Was Saint Joseph a virgin? Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, and the widower hypothesis

Was Saint Joseph a virgin? The Latin tradition answers yes. Jerome defended it already in the fourth century against Helvidius, and Thomas Aquinas teaches not only that Joseph was a virgin, but that he made a vow of virginity together with his wife. The contrary answer, that of the widowed Joseph with children from a first marriage, is ancient but was never doctrine of the Latin Church.

The question has consequences. On it depend the explanation of the “brothers of Jesus”, the way of understanding the marriage of Nazareth, and the very figure of Joseph in art and in preaching, where the old man with a white beard arises precisely from the widower hypothesis. What follows compares the sources of the library of Locus Mariologicus and notes where they diverge.

Two ancient answers: Joseph a virgin or Joseph a widower?

From the first centuries two explanations have circulated for the “brothers” mentioned in the Gospels. The solution called Epiphanian, linked to Epiphanius of Salamis, supposes that Joseph had had a previous wife and children by her, which would make him a widower and not a virgin. The Hieronymian solution, that of Saint Jerome, holds that the “brothers” are close relatives and that Joseph remained a virgin.

Ángel Peña, in Saint Joseph: the Holiest of the Saints, of 2008, records the historical fact with precision: “San Jerónimo defiende su virginidad en su escrito contra Helvidio”, “Saint Jerome defends his virginity in his writing against Helvidius”. And he adds the iconographic consequence that almost no one notices: from the first centuries several Fathers had to speak of a young Saint Joseph, and not an aged widower.

Note what is at stake here. The popular image of an elderly Joseph is not a datum of the Gospels, it is the visual residue of an exegetical hypothesis. Whoever holds the virginity of Joseph tends to present him as young, because chastity in marriage ceases to be an effect of age and becomes a choice.

Thomas Aquinas: Joseph was a virgin and made a vow

The strongest affirmation comes from scholasticism. Francisco Canals Vidal, in Saint Joseph in the Faith of the Church, refers to the Summa Theologiae, III, question 28, article 4, where, he writes, Thomas “no sólo enseña que San José fue virgen, sino también que emitió, juntamente con su esposa, la Virgen, voto de virginidad, a quien sigue todo el coro de los teólogos”, “not only teaches that Saint Joseph was a virgin, but also that he made, together with his wife, the Virgin, a vow of virginity, and in this he is followed by the whole choir of theologians”.

The same Canals Vidal formulates elsewhere the argument from fittingness that sustains the thesis: Joseph was the father of Christ and the spouse of the Virgin, and among spouses there is usually equality of condition. If the wife is a virgin, the parity of the bond requires that the husband be one too. It is this argument, and not a vague piety, that the manuals reproduce.

Ángel Peña takes the reciprocity to its logical extreme, when he observes that in this marriage each of the spouses has a right over the virginity of the other: Mary has the right to preserve the virginity of Joseph and Joseph has the right to guard the virginity of Mary, so that neither of the two can dispose of it alone and the whole fidelity of this marriage consists in preserving virginity. Virginity ceases to be an abstention and becomes the very content of the bond.

How can a true marriage be virginal?

Here is the objection that has always been raised: if there was no carnal union, was there a marriage? Thomas Aquinas’s answer, quoted in the acts of the First International Symposium of Josephology, is found in the Summa Theologiae, III, question 29, article 2: “verum fuit matrimonium Virginis Matris Dei et Joseph: quia uterque consensit in copulam conjugalem, non autem expresse in copulam carnalem, nisi sub conditione, si Deo placeret”, “the marriage of the Virgin Mother of God and Joseph was true, because both consented to the conjugal union, but not expressly to the carnal union, except under the condition, if it should please God”.

The key lies in the distinction between copula conjugalis and copula carnalis. What makes the marriage is the consent to the bond, and that was full. The carnal act was consented to only under condition. The marriage is, therefore, true and virginal at the same time, a question developed in the article on the betrothal of Mary and Joseph.

Andrea Mallimaci adds a detail that removes the last difficulty. Commenting on Thomas’s commentary on the Sentences, book IV, distinction 30, question 2, article 1, he writes: “la Santísima Virgen, antes de casarse con José, fue certificada divinamente de que José tenía el mismo propósito. Por eso, no se estaba poniendo en peligro al casarse”, “the Most Holy Virgin, before marrying Joseph, was divinely assured that Joseph had the same purpose. For this reason, she was not putting herself in danger by marrying”. The purpose is reciprocal and known to both before the consent.

Melchior Cano and the criticism of the first-marriage hypothesis

The hypothesis of the widowed Joseph received, in the second scholasticism, an objection of method that remains current. Melchior Cano, a Dominican, professor at Salamanca and imperial theologian of Charles V at Trent, author of De locis theologicis, observes, in the study devoted to the figure of Saint Joseph in Isidore Isolani, Bernardino de Laredo, Ambrosius Catharinus, and Melchior Cano: “no approved author states that he has seen or learned from reliable testimonies that there existed another wife of Joseph besides Mary”.

Cano then describes the mechanism of the opposing argument: since one reads in the Gospels that there were “brothers of the Lord” and faith forbids suspecting that they were sons of Mary, the commentators had to conjecture an explanation, and some thought of children that Joseph would have had by another wife. Cano’s point is precise and worth retaining: the earlier wife of Joseph is a conjecture constructed to solve an exegetical problem, not an attested fact. On the alternative solution, see who are the brothers of Jesus in the Bible.

What the Church professes and what it leaves free

It is worth separating the levels. The perpetual virginity of Mary is dogma. The virginity of Saint Joseph is not the object of a dogmatic definition: it is common doctrine, sustained by the Latin tradition and by the theologians, but without conciliar definition. The Epiphanian hypothesis has not been condemned, and Melchior Cano himself acknowledges that the commentators on Scripture proposed it in good faith.

This explains why the Churches of the East naturally preserve the iconography of the aged Joseph, without this being an error of faith. What the Latin tradition affirms, with Jerome and Thomas, is something stronger and more coherent with its reading of the “brothers”: the chastity of Joseph is not the effect of widowhood, it is a consecration. On the way in which this fatherhood without carnal generation is to be understood, see the fatherhood of Saint Joseph, and for the general portrait who Saint Joseph was.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Saint Joseph a virgin according to the Bible?

The Bible neither affirms it nor denies it expressly. Mt 1:25 says that Joseph did not know Mary until she gave birth, and the discussion about the scope of that sentence is ancient. The affirmation of the virginity of Joseph comes from tradition, above all from Saint Jerome against Helvidius and from Thomas Aquinas.

Did Saint Joseph have children from an earlier marriage?

This is the Epiphanian hypothesis, proposed to explain the “brothers of Jesus”. Melchior Cano objected that no approved author attests the existence of another wife of Joseph and that the hypothesis is a conjecture of the commentators, not a received fact.

Why is Saint Joseph represented as an old man?

Because the iconography of the old man arises from the widower hypothesis. Ángel Peña records that, from the first centuries, several Fathers had to speak of a young Saint Joseph, and not an aged widower, precisely because they upheld his virginity.

Did Saint Joseph make a vow of virginity?

According to Francisco Canals Vidal, Thomas Aquinas teaches in the Summa Theologiae III, question 28, article 4, that Saint Joseph made a vow of virginity together with his wife, and in this he is followed, he writes, by the whole choir of theologians.

Is the virginity of Saint Joseph a dogma of the Church?

No. The dogma is the perpetual virginity of Mary. The virginity of Saint Joseph is common doctrine of the Latin tradition, sustained by Jerome and by Thomas Aquinas, but it was not the object of a conciliar definition.