St. Joseph the Betrothed

Recently I was asked by one of my catechumens what the Orthodox thought about St. Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary, called “St. Joseph the Betrothed” in our Orthodox Synaxarion because although he was betrothed to Mary, the marriage was never consummated.  I suspect that the topic came up because of the interest in the recent Netflix movie entitled “Mary”.  

I admit that I have not yet watched the entirety of the movie, for the staggering anachronisms and abundant stupidities I saw in the first half hour of the film disgusted me so badly that I had to turn it off.  It reminded me of trying to read the Book of Mormon:  one can only stand to have one’s intelligence insulted for so long before you give up and close the book—in the case of the Book of Mormon, after ten pages.  I am told that the Mary script went through 74 revisions and was the result of consultations with Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  Apparently Joel Osteen served as Executive Producer on the film, which would explain a lot. I may yet view the rest of the film:  Great Lent is coming soon, and viewing it could offer an ascetic podvig, like wearing a hairshirt or putting pebbles in one’s shoes.

       Anyway, in the Mary film as in many other film portrayals of the Holy Family, Joseph looks very young.  The actor playing him, Ido Tako, is indeed 23 years old.  In the film he sees by chance Mary sitting by a river and instantly falls in love with her.  Without knowing her name he seeks out her father in Nazareth and asks for her hand in marriage.  In the film I was waiting for him to break forth into a soliloquy and say, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?  It is the east, and Mary is the sun!”

       Here we see a vigorous, young, and romantic Joseph.  But is it historically accurate?  Is it likely?  What do we really know about St. Joseph the Betrothed?

       Admittedly not much, but the bit we do know makes the notion of a young romantic Joseph unlikely.  We learn from the Gospels that Mary was a virgin at the time of her marriage so that her marriage to Joseph was a first marriage for her.  Given the average age of first marriages for girls in Jewish Palestine at that time, this would make Mary about 13 or 14 years old at the time of the Annunciation.  But what about Joseph?

       It would seem from the Gospel evidence that he was older than her.  He was still alive when Jesus paid a visit to the Temple with His family when He was twelve years old (see Luke 2:41f) but eighteen years later when He began His ministry at about thirty years of age (Luke 3:23) Joseph seems to have been nowhere around.  The fact that on the cross our Lord gave His Mother into the care of His best friend John (John 19:26-27) proves that Joseph was no longer alive.  (It also proves that Jesus was an only child for it would have been unthinkable for John to have taken custody of His Mother if she had other biological children around.)  This all strongly suggests that Joseph was older than Mary and that he died in the interval between the reported trip to the Temple and the start of our Lord’s ministry.  His death could have been premature, but it is more likely that he simply died of natural causes—i.e. of old age.

       How old was he exactly when he married the Theotokos?  Once again, the sources do not say.  The Athonite Synaxarion says that “in middle age he became a widower”.  If by “middle age” one understands about 35 this would make sense:  Joseph would have been married before and had children by his first wife—some of the so-called “brothers” of the Lord.  At age 40 or so he would still be young enough to remarry and begin another family.  He would also be young enough to undergo the considerable rigours of a hasty sojourn in Egypt as reported in Matthew 2.  If he indeed married the Theotokos when he was about 40, that would make him about 70 at the time of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Dying at about 65 before our Lord’s ministry would not be unusual.

       One thing is almost certain:  we can discount the guess found in the Prologue of Ochrid which says that “he took the most holy Virgin from the Temple into his home at the age of eighty”.  Eighty-year-old Jewish men in Palestine in the first century did not seek to contract marriage—especially with girls young enough to be their granddaughters.  Such an old age would have precluded such physically difficult things as a hasty flight to Egypt.  It would also (to put it delicately) have made it needless for the Gospel writer inform us that Joseph kept Mary a virgin until the birth of Christ.  As Orthodox we believe that Mary continued to be a virgin throughout her marriage, but the line in Matthew 1:25 at least reveals that a consummation of the marriage was a biological possibility.  

Furthermore, the Gospel accounts of the Nativity tend to mention such things as advanced old age, for in that time such longevity could not be taken for granted and was regarded as a sign of divine favour.  Thus Luke mentions that Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth was quite old and that Simeon in the Temple was old and that Anna the prophetess in the Temple was eighty-four (Luke 1:7, 1:25f, 1:36-37).  Such details were important and it is unlikely that if Joseph were similarly elderly this detail would go unmentioned. 

Joseph, as I said to my catechumens, does not come in for the same liturgical commemoration or prominence in the Orthodox Church that Mary does or the apostles or even John the Baptist.  His liturgical prominence is commensurate with his role in the Scriptures—that is, as a spousal protector of the Mother of God throughout the first years of Christ’s life.  He did not live to be baptized by John or experience the glorious Day of Pentecost.  He humbly fulfilled the role given him by God and ended his days in peace.

Perhaps such a life can still be an example to us all.  The overwhelming majority of Christians will live their lives in faithful obedience to the Lord, die in Him, and leave no real trace behind them in the Church.  Some men and women are called to live lives which the Church after them will remember and celebrate.  Such “A-list” players (they will forgive the term) as John Chrysostom, the deaconess Olympias, Augustine of Hippo, and Seraphim of Sarov were called by God’s providence to exercise a ministry which will not be forgotten.  But such A-list players are few and far between.  For most of us, our names will be forgotten by all within a hundred years of our death.  What matters is not fame, but faithfulness, and obedience to what God calls us to do.  Joseph did all that God called him to do and for that he will have his true and abundant reward.  If we follow in those footsteps of humility, we will have our reward too.