he 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.

* * * * *

The legend of "the Marriage of Joseph and Mary" is thus given in the
Protevangelion and the History of Joseph the Carpenter:--

"When Mary was fourteen years old, the priest Zacharias (or
Abiathar, as he is elsewhere called) inquired of the Lord
concerning her, what was right to be done; and an angel came
to him and said, 'Go forth, and