Annotation III

”Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary.” — Matthew 1:16

On the marriage of Mary and Joseph.

Jerome, in the first book of [his] commentaries on this passage of Matthew, says: “When you hear ‘husband,’ let no suspicion of nuptials [marital intercourse] steal over you, but recall the usage of the Scriptures — that betrothed men are called ‘husbands’ and betrothed women ‘wives.’” The same [Jerome], alluding to this same sense in his book Against Helvidius, says that Joseph was rather the guardian of Mary than her husband. The scholastic theologians make use of this passage when, for the sake of disputation, they undertake to show that between Mary and Joseph there was no true sacrament of matrimony. Meeting [answering] them, St. Thomas, in the third volume of the Summa, question 29, says that Jerome, by the word “husband” and “married man,” signified him who has already entered upon [taken to himself] his spouse; but by “nuptials,” the nuptial intercourse of bridegroom and bride — of which Mary and Joseph were wholly without experience, content with the sole and indivisible union of [minds…] [content] with the sole and indivisible union of minds — which is the first and chief dignity of true and holy matrimony, and its most essential form.