St. Jerome: Moralistic Quibbler [repost]

[This is an old post from 2015 for the feast of St. Jerome. The opposition of the holy Church Fathers to current ecclesiastical trends remains, of course, very relevant.]

(Francisco de Zurbarán)

My dear Amandus,

I find joined to your letter of inquiries a short paper containing the following words: “ask him, (that is me,) whether a woman who has left her husband on the ground that he is an adulterer and sodomite and has found herself compelled to take another may in the lifetime of him whom she first left be in communion with the church without doing penance for her fault.”

As I read the case put I recall the verse “they make excuses for their sins.” We are all human and all indulgent to our own faults; and what our own will leads us to do we attribute to a necessity of nature. It is as though a young man were to say, “I am over-borne by my body, the glow of nature kindles my passions, the structure of my frame and its reproductive organs call for sexual intercourse.” Or again a murderer might say, “I was in want, I stood in need of food, I had nothing to cover me. If I shed the blood of another, it was to save myself from dying of cold and hunger.”

Tell the sister, therefore, who thus enquires of me concerning her condition, not my sentence but that of the apostle. “Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman which has an husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.” And in another place: “the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.” The apostle has thus cut away every plea and has clearly declared that, if a woman marries again while her husband is living, she is an adulteress.

You must not speak to me of the violence of a ravisher, a mother’s pleading, a father’s bidding, the influence of relatives, the insolence and the intrigues of servants, household losses. A husband may be an adulterer or a sodomite, he may be stained with every crime and may have been left by his wife because of his sins; yet he is still her husband and, so long as he lives, she may not marry another.

The apostle does not promulgate this decree on his own authority but on that of Christ who speaks in him. For he has followed the words of Christ in the gospel: “whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commits adultery.” Mark what he says: “whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery.” Whether she has put away her husband or her husband her, the man who marries her is still an adulterer. Wherefore the apostles seeing how heavy the yoke of marriage was thus made said to Him: “if the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry,” and the Lord replied, “he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” And immediately by the instance of the three eunuchs he shows the blessedness of virginity which is bound by no carnal tie.

I have not been able quite to determine what it is that she means by the words “has found herself compelled” to marry again. What is this compulsion of which she speaks? Was she overborne by a crowd and ravished against her will? If so, why has she not, thus victimized, subsequently put away her ravisher?

Let her read the books of Moses and she will find that if violence is offered to a betrothed virgin in a city and she does not cry out, she is punished as an adulteress: but if she is forced in the field, she is innocent of sin and her ravisher alone is amenable to the laws. Therefore if your sister, who, as she says, has been forced into a second union, wishes to receive the body of Christ and not to be accounted an adulteress, let her do penance; so far at least as from the time she begins to repent to have no farther intercourse with that second husband who ought to be called not a husband but an adulterer.

If this seems hard to her and if she cannot leave one whom she has once loved and will not prefer the Lord to sensual pleasure, let her hear the declaration of the apostle: “ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils,” and in another place: “what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial?”...

Wherefore, I beseech you, do your best to comfort her and to urge her to seek salvation. Diseased flesh calls for the knife and the searing-iron. The wound is to blame and not the healing art, if with a cruelty that is really kindness a physician to spare does not spare, and to be merciful is cruel.

Your affectionate sourpuss,
Jerome

(From Letter 55 of St. Hieronymus, Presbyteris Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris)

(Leonello Spada)

The Commentary of Fortunatianus

Some of our readers may already be aware of the recent publication in the “creative commons” of Fortunatianus’s (c. 300 – c. 360) long-lost Gospel commentary translated in English. This same commentator was the bishop of Aquileia during the Arian crisis, and influenced St. Jerome’s own scripture commentaries. He is also accused by Jerome of having pressured P. Liberius to concede to the heretics, although Jerome appears to be the only source of this accusation. (Fortunatianus himself calls Arianism a heresy when he writes on the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel [2925].)

In any case, the commentary remains an important historic text. The bishop’s exegesis is densely allegorical, as were many patristic commentaries. He identifies the four Evangelists with the four heavenly creatures of the Apocalypse, but in keeping with other early writers he identifies Mark as the Eagle and John as Lion:

Mark, observing the rule of prophecy, starts as follows: As is it written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my angel before your face. The Gospel according to Mark is therefore the face of an eagle, which is the likeness of the Holy Spirit. The prophets, when filled with this, prophesied continually. [10]

Fortunatianus’s references to the Gospel texts in Latin are quite different from Jerome’s later Vulgate, and even inconsistently rendered. He writes of an early and apparently very unpopular tradition that the Virgin Mary was martyred:

We believe that, in accordance with the prophecy of Simeon, she was put to death by the sword, because he said to her: And a sword will pass through your own soul. [355]

He is also a witness to the patristic tradition of St. Joseph’s first marriage:

For the reason that James and Jude are called the brothers of the Lord is undoubtedly not because they were born of Mary, but they were sons of Joseph from another wife. They were called the brothers of the Lord by normal custom because of Joseph, since he was from the same tribe, or Mary, since she was called the wife of Joseph. [360]

The talent and training for allegorical preaching is mostly lost in our time, and it is sometimes shocking to see the connections early commentators make within the Holy Writ. For instance, the mention of foxes and their dens in the eighth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel brings to mind Christ’s description of Herod as a fox and also the story of Samson burning the fields of his enemies with foxes:

Jesus said to him: Foxes have their holes. He calls heretical people foxes, just as he said of Herod, who was a Sadducee: Go, tell that fox: Leave it alone, I cast out demons. Foxes, he says, have their holes: for foxes, in order to feed, hide themselves in the deep earth, buried away in their holes. False people, heretics, who have earthly works and make dark and shady little gatherings for themselves, are similar to foxes. For Samson, too, having captured some foxes, tied firebrands, meaning torches, to their tails and set fire to their entire harvests and vineyards[...] showed because the tail is the outermost part of the body. Having taken a torch, it sets fire to the crops and vineyards, plainly through wicked preaching. [1140]

Gregory the Great’s magisterial commentary on the book of Job would run along similar lines of allegory and animal symbolism. One is hard-pressed to find anything similar in the last few centuries, arguably because of St. Thomas’s insistence on the primacy of the literal meaning.

For the modern reader, the Commentary of Fortunatianus will be more edifying when used as an occasional reference than as a systematic work of exegesis. His writing is dense and often alien to our sensibilities. It is what one friend of mine calls “holographically interesting,” in that each small part of it seems to contain an entire world. Our forebears had faith that could see the mountain in the grain of sand. In every action and word, the God-Man enfolded many teachings, prophecies, and explanations of things past. Preachers take note!

St. Jerome: Moralistic Quibbler

(Francisco de Zurbarán)

My dear Amandus,

I find joined to your letter of inquiries a short paper containing the following words: “ask him, (that is me,) whether a woman who has left her husband on the ground that he is an adulterer and sodomite and has found herself compelled to take another may in the lifetime of him whom she first left be in communion with the church without doing penance for her fault.”

As I read the case put I recall the verse “they make excuses for their sins.” We are all human and all indulgent to our own faults; and what our own will leads us to do we attribute to a necessity of nature. It is as though a young man were to say, “I am over-borne by my body, the glow of nature kindles my passions, the structure of my frame and its reproductive organs call for sexual intercourse.” Or again a murderer might say, “I was in want, I stood in need of food, I had nothing to cover me. If I shed the blood of another, it was to save myself from dying of cold and hunger.”

Tell the sister, therefore, who thus enquires of me concerning her condition, not my sentence but that of the apostle. “Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman which has an husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he lives; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.” And in another place: “the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.” The apostle has thus cut away every plea and has clearly declared that, if a woman marries again while her husband is living, she is an adulteress.

You must not speak to me of the violence of a ravisher, a mother’s pleading, a father’s bidding, the influence of relatives, the insolence and the intrigues of servants, household losses. A husband may be an adulterer or a sodomite, he may be stained with every crime and may have been left by his wife because of his sins; yet he is still her husband and, so long as he lives, she may not marry another.

The apostle does not promulgate this decree on his own authority but on that of Christ who speaks in him. For he has followed the words of Christ in the gospel: “whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commits adultery.” Mark what he says: “whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery.” Whether she has put away her husband or her husband her, the man who marries her is still an adulterer. Wherefore the apostles seeing how heavy the yoke of marriage was thus made said to Him: “if the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry,” and the Lord replied, “he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” And immediately by the instance of the three eunuchs he shows the blessedness of virginity which is bound by no carnal tie.

I have not been able quite to determine what it is that she means by the words “has found herself compelled” to marry again. What is this compulsion of which she speaks? Was she overborne by a crowd and ravished against her will? If so, why has she not, thus victimized, subsequently put away her ravisher?

Let her read the books of Moses and she will find that if violence is offered to a betrothed virgin in a city and she does not cry out, she is punished as an adulteress: but if she is forced in the field, she is innocent of sin and her ravisher alone is amenable to the laws. Therefore if your sister, who, as she says, has been forced into a second union, wishes to receive the body of Christ and not to be accounted an adulteress, let her do penance; so far at least as from the time she begins to repent to have no farther intercourse with that second husband who ought to be called not a husband but an adulterer.

If this seems hard to her and if she cannot leave one whom she has once loved and will not prefer the Lord to sensual pleasure, let her hear the declaration of the apostle: “ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils,” and in another place: “what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial?”...

Wherefore, I beseech you, do your best to comfort her and to urge her to seek salvation. Diseased flesh calls for the knife and the searing-iron. The wound is to blame and not the healing art, if with a cruelty that is really kindness a physician to spare does not spare, and to be merciful is cruel.

Your affectionate sourpuss,
Jerome

(From Letter 55 of St. Hieronymus, Presbyteris Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris)

(Leonello Spada)

Josephology Part 7: Scattered Josephites in the Pre-Thomistic Era

It sure is a quiet day for Josephite devotions. Nope, definitely nothing to see here...

Review your notes from the vocational retreat!

St. Jerome’s (c. 347-420) influence on the Roman Church was felt most prominently through his Latin “Vulgate” translation of the Scriptures, but his biblical commentaries would often be used as a standard for many later theologians. Instead of following the ancient Tradition of St. Joseph’s earlier marriage, some commentators would begin to reference Jerome as an authority who swept that belief away.

(Much of what follows makes use of Fr. Bilodeau’s study The Virginity of Saint Joseph in the Latin Fathers and Medieval Ecclesiastical Writers.)

Scattered Chain Links

The earliest known follower of Jerome on the point that Joseph remained always a virgin and that the “brethren of the Lord” were cousins at the closest—aside from St. Augustine’s acceptance of this theory as a possibility—was the Venerable Bede (673-735). Writing his commentary on the Gospel of John (Expositio in sancti Joannis evangelium) three hundred years later, he claims,

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.”[...]  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, but their relatives. (2)

The next writer Bilodeau can find is the next century’s Rabanus Maurus (c. 780-856), a Frankish monk given the popular title of Praeceptor Germaniae (Teacher of Germany) and probably best known today for writing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. He writes in his Commentarius in Mattaeum that “Catholic devotion teaches and it must be admitted that the parents of Our Lord were always endowed with an unspoiled virginity” (1.1). From this sentence, Bilodeau jumps to the conclusion “that this belief was widespread, and perhaps universal, in the ninth century,” which is more than mildly ridiculous.

Two centuries later, St. Peter Damian (c. 1007-1072) wrote in De coelibatu sacerdotum, his general defense of celibacy, “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” (3).

The next century, Peter Abelard (1079-1142) says in his sermon on the Annunciation (Sermo in annuntiationem Beatae Virginis Mariae) that “Joseph, as St. Jerome recalled, remained a virgin, just as his spouse did.”

Around the same time, Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096-1141) wrote in Quaestiones et decisions in epistolam ad Galatas concerning “James the brother of the Lord”:

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. (q. 5)

Albert Ups the Ante

Nearly a millennium after Jerome, St. Albertus Magnus (c. 1206-1280) came up with another innovation by claiming that Joseph and Mary both made vows of virginity:

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. (In evangelium secundum Matthaeum, Opera 9, 12)

Now, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that Joseph and Mary had a mutual agreement to be completely chaste during their marriage, and that he did not simply avoid her bed out of quiet fear. Unfortunately, since then this has frequently been taken to mean that both spouses had made vows of celibacy at a young age, long before their betrothal. As reviewed in earlier posts in this series, some patristic-era sources do say that Mary had made a vow of virginity as a young girl, but none had ever said the same of Joseph.

“Now watch me build a robot.”

Summary

Unless there are significantly more defenders of Joseph’s perpetual virginity than what Fr. Bilodeau has dug up, the followers of Jerome are few and far between until the second millennium. However, Albert’s expansion on Jerome’s ideas would soon be especially consequential through the intellectual activity of his greatest student, Thomas of Aquino.

Next time, we will see what St. Thomas wrote about Joseph, and the influence of the Angelic Doctor on later theologians in this regard.

St. Joseph, who really wants to take a nap, pray for us!

As today in the Roman rite is the feast of Ss. Phillip & James (the Babysitter) and of Joe the Communist in the new rites, one might find the lessons from the second nocturne of Mattins instructive:

JAMES, surnamed the Just, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, was a Nazarite from the womb. During his whole life he never drank wine or strong drink, never ate meat, never shaved, and never took a bath. He was the only man who was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies. His raiment was always linen. So continually did he kneel in prayer, that the skin of his knees became horny, like a camel's knees. After Christ was ascended, the Apostles made James Bishop of Jerusalem and even the Prince of the Apostles gave special intelligence to him after that he was delivered from prison by an angel. When in the Council of Jerusalem certain questions were mooted touching the law and circumcision, James, following the opinion of Peter, addressed a discourse to the brethren, wherein he proved the call of the Gentiles, and commanded letters to be sent to such brethren as were absent, that they might take heed not to lay upon the Gentiles the yoke of the Law of Moses. It is of him that the Apostle Paul saith, writing to the Galatians " Other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother."

So great was James' holiness of life that men strove one with another to touch the hem of his garment. When he was ninety-six years old, and had most holily governed the Church of Jerusalem for thirty years, ever most constantly preaching Christ the Son of God, he laid down his life for the faith. He was first stoned, and afterward taken up on to a pinnacle of the Temple and cast down from thence. His legs were broken by the fall, and he was wellnigh dead, but he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and prayed to God for the salvation of his murderers, saying " Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do " As he said this, one that stood by smote him grievously upon the head with a fuller's club, and he resigned his spirit to God. He testified in the seventh year of Nero, and was buried hard by the Temple, in the place where he had fallen. He wrote one of the Seven Epistles which are called Catholic. 

Aside from clearly coming from the same town as our Lord was raised, he was also much older than Christ, living to ninety-six and dying before the destruction of Herod's Temple, which puts his birth three decades or so before the year zero.

As always, go to the St. Lawrence Press and read of Msgr. Gilbey's May 1st exploits!

Ss. Philip and James, pray for us!

Josephology Part 6: Jerome Contra Patres

“Good job, James!”

 “Anyone who speaks about St. Joseph in the early Church should begin with a warning to his hearers: don’t expect too much. For the first millennium of Christianity, St. Joseph was all but ignored in preaching, liturgical celebrations, martyrologies, and theological writing.... To our knowledge, no Father of the Church ever preached a homily on St. Joseph.” –Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., St. Joseph in Early Christianity

I will be relying somewhat on Fr. Lienhard’s short work throughout this post. He was a strong promoter of Josephite devotion, and he has scoured the patristic era for even the slightest hint of positive writings on St. Joseph. Likewise, the Oblates of St. Joseph have a similar collection of texts, beefed up with endless commentary on their website. Promoters of the “young and pure” version of St. Joseph are at a loss to find their beliefs in the early Church, but will stretch any inch into a mile.

When Joseph is mentioned at all in patristic texts, it is almost always as an ancillary character in their Nativity sermons. A few of the Fathers go out of their way to argue that Joseph was the true husband of Mary, and not just her betrothed or her protector (e.g., Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine), although some argue explicitly against theirs being a true marriage (“She is called the mother of Christ... not the wife of Joseph, for that she was not” –St. Hilary, Commentary on Matthew). The Fathers are, however, unanimous in stating that Joseph and Mary never shared marital relations, and that Mary remained virginal in all their time together.

Those few Fathers who did write about Joseph were largely in agreement about his great age and his previous, fruitful marriage. The OSJ website gives this list of Fathers who wrote that the “brethren of the Lord” were Joseph’s natural children from a former marriage: Origen, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theopylact, Theodoret, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Hilary of Poitiers.  A few selections from these theologians follow:

“They thought, then, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or The Book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end.... And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity.” –Origen (c. 184-253), Commentary on Matthew, 17. 

“If there had been sons of Mary who were not rather produced from a previous marriage of Joseph’s, Mary never would have been transferred to the apostle John as his mother at the time of the Passion.” –Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300-368), Commentary on Matthew, 1.4. 

“And in Bethlehem he came to a house with his own mother and Joseph, who was an old man but was Mary’s companion.” –Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310-403), On the Incarnation, 1.5.

“Joseph took his first wife from the tribe of Judah and she bore him six children in all, four boys and two girls, as the Gospels according to Mark and John have made clear.” – Epiphanius, Against Antidicomarians, 7.6.

“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.” –Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-397), On the Birth of the Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, 6.43.

“But as he considered that he had a share in the august titles of the Apostles, he exalts himself by honoring James; and this he does by calling him the Lord’s brother, although he was not by birth His brother, but only so reputed.” – John Chrysostom (c. 349-407), Homily 1 on Galatians.

“The reputed brethren of the Saviour not yet recognizing God the Word indwelling in His Holy Flesh, nor knowing at the time when they are saying these things, that He was made Man, have still petty conceptions of Him and think far too little of the grace and excellence that is in Him, seeing nothing more than the rest, deluded by the common opinions of Him, thinking that He too was in truth begotten of their father Joseph, and not seeing the hidden provision of the Mystery.... Very watchfully did the Prophet [Jeremiah], having named His brethren, profitably add, ‘The house of Thy father,’ lest they too should be supposed to have been of the blessed Virgin, rather than of His father Joseph alone.” –Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444), Commentary on John, IV.461-2.

“The Lord had brothers and sisters, the children of Joseph which he begat by the wife of his brother Cleopas. For when Cleopas died childless, Joseph took his wife in accordance with the law and had six children by her, four boys and two girls, Mary, who was called the daughter of Cleopas, in accordance with the law, and Salome.” – Theophylact (c. 1050-1108), Explanation of the Gospel of Matthew, 13.54-57.

“‘Mary the mother of James and Joses’ means the Theotokos, the Virgin Mother of God, for James and Joses were the sons of Joseph by his first wife. And since the Theotokos was called the ‘wife’ of Joseph, she is rightly called the ‘mother’ of his children, meaning ‘stepmother.’ The mother of the sons of Zebedee was named Salome. They say that she also was a daughter of Joseph.” –ibid., 27.54-56.

All these patristic witnesses are supposedly swept away by the authority of St. Jerome (c. 347-420) in one tract he wrote defending the virginity of Mary, Against Helvidius:

If we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment, we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had, and so had Jacob, and that the Lord's brethren were the issue of those wives, an invention which some hold with a rashness which springs from audacity not from piety. You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, remained a virgin. (21)

But this must be taken in context, for Jerome was writing in response to an outrageous heretic who was claiming all manner of impropriety against Our Lady: to wit, that she had engaged in marital relations with Joseph and had herself borne many more children, who are listed in the Gospels as the “brethren of the Lord.” Jerome’s tone is over the top in its counterclaims, and this is evident even from his first paragraph:

It is a difficult matter to maintain the truth and refute an ignorant boor who has scarce known the first glimmer of learning.... There was the further consideration that a turbulent fellow, the only individual in the world who thinks himself both priest and layman, one who, as has been said, thinks that eloquence consists in loquacity and considers speaking ill of anyone to be the witness of a good conscience, would begin to blaspheme worse than ever if opportunity of discussion were afforded him.... The axe of the Gospel must therefore be now laid to the root of the barren tree, and both it and its fruitless foliage cast into the fire, so that Helvidius who has never learned to speak, may at length learn to hold his tongue. (1)

His anger is well-founded, but in his zeal to defend Mary’s honor he invents many arguments for the “brethren” to be the cousins of Christ (thus giving Mary a wide berth), attacks events from the Proto-Gospel of James as “the ravings of the apocryphal accounts” (10), presumes that this book is the only reason for the belief in Joseph’s previous marriage, and then discards the belief itself entirely. Much in the way that modern-day Josephites claim that belief in Joseph’s previous marriage and older age was concocted merely in order to preserve Mary’s virginity, so does Jerome remove it in order to preserve the very same thing! He wants the “brethren” a safe distance away in the family tree, and so eliminates the necessity for Joseph to have been married previously, making him a virgin at his betrothal to Mary.

Thus does Jerome create a virginal St. Joseph out of thin air.

“What?”

There is no clear evidence that St. Augustine (354-430) agreed with Jerome, in spite of claims to that effect. However, in his Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians he writes that “James the brother of the Lord should be taken either as one of the sons of Joseph from another wife or as one of the relations of Mary his mother” (8.5), thereby leaving open the possibility that the “brethren of the Lord” were not the sons and daughters of Joseph. That seems to be the closest thing to agreement that Jerome found among his patristic peers.

Needless to say, the East was unchanging in the tradition that Joseph was a widower and a father before his betrothal to Mary. In the survey by Fr. Florent Raymond Bilodeau on the OSJ website, however, we get a bit of Latinizing peevishness in this regard:

This list [of Fathers], 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. These writings elaborate on Saint Joseph. Very little of what they say is of historical value. (source)

It is unfortunate to see an apologetical work treat the Eastern “lung” of the Church as a bunch of gullible chumps. There may be an Eastern theologian here or there who speculates on the possibility of the Lord’s brethren having sprung from someone other than Joseph, but the overwhelming majority retain the traditional belief to this day. If for no other reasons than ecumenical ones, we should take that seriously.

Next time, we will make a survey of those few theologians who were convinced of Jerome’s novelty before it was more widely popularized by St. Thomas Aquinas.

St. Joseph, bemused by all this attention, pray for us!

Josephology Part 4: Crossing the Streams

Continuing our examination of Nativity narrative cycles jumps us a few centuries ahead to somewhere in the A.D. 400-600s range with the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, or the Book about the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior, as it was known in antiquity. As noted in earlier posts, there was a line of Infancy narratives that had more to do with unorthodox and Gnostic influences than any plausible orthodox traditions. This retelling we’re looking at now combines the more plausible Proto-Gospel of James with the blasphemous Infancy Gospel of Thomas in ways that unfortunately would be influential for many centuries.

Prefacing the text is a correspondence between St. Jerome and the bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus. Or so it claims. Even though these letters of Pseudo-Jerome have some pretension of scholarly fairness in expressing doubts against any absolute certainty concerning this text, he does concede that it was possibly written by “the holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew himself” in Hebrew as a preface to his canonical Gospel. He also says that the stories contained within “can be believed and read without damaging their faith or imperilling their souls.” Considering how dismissive the real Jerome was about the Proto-Gospel of James (“the ravings of the apocryphal accounts”), it seems impossible that he would be so casual about a retelling of the Proto-Gospel combined with outright blasphemous stories. The Jeromic forger probably knew of this Doctor’s hatred of anything non-canonical, and used it to his advantage to ease any suspicions about this text.

St. Jerome, lover of whimsy.

Chapters 1-17 are a retelling of the Proto-Gospel with a few interesting changes:

• While Joachim is grieving his childlessness in the desert, Anne is visited by an angel and apparently miraculously conceives without him: “I am an angel of the Lord, and I have today appeared to your wife when she was weeping and praying, and have consoled her; and know that she has conceived a daughter from your seed, and you in your ignorance of this hast left her” (3). (He has been missing for five months by this point.)
• Mary performs miracles during her childhood in the Temple, and explicitly desires to remain a perpetual virgin (6-7).
• Joseph’s complaint about being chosen as Mary’s protector include a reference to his children and grandchildren, enforcing his advanced age (8).
• Mary’s companions give her the title “Queen of Virgins” as a mockery, but are humbled when an angel appears and tells them, “These words shall not have been uttered by way of annoyance, but prophesied as a prophecy most true” (8).
• Joseph considers the option of fleeing and sending Mary away when he finds out she is pregnant, apparently to escape any accusations against himself (10).
• The two men who appear to Mary on the road to Bethlehem are explained as symbolizing the Jewish and Gentile peoples (13).
• The text is explicit that Mary experienced no pain in childbirth: “But there has been no spilling of blood in his birth, no pain in bringing him forth” (13).

Chapters 18-25 are a new addition to the Infancy narrative cycle, detailing an account of the Flight to Egypt and what happened in that country. As far as I know, there are no written precursors to these stories. Here, the Christ Child tames a cave full of dragons, wild cats and other beasts follow the pilgrims tamely through the desert, Jesus miraculously shortens the road to Egypt, all the Egyptian idols bow before the Child and shatter, and the governor of the city is converted.

Most important for posterity is the story of the palm tree (20-21). Taking their rest beneath the shade of the tree along the road, Mary looks hungrily at the fruits in its high branches, and declares her wish that she could eat some. Joseph says this is impossible, and is worried more about replenishing their water. But the Christ Child asks the tree to bend down and allow his mother to taste of its fruit. It obeys, Mary eats, and Jesus rewards the tree by commanding his angels to carry a shoot of its branches into Paradise where it will flourish forever. This story would become very popular, and in England it eventually became the Christmas song The Cherry-Tree Carol.

Chapters 26-41 are a retelling of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas with a few minor changes, but nothing to make the stories acceptable for an orthodox readership. One small change to Joseph’s character is his initial reluctance to chasten Hermus: “I dare not speak to him; but you [Mary] must admonish him, and say: Why have you raised against us the hatred of the people?” (26). Joseph also cooperates with Hermus in performing a miracle of resurrection for another man named Joseph (40).

Chapter 42 is a brief coda describing a feast shared with Joseph’s children and Mary’s side of the family. It serves little purpose but to describe their family trees in moderate detail. (Joachim and Anne apparently had a second daughter they also named Mary because they missed their first daughter, and this second Mary is the one who had other children and stood at the foot of the Cross.)

St. Joseph has more to do in Pseudo-Matthew than in some Infancy narratives, thanks mainly to the additions for the Flight into Egypt which would become so popular in art and iconography, especially among Egyptian Christians. He comes off slightly worse than he did in the Proto-Gospel, where he is a man of moderately better character. If the Gnostic additions are ignored, he is an almost buffoonish player, an aspect that would only increase in the popular Catholic mind over time.

Next time, we discover the roots of devotion to St. Joseph as the patron of holy deaths.

St. Joseph, who never had to stop to ask for directions, pray for us!

If You Love the Bible

.... then get on your knees and thank God for the Catholic Church and her Popes.

A thirteenth century "pocket" edition of the Latin Vulgate Bible.

Tomorrow is the feast of Pope St. Damasus, the fourth century pontiff who formally published the first canon of Scripture.

Prior to St. Damasus a great many Church Fathers proposed various canons of Scripture, but none until the late fourth century even had the same new testament that we have received today. Controversy usually centered around the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, but also over some Catholic Epistles, some Greek books in the old testament, and a now-lost "Book of the Hebrews." No one of the Fathers had formally listed the current new testament canon until St. Athanasius did so in 367 A.D., much less make an attempt at enforcing a canon of the old testament, a bugaboo to most protestants.

But in 382 A.D., at a local synod in Rome, St. Damasus I issued the following decree (good part is at the bottom):

Pope St. Damasus

It is likewise decreed: Now, indeed, we must treat of the divine Scriptures: what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she must shun. The list of the Old Testament begins: Genesis, one book; Exodus, one book: Leviticus, one book; Numbers, one book; Deuteronomy, one book; Jesus Nave, one book; of Judges, one book; Ruth, one book; of Kings, four books [First and Second Books of Kings, Third and Fourth Books of Kings]; Paralipomenon, two books; One Hundred and Fifty Psalms, one book; of Solomon, three books: Proverbs, one book; Ecclesiastes, one book; Canticle of Canticles, one book; likewise, Wisdom, one book; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), one book;  Likewise, the list of the Prophets: Isaiah, one book; Jeremias, one book; along with Cinoth, that is, his Lamentations; Ezechiel, one book; Daniel, one book; Osee, one book; Amos, one book; Micheas, one book; Joel, one book; Abdias, one book; Jonas, one book; Nahum, one book; Habacuc, one book; Sophonias, one book; Aggeus, one book; Zacharias, one book; Malachias, one book.  Likewise, the list of histories: Job, one book; Tobias, one book; Esdras, two books; Esther, one book; Judith, one book; of Maccabees, two books.
Likewise, the list of the Scriptures of the New and Eternal Testament, which the holy and Catholic Churchreceives: of the Gospels, one book according to Matthew, one book according to Mark, one book according to Luke, one book according to John. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, fourteen in number: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians [First Epistle to the Corinthians and Second Epistle to the Corinthians], one to the Ephesians, two to the Thessalonians [First Epistle to the Thessalonians and Second Epistle to the Thessalonians], one to the Galatians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy [First Epistle to Timothy and Second Epistle to Timothy], one to Titus, one to Philemon, one to the Hebrews.
Likewise, one book of the Apocalypse of John. And the Acts of the Apostles, one book.Likewise, the canonical Epistles, seven in number: of the Apostle Peter, two Epistles [First Epistle of Peter and Second Epistle of Peter]; of the Apostle James, one Epistle; of the Apostle John, one Epistle; of the other John, a Presbyter, two Epistles [Second Epistle of John and Third Epistle of John]; of the Apostle Jude the Zealot, one Epistle.

Thus concludes the canon of the New Testament. Likewise it is decreed: After the announcement of all of these prophetic and evangelic or as well as apostolic writings which we have listed above as Scriptures, on which, by the grace of God, the Catholic Church is founded, we have considered that it ought to be announced that although all the Catholic Churches spread abroad through the world comprise but one bridal chamber of Christ, nevertheless, the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The Pope later commissioned St. Jerome, a noted linguist, to do a fresh translation into common, vulgar Latin, setting in motion the creation of a text that would dramatically shape the spiritual, literary, liturgical, and academic direction of Western culture.

St. Jerome by Caravaggio