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| Saint Joseph's Dream from a Gospel Lectionary Austrian (Salzburg), 1070-1090 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M780, fol. 1v |
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came
about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to
Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy
Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous
man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into
your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him
Jesus,
because he will save his people from their
sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord
had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a
son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had
commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
Matthew 1:18-24
Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A
Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A
The Gospel
for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (and for the Vigil Mass for Christmas) in the
cycle of readings for Year A, the year of St. Matthew, is one of the most
unusual passages in the New Testament.
In it we encounter Saint Joseph, not as a background figure, but as the
major figure and the main actor.1 He
experiences all the doubt (and shock and probably anger) of a man who finds
that his fiancée has apparently been unfaithful and has become pregnant by
someone else. It’s easy enough to
imagine his feelings. But they are also
tempered by the fact that he was unwilling to expose her (and himself) to the
inevitable censure of public disclosure.
Today we would say that he was conflicted and in turmoil.
 |
| Master of the Getty Epistles, Annunciation to Joseph French (Tours), 1523-1540 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 452, fol. 38v |
His doubts and fears are relieved when an
angel appears to him in a dream to tell him that it is all right, it is not what he
feared, but instead, something wonderful.
The idea of a revelation of reality through a dream harkens back to the
other Joseph, in the Old Testament. And
like the earlier Joseph, Saint Joseph puts his trust in the message he receives
in the dream and acts upon it. He goes
through with the marriage to Mary and becomes the foster father of Jesus,
providing Him with support, protection and affection during His childhood to
the end of his life.
 |
Master of Death, The Annunciation to Saint Joseph
from Histoire de la Bible et de l'Assomption de Notre-Dame
French (Paris), 1390-1400
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 526, fol. 28v
|
There are
many images of Saint Joseph in western art.
We have already looked at a few of them here and here. However, images of this particular moment in
the Gospels have not been represented as often as some of the others. The biggest problem is how to distinguish
this dream of Saint Joseph from the slightly later incident in which an angel
warns him in another dream to “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to
Egypt” (Matthew 2:13).
 |
| Annunciation to Joseph From the Book of Pericopes of Saint Erentrud Austrian (Salzburg), c. 1050 Munich, Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek MS Clm 15903, Image 16 |
 |
| Annunciation to Joseph from the Gospels of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany Italian (Lombardy), 1075-1099 New York,Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 492, fol. 20r |
There also seems to have been little art historical investigation of this particular iconographic subject. The examples that I
have managed to identify begin in the 11th Century and right away one of the
formulas by which the dream of reassurance can be identified begins to be
used. To make clear the
sequence into which this particular dream fits a reference to the Annunciation
must be introduced.
The assumption appears to be that it is Gabriel who makes both
apparitions, the first to the waking Mary, the second to the sleeping Joseph. Very often the “official” title of the
painting is “The Annunciation to Joseph”.
This not only links him to the Annunciation (to Mary), but also
puts him into the line of other annunciations by angels to the fathers of
remarkable men, such as the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist to
Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25) and to Manoah, the father of Samson (Judges 13:2-25).2 Both of these earlier annunciations are
scheduled as the readings of the Mass for the Advent weekday Mass of December
19th.
Sometimes
this referral appears as a visible allusion by showing the image of the Virgin
Annunciate. At other times there is a
referral to the dove symbol of the Holy Spirit, at still others simply a
referral to heaven with angels singing praise.
 |
| Annunciation to Joseph From the Trond Gospel Lectionary Flemish (Liege), c. 1160-1185 Paris, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 883, fol. 2v |
 |
| Scenes from the Life of the Virgin and St. Joseph from a Book of Hours German (Franconia), 1204-1219 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 739, fol. 19v |
 |
| Philippe de Champaigne, Dream of St. Joseph French, 1642-1643 London, National Gallery |
 |
| Carlo Maratti, Annunciation to St. Joseph Italian, 1652 Rome, Church of San Isidoro, Chapel of St. Joseph_ |
 |
| Francisco de Herrera el Mozo, Dream of St. Joseph Spanish, c.1662 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
 |
| Johann Hiebel, Annunciation to St. Joseph German, 1727-1731 Litomerice (CZ), Jesuit Church of the Annunciation |
 |
| Betrothal of the Virgin and the Annunciation to Joseph from a Window German, 1877-1878 Gelnhausen, Marienkirche |
There is
also at least one very unusual interpretation of this episode from the Gospels. It can be titled “The Repentance of Saint Joseph” or "Joseph Asking Forgiveness from Mary".
It may make its first appearance as one of a series of illustrations in the book Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ from the second quarter of the fifteenth century in the Bibliotheque nationale de France. The images follow the story from the Annunciation to Mary to Joseph's doubts, to his dream and to his repentance (with several additional scenes in between). In the last image we see Joseph kneeling before Mary, acknowledging the presence of her Divine Child and his own acceptance of the situation.
In a much later version of the same scene we also see Joseph kneeling at the feet of the visibly pregnant Mary, who stands, surrounded by angels, as she points to heaven, the ultimate true home of her baby.
It may make its first appearance as one of a series of illustrations in the book Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ from the second quarter of the fifteenth century in the Bibliotheque nationale de France. The images follow the story from the Annunciation to Mary to Joseph's doubts, to his dream and to his repentance (with several additional scenes in between). In the last image we see Joseph kneeling before Mary, acknowledging the presence of her Divine Child and his own acceptance of the situation.
 |
| Annunciation to Mary from Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ by Guillaume de Digulleville French (Rennes), 1425-1450 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 376, fol. 167v |
 |
| Joseph Doubting Mary from Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ by Guillaume de Digulleville French (Rennes), 1425-1450 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 376, fol. 170 |
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| Annunciation to Joseph from Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ by Guillaume de Digulleville French (Rennes), 1425-1450 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 376, fol. 171 |
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| Joseph Asking Forgiveness from Mary from Pelerinage de Jesus-Christ by Guillaume de Digulleville French (Rennes), 1425-1450 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS Francais 376, fol. 171v |
In a much later version of the same scene we also see Joseph kneeling at the feet of the visibly pregnant Mary, who stands, surrounded by angels, as she points to heaven, the ultimate true home of her baby.
 |
| Alessandro Tiarini, Repentance of St. Joseph Italian, after 1620 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
One later artist painted what might be called a prequel to the dream of Saint Joseph. This was James Tissot, the later 19th Century artist who spent considerable time in the Holy Land, absorbing the details of contemporary life there and projecting back into what it might have been in the first century. He imagined Joseph in his workshop, deep in troubled thought about what exactly to make of Mary's unexpected situation.
 |
| James Tissot, The Anxiety of Joseph French, c. 1886-1894 New York, Brooklyn Museum |
The angelic interruption of his dream relieved the anxiety and freed him to do what God was asking of him, to become the protector of Mary and Jesus during his infancy and growing years.
©
M. Duffy, 2016
____________________
- See "St. Joseph, Spouse As Mousetrap" http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/05/st-joseph-spouse-as-mousetrap.html
- See Raymond Brown, SS. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, Garden City, NY, Doubleday and Company, 1977 and a commentary on Brown’s book, Edgar W. Conrad, “The Annunciation of Birth and the Birth of the Messiah”, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4 (October, 1985), pp. 656-663.
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