But before we enter on the treatment of the subject, it is necessary to say a few words on the character of Joseph, wonderfully selected to be the husband and guardian of the consecrated mother of Christ, and foster-father of the Redeemer; and so often introduced into all the pictures which refer to the childhood of our Lord.

From the Gospels we learn nothing of him but that he was of the tribe of Judah and the lineage of David; that he was a just man; that he followed the trade of a carpenter, and dwelt in the little city of Nazareth.  We infer from his conduct towards Mary, that he was a mild, and tender, and pure-hearted, as well as an upright man.  Of his age and personal appearance nothing is said.  These are the points on which the Church has not decided, and on which artists, left to their own devices, and led by various opinions, have differed considerably.

The very early painters deemed it right to represent Joseph as very old, almost decrepit with age, and supported by a crutch.  According to some of the monkish authorities, he was a widower, and eighty-four years old when he was espoused to Mary.  On the other hand, it was argued, that such a marriage would have been quite contrary to the custom of the Jews; and that to defend Mary, and to provide for her celestial Offspring, it was necessary that her husband should be a man of mature age, but still strong and robust, and able to work at his trade; and thus, with more propriety and better taste, the later painters have represented him.  In the best Italian and Spanish pictures of the Holy Family, he is a man of about forty or fifty, with a mild, benevolent countenance, brown hair, and a short, curled beard:  the crutch, or stick, however, is seldom omitted; it became a conventional attribute.

In the German pictures, Joseph is not only old, but appears almost in a state of dotage, like a lean, wrinkled mendicant, with a bald head, a white beard, a feeble frame, and a sleepy or stupid countenance.  Then, again, the later Italian painters have erred as much on the other side; for I have seen pictures in which St. Joseph is not only a young man not more than thirty, but bears a strong resemblance to the received heads of our Saviour.

It is in the sixteenth century that we first find Joseph advanced to the dignity of a saint in his own right; and in the seventeenth he became very popular, especially in Spain, where St. Theresa had chosen him for her patron saint, and had placed her powerful order of the reformed Carmelites under his protection.  Hence the number of pictures of that time, which represent Joseph, as the foster-father of Christ, carrying the Infant on his arm and caressing him, while in the other hand he bears a lily, to express the sanctity and purity of his relations with the Virgin.

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The legend of “the Marriage of Joseph and Mary” is thus given in the Protevangelion and the History of Joseph the Carpenter:—­