A Catena for St. Joseph

Matthew 1:16. And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Gloss. In the last place, after all the patriarchs, he sets down Joseph the husband of Mary, for whose sake all the rest are introduced, saying, But Jacob begat Joseph. Jerome. The Emperor Julian in his Discrepancy of the Evangelists poses the following problem with this passage: Matthew calls Joseph the son of Jacob, but Luke makes him the son of Heli. The Emperor did not know the custom of Scripture: one was his father by nature, the other by law. For we know that God commanded through Moses, that if a brother or near kinsman died without children, another should take his wife to raise up seed to his brother or kinsman. But of this matter Africanus the chronologist and Eusebius of Caesarea, have disputed more fully. Eusebius. For Matthan and Melchi at different periods had each a son by one and the same wife Jesca. Matthan, who traced through Solomon, first had her, and died leaving one son, Jacob by name. As the Law did not forbid a widow, either dismissed from her husband, or after the death of her husband, to be married to another, so Melchi, who traced through Matthan, being of the same tribe but of another race, took this widow to his wife, and begat Heli his son. Thus we shall find Jacob and Heli, though of a different race, yet by the same mother, to have been brethren. One of whom, namely Jacob, after Heli his brother was deceased without issue, married his wife, and begat on her the third, Joseph, by nature indeed and reason his own son, where also it is written, And Jacob begat Joseph. But by the Law, he was the son of Heli; for Jacob, being his brother, raised up seed to him. Thus the genealogy, both as recited by Matthew, and by Luke, stands right and true: Matthew saying, And Jacob begot Joseph; Luke saying, Which was the son, as it was supposed, (for he adds this) of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, who was the son of Melchi. Nor could he have more significantly or properly expressed that way of generation according to the Law, which was made by a certain adoption that had respect to the dead, by carefully leaving out the word begetting throughout even to the end. Augustine. He is more properly called the son of the one who adopted him, than he is said to have been begotten of him of whose flesh he was not born. Therefore Matthew, in saying Abraham begot Isaac, and continuing the same phrase throughout down to Jacob begot Joseph, sufficiently declared that he identifies the father according to the order of nature, so as that we must hold Joseph to have been begotten, not adopted, by Jacob. Though, even if Luke had used the word begotten, we need not have thought it a serious objection. For it is not absurd to say of an adopted son that he is begotten, not after the flesh, but by affection. Eusebius. Neither does this lack good authority; nor is it something we concocted simply to solve a problem. For the kinsmen of our Savior according to the flesh, either out of desire to show forth their great nobility of stock, or simply for the truth's sake, have delivered it to us. Augustine. And suitably does Luke, who relates Christ's ancestry not in the opening of his Gospel, but at his baptism, follow the line of adoption, thus more clearly pointing Him out as the Priest who should make atonement for sin. For by adoption we are made the sons of God, by believing in the Son of God. But by that descent according to the flesh which Matthew follows, we rather see that the Son of God was for us made man. Luke sufficiently shows that he called Joseph the son of Heli because he was adopted by Heli, by his calling Adam the son of God, which he was by grace, as he was set in Paradise, though he lost it afterwards by sinning. Chrysostom. Having gone through all the ancestry, and ended in Joseph, he adds, The husband of Mary, thereby declaring that it was for her sake that he was included in the genealogy. Jerome. When you hear this word husband, do not immediately think of marriage, but remember the Scripture custom, which calls persons husband and wife even if they are only betrothed….
Augustine. It was not lawful that he should think to separate himself from Mary for this, that she brought forth Christ as yet a Virgin. And here the faithful may gather, that if they be married, and preserve strict continence on both sides, yet may their wedlock hold with union of love only, without carnal; for here they see that it is possible that a son be born without carnal embrace. Augustine. In Christ's parents was accomplished every good benefit of marriage: fidelity, progeny, and a sacrament. The progeny we see in the Lord Himself; fidelity, for there was no adultery; sacrament, for there was no divorce. Jerome. The attentive reader may ask: Seeing Joseph was not the father of the Lord and Savior, how does his genealogy traced down to him in order pertain to the Lord? We will answer, first, that it is not the practice of Scripture to follow the female line in its genealogies; secondly, that Joseph and Mary were of the same tribe, and that he was thence compelled to take her to wife as a kinsman, and they were enrolled together at Bethlehem, as being come of one stock. Augustine. Also, the line of descent ought to be brought down to Joseph, that in marriage no slight might be made to the male sex, as the more worthy, provided only nothing was taken away from the truth; because Mary was of the seed of David.