The Cultus of St. Joseph in the Early Church

The third motive urging us to devotion to St. Joseph is, as has been said, the example of Holy Church inciting us to practice it; albeit this third motive is but an iteration of the former two. For Jesus speaks to us in the Church through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in her; and Mary, whose spouse is that same Spirit, by whose operation she became the Mother of God, may also be said to speak to us by the Church’s voice. The prophecies which are applicable to Holy Church, and are actually so applied, are often, if not always, equally applicable to the Queen of Heaven, the Immaculate Mother, who appeared in vision to the angels ere earth’s ages began, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and crowned with twelve stars. She and the Church are so intimately identified, and the voice of the Church is so truly known and acknowledged to be the voice of the Holy Ghost, whom Jesus sent to take His place when He ascended to the Father, that to say the Church wills anything is all one with saying that Jesus and Mary will it.

We will now proceed briefly to consider what was the devotion to St. Joseph in primitive ages and the public cultus paid to him. In the next chapter some account will be given of the extension of that devotion in later times, and the great increase of honor awarded to our glorious Patron, an extension and an increase which have in them something truly marvelous. But God does not work as with an enchanter’s wand. He works by His general government or Providence, as we term it, in the Church as in the world, silently, and, for the most part, though not always, slowly; acts, in short, so far as externals go, so far as things are patent to our eyes, by what we call secondary causes. Yet, in the kingdom of His grace, how inefficient without the afflatus of His Spirit would these secondary causes seem when scrutinized by the eye of faith! The world does not look below the surface.

The devotion of the early ages to our great patriarch and saint is what first concerns us; and here we are met at the outset by a fact somewhat surprising, if not startling, at the first glance, particularly when we confront this devotion in its beginnings with that decision of the immortal Pius IX., which rejoiced the hearts of the faithful of our times, declaring St. Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church. For it cannot be denied that the Christians of the first ages did not display the same ardor in rendering public honor to St. Joseph as they did to many other saints. The Church from the beginning greatly venerated St. Peter and St. Paul, and the glorious Precursor, St. John the Baptist; it paid particular honor to St. Stephen, the Protomartyr, and to the other heroes who shed their blood for Christ. The Fathers abound in eloquent praises of these saints, while they seem to pass over St. Joseph in comparative silence. Not but that from their works we can gather a whole catena of testimony to Joseph’s prerogatives and claims. The sublime position which he holds among all the saints of the calendar may be abundantly proved from the pages of St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and many more lights of the early Church. Still it remains true that the ancient Fathers enlarge more fully and, generally speaking, descant with more animation upon other saints, and especially upon the martyrs. It might, indeed, be fitting that his cultus should retrace in a measure the life led by the Saint at Nazareth, which was hidden and unnoticed; and thus the devotion to him would have no prominence in the first ages of the Church. But it is one thing for that devotion not to exhibit itself in any striking manner before the world, and another for it not to exist in the hearts of the faithful. We are about to notice some irrefragable evidence that such was far from being the case; but, first, we may ask how was it that, if belief in Joseph’s high prerogatives and exceptionally exalted position really existed, it did not find stronger utterance in the first centuries, and that Joseph did not begin until later to receive the public homage due to him. St. Gregory Nazianzen believed that it was not fitting that the Church should in the beginning explain itself so clearly regarding the adorable perfections of the Holy Ghost, the invisible and uncreated Spouse of the Blessed Virgin, before the Divinity of the Savior had been solidly established.¹ In like manner, it might be necessary that the faithful should not publicly manifest their devotion to the visible spouse of Mary in any high degree until the virginity of that Sovereign Lady had been acknowledged by the whole world. Let us hear P. Segneri on this subject. He proposes to himself the same difficulty: why did the Church allow so long a period to elapse before awarding to Joseph those honors which it paid, not to the Baptist alone, but to saints inferior to him? “I will give you the reason,” says the sacred orator, “in few words. It was precisely because Joseph was so noble, so exalted, and so sublime a saint, and, it may be, so superior to all other saints. I know that this sounds strange to you, but listen, and I will make it clear. In those early times of the Church there were malignant men, of whom the heresiarch Cerinthus was head, who, in their malice, desiring to detract from the glory of an Incarnate God, asserted that, even as He was the true son of Mary, so also was He the true son of Joseph. This, you see, was a horrible blasphemy, and it was necessary for the Church to adopt every means to confute it. Seeing, therefore, that if she held up Joseph to high honor among the people, she might be giving the perverse a greater handle whereby to accredit their error with the simple, what did she in her wisdom do? She preferred to go into the opposite extreme, and only manifest a moderate esteem for Joseph, setting before him many who, without doubt, in merit could not take rank as his equals. Such was the rare prudence which it behooved the Church to exercise in order to preserve unstained the glory of Christ. Wherefore, I will not imitate a modern writer, illustrious though he be, who, turning to Joseph, besought his pardon in the name of the whole world for the little account made of him during so many centuries. The Church of God is guided by special lights in all her acts. And, therefore, I am fain to believe that, if Joseph was not always honored publicly as he is now, it was through prevision, circumspection, and a certain reserve, not through any neglect for which his forgiveness ought to be publicly implored.”²

But is it quite true that the Church left the Saint for so long a time in oblivion, and gave no public testimony of the high esteem which was due to him? This would be an exaggerated, if not a false view. In the East especially we meet with proofs that devotion to St. Joseph was cherished from the earliest, that is, from Apostolic times, and many traditions of him were current in these regions. Papebroch, one of the continuators of the Bollandists, says that St. Joseph was honored among the Copts, or Egyptians, and his feast kept in the primitive ages of Christianity, even before the time of St. Athanasius, that is, in the beginning of the fourth century; so that Trombelli, following Papebroch, concludes that, from the traditional recollection of the Saint’s sojourn in those countries, he was venerated there long before St. Athanasius sent missionaries to instruct the inhabitants in the rites and discipline of the Church of Alexandria.³ In Syria⁴ and Persia also we find traces of early honor paid to St. Joseph; and in the Greek Church his cultus is confessedly very ancient, for we have monuments of it from the time of Constantine the Great, and even earlier still. Martorelli says, “The site of an ancient oratory dedicated to St. Joseph is still pointed out on the slope of the hill between the Grotto of Milk and the Great Church of the Holy Crib, afterwards built by St. Helen, mother of Constantine”.⁵ In that sumptuous basilica, as Nicephorus Callistus testifies in his Ecclesiastical History⁶ (quoted by Martorelli), was a magnificent chapel, or oratory, sacred to St. Joseph. In several of the Eastern menologies we find mention of St. Joseph. Thus in the menology of the Greeks, published by Cardinal Sirleto, we find these words on the 26th of December: “The celebrity, or solemn memory, of Our Holy Lady Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin Mary, and of the holy and just Joseph, her spouse”.⁷ According to Assemani, also, St. Joseph is mentioned in the menology of the Emperor Basil and other Greek menologies on the 25th and 26th of December, and on the Sundays before and after the Nativity of our Lord. The ancient hymns of the Greek Church likewise bear witness to the honor paid to St. Joseph. In the time of St. Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, lived that St. Joseph who, from his composition of sacred hymns, had the surname of the Hymnographer. He states that the feast of St. Joseph was celebrated on the Sunday after the Nativity, and he gives for that Sunday a canon which concludes thus: “You, O God-bearing Joseph, were the guardian of the Virgin who preserved virginity intact. With her, be mindful of us, O Joseph.”⁸

Testimonies to St. Joseph’s public cultus in primitive ages are more scarce, as might be expected, in the West. The most ancient church dedicated to him in Italy, so far as we know, was a parish church in Bologna existing in the year 1129; but in all probability it was considerably older, for the suburb where it stood had acquired from it the name of St. Joseph. It must not, however, be inferred that St. Joseph was not honored in other ways, or that devotion to him did not exist in the hearts of the faithful in the Latin Church as well as in the Greek. It could not be that Rome, the center and teacher of all Catholic doctrine, should have allowed the sacred fire of devotion to this great saint to be extinguished in her bosom. Rather, may we say, was it laid up in her bosom, as subterranean Rome attests. One thing we must bear in mind, that most of the churches in those days were built as shrines to honor the relics of the martyrs to whom the sacred edifices which contained them were dedicated. Now, of St. Joseph no actual relic existed, only some portions of his garments sanctified by contact with his holy and now, as we believe, glorified body. Rome possesses a splendid relic in the pallium or mantle of the saint, so much the more to be venerated as it must so often have enveloped the Divine Infant when clasped in Joseph’s arms. This precious relic was kept in the ancient collegiate church of St. Anastasia, built about the year 300 by Apollonia, a noble Roman matron, in order there to deposit the body of St. Anastasia, Virgin and Martyr. It is believed that St. Jerome, when called to Rome by St. Damasus for the affairs of his Pontificate, celebrated Mass, during the three years of his abode, at the altar where this relic is preserved. The chalice of which he made use is still shown. In this ancient church, on the altar of St. Jerome privileged by Gregory the Great, is a rich tabernacle containing a portion of the wood of the Cross, of the veil of the Blessed Virgin, and of the cloak of St. Joseph, venerated there ever since the days of St. Jerome. An inscription upon a stone on the right hand attests the antiquity of these relics, and the fact of St. Jerome having offered the Sacrifice of the Mass at this altar.

Allowing, then, as it must be allowed, that in the matter of public cultus there was a preponderance in the first ages of that which was paid to Apostles and martyrs, it does not follow that the piety of the faithful did not largely supply for this deficiency; and we have good reason to believe that it did. As De Vit points out, one thing is the public cultus which may have been conceded to any saint in the Church of Christ, and another, the estimate held of the degree of his sanctity independently of that homage. If the cultus assigned to any individual be, as it undoubtedly is, a proof of his sanctity, it must not be taken as arguing comparative deficiency of sanctity in other holy persons, who for one reason or another have not received similar or equal public marks of honor. If Joseph, however, did not in early times possess splendid basilicas dedicated to him in Italy, the pictures and basso-relievos of the Catacombs and of private oratories contain abundant memorials of him. The labors of Cavedoni, De Rossi, Bortolotti, Garrucci, have gone far to vindicate the honor of the primitive Church, reproached by some with having well-nigh forgotten the glorious Spouse of Mary. What matter if the early martyrologies do not commemorate him?⁹ His name was engraved in the hearts of the faithful and sculptured in marble and bronze in the underground cradle of the Roman Church. The Greek epigraph inscribed on a gem of the fourth or fifth century, brought to light by Cavedoni, speaks volumes for the loving confidence reposed in him by the early Christians. Thus it runs: “O Joseph, assist me in my labors and give me grace”. Neither can we say that the Church overlooked St. Joseph in her festivals; for whenever she celebrated a mystery with which he was associated, such as the Annunciation, Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany, Presentation, we invariably find that Joseph was commemorated, lauded, and honored, and often, in the Divine Offices throughout the year, is there glorious mention of Joseph in the Liturgies of the first centuries.

But it will be said, and has been said, that the Church from the beginning seemed to pay greater honor to the Baptist than to Joseph, for it celebrated, not only the feast of his Decollation, but even of his Nativity long before that of St. Joseph was established. St. John the Baptist’s name was inserted in the Canon of the Mass, St. Joseph’s is not yet there; again, in the Litanies of the Saints, which form part of the public worship of the Church, the name of the Baptist precedes that of St. Joseph; from all which it might be argued that it would be theologically erroneous to attribute to Joseph, after Mary, superiority in dignity, glory, and sanctity above all the saints and angels.

The difficulty, taken collectively, seems considerable; but, examined in detail, it no longer assumes the same importance. As to the first objection, that the Church instituted the feasts of St. John the Baptist before that of St. Joseph, it would prove too much; for it would prove that the Baptist was superior to the Blessed Virgin herself, inasmuch as the Nativity of our Lady was not kept before the 6th or 7th century, when the Nativity of St. John the Baptist had long been solemnly observed. St. Augustine, who lived in the 4th century, says, “The Church celebrates only two Nativities, that of John the Baptist and that of Christ”;¹⁰ and Gerson, in his famous sermon on the Nativity of Mary, clearly says that the feast of her Nativity was instituted by the Church later than that of the Baptist, and in consequence of a miracle; angels having been heard on the 8th of September singing melodious canticles to the Queen of Heaven. Any argument, therefore, grounded on such priority of observance is valueless. The Church had good reason for celebrating early the Nativity of the Baptist. It was particularly described in the Gospel, he was sanctified while yet unborn, his birth was honored by the presence of Jesus and Mary, glorified by miracles, and it preannounced the Birth of the Redeemer Himself. Concerning Joseph’s birth there is not a word to be found in Scripture; it only states that he was the son of Jacob. Again, the Church had good reason for solemnizing the feasts of John the Baptist, because he was the great Precursor of Christ, and demonstrated His Divinity. As regards Joseph, on the contrary, it had reason for keeping him in the background and almost, we might say, hidden, in view of the vile heresies of the Cerinthians, fearing (as St. Bernardine of Siena observes) lest the amplification of his cultus might furnish a pretext to the heretics to assert that he was not the reputed but the natural father of our Divine Lord; and it is for this reason also (as the saint notices) that care was taken in those days to add “putative” to his title of father,¹¹ a precaution which (as we have seen) the Evangelist St. Luke did not take, neither did our Lady herself. The reason is obvious. It was the same as that which acted as a kind of drawback on the public honor given to Joseph by the Church in those early times.

The argument drawn from the insertion of St. John the Baptist’s name in the Canon of the Mass, and Joseph’s absence from it to this day, is found in like manner worthless when we come to examine it; for it would imply that Joseph is inferior, not only to the Baptist, but to St. Chrysogonus, SS. Cosmas and Damian, St. Agatha, and St. Lucy, because the names of these saints were from the beginning in the Canon of the Mass, while St. Joseph’s is not there yet. But what Catholic would venture on such a conclusion? It has been already observed that it was the martyrs who were chiefly the objects of public cultus in the early times. The Bollandists¹² are of opinion that the Church of those days thought that it was most profitable to hold them up to be honored by the faithful in order to excite them thereby to imitate their courage under persecution. Accordingly, all the saints whose names are in the Canon were martyrs. Now, St. Joseph is not honored as a martyr but as a confessor; and indeed, strictly speaking, he was not a martyr, although his whole life was an interior martyrdom, second in intensity only to that of Mary, the Queen of Martyrs.

But St. Joseph’s name is placed in the Litanies of the Saints after that of St. John the Baptist, even in these later days, when the same reasons for reserve no longer exist. Does not this imply that in the judgment of the Church he is his inferior in sanctity? By no means. When at the instance of kings, prelates, heads of religious orders, and the devout laity—indeed we may say of all Christendom—the name of Joseph was, in the year 1726, inserted in the Litanies of the Saints by Benedict XIII., it was placed before all the Apostles, confessors, and even all the martyrs with the one exception of St. John the Baptist. It had been previously matter of debate in the Congregation of Rites as to which of the two precedence should be given; and, if it was ruled that it would not be convenient to remove the Baptist from his original position, this was because he was a martyr of such special and singular eminence, and belonged, besides, to the order of patriarchs and prophets; and, moreover, he had retained the first place in the Litanies used by the Dominicans, Discalced Carmelites, and other religious orders. Further, Benedict XIV.,¹³ after descanting on the eminent sanctity and high dignity both of Joseph and of John the Baptist, declares expressly that in placing the Baptist before Joseph in the Litanies no regard was paid to the greater or less sanctity or superiority of the one in regard to the other. Otherwise it would seem to be implied that the Church placed the saints in the Litanies in the order of their merit. But who, he asks, without a special revelation from God could assert that St. Anthony excelled St. Benedict in sanctity, or that St. Agatha was greater than St. Lucy? We have, then, the best authority for knowing that the Church in allowing the Baptist to retain his position in the Litanies of the Saints, and in placing Joseph after him, has passed no judgment as to their respective degrees of sanctity. That was a point which never entered as an element into the discussion. And what is here said of the Baptist and St. Joseph may be applied also to the angels who are placed before both of them, because such had been their place in the ancient Litanies, and because of their angelic nature, which is superior to that of men, not because of their superior excellence or dignity.

It must be borne in mind that, although all who are accounted most devout and learned in the Church hold, and have long held, that Joseph ranks next to his august spouse in sanctity and dignity, and above all other saints and even the angels themselves, and, moreover, we may venture to add, held it by implication from the beginning, as the statements and admissions of so many of the holy Fathers abundantly demonstrate, nevertheless it has never been doctrinally ruled, and could not therefore have been made the basis of the Church’s action in the matter in question. This was decided on other grounds. No doctrine has been more devoutly held among Catholics than that of Mary’s immaculate conception, and yet, until defined in the year 1854, her festival on the 8th of December was called only the “Conception of the Blessed Virgin” in the public offices of the Church; neither was she addressed in her Litany as “Queen conceived without original sin” until the doctrine was declared to be of faith. Such is the Church’s mode of procedure. We have said that in the Litanies which had been in private use among the religious orders St. Joseph was placed after St. John the Baptist, but we ought to add that there was an exception. The Theatines, who were Regular Clerics living under monastic rule, and to whom P. Alessandro Salaroli, Postulator of St. Joseph’s cause in the matter of the Litanies, belonged, invoked St. Joseph in their Litanies and private devotions immediately after the Blessed Virgin, considering that such was the place befitting her holy spouse; and such, indeed, is the place which it may piously be believed the Church is in process of assigning to him. If in her wisdom she should ever do so, it will imply no derogation of the honor and dignity of St. John the Baptist, any more (if the comparison may be permitted) than his honor was diminished when the Divinity of the Son of God was proclaimed by a voice from Heaven and all men began to flock to Christ. “He must increase, but I must decrease”;¹⁴ and this the glorious Baptist said without repining, or, rather, he said it rejoicing at the success of the mission committed to him of pointing out the Lamb of God, and declaring that it fulfilled his joy. And now that he is reigning gloriously in Heaven, he would rejoice to see the father of Jesus and spouse of Mary receiving all the honor so justly his due, and occupying the position in the public worship of the Church which would seem naturally and essentially to belong to him.