www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West St Joseph - East and West

Icognitus and Alice,

I agree with you as it pertains to certain excesses of pious belief that creep in from time to time. From what I know, the iconographical tradition seems to be consistent - Joseph is portayed as an older man. His righteousness as the the image of the last of the great patriarchs of the Old Testament (just as St. John the Forerunner is the last of the OT great prophets) should be sufficient, without imposing "sacred heart" and "immaculate conception" concepts to him. Plus, the designation of certain biblical figures as "brothers" of Jesus certainly makes sense when seen in the light of the tradition that Joseph was a widower. Of course, the counter argument to that is the entrustment of Mary to John at the foot of the cross. Clearly, more was meant here than just His desire to ensure His mother's earthly care. But would He have entrusted her to John had He had siblings? Or was it a reward for John's faithfulness to the end? It is difficult to say.

You lost me, however, at the "Holy Family" devotion, icognitus. To which forms or aspects of this devotion are you referring? I imagine that the terrible icon you reference is the one my wife and I saw in a store in Rome a few years back - St. Joseph has his arm around Mary, which as I understand it implies a physical intimacy contrary to Tradition. The powerful icon of the Holy Family in Exile is a great tradition within Byzantine-Orthodoxy, as well as most especially (and understandably) Alexandrian Orthodoxy. (Has anyone seen an Akathist hymn on this? Do the Copts have Akathists?) I've not seen any Eastern icons (I'm sure some must exist) of the Holy Family in Nazareth. But the Holy Family is seen quite often at the Nativity and the Presentation in the Temple. I can't imagine (and don't believe) that you would object to this. So can you clarify what you mean?

Gordo

About St. Joseph's age, because no description of it available except from un-cannonical text a Latin Catholic can accept or not accept the notion that Joseph is a very old man.

The case is same with the dormition of Our Lady. We Latins are obligated to accept her assumption, but some people may believe that Our Lady was assumed without facing death.

As for me, I don't really care if St. Joseph was an old man or a younger one.


This may be out of topic, but may I ask about St. Mary's well? I read about it and the story said that Gabriel greeted Mary when she was went out taking water, trembled, she went back to her house and there the narration of annunciation as related by Luke began.

Does every jurisdiction of Orthodox church accept this story?

I never hear this part of annunciation before. Does not accepting this part of story is a problem?

If it is not a problem, then I believe the depiction of Joseph as a younger man is not a big problem either.

But anyway, I think this is an example where Eastern tradition can be beneficial for the Latin Church and should be exposed more to the Latin Church.

Further thoughts to my last post:

P.S. Another thought: the clergy I heard that year made it very clear that they were aging St. Joseph as an older teenager. One of the rationales was that an older man could not have physically made the trek to Bethlehem...I say: put into the historical context of the day, a thirty to forty year old man may have been considered an 'older man' and I believe that men of that age are generally in good shape.

I truly think that this 'young man' thing is going a bit overboard, and can be quite dangerous in the often confused mentality and climate of today's young people that they seem to be trying to target... and may create an opposite effect in respecting the age old virtues associated with St. Joseph.

In Christ,
Alice

Dear Alphonsus,

No, the East need not accept that version of the Annunciation - it is not in the liturgical tradition at all.

The "uncanonical" books are not thereby "ahistorical" but are accepted by the Eastern Church and do indeed "live" in the liturgy (for example, the feast of the Entrance into the Temple of the Theotokos is entirely taken from deuterocanonical - and nevertheless perfectly valid - texts - so is much other information about Joseph the Carpenter, the life of St Andrew, of St John the Theologian etc.).

Indeed, the deuterocanonical New Testament books were read and known by the early Christians, even though they weren't in the later canon of the NT. In the first chapter of John, we really don't know why Nathaniel is so excited by Christ's telling him that He saw him under the "sycamore tree."

We get the background information for that from the orthodox, but extra-canonical book of the Gospel of Nicodemus/Birth of Mary, I believe. During Christ's infancy, a disease broke out that killed Nathaniel's baby brother and then Nathaniel contracted it. Mary saw Nathaniel's mother in tears and simply told her to put Nathaniel on her Baby's bed clothes "under the sycamore tree." When she did this, Nathaniel was immediately cured.

Alex

Dear Gordo,

I didn't write the Akathist to St Joseph mentioned here - there are some I haven't done .

The fact is that the Ukrainian Catholic Church does indeed honour BOTH traditions of St Joseph - our "Westernized" branch follows the Western tradition and our "Easternized" branch follows . . . yes, you guessed it!

That is the simple truth and I'm not going to try and say "it isn't so."

Even the Studites have published an Akathist to St Joseph (they dedicate their monastery at Univ to St Joseph) and I read it the other night.

In that service (and no, the Copts don't have akathists), they portray a very intimate relationship between St Joseph and the Child Jesus with words to the effect "the Eternal Child is carried by you and embraces you in your arms!"

Incognitus is wrong about the commemoration of St Joseph on the Synaxis of the THeotokos (Dec. 26/Jan.8). That was developed by our "western" branch as a form of devotion to the Holy Family, plain and simple. St Joseph is commemorated in our tradition on the Sunday after the Nativity of OLGS Jesus Christ and in the Syriac tradition on July 20th, I believe.

There is the "dynamic" commemoration of St Joseph in the icons of the Nativity of Christ, the Circumcision and the Meeting in the Temple.

The deuterocanonical book "Joseph the Carpenter" that is on the noncanonical homepage, I believe, goes into Joseph's background.

Incognitus is quite right - Ite Ad Joseph does indeed refer to St Joseph, the son of Jacob, (what Pharaoh told those hungry people who came to him during the seven year famine in Egypt) although it has been appropriated by Western saints for St Joseph the Betrothed.

But I don't see a problem with that since there is much that is in the OT which is reflected in the NT in the Light of Christ . . .

The devotion to the "Three Hearts" of Christ, the Theotokos and the "Admirable heart of Joseph" is not only a private Western devotion - there was one Pope of Rome whose papal coat of arms displayed all three Hearts!

It is clear that what St Joseph is to the West - St John the Baptist is to the East. The Forerunner's cult, after that of the Theotokos, is very much celebrated by a public, liturgical cult, every Tuesday and with seven major feast-days throughout the year, including a fasting day on the commemoration of his Beheading AND the feast of his holy conception in the womb of St Elizabeth.

There is nothing wrong with the development of a cult to an ancient saint as St Joseph, I would say.

However, the spiritual tradition that framed that cult from the earliest days should be respected as well.

It is our modern desire to see a role-model for fathers, workers et al. which led to a veneration for St Joseph as "Foster-Father" and "Worker." Indeed, the declaration of the feast of St Joseph the Worker in May by the Latin Church was done deliberately - as a way to spiritually counter the socialist movements.

And we need not portray Joseph as an "overly" elderly man.

But portraying him as a "teenager" is certainly out of bounds. Portraying him as a "virgin" is not only against the received ancient tradition - it would have raised eye-brows in the Jewish community in which he lived. That a widower could take another spouse - that would not have raised eye-brows.

As Incognitus said, it is very true, as I've also encountered this, some contemporary RC's believe in the current form of devotion to St Joseph (as virginal young man etc.) with such a degree of fanaticism (often coupled by referenced to "revelations") that they are ready to brand you as an "heretic" for adhering to the other, ancient tradition.

My aunt is one of them and she wouldn't leave me alone or let me leave her home until I aquiesced in this!

"Josephology" as it has developed in the West also affirms a cult of "proto-dulia" for St Joseph - which is in direct contravention to not only the Eastern tradition (once held in common by both East and west), but also against the current RC tradition since, in the litany of the Saints, the RC Church places St John the Baptist ahead of St Joseph.

Ultimately, the difference between East and West here lies on another plane, that being, the role that private revelations play in devotional life.

The East is much less inclined to make private revelations the rule of faith, as is the West is.

And even the miraculous icons that people venerate in their homes, once they are "canonized" as such by the Eastern Chuch, they are brought out into the Church for public, liturgical veneration as part of the public prayer of the Church.

This also happens in the West, as in the case of the devotion to the Divine Mercy.

In addition, the East is well connected to the traditions of the early centuries of the Church, and to Patristic Tradition in general - new devotions must always be judged by this standard.

So I believe that devotion to St Joseph can be MORE than what has obtained in the East, but LESS than what can be called excesses of spiritual imagination as obtain in the West.

We do need a model for fatherhood, workers et al. and St Joseph does indeed "fit the bill."

Alex

My theory is that as Mary was probably in her midteens, St Joseph was a middle aged widower, say 40 or so. This would give him a normal lifespan of around 70 years [traditionally he is thought to have died shortly before Christ began his public ministry]. He would thus be old compared to Mary, but not aged.
Not that old age necessarily means impotence; my great great great grandfather, who came from Ulster, first to Ontario and then crossing at Sarnia into Michigan's Thumb, fathered 22 children, outliving 2 of his 3 wives. He sired his last child at the age of 72! And lived until he was grown to adulthood, dying at 89.

As for icons of the Holy Family, if this is so much an aberration and bound to lead to doubt about Mary's perpetual virginity, why on earth has this not occurred among Roman Catholics, who have long had this image? [I don't think the liberal thinkers in the Church who have raised doubt are particularly devoted to St Joseph!]
-Daniel

Dear Dr. Alex,

What is the name of the deuterocanonical book that talks about St. Joseph ? Is it available (in English) on the internet?

-- John

Dear John,

It is "the history of Joseph the Carpenter" I believe:

www.newadvent.org/fathers/0805.htm [newadvent.org]

Cheers,

Alex

Dear father Daniel,

I don't know if the tradition of St Joseph being elderly was prompted by this desire to safeguard the perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos or whether it was just the received tradition period.

But even RC art and thought on St Joseph represent him holding the lily of purity. And the contemporary devotion to him in the West goes to great lengths to emphasize his purity, even to the point of positing, in some circles, his holy conception, assumption into heaven etc.

So RC devotion to St Joseph does what the East has always done - but in a more roundabout way.

Alex

Thank you !

-- John

Iconophile asks: "As for icons of the Holy Family, if this is so much an aberration and bound to lead to doubt about Mary's perpetual virginity, why on earth has this not occurred among Roman Catholics, who have long had this image?"

A reasonable question. The answer is that Roman Catholicism has lost the concept of the "language" of iconography and the tradition that portrayals of God and the Saints are done according to certain specific models. This problem also appeared in Orthodoxy, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (which produced some strange pseudo-icons) but, thanks to God, the revival of authentic iconography has had a strong and positive effect among both Orthodox and Greek-Catholics.

Coptic iconography even at its best, I regret to say, does not even approach the quality and standards of Byzantine iconography.

Incognitus

Me again - I just watched a long program on EWTN which exemplified everything objectionable on this topic - ridiculously over-extrapolated pseudo-exegesis of Scriptural texts, the insistence that Saint Joseph was a teen-ager at the time of the incarnation, repeated references to him as the "father of Jesus", saccharine sentimentality masquerading as piety . . . I'm sorry, but I'm not buying.

Incognitus

I don't take to heart all that is portrayed on EWTN or many other programs on TV, besides we Latins have variations and differences just like Easterners...nobody is coercing you do adopt the subject matter of that program...

By the way...most prayers etc that I use refer to St. Joseph as the Lord's foster-father and guardian...

Most depictions that I own reflect a image of a grey/white haired St. Joseph...

I try my best not to blow a gasket on everthing I hear, see or read...

james

James writes "I try my best not to blow a gasket on everthing I hear, see or read..."

So do I . . . but sometimes the effect is cumulative!

Incognitus

Just remembered to take my St. Joseph's 81mg aspirin...

james,tumbling along with those tumbling tumble weeds(aka - russian thistle)!