Joseph

The Righteous Joseph the Betrothed was the man to whom God entrusted the care of the Mother of God and of the Child Jesus. He was of the line of King David and lived at Nazareth. The Church honours him for his faith, his silence and his obedience. The Gospels say little about him, and part of what is known comes from the Tradition of the Church.

Betrothed of the Virgin

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke present him as a descendant of David, though the two genealogies differ: Matthew gives Jacob as his father, and Luke gives Heli. Some explain that one follows the legal line and the other the line by birth. According to Tradition, Joseph was an elderly widower with children from an earlier marriage when the Virgin Mary was entrusted to his care; the synaxarion speaks of four sons, James, Judah, Joses and Simeon, and three daughters, among them Salome, the mother of the Apostle John. From this comes the Orthodox understanding that the "brothers of the Lord" are Joseph's sons by his first marriage and that Mary remained ever-⁠virgin. An older source, the Gospel of James, from about 150, presents Joseph as an old man chosen to guard the Virgin.

When he learned that Mary had conceived, Joseph, being righteous and unwilling to shame her, resolved to put her away quietly. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him that what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. Joseph obeyed and took her to himself.

Protector of the Child

For the census ordered by Caesar Augustus, Joseph went with Mary to Bethlehem, the city of David, where Christ was born. The synaxarion says that he was present at the adoration of the shepherds and the Magi. When Herod sought to kill the Child, Joseph was warned in a dream and fled to Egypt with the Mother of God and the Child. There, according to the synaxarion, he earned their living as a carpenter. After Herod's death he returned and settled at Nazareth. The last time the Gospels mention him is the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when Jesus at twelve remained in the Temple and Joseph and Mary searched for Him for three days. The Gospels record not a single word spoken by Joseph.

The Greek word the Gospel uses for his trade, "tekton", is usually translated "carpenter", but it has a wider meaning of craftsman.

Repose and veneration

The Gospels say nothing of Joseph's death. The synaxarion says that he died at about the age of one hundred. Other traditions make him ninety, which would safeguard the virginity of Mary.

The Orthodox Church commemorates him on the Sunday after the Nativity of the Lord, with the holy Prophet and King David and James, the brother of the Lord. He is also remembered on the Sunday of the Forefathers, the second Sunday before the Nativity. The calendars also record him on 26 December, at the synaxis of the Mother of God and the flight into Egypt. In the icon of the Nativity he is painted beside the Child and His Mother.