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 spouse. The contrary answer, that of a 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 Joseph’s own figure in art and preaching, where the white-bearded old man arises precisely from the widower hypothesis. What follows sets the sources of the Locus Mariologicus library against one another and marks where they diverge.

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

From the earliest centuries two explanations circulate for the «brothers» mentioned in the gospels. The so-called Epiphanian solution, 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, from 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 datum precisely: «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, namely that from the earliest centuries several Fathers had to speak of a young Saint Joseph, and not an old widower.

Note what is at stake. 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 Joseph’s virginity tends to present him as young, because chastity in marriage then ceases to be an effect of age and becomes a choice.

Thomas Aquinas: Joseph was a virgin and made a vow

The strongest assertion 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 spouse the Virgin, a vow of virginity, and in this he is followed by the whole chorus of theologians».

The same Canals Vidal elsewhere formulates the argument of fittingness that sustains the thesis: Joseph was father of Christ and spouse of the Virgin, and between spouses equality of condition is customary. 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 carries the reciprocity to its logical extreme, observing that in this marriage each spouse has a right over the other’s virginity: Mary has the right to preserve Joseph’s virginity and Joseph has the right to guard Mary’s, so that neither of the two may 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 raised from time immemorial: if there was no carnal union, was there a marriage? The answer of Thomas Aquinas, cited 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 on condition, if it should please God».

The key lies in the distinction between copula conjugalis and copula carnalis. What makes the marriage is consent to the bond, and that was full. The carnal act was consented to only under condition. The marriage is therefore at once true and virginal, a question developed in treating of 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 resolve. Therefore she was not putting herself at risk by marrying». The resolve is reciprocal and known to both before consent.

Melchor Cano and the critique of the first-marriage hypothesis

In the second scholasticism the widowed-Joseph hypothesis met a methodological objection that remains current. Melchor 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 Isidoro Isolani, Bernardino de Laredo, Ambrogio Catarino and Melchor Cano: «no approved author states that he has seen or known of trustworthy 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 sons Joseph would have had by another wife. Cano’s point is precise and worth retaining: Joseph’s earlier wife is a conjecture constructed to solve an exegetical problem, not an attested datum. On the alternative solution, see who the brothers of Jesus in the Bible are.

What the Church professes and what it leaves free

The planes must be separated. Mary’s perpetual virginity is dogma. Joseph’s virginity is not an object of dogmatic definition: it is common doctrine, upheld by the Latin tradition and by the theologians, but without conciliar definition. The Epiphanian hypothesis was not condemned, and Melchor Cano himself acknowledges that the commentators on Scripture proposed it in good faith.

This explains why the Churches of the East naturally keep the iconography of the aged Joseph without that 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»: Joseph’s chastity is not the effect of a widowhood, it is a consecration. On how 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 states nor denies it expressly. Matthew 1,25 says that Joseph did not know Mary until she gave birth, and the discussion of that phrase’s scope is ancient. The assertion of Joseph’s virginity comes from tradition, above all from Saint Jerome against Helvidius and from Thomas Aquinas.

Did Saint Joseph have children from an earlier marriage?

That is the Epiphanian hypothesis, proposed to explain the «brothers of Jesus». Melchor 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 datum.

Why is Saint Joseph depicted as an old man?

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

Did Saint Joseph take 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 spouse, and in this, he writes, he is followed by the whole chorus of theologians.

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

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