, since, as they say, Joseph was not called the true father of the Lord.[60]

This statement is difficult to understand clearly.  It seems to signify that some believe that, because Joseph is not called the true father of the Lord, the “brethren of the Lord” then had to be born of Mary.  In any event, the idea is sufficiently brought out that Ambrose denies Joseph’s virginity only to protect Mary’s.

            Saint Jerome, with his usual directness and energy, refutes the tales of the Aprocrypha and says that the Scriptures indicate that the word “brethren” signifies “cousin”:

            Certain people who follow the ravings of the Apocrypha, fancy that the ‘brethren of the Lord’ are the sons of Joseph from another wife and invent a certain woman, Melcha or Escha.  As is contained in the book which we wrote against Helvidius, we understand as ‘brethren of the Lord,’ not the sons of Joseph, but the cousins of the Savior, children of Mary – The Lord’s maternal aunt – who is said to be the mother of James the Less and Joseph and Jude, who as we read, were called ‘brethren of the Lord’ in another passage of the gospel.  Indeed all Scripture indicates that ‘cousins’ are called ‘brethren.’13[61]

      As he mentioned in the above text, Jerome does show that in scriptural usage “brethren” may refer to “cousins.”  He adduces many examples from both the Old and New Testaments to illustrate this point:  notably the idea that Abraham is called the brother of Lot while we know that the latter was his nephew, and the fact that James and Jude, two of the ‘brethren of the Lord,’ are clearly referred to in the gospel of Saint Mark14[62] as sons of Mary who is evidently the sister of the Blessed Virgin.15[63] He also shows by means of examples taken from the Scripture, that the word “till” designates a length of time up to which a condition shall continue, prescinding from all notion of change thereafter.  He then adds that the word “firstborn” merely refers to the male child who opens the womb, not necessarily to him who has brothers.16[64] From the preceding evidence we can accept the general conclusion of Jerome: the “brethren of the Lord” were not sons of Joseph either before or after he was betrothed to Mary.

D. JOSEPH ALWAYS A VIRGIN

      Jerome, in what is without doubt the greatest tribute paid to Joseph’s virginity in the writings of the Fathers, emphatically asserts that Joseph remained a virgin just as Mary did:

       But just as we do not deny what is written, we do reject what is not written.  That God was born of a virgin we believe because we read it.  That Mary consummated marriage after her childbirth we do not believe because we do not read it.  Nor do we say this in order to condemn marriage, for virginity is itself a fruit of marriage, but because there is no license to draw rash conclusions about holy men.  For if we wish to take the mere possibility into consideration, we can contend that Joseph had several wives because Abraham and Jacob had several wives and that from these wives, the ‘brethren of the Lord’were born, a fiction which most people invent with not so much pious as presumptuous audacity.  You say that Mary did not remain a virgin; even more do I claim that Joseph was virginal through Mary, in order that from a virginal marriage a virginal son might be born.  For if the charge of fornication does not fall on this holy man, and if it is not written that he had another wife, and if he was more of a protector than a husband of Mary, whom he was thought to have as his wife, it remains to assert that he who merited to be called the father of the Lord remained virginal with her.17[65]

                   Though this text does not explicitly mention that Joseph was always a virgin, this idea can be easily deduced.  Saint Jerome affirms that a first marriage from which would have been born the “brethren of the Lord” is pure fable.  Of a third marriage no one thinks:  “It is not written that he had another wife.”  Virginity can be lost outside of marriage by a sin of impurity; but this again is excluded by Jerome’s text: “the charge of fornication does not fall upon this holy man,” and also by the gospels which call Joseph “a just man,” and finally by the very nature of his mission as the guardian of the Son of God and of His Mother.

      What can be concluded from the evidence we have just presented on Saint Joseph’s virginity?  Since there is no general tradition on this point in the Western Fathers, certainly no comprehensive argument can be drawn.  Our information basically stems from Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine.  Can we conclude that they believed that Joseph had always remained a virgin, that is, that he maintained physiological integrity?

      The three Fathers just mentioned do bring out the idea that Joseph was perfectly chaste from the time he was betrothed to Mary until his death.  This they do by continually repeating the idea that he was not the natural or carnal father of Jesus, and that his union with Mary was virginal.  It is also implied that no impurity took place outside of this marriage, a fact that appears more clearly from the very nature of his mission, and from the gospel expression, “a just man,” which is attributed to him.  The gospels and some ecclesiastical writers lead us to believe that he died within this virginal union.18[66] Thus the possibility of a marriage after the one with the Blessed Virgin is excluded.

      As to the period preceding the betrothal to Mary, the evidence in favor of Joseph’s virginity is very weak because of the apocryphal influence on the Fathers with regard to the question of the “brethren of the Lord.”  Jerome certainly did not.  There is a possibility that Augustine may have subscribed to that opinion.  His statements on this point are not clear.  Yet when the amount of evidence he gives in favor of Joseph’s virginity is considered, it seems safe to say that he probably held the opinion that Saint Joseph was not the father of the “brethren of the Lord.”19[67]

      As a final note on this question, we can safely say that Jerome did believe the Joseph always remained a virgin, Ambrose clearly did not, and Augustine probably shared Jerome’s view.

      However, it remains for the Medieval ecclesiastical writers to give us more precise information on this subject.  The preceding statements of the Fathers are important, notonly in themselves, but because they will serve as grounds for more definite assertions on the question of Saint Joseph’s virginity.

[27]  This can be easily explained by the reasons previously adduced.  See the Introduction, p. 1.

[28]  M. Blanco, O.P., “Virginidad de San José,” Ideales, 26 (1927) p. 218. A few have denied this, but their statements were emphatically refuted by all the Fathers.

a.       Ebionites: Eusebius says of them: “Ebionaei Christum ex Josepho genitum esse dicunt.” Historia ecclesiastica, bk. 5, Ch. 8; MG 20, 452A.

b.      Cerinthius and Carpocrates: Epiphanius tells us of them: “Christum ex semine Joseph et Maria esse juxta ipsorum Evangelium asserunt.” Adversus haereses, n. 14; MG 41, 429B.

[29]  Luke 3:23

[30]  Homilia in Lucam, n. 2; ML 15, 1589: “Et primum omnium neminem moveri debet quod ita scriptum est: Qui putabatur esse filius Joseph.  Bene enim putabatur, quia natura non erat; sed ideo putabatur quia eum Maria, quae Joseph viro suo erat desponsata, generaverat.” See also Saint Augustine, Contra Julianum Pelagianum, Ch. 12; ML 44, 810 and 811; Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaeo, n. 78; MG 6, 658.

[31]  Adversus Helvidium, n. 4; ML 23, 188: “Evangelistae patrem Joseph dicunt, patrem Maria confitetur: non quod vere pater Joseph fuerit Salvatoris; sed quod ad famam Mariae conservandam, pater sit ab omnibus aestimatur…”

[32]  Sermo 51, Ch. 16, n. 26; ML 38, 348: “Si quod caste uxor peperit, cur non caste maritus acciperet? Sicut enim caste conujux illa, sic ille caste maritus: et sicut illa caste mater, sic ille caste pater.  Qui ergo dicit: ‘Non debuit dici pater, quia non sic genuerat filium,’ libidinem quaerit in procreandis filiis, non charitatis affectum.”  Whether or not we can translate “caste” by “virginal” is not certain.  However, it seems probable in virtue of parallelism:  Augustine uses this same word in reference to Mary’s conception and childbirth. See Francis J. Filas, S.J., Joseph and Jesus, A Theological Study of Their Relationship, p. 41.

[33]  Ibid., Ch. 20, n. 30; col. 350.

[34]  Ibid., col. 351.: “Quod Spiritus sanctus operatus est, utriusque operatus est. ‘Cum esset, inquit, homo justus.’ Justus ergo vir, justa femina. Spiritus sanctus in amborum justitia requiescens, ambobus filium dedit.”  See also Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 7 de Patre, n. 9; MG 33, 615

[35]  De consensu evangelistarum, Ch. 1, n. 2; ML 34, 1071.

[36]  Sermo 51 Ch. 20, n. 30; ML 38, 351

[37]  Ibid.

[38]  Ibid., Ch#. 10, n. 17. col. 342; Ch. 15, n. 25, cols. 347-348. See also Epiphanius, Adversus haereses, Ch. 51, n. 10; MG 41, 907.

[39]  Some few denied Mary’s virginity, claiming that she had had relations with Joseph, especially Jovinian and Helvidius.  These were energetically refuted by Saint Jerome: Adversus Hervidium, ML 23, 183-211.

[40]  Adv. Helvid., n. 8; ML 23, 190: “Qui (Joseph) Annam prophetissam, Magos, stellam, Herodem, angelos viderat; qui, inquam, miracula tanta cognoverat, Dei templum, Spiritus sancti sedem, Domini sui matrem audebat attingere?” See also Gregory the Great, Moralium, bk. 7, n. 89; ML 75, 856.

[41]  De institutione virginis, Ch. 6; ML 16, 317: “Nec Joseph vir Justus in hanc prorupisset amentiam, ut matri Domini corporeo concubitu misceretur.”

[42]  Ezechiel 40:2.

[43]  De institutione virginis, Ch. 8; ML 16, 320: “Non aperietur ab eo cui desponsabitur; non licebit enim ut aperiatur, per quam Dominus transibit.  Et post eum, inquit, erit clausa, hoc est, non aperiet eam Joseph.”  See also Saint John Chrysostom, Homilia 4 in Matthaeum, n. 6; MG 57, 47.

[44]  Gregory the Great, Homilia 26, n. 7; ML 76, 1201; Augustine, De sancta virginitate, bk. 1. Ch. 4; ML 40, 398; Sermo 51, Ch# 6, n. 9; ML 38, 338. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 175, ML 52, 657B. Saint Basil, Homilia in sanctam Christi generationem, n. 3; MG 31, 1462-1463

[45]  Contra Faustum, Ch. 3, n. 2; ML 42, 214.

[46]  Sermo 51, n. 21; ML 38, 344-345.

[47]  De nuptiis et concupiscentia, bk. 1. c. 11; ML 44, 420-421

[48]  Sermo 51, Ch. 16, n. 26; ML 38, 348.  See also Contra Julianum Pelagianum, bk. 5, Ch. 12, n. 46; ML 44, 810 and 811; De Nuptiis et concupiscentia, Ch. 12; ML 38, 422; Ch#. 11, col. 421; De consensus evangelistarum, Ch. 1 n. 3; ML 34, 1071

[49]  De nuptiis et concupiscentia, Ch. 11 and 12; ML 44, 421: “Omne itaque nuptiarum bonum impletum est in illis parentibus Christi, proles, fides, sacramentum. Prolem, cognoscimus ipsum Dominum Jesum; fidem, quia nullum adulterium; sacramentum, quia nullum divortium.”

[50]  De opera monachorum, bk. 1. Ch. 13, n. 14; ML 40, 560: “Homo ille justus et ad testimonium conjugalis mansurae virginitatis electus, cui desponsata erat virgo Maria, quae peperit Christum, faber fuit.”

[51]  Contra Julianum Pelagianum, Ch. 12, n. 48; ML 44, 811: “Sed vinculum fidei conjugalis non ideo judicavit esse solvendum, quia spes commiscendae carnis ablata est.”  See also Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 7, n. 8; MG 33, 615.

[52]  Sermo 51,  Ch#. 20, n. 30; ML 38, 350: “Major puritas confirmet paternitatem: ne ipsa sancta Maria nos reprehendat.  Illa enim nomen suum praeponere nolluit marito suo;  sed dixit: ‘Pater tuus et ego dolentes quaerebamus te.’  Non ergo faciant perversi murmuratores, quod conjux casta non fecit.  Numeremus (generationes Christi) ergo per Joseph: quia sicut caste maritus, sic caste pater est.”

[53]  This text according to many is not genuinely Augustinian.  See Filas, Joseph and Jesus, p. 47. ---Holzmeister, art. Cit., p. 46

[54]  Sermo 195, n. 5; ML 39, 2110: “Habe, ergo, Joseph cum Maria conjuge tua communem virginitatem membrorum, quia de virginibus membris virtus nascitur angelorum.  Sit Maria sponsa mater Christi carnis sua virginitate servata; sis autem et tu pater Christi cura castitatis et honorificentia virginitatis.”

[55]  Greek Fathers: Origen, Commentarium in Matthaeum, Ch. 13, n. 55; MG 13, 875 and 878.  Ephiphanius, Adversus haereses, n. 51; MG 41, 386-407; MG 42, 707. Gregory of Nyssa, In Ressurectione Christi, MG 46, 647.  Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarius in Joannem, bk. 5. Ch. 12; MG 73, 636-637. Theophylact, Ennarratio in evangelium Matthaei, Ch. 1; MG 123, 293-294; Expositio in epistolam ad Galatas, Ch. 1; MG 124, 967A. Theodoret, Interpretatio epistolae ad Galatas, Ch. 1; MG 82, 468. Chyrsostom, Homilia 5 in Matthaeum, n. 3; MG 57, 58.

                Latin Fathers: Hilary of Poitiers, Commentarius in Matthaeum, Ch. 1, n. 4; ML 9, 922.  Ambrose,  De institutione virginis, Ch. 6, n. 43; ML 16, 317.

[56]  They consist mainly of six works: Protoevangel of James, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, History of Joseph the Carpenter, Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, Arabic Gospel of the Infancy.  Francis J. Filas, The Man Nearest to Christ, pp. 9-11.  See also C. Michel and P. Peeters, Evangiles apocryphes, textes et documents pour l’étude historique du Christianisme, vols. 1 and 2.

[57]  Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal. 1:19

[58]  Commentarii in Matthaeum, Ch. 10, n. 17; MG 13, 875: “Fratres autem Jesu, filios esse Josephi ex priore conjuge, quam ipse ante Mariam duxerit, affirmant nonnulli, ad id scilicet adducti traditione Eveangelii quod secundum Petrum inscribitur, vel libri Jacobi.  Qui vero id dicunt, Mariae dignitatem in virginitate ad finem usque volunt conservare, ne corpus illud electrum ad ministrandum Verbo…viri concubitum cognosceret.”

[59]  De institutione virginis, Ch#.6 n. 43; ML 16, 317: “Potuerunt autem fratres esse ex Joseph, non ex Maria.  Quod quidem si quis diligentius prosequatur, inveniet.  Nos ea prosequenda non putavimus, quoniam fraternum nomen liquet pluribus commune.”

[60]  Commentaria in epistolam ad Galatas, Ad opera sancti Ambrosii appendix, Ch. 1, v. 19; ML 17, 344: “Quidam enim ducti insania, hos verso Domini fratres de Maria natos, impia assertione contendunt, cum Joseph non verum ejus patrem dicant appellatum.”

[61]  Commentaria in Matthaeum, Ch. 12; ML 26, 88: “Quidam fratres Domini de alia uxore Joseph suspicantur sequentes deliramenta apocryphorum, et quamdam Melcham vel Escham mulierculam confingentes.  Nos autem sicut in libro quem contra Helvidium scripsimus, continetur, fratres Domini, non filios Joseph, sed consorbrinos Salvatoris, Mariae liberos intelligimus matertae Domini quae esse dicitur mater Jacobi Minoris et Joseph et Judae quos in alio Evangelii loco fratres Domini legimus appellatos.  Fratres autem consobrinos dici omnis Scriptura demonstrate.”

[62]  Mark 15:40.

[63]  Adversus Helvidium, n. 13; ML 23, 195; n. 14; col. 197.

[64]  Ibid., Cols. 189-190.  See also Ambrose, De institutione virginis, n. 38; ML 16, 315.

[65]  Ibid., n. 19; ML, 203: “Sed ut haec quae scripta sunt, non negamus, ita ea quae non sunt scripta, renuimus.  Natum Deum esse ex virgine credimus, quia legimus. Mariam nupsisse post partum, non credimus quia non legimus. Nec hoc ideo dicimus, quo nuptias condemnemus, ipsa quippe virginitas fructus est nuptiarum:  sed quod nobis de sanctis viris temere aestimare nihil liceat.  Possumus enim hac aestimatione possibilitatis contendere, plures quoque uxores habuisse Joseph, quia plures habuerit Abraham, plures hubuerit Jacob; et de his esse uxoribus fratres Domini, quod plerique non tam pia quam audacia temeritate confingunt.  Tu dicis Mariam virginem non permansisse: ego mihi plus vindico, etiam ipsum Joseph virginem fuisse per Mariam, ut ex virginali conjugio virgo filius nasceretur.  Si enim in virum sanctum, fornicatio non cadit, et aliam uxorem habuisse non scribitur: Mariae autem, quam putatur est habuisse, custos potius fuit quam maritus: reliquitur, virginem eum mansisse cum Maria, qui pater Domini meruit appellari.”

[66]  The gospel narrative indicates that Joseph probably died before the public life of Christ began.  This may be inferred from the fact that, after the incident in the temple (Luke 2: 41-52), absolutely no mention is made of Joseph in narrating events at which he normally would have been present, such as the marriage feast at Cana, where the text “He and His mother and His brethren and His disciples, went down to Capharnaum” (John 2:12), would be difficult to explain if Joseph were still living at the time.  Every time Our Lord’s mother and the “brethren of the Lord” are mentioned, Joseph should appear.  Christ’s commending His mother to Saint John (John 19:27) would be hard to understand were Saint Joseph, the official protector of the Blessed Virgin, still living.  This task would have rightfully belonged to St.  Joseph.  Suarez lists writers, among whom are Epiphanius and Peter Comestor, who share this view with him:  De mysteriis vitae Christi, disp. 7; Opera 19, 116.

[67]  Filas believes that Augustine did not subscribe to the idea of an earlier marriage of Joseph:  Joseph and Jesus, p. 58.  Mueller holds that Augustine defended Joseph’s virginity: The Fatherhood of Saint Joseph, p. 48