Saint Joseph in Scripture

Sacred Scripture is the most authentic source we have for the study of the importance and significance of Saint Joseph in the present economy of salvation. The Magisterium of the Church, the universal and proximate norm of all truth, bases its love for, and devotion to Saint Joseph on the data given in the pages of the inspired word of God.

What does Sacred Scripture tell us about Saint Joseph? Does it tell us very much? It would be misleading to gauge his importance by the number of words assigned to him in the sacred narrative. As is so often the case in the Bible, a few seemingly simple remarks say more than we can comprehend in a lifetime of study and reflection. True, the Bible does not give us an exhaustive picture of the saint, but then neither does it contain a definitive biography of Christ or his Mother. Sacred Scripture, however, does tell us all that we need to know about Saint Joseph, as well as the mission assigned him in the life of the people of God.

The following points are the main facts in the life of Saint Joseph that Sacred Scripture proposes as historically true.

1. Saint Joseph was married to Mary, the Mother of God
When the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary announcing that she was to become the Mother of God, she was, according to the account given by Saint Luke, "espoused to a man named Joseph"1. The wording of the text is common to all modern versions of the Bible.

Commenting on this text, scripture scholars warn us that the word "espoused" is not to be equated with the word "engagement". The words espousal and engagement are allied terms that are related to marriage, but they are not perfectly synonymous. The word espousal refers to the making of vows of marriage rather than to the ceremonies that surround the wedding; it implies that the couple have, in the strict legal sense, entered upon the state of wedlock. Engagement, on the other hand, connotes only the "promise" of one day entering the state of matrimony, providing the present desires and wishes of the couple endure. Thus, to understand the phrase of Saint Luke "espoused to a man named Joseph" as meaning that Mary was engaged to him at the time, would not do justice to the text. Saint Luke is simply saying that Mary and Joseph were already married when Mary became the Mother of God.

Why, then, does Saint Luke use the word "espoused" instead of the word "married"? Would it not have been clearer and more simple for him to use the second?

It must be remembered that according to the Jewish custom of the time there were two steps that lead to marriage as we understand it today. First, the couple exchanged their <matrimonial consent> in a special ceremony. Today we would say they pronounced their marriage vows. In virtue of this they were joined together as man and wife in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the law. From that time they had all the rights and privileges accorded to husbands and wives. According to Jewish law if the man died, the woman was considered as his widow and was entitled to his inheritance. If the woman was unfaithful to him, she would be punished as an adulteress; neither could she remarry without first obtaining a bill of divorce.

The second step was the <solemnization> of the marriage or the celebration of the wedding festivities. According to the means of the couple, the wedding feast was celebrated as elaborately as possible. The man would come to the home of the bride and in public procession he would escort her to his home. Then they would begin their life together.

This second part of the ceremony took place many months after the exchange of the wedding vows. And it is for this reason that Saint Luke tells us that they were "espoused" at the time of the Annunciation. The meaning is clear. At the time of the apparition of the Angel they were not living together as man and wife for the wedding festivities had not as yet taken place, but they were married in the eyes of God since they had already exchanged matrimonial consent.

How old Saint Joseph was at the time he married Mary is a question of great interest to the modern mind because of the conflicting ideas expressed on this subject. For many centuries the idea prevailed that Joseph was an old man of eighty years when he married. Even today in some of our churches there are still statues and pictures that would appear to corroborate this view.

It is interesting to note that the earliest known paintings or pieces of sculpture in the catacombs show Joseph as a young man, probably no more than twenty-five years old. This trend continued until the fourth century. But from that time almost to modern times, Mary's husband is pictured as a man of advanced years. This raises the interesting question of why Joseph suddenly became an octogenarian in Christian art. There can be no doubt but that the change was deliberately introduced. In the fourth century the perpetual virginity of Mary was under attack, and by way of implication it was asserted that Joseph was the natural father of Christ. This claim was a serious distortion of divine revelation and was promptly refuted by the bishops of those times. History tells us that heresies die slowly and there follows a period of time in which there is a danger that the false doctrine will reappear. Hence the artists of the times were convinced that it was not advisable to depict Joseph as a young man for fear that the faithful would imagine him to be the natural father of Christ. Portraying him as a very old man, they thought, was the best way of upholding belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary and Joseph. This trend continued well into the twentieth century.

In recent decades there has been a change in thinking among religious artists. The modern artist, sensitive to the preferences of modern man, now prefers to represent Joseph as a strong and vigorous young man. This healthy trend accords with modern scriptural scholarship and has helped thinking Christians to reject as worthless fables many of the legends about Saint Joseph that are contained in the apocryphal literature, especially the <Gospel of Pseudo Matthieu> and the <Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.

The belief that Mary was about fifteen years old when she became the Mother of Christ is very widely held by scripture scholars. Now who could seriously imagine God inspiring Mary to marry a man who was nearly eighty years old? How could he have been a real companion to her? Would he not have been more like a great-grandfather? Furthermore, the gospel assures us that the contemporaries of the holy family thought that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus. Is it likely that people would have come to such a conclusion had Joseph already been a very old man?

In addition, how could such an old man have worked as a carpenter to support his wife and child? Could he have taken the long journeys related in the gospel? How could he have protected his family on such trips? It is not necessary to portray Joseph as a decrepit old man in order to affirm his virginity, for virginity comes from virtue and the grace of God and not from debilitating old-age.

Is it possible to be more specific about his age at the time of his marriage? Yes, scholars of oriental history assure us that most Jewish men married when they were sixteen years old; they rarely deferred marriage beyond twenty-four. Thus in all likelihood Joseph was married when he was in his late teens.

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