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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > J > St. Joseph


ST. JOSEPH

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Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster-father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.


LIFE


SOURCES

The chief sources of information on the life of St. Joseph are the first
chapters of our first and third Gospels; they are practically also the only
reliable sources, for, whilst, on the holy patriarch's life, as on many other
points connected with the Saviour's history which are left untouched by the
canonical writings, the apocryphal literature is full of details, the
non-admittance of these works into the Canon of the Sacred Books casts a strong
suspicion upon their contents; and, even granted that some of the facts recorded
by them may be founded on trustworthy traditions, it is in most instances next
to impossible to discern and sift these particles of true history from the
fancies with which they are associated. Among these apocryphal productions
dealing more or less extensively with some episodes of St. Joseph's life may be
noted the so-called "Gospel of James", the "Pseudo-Matthew", the "Gospel of the
Nativity of the Virgin Mary", the "Story of Joseph the Carpenter", and the "Life
of the Virgin and Death of Joseph".




GENEALOGY

St. Matthew (1:16) calls St. Joseph the son of Jacob; according to St. Luke
(3:23), Heli was his father. This is not the place to recite the many and most
various endeavours to solve the vexing questions arising from the divergences
between both genealogies; nor is it necessary to point out the explanation which
meets best all the requirements of the problem (see GENEALOGY OF CHRIST);
suffice it to remind the reader that, contrary to what was once advocated, most
modern writers readily admit that in both documents we possess the genealogy of
Joseph, and that it is quite possible to reconcile their data.


RESIDENCE

At any rate, Bethlehem, the city of David and his descendants, appears to have
been the birth-place of Joseph. When, however, the Gospel history opens, namely,
a few months before the Annunciation, Joseph was settled at Nazareth. Why and
when he forsook his home-place to betake himself to Galilee is not ascertained;
some suppose — and the supposition is by no means improbable — that the
then-moderate circumstances of the family and the necessity of earning a living
may have brought about the change. St. Joseph, indeed, was a tekton, as we learn
from Matthew 13:55, and Mark 6:3. The word means both mechanic in general and
carpenter in particular; St. Justin vouches for the latter sense (Dialogue with
Trypho 88), and tradition has accepted this interpretation, which is followed in
the English Bible.


MARRIAGE

It is probably at Nazareth that Joseph betrothed and married her who was to
become the Mother of God. When the marriage took place, whether before or after
the Incarnation, is no easy matter to settle, and on this point the masters of
exegesis have at all times been at variance. Most modern commentators, following
the footsteps of St. Thomas, understand that, at the epoch of the Annunciation,
the Blessed Virgin was only affianced to Joseph; as St. Thomas notices, this
interpretation suits better all the evangelical data.

It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though they are, the
lengthy stories concerning St. Joseph's marriage contained in the apocryphal
writings. When forty years of age, Joseph married a woman called Melcha or Escha
by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years together and had six
children, two daughters and four sons, the youngest of whom was James (the Less,
"the Lord's brother"). A year after his wife's death, as the priests announced
through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to
espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age. Joseph, who was at the time
ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle
manifested the choice God had made of Joseph, and two years later the
Annunciation took place. These dreams, as St. Jerome styles them, from which
many a Christian artist has drawn his inspiration (see, for instance, Raphael's
"Espousals of the Virgin"), are void of authority; they nevertheless acquired in
the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical writers sought
the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel
of "the Lord's brothers"; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all
probability, as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of art, retained
the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the
Mother of God.


THE INCARNATION

This marriage, true and complete, was, in the intention of the spouses, to be
virgin marriage (cf. St. Augustine, "De cons. Evang.", II, i in P.L. XXXIV,
1071-72; "Cont. Julian.", V, xii, 45 in P.L. XLIV, 810; St. Thomas, III:28;
III:29:2). But soon was the faith of Joseph in his spouse to be sorely tried:
she was with child. However painful the discovery must have been for him,
unaware as he was of the mystery of the Incarnation, his delicate feelings
forbade him to defame his affianced, and he resolved "to put her away privately;
but while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to
him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary
thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. . . And
Joseph, rising from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him,
and took unto him his wife" (Matthew 1:19, 20, 24).


THE NATIVITY AND THE FLIGHT TO EGYPT

A few months later, the time came for Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem, to be
enrolled, according to the decree issued by Caesar Augustus: a new source of
anxiety for Joseph, for "her days were accomplished, that she should be
delivered", and "there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:1-7). What must
have been the thoughts of the holy man at the birth of the Saviour, the coming
of the shepherds and of the wise men, and at the events which occurred at the
time of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, we can merely guess; St. Luke
tells only that he was "wondering at those things which were spoken concerning
him" (2:33). New trials were soon to follow. The news that a king of the Jews
was born could not but kindle in the wicked heart of the old and bloody tyrant,
Herod, the fire of jealousy. Again "an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to
Joseph, saying: Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt:
and be there until I shall tell thee" (Matthew 2:13).




RETURN TO NAZARETH

The summons to go back to Palestine came only after a few years, and the Holy
Family settled again at Nazareth. St. Joseph's was henceforth the simple and
uneventful life of an humble Jew, supporting himself and his family by his work,
and faithful to the religious practices commanded by the Law or observed by
pious Israelites. The only noteworthy incident recorded by the Gospel is the
loss of, and anxious quest for, Jesus, then twelve years old, when He had
strayed during the yearly pilgrimage to the Holy City (Luke 2:42-51).


DEATH

This is the last we hear of St. Joseph in the sacred writings, and we may well
suppose that Jesus's foster-father died before the beginning of Savior's public
life. In several circumstances, indeed, the Gospels speak of the latter's mother
and brothers (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19; John 7:3), but never do they
speak of His father in connection with the rest of the family; they tell us only
that Our Lord, during His public life, was referred to as the son of Joseph
(John 1:45; 6:42; Luke 4:22) the carpenter (Matthew 13:55). Would Jesus,
moreover, when about to die on the Cross, have entrusted His mother to John's
care, had St. Joseph been still alive?

According to the apocryphal "Story of Joseph the Carpenter", the holy man
reached his hundred and eleventh year when he died, on 20 July (A.D. 18 or 19).
St. Epiphanius gives him ninety years of age at the time of his demise; and if
we are to believe the Venerable Bede, he was buried in the Valley of Josaphat.
In truth we do not know when St. Joseph died; it is most unlikely that he
attained the ripe old age spoken of by the "Story of Joseph" and St. Epiphanius.
The probability is that he died and was buried at Nazareth.


DEVOTION TO SAINT JOSEPH

Joseph was "a just man". This praise bestowed by the Holy Ghost, and the
privilege of having been chosen by God to be the foster-father of Jesus and the
spouse of the Virgin Mother, are the foundations of the honour paid to St.
Joseph by the Church. So well-grounded are these foundations that it is not a
little surprising that the cult of St. Joseph was so slow in winning
recognition. Foremost among the causes of this is the fact that "during the
first centuries of the Church's existence, it was only the martyrs who enjoyed
veneration" (Kellner). Far from being ignored or passed over in silence during
the early Christian ages, St. Joseph's prerogatives were occasionally descanted
upon by the Fathers; even such eulogies as cannot be attributed to the writers
among whose works they found admittance bear witness that the ideas and devotion
therein expressed were familiar, not only to the theologians and preachers, and
must have been readily welcomed by the people. The earliest traces of public
recognition of the sanctity of St. Joseph are to be found in the East. His
feast, if we may trust the assertions of Papebroch, was kept by the Copts as
early as the beginning of the fourth century. Nicephorus Callistus tells
likewise — on what authority we do not know — that in the great basilica erected
at Bethlehem by St. Helena, there was a gorgeous oratory dedicated to the honour
of our saint. Certain it is, at all events, that the feast of "Joseph the
Carpenter" is entered, on 20 July, in one of the old Coptic Calendars in our
possession, as also in a Synazarium of the eighth and ninth century published by
Cardinal Mai (Script. Vet. Nova Coll., IV, 15 sqq.). Greek menologies of a later
date at least mention St. Joseph on 25 or 26 December, and a twofold
commemoration of him along with other saints was made on the two Sundays next
before and after Christmas.

In the West the name of the foster-father of Our Lord (Nutritor Domini) appears
in local martyrologies of the ninth and tenth centuries, and we find in 1129,
for the first time, a church dedicated to his honour at Bologna. The devotion,
then merely private, as it seems, gained a great impetus owing to the influence
and zeal of such saintly persons as St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St.
Gertrude (d. 1310), and St. Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373). According to Benedict
XIV (De Serv. Dei beatif., I, iv, n. 11; xx, n. 17), "the general opinion of the
learned is that the Fathers of Carmel were the first to import from the East
into the West the laudable practice of giving the fullest cultus to St. Joseph".
His feast, introduced towards the end shortly afterwards, into the Dominican
Calendar, gradually gained a foothold in various dioceses of Western Europe.
Among the most zealous promoters of the devotion at that epoch, St. Vincent
Ferrer (d. 1419), Peter d'Ailly (d. 1420), St. Bernadine of Siena (d. 1444), and
Jehan Charlier Gerson (d. 1429) deserve an especial mention. Gerson, who had, in
1400, composed an Office of the Espousals of Joseph particularly at the Council
of Constance (1414), in promoting the public recognition of the cult of St.
Joseph. Only under the pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471-84), were the efforts of
these holy men rewarded by Roman Calendar (19 March). From that time the
devotion acquired greater and greater popularity, the dignity of the feast
keeping pace with this steady growth. At first only a festum simplex, it was
soon elevated to a double rite by Innocent VIII (1484-92), declared by Gregory
XV, in 1621, a festival of obligation, at the instance of the Emperors Ferdinand
III and Leopold I and of King Charles II of Spain, and raised to the rank of a
double of the second class by Clement XI (1700-21). Further, Benedict XIII, in
1726, inserted the name into the Litany of the Saints.

One festival in the year, however, was not deemed enough to satisfy the piety of
the people. The feast of the Espousals of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, so
strenuously advocated by Gerson, and permitted first by Paul III to the
Franciscans, then to other religious orders and individual dioceses, was, in
1725, granted to all countries that solicited it, a proper Office, compiled by
the Dominican Pietro Aurato, being assigned, and the day appointed being 23
January. Nor was this all, for the reformed Order of Carmelites, into which St.
Teresa had infused her great devotion to the foster-father of Jesus, chose him,
in 1621, for their patron, and in 1689, were allowed to celebrate the feast of
his Patronage on the third Sunday after Easter. This feast, soon adopted
throughout the Spanish Kingdom, was later on extended to all states and dioceses
which asked for the privilege. No devotion, perhaps, has grown so universal,
none seems to have appealed so forcibly to the heart of the Christian people,
and particularly of the labouring classes, during the nineteenth century, as
that of St. Joseph.

This wonderful and unprecedented increase of popularity called for a new lustre
to be added to the cult of the saint. Accordingly, one of the first acts of the
pontificate of Pius IX, himself singularly devoted to St. Joseph, was to extend
to the whole Church the feast of the Patronage (1847), and in December, 1870,
according to the wishes of the bishops and of all the faithful, he solemnly
declared the Holy Patriarch Joseph, patron of the Catholic Church, and enjoined
that his feast (19 March) should henceforth be celebrated as a double of the
first class (but without octave, on account of Lent). Following the footsteps of
their predecessor, Leo XIII and Pius X have shown an equal desire to add their
own jewel to the crown of St. Joseph: the former, by permitting on certain days
the reading of the votive Office of the saint; and the latter by approving, on
18 March, 1909, a litany in honour of him whose name he had received in baptism.




ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Souvay, C. (1910). St. Joseph. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm

MLA citation. Souvay, Charles. "St. Joseph." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8.
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Joseph P. Thomas.
In memory of Father Joseph Paredom.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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