Today is the feast day of St Joseph, celebrated with particular fervour (and fireworks of course) in Rabat and Medina. And of course we are all familiar with Joseph, Jesus’s earthly father, a regular in school nativity plays and standing unassumingly in thousands of cribs across the islands each Christmas. Interestingly, Joseph wasn’t always accepted as a key part of the Christmas story and mentions of Joseph are scare in the canonical literature. For most of the last two millennium, he was side-lined in mainstream Christianity and barely venerated as a bible character of real significance.
Now, however, it seems appropriate to consider further the man who witnessed the birth of Christ and was there for his childhood and adolescence. Joseph may not have been considered a significant figure biblically but nonetheless he appears in the Legenda Aurea (The Golden Legend) by Jacobo di Voragine, the medieval Archbishop of Genoa who compiled this historically-important book around 1260. It was a central text of the Middle Ages, a compendium of 200 stories and descriptions of saints’ lives, from the first Apostles to St Francis of Assisi and the legendary St George, and also included accounts of events in the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Translated into many languages and read widely across Europe, it heavily influenced the painting, stained glass and poetry of the era.
It wasn’t until two hundred years later in the 15th century that the modern renaissance of Joseph really began. In 1480 the late medieval Pope Sixtus IVth, known for the construction of the Sistine chapel, introduced to the Franciscan Order a feast for St Joseph on March 19th, the date on which he was believed to have died. This decree was extended in 1621 to the universal church by Pope Gregory XVth and then, in 1870, Pope Pius IXth proclaimed him Patron of the Universal Church, much elevating his importance. There are now three feast days on which we commemorate Joseph, the others being The Feast of the Holy Family at the end of the December, introduced in 1921 by Pope Benedict XVth, and the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, declared in 1955 by Pope Pius IXth for 1st May. The latter date was chosen to align with International Workers’ Day, reflecting Joseph’s status as the patron saint of workers.
Even the atheist British contemporary philosopher Alain de Botton, a scholar at King’s College London and author of Religion for Atheists (2011), a book underpinned by the idea that there is no God yet argues that religious beliefs remain indispensable to civilised society, suggests his reader consider St Joseph in order to learn “how to face the trials of the workplace with a modest and uncomplaining temper!”
Joseph, although descended from King David’s Royal lineage, is known to have been a carpenter and a builder in Nazareth, a town of Galilee in modern day Israel. There this just and modest man lived a quiet, humble and pious life. He is often depicted as an older man, and it is often hypothesized that he was a widow who became betrothed to Mary later in life: this is also surmised from the mention of Jesus’ brothers and sisters in the bible who were perhaps half-siblings.
Joseph has become increasingly celebrated over time, and his position in the Holy Family became more prominent in art from sculpture and paintings to movies, for three reasons according to Mgr Dr Joseph Farrugia, Curator at Il-Ħaġar – Heart of Gozo Museum, who gave a fascinating talk on the subject back in November 2021: these are the development of biblical research spearheaded by The Enlightenment; nineteenth-century studies of the apocrypha (biblical and other writings that do not form part of the accepted canon of Scripture); and the changing cultural norms that increasingly allowed and encouraged the review and reinterpretion of the past.
Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary when she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit, received divine instruction in a dream and showed absolute obedience to God. He was not Jesus’ biological father, continued Dr Farrugia, but it was to Joseph in this dream that God gave him the name Jesus to bestow upon the baby born that very first Christmas.
Farrugia also speculated that Joseph in Hebrew means ‘he shall increase’ referring to the addition of a child to the family, and that the initial J is thought to be symbolic of praise, so the name is also a prayer for the new-born child. The bestowing of a name in Jewish custom at the time was a right that belonged to the father and this made him the legal custodian of the boy: the Semitic perspective of fatherhood included not only the biological aspect but also he who raised and nurtured a child, passing on his profession and launching them into the adult world.
This feature is based on an article first published in the Times of Malta, December 2021