If Holy Scripture nowhere expressly speaks of the chastity of Joseph previous to his espousals with Mary, we might well conclude it from the very fact of those espousals. We judge of the nature of a tree from the fruit which it produces; to know, then, that Joseph was the spouse of a virgin and of a Virgin-Mother such as Mary, was quite sufficient to persuade the great body of the Fathers to hold with certainty that Joseph was a virgin by his own election before he was chosen to be the husband of Mary. A few, it is true, too easily crediting the baseless statements of some of the Apocryphal books, which asserted that those who in the Gospel are called the brethren and sisters of Jesus were children of St. Joseph by a previous marriage, were led to withhold from him the gift and glory of perpetual virginity. But the great majority, and those of the highest authority, freely recognized this grace among those which enriched and adorned the spouse of the Blessed Virgin. As early, indeed, as the third century St. Athanasius spoke these short but weighty words of Joseph and Mary: that “both remained intact, as was proved by many testimonies”;1 and after him St. Jerome, defending the perpetual virginity of Mary against the heretic Helvidius, maintained that, not only Mary, but her spouse Joseph was ever a virgin, so that of this virginal marriage a virginal Son should be born. Hence St. Peter Damian asserts, in a letter to Pope Nicolas, and also in his work on the celibacy of the clergy, that such was the faith of the Church on this point; for that the Son of God, not content with having a virgin for His Mother, willed that he who represented His Father should also be a virgin;2 where we shall do well to observe that this great doctor does not hesitate to qualify this belief as the “faith of the Church”.
The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas, inquiring how the most holy Virgin could give her hand as spouse to St. Joseph, seeing that she had made a vow of virginity, replies that the Blessed Virgin, before contracting espousals with St. Joseph, was certified by God that he had himself formed the same resolve of preserving perpetual virginity, and therefore that she exposed herself to no peril by her union with him.3 Further, we find St. Francis de Sales, a most devout client of St. Joseph, strenuously maintaining his virginity and his vow. “How exalted in this virtue of virginity must he have been, who was destined by the Eternal Father to be the guardian or, rather, the companion in virginity of Mary herself! Both had made a vow to preserve virginity for their entire lives, and it was the will of God to join them in the bond of a holy marriage, not in any way to recall their vow, but rather to confirm it, and that they might strengthen each other to persevere in their holy resolution.”4
From all these authorities it is clear that Joseph preserved through his whole life, and that by vow, the most angelic purity and virginity. Hence the Bollandists assert that the whole Latin Church, after St. Jerome, has ever held that Joseph lived and died a virgin.
The holy Doctors allege, moreover, other reasons, of a mystical order, to prove its essential propriety. It is a well-known saying of St. Gregory Nazianzen that the first virgin is the August Trinity. The Father is a virgin, who generates the Son in His eternal splendors; the Son is a virgin, who is generated by the Father without a mother; the Holy Spirit is a virgin, who proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. After the image of this August Trinity the saints recognize a second Trinity on earth; of which the pious and learned Gerson said, “Would that I had suitable words to explain this most admirable and venerable Trinity, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”5 Now, as the August Trinity in Heaven is the first and the altogether virgin, so also must the second Trinity on earth be altogether virgin. If Jesus is a virgin and Mary is a virgin, how should not Joseph, who completes this most virginal Trinity, be a virgin also? Jesus is the Head of virgins, Mary is the Mother of virgins, Joseph is the guardian and patron of virgins.
That this glory belongs to Joseph may be seen still more clearly when we consider that he belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union, in which, along with Jesus and Mary, prototypes of virginity, no one, assuredly, could be found who was not a spotless virgin. Hence Suarez says that Joseph shone so much the more in every virtue, especially in that of virginity, above all the other saints, inasmuch as he belonged to an order superior to that of all the other saints. It was fitting, therefore, that he who was immediately associated with the Most Sacred Humanity of Jesus should be altogether a virgin; otherwise he would be inferior to those saints who were ordained to a less intimate association with Jesus, as St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, and who, nevertheless, preserved perpetual virginity. And how could Joseph, who excelled in all virtues, fail of possessing this peerless gem, which was possessed by other saints far beneath him?
But more than this. Joseph, according to the opinion of St. Peter Chrysologus and of all other Doctors, was destined to occupy on earth the place of the Eternal Father, and to represent Him in relation to His Divine Son. Now, perpetual virginity shines among the attributes of the Divine Paternity; wherefore Joseph, the representative on earth of the Divine Paternity, must needs, next to Mary, possess the beautiful virtue of virginity in the highest degree.
And are not the angels, to whom is committed the care of the world and the guardianship of men, preeminently virgins? Should not Joseph, then, to whom was committed the care and custody of Jesus and Mary, far excel the angels themselves in virginity? “And truly,” says Isolano, “the virginity of Joseph was more noble, more acceptable, more profitable, more admirable, more perfect than that of the angels. More noble, because that of the angels is from nature, that of Joseph was from grace; more acceptable, because that of the angels is necessary, that of Joseph was voluntary; more profitable, because that of the angels is not meritorious, that of Joseph had high merit in the sight of God; more admirable, because that of the angels is in an impassible nature, that of Joseph was in passible and mortal flesh; more perfect, because that of the angels is only in the spirit, that of Joseph was in soul and body. Whence with justice does À Lapide write of Joseph that as regards this virtue he might be called an angel rather than a man.”6
Joseph, then, was the first among men, as Mary was the first among women, to make a deliberate vow of perpetual virginity, notwithstanding the contrary prevailing custom; so that he may with reason be styled the Primate and Patriarch of all the religious and cloistered orders, who consecrate themselves to God by a vow of perpetual virginity, as having led the way in embracing this first of the Evangelical counsels. And this determination on his part was so much the more heroic in that it was the earliest example of the kind, and appeared, not only opposed to the practice of the people of God, but contrary to the scope and strict intention of the Law.
Whence, then, it may be asked, did Joseph derive this love of virginity, a state not encouraged by the ancient Law? It can hardly have had other source than a divine impression, produced in his soul by grace, of the excellence of this virtue, joined to a profound humility. For let us consider that St. Joseph must have conceived this design at the time when, the scepter having departed from Juda, his nation had entered into new conditions, by being formally placed under the dominion of a foreign king; at a period, therefore, when the promises made by God to his house might be deemed near their accomplishment, and when, possibly, he himself, as being of the house and family of David, might be chosen by God to bear a part in the looked-for redemption of Israel. Hence we may perceive how solidly Joseph’s virtue must have been based upon humility for him to esteem himself quite unworthy of having any share in an honor which for generations had been so coveted by his people. He resolved to remain chaste in the midst of the world, and thus excluded himself from the road to all human greatness and glory.
Let us, then, with all our heart congratulate the Patriarch of virgins, St. Joseph, on this his high prerogative. Let us rejoice with him for this most sublime gift, which God bestowed upon him that he might be a worthy companion of the Queen of Virgins, Mary. Let us earnestly beseech him to obtain for us from God the grace to be able, after his example, to lead pure and stainless lives on earth, that we may one day be with him in Heaven beholding the Face of God; for, as Christ has told us, it is only the clean of heart who shall see God.7