Joseph Prefigured in Holy Scripture as to His Name, His Life, and His Glory

We have undertaken to speak, not only of the life, but of the glories of St. Joseph; it behooves us, therefore, to exhibit the glory that accrued to him in having been prefigured in Holy Scripture. Nor is this a most signal glory only; it is also a manifest sign of that great love and especial regard which God had for him from all eternity. They are greatly mistaken who suppose, and indeed complain, that, considering how great a personage Joseph was, so little is said of him in Holy Writ. For, even in the literal and historical sense, there is sufficient mention of him in the Holy Gospels to make us apprehend his exalted dignity; while, prophetically speaking, he is so clearly foreshadowed in the Old Testament as to make it abundantly evident that it pleased God to present him to the world many centuries before he was born.

In the first place, there can be no manner of doubt that God designed to give an exact and elaborate figure of our saint in the person of the ancient patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob. Nor let it be objected that, according to the Fathers, that ancient patriarch was a true type and figure of our Divine Redeemer, and therefore that he cannot be at the same time a type and figure of our saint; for in Holy Scripture, dictated as it was by the infinite wisdom of God and containing manifold meanings, it often happens that one and the same thing or person is a type or figure of several things or persons; or the same individual may, under one aspect or in one action, represent one person, and, under another aspect and in another action, represent a different person; or, again, under the one literal sense of a passage are often contained various mystical and spiritual senses: thus, for instance, Jerusalem in the literal sense is the capital city of the Hebrew people, where was the Holy Temple; allegorically it is the Holy Catholic Church; in a tropological and moral sense it is the soul of the Christian; in an anagogical sense it is Paradise. So it is very true that the ancient Joseph was in many events of his life a type and figure of Jesus, especially when he was sent by his father in search of his brethren, and they plotted his death; when he was sold for a sum of money to a band of barbarians; when he was falsely accused and made no defense, but suffered the punishment due to the accuser; when he was kept in bonds between two criminals, and foretold death to the one and glory to the other; when he supplied food to those who had sought to compass his death; and, finally, when he received the name of “savior of the world”.¹ But it is also true that in other points this ancient patriarch most clearly prefigured our saint.

For this opinion we have the express authority of St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, St. Bernardine of Siena, and, to descend to more recent times, that of the two new Doctors of the Church, St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori; and, again, of the solemn decree of the Holy See wherein Joseph was declared Patron of the Universal Church.²

The ancient Joseph, then, prefigured our Joseph in his very name. “Remember,” says St. Bernard, “the ancient patriarch who was sold into Egypt, and know that that man (Joseph) not only inherited his name but possessed, moreover, his chastity, his innocency, and his grace;”³ nay, he inherited not only his name but the import and the substance of that name in a hundredfold greater measure. Joseph in the Hebrew language signifies increase; hence the dying father of the ancient Joseph, when bestowing upon him the fullness of his benediction, said, “Joseph is a growing son; a growing son”;⁴ meaning thereby, not only that his son Joseph himself increased in wisdom, in power, and glory, but that he increased for his brethren and his children, obtaining for them rich goods and possessions in the land of Gessen. But this double increase was far more verified in the second Joseph; first, by his own daily increase in the fullness of grace and in the Divine favor, and then by augmenting for us, his children and his brethren, the means of salvation, obtaining for us from God a continual increase of graces and benefits towards the attainment of our eternal inheritance.

The first Joseph was son of the patriarch Jacob, and the second Joseph was the son of another holy patriarch, Jacob, so that he resembled our saint not only in his own name but in that of his father; and the mother of the ancient Joseph, the beautiful Rachel, was buried near Bethlehem, whence sprang the second Joseph and where the Divine Redeemer was to be born. And even as at the birth of the first Joseph the servitude of Jacob to Laban was about to cease, and the way began to be opened for his return to his country, so at the birth of the second Joseph began to appear, as it were, the dawn of that day when the slavery of sin would be removed and the way re-opened to the blessed home of Paradise.

As the ancient Joseph grew in years he was of all his brethren the most gracious in manners, the most innocent and pure in his conduct. His father loved him with a special affection in preference to all his other sons, and, as a proof of his love, caused to be made for him a beautiful garment richly embroidered in various colors; by which it is signified that our Joseph should grow in grace and sanctity surpassing that of all the angels and saints, save Mary alone, and should be beloved above all by God, and by Him be clothed with habits of the most heroic virtues, so as to become an object of singular veneration and preeminently glorious among all the blessed who have attained to glory. This was shown to the ancient patriarch in a marvelous vision, wherein it seemed to him that he and his brethren at harvest-time were binding their sheaves, and his sheaf stood erect, while those of his brethren which surrounded it bowed themselves down as if to adore it. In the literal sense this vision was fulfilled when, during the seven years of famine, his brethren came to him for bread, signified by those sheaves of wheat, and did him homage as the Viceroy of Egypt; but in the mystical sense it was accomplished in the second Joseph. The field in which he is found with his brethren is the Church; the sheaves of wheat are the accumulated merits, the fruits of grace. The foremost in gathering and binding full sheaves of holy works and heroic virtues in this great field was, after Mary, to be Joseph. The first who should follow him would also collect their sheaves, but these would never equal Joseph’s sheaf, which would stand rich and glorious above them all; and, recognizing therein his superiority in merits and greatness, all would bow before him, beholding in him the reputed father of Jesus, the husband of Mary, the exalted patron of the Universal Church.

His glory and dignity were still more manifested in another admirable vision which the ancient patriarch saw, when he seemed to behold the sun, the moon, and eleven stars descend to adore him. This vision was fulfilled according to the letter when his father and his eleven brethren with their families came into Egypt to do homage to him on his throne; but more truly in a spiritual sense was it accomplished in our Joseph when, in Egypt, in Nazareth, in Jerusalem, he beheld Jesus, who is the Sun of Justice, “subject”⁵ to him; his immaculate Spouse, Mary, who is fair as the moon, yielding him obedience; and now in Heaven beholds the Apostles and Saints all doing him homage and paying him the profoundest veneration. Now, if such bright stars do reverence to Joseph, what homage, what veneration, do not we owe to him, miserable little lamps as we are!

As the ancient Joseph became the victim of his brethren’s envy and was led as a slave into Egypt, so our Joseph, through Herod’s envy, was forced to become an exile in Egypt, flying thither with his greatest treasure, Jesus, and his most holy Spouse. And, as the former found grace with Putiphar, chief captain of Pharao’s army, even to being made steward of his household, and set as governor over his whole family to order all things at his pleasure, even so the latter found grace with Jesus, his Lord, was constituted His minister-general, and promoted to the government, tutelage, and patronage both of the Holy Family and of the House of the Lord, which is His Church. The first Joseph in the house of Putiphar gave a signal proof of heroic chastity; and yet he was consigned for some time to the obscurity of a dungeon and was almost forgotten. The second Joseph gave a far more sublime example of angelic virginity, espoused as he was to the purest of all virgins; nevertheless, in order that the Divinity of Jesus and the Virginity of Mary might first be displayed in all their incomparable splendor, he chose to remain for some time hidden and almost forgotten in the Catholic Church.

While the first (says St. Bernard) receives from God intelligence in the interpretation of dreams, to the second He gives both the knowledge and the participation of heavenly mysteries. The former passed from the obscurity of a prison to the splendors of a court; the latter passed from the sorrows of exile to the celestial mansions, with the truly regal dignity of reputed father of the King of kings, spouse of the Queen of Heaven, and most powerful patron of the Universal Church. The exaltation of the ancient Joseph to the highest rank in the court of the king of Egypt could not more perfectly figure the elevation of our Joseph to the loftiest seats in the House of the Lord and the Court of Heaven. See how Pharao, having recognized the wisdom of Joseph in the true interpretation of his dreams, joyfully exclaims: “Can I find one wiser and one like unto thee? Thou shalt be over my house, and at the commandment of thy mouth all the people shall obey. Behold I have appointed thee over the whole land of Egypt.”⁶ Then he took his ring from his own hand and placed it on Joseph’s, and arrayed him in a robe of silk, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made him go up into his second chariot, while a crier proclaimed that all should bow the knee before him, and acknowledge him as Governor of Egypt. Here, then, is an express figure of the second Joseph, when he was constituted by God head of the Holy Family and Patron of the Catholic Church. To our saint God in like manner said: “Whom shall I find wiser and more fitting than thou art to preside over My Family, and to be the Patron and Protector of My Church? Behold I set thee as the master and governor of My house, and all My children must do thy bidding.” So it is: as the ancient Joseph, according to the saying of holy king David,⁷ was made by Pharao lord of all his house and ruler over all his possessions, so, as Holy Church teaches us, the second Joseph was appointed by God lord of all His House and ruler over all His possessions; and so much the more powerful, the richer, and the more exalted as the House of Nazareth and the Catholic Church are more noble and more sublime than the perishable palace of Memphis, and his sway the more extensive in as much as the possessions of God in the whole earth are vaster than were those of the first Joseph in the land of Egypt.

So also the ring placed by Pharao on Joseph’s finger was the sign of the great authority conferred on our Joseph by God; the silken robe typified the glorious gifts with which his pure soul would one day be invested; the chain of gold was the symbol of that intense charity with which his heart was ever burning. And thus, again, was Joseph elevated above the other saints, and raised, as it were, on a glorious chariot, to receive, especially in these our days, the praises of the whole earth; the supreme lawgiver of the Vatican, the immortal Pius IX., having proclaimed to the world that all are to bow down to Joseph, for that God has exalted him to the patronage and guardianship of the Universal Church.