Annotation LXIV

”Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?” — Matthew 13:55–56

Whether Joseph was twice-married.

Theophylact, in the commentary on Matthew, appended to this text an exposition of this kind: “The Lord had brethren and sisters, sons of Joseph, whom he begot from the wife of his brother Cleophas. For, Cleophas having died without children, Joseph, according to the [levirate] law, took his wife, and begot six children — four males and two females: Mary, who was called the daughter of Cleophas according to the law, and Salome.” This same [thing] he repeats at chapter 27 on Matthew, where he also writes that the mother of Christ was the stepmother of Joseph’s sons. To this opinion assent most of the Greek fathers — in the first place Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1, where he writes that James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, called the “brother of the Lord,” was the son of Joseph by another wife, before he was betrothed to Mary. Euthymius, in the chapter on Matthew 12, says that Joseph had sons and daughters. Oecumenius, in the commentary on the epistle to the Galatians, chapter 2, and on Acts, chapter 2, relates that the sons of Joseph doubted about Christ — about whom their father Joseph himself never doubted. Epiphanius, in book 3 of the Panarion, disputing against the Antidicomarianites, narrates that Joseph had a first wife of the tribe of Judah, and took up from her six children — among whom the firstborn was James, surnamed the Just, born about the fortieth year of [his] father’s age; then, this wife having died, when he was passing his eightieth year, [Joseph] married Mary the mother of Christ. Origen, when in the Tomes on discoursing on this passage through Matthew, indicated that this opinion had proceeded from the gospel entitled According to Peter, or from the gospel which is called of James, and that it pleased him wonderfully — because it is also consonant with reason that Jesus was the first-fruits of male virginity, and Mary of female [virginity]; nor is it plausible to ascribe the first-fruits of virginity to any others besides these. This same [thing], among the Latins, Hilary professes, in canon 1 on Matthew; Ambrose, in the commentary on the epistle to the Galatians, chapter 2; Thomas Cajetan, in the expositions of the same epistle and chapter. From the opinion of these [men] Jerome dissents, in book 2 on Matthew, writing thus: “Some suspect the brethren of the Lord to be sons of Joseph by another wife, following the ravings of the apocrypha, and inventing [them] out of a certain little woman [named] Escha. But we — as is contained in the book which we wrote against Helvidius — understand the brethren of the Lord [to be] not sons of Joseph, but cousins of the Savior, the children of Mary, the maternal aunt of the Lord, who is said to be the mother of James the Less and Joseph and Jude, whom in the gospel we read [to be] called the brethren of the Lord; and that ‘brethren’ are called ‘cousins,’ all Scripture demonstrates.” Augustine, in sermon 14 on the Nativity of Christ, ascribes to Joseph the privilege of virginity in these words: “Have, therefore, O Joseph, in common with Mary thy spouse, the virginity of [thy] members, because from virgin members is born the virtue of angels. Let Mary be the spouse of Christ, [her] virginity being preserved in her flesh. And with these [gifts] be thou too, O father of Christ — [with] the care of chastity and the honor of virginity. Rejoice, therefore, O Joseph, because through the merit of virginity thou art so separated from the bed of [thy] wife that thou art called the father of the Savior.”