Claude Mellan

Bust of St Joseph in an Oval, 17th century, Engraving, 427 x 287 mm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953, 53.601.255, www.metmuseum.org

The Alter-Father

Commentary by Alysée Le Druillenec

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For the Lord honoured the father... (Sirach 3:2)

During the Counter-Reformation, the cult of St Joseph evolved significantly. According to contemporary spiritual literature and devotional images, he became the ideal model of prayerful obedience.

Claude Mellan’s engraving of the saint sums up this seventeenth-century josephology very effectively. He elides Joseph’s facial features with those of God the Father by representing him as a bearded man who is markedly similar to God the Father in some of his other engravings, such as Je croy en Dieu le Père tout puissant (c.1615–16), and the frontispiece for his Bible of 1652.

Joseph’s own honouring of God the Father in obedience (Matthew 1:18–24) gives him a unique paternal intimacy with the Son:

[He] possessed [the Christ Child] without any in-between, knew Him with the eyes of the body, carried Him on his arms, lodged Him in his house, fed Him with his sweat, cherished Him as his Son and received from Him ineffable honours. (Jacquinot 2013: 39)

Without any mediator between himself and Christ, Joseph could be seen as ‘an image of God’ (Binet 1866: 53). In this sense, Joseph was seen as the alter-Father who should be honoured by not only his Son, the son of God, but all humankind. Joseph’s likeness to God belongs only to [him]’ and ‘nothing is more similar to the Father, who carries the uncreated Word in his bosom, than Joseph, carrying the incarnate Word in his arms’ (Binet 1866: 53).

Joseph’s representation as like God expresses how the Lord himself ‘communicated his paternity’ to him (Binet 1866: 52), as he did to Abraham (Genesis 17:4; see also Sirach 3:3). In other words, as God communicated fecundity to Mary in the mystery of the Incarnation, he communicated to Joseph His quality of fatherhood—a fatherhood belonging to Joseph by grace not by nature. In turn, the Son offered him his own earthly submission (Léon de Saint-Jean 1665: 514).

During and after the Council of Trent (1545–63), Joseph’s paternal deeds became considered paradigmatic acts of faith on which the beholder must meditate (Coton 1988: 105–08; Pope Francis, 2020). Images of the Holy Family were seen as representations of an earthly Trinity whose chief was Joseph. Paterfamilias par excellence, he became the protector (Sirach 40:27) and the authority figure of both Christ’s nuclear family and the whole Christian community (Barry (de) 1639: 44).

 

References

Barry (de), Paul. 1646. La dévotion à saint Joseph le plus aymé et le plus aymable de tous les saints après Jésus et Marie (Lyon: Pierre et Claude Rigaud)

Binet, Étienne. 1866 [1639]. Le tableau des divines faveurs accordées à saint Joseph (Paris: Principaux libraires)

Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne. 1927. ‘Panégyrique Quaesivit subi Dominus’, in Œuvres oratoires de Bossuet 1659–1661, Tome 3, ed. by Joseph Lebarq, Charles Urbain, Eugène Levesque (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer), pp. 643–65

Coton, Pierre. 1933 [1608]. Intérieure occupation d’une âme dévote. Nouvelle édition (Paris: Pierre Tequi)

Jacquinot, Jean. 2013 [1645]. Les Grandeurs de saint Joseph. « Allez à Joseph » Génèse 41,55 (Auriac: Saint Jean Librairie Chrétienne)

Léon de Saint-Jean. 1665. La couronne des saints, Tome 1 (Paris, C. Josse), pp. 514–15

Pope Francis. 2020. ‘Patris corde. Apostolic Letter of the Holy Father Francis on the 150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, 8 December 2020’ (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

See full exhibition for Ecclesiasticus 3

Ecclesiasticus 3

Revised Standard Version

3Listen to me your father, O children;

and act accordingly, that you may be kept in safety.

2For the Lord honored the father above the children,

and he confirmed the right of the mother over her sons.

3Whoever honors his father atones for sins,

4and whoever glorifies his mother is like one who lays up treasure.

5Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his own children,

and when he prays he will be heard.

6Whoever glorifies his father will have long life,

and whoever obeys the Lord will refresh his mother;

7he will serve his parents as his masters.

8Honor your father by word and deed,

that a blessing from him may come upon you.

9For a father’s blessing strengthens the houses of the children,

but a mother’s curse uproots their foundations.

10Do not glorify yourself by dishonoring your father,

for your father’s dishonor is no glory to you.

11For a man’s glory comes from honoring his father,

and it is a disgrace for children not to respect their mother.

12O son, help your father in his old age,

and do not grieve him as long as he lives;

13even if he is lacking in understanding, show forbearance;

in all your strength do not despise him.

14For kindness to a father will not be forgotten,

and against your sins it will be credited to you;

15in the day of your affliction it will be remembered in your favor;

as frost in fair weather, your sins will melt away.

16Whoever forsakes his father is like a blasphemer,

and whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord.

17My son, perform your tasks in meekness;

then you will be loved by those whom God accepts.

18The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself;

so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord.

20For great is the might of the Lord;

he is glorified by the humble.

21Seek not what is too difficult for you,

nor investigate what is beyond your power.

22Reflect upon what has been assigned to you,

for you do not need what is hidden.

23Do not meddle in what is beyond your tasks,

for matters too great for human understanding have been shown you.

24For their hasty judgment has led many astray,

and wrong opinion has caused their thoughts to slip.

26A stubborn mind will be afflicted at the end,

and whoever loves danger will perish by it.

27A stubborn mind will be burdened by troubles,

and the sinner will heap sin upon sin.

28The affliction of the proud has no healing,

for a plant of wickedness has taken root in him.

29The mind of the intelligent man will ponder a parable,

and an attentive ear is the wise man’s desire.

30Water extinguishes a blazing fire:

so almsgiving atones for sin.

31Whoever requites favors gives thought to the future;

at the moment of his falling he will find support.

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