call together all the widowers
among the people, and let each bring his rod (or wand) in his
hand, and he to whom the Lord shall show a sign, let him be
the husband of Mary. And Zacharias did as the angel commanded,
and made proclamation accordingly. And Joseph the carpenter, a
righteous man, throwing down his axe, and taking his staff in
his hand, ran out with the rest. When he appeared before the
priest, and presented his rod, lo! a dove issued out of it--a
dove dazzling white as the snow,--and after settling on his
head, flew towards heaven. Then the high priest said to him,
'Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin of the Lord,
and to keep her for him.' And Joseph was at first afraid, and
drew back, but afterwards he took her home to his house, and
said to her, 'Behold, I have taken thee from the temple of
the Lord, and now I will leave thee in my house, for I must
go and follow my trade of building. I will return to thee,
and meanwhile the Lord be with thee and watch over thee.' So
Joseph left her, and Mary remained in her house."

There is nothing said of any marriage ceremony, some have even
affirmed that Mary was only betrothed to Joseph, but for conclusive
reasons it remains an article of faith that she was married to him.

I must mention here an old tradition cited by St. Jerome, and which
has been used as a text by the painters. The various suitors who
aspired to the honour of marrying the consecrated "Virgin of the
Lord," among whom was the son of the high-priest, deposited their
wands in the temple over night,[1] and next morning the rod of Joseph
was found, like the rod of Aaron, to have budded forth into leaves
and flowers. The other suitors thereupon broke their wands in rage and
despair; and one among them, a youth of noble lineage, whose name was
Agabus, fled to Mount Carmel, and became an anchorite, that is to say,
a Carmelite friar.

[Footnote 1: The suitors kneeling with their wands before the altar in
the Temple, is one of the series by Giotto in the Arena at Padua.]

According to the Abbe Orsini, who gives a long description of the
espousals of Mary and Joseph, they returned after the marriage
ceremony to Nazareth, and dwelt in the house of St. Anna.

* * * * *

Now, with regard to the representations, we find that many of the
early painters, and particularly the Italians, have carefully