St. Joseph’s Father

Posted in: St. Joseph

By the time of the birth of Christ, Judea had been lost to the Romans and the descendants of King David had lost their royal birthright and their place in line for the throne. Herod the Great, who was appointed king of the Jews by the Roman senate, had usurped the throne. Joseph of Nazareth, the earthly father of Jesus (though not according to the flesh), was a part of this Davidic lineage and remained the rightful heir of the kings of Judea.
The Bible traces his genealogy in the Gospel of St. Matthew, naming his father to be Jacob, a descendant of David: … Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob … Jesse begot David the king. And David the king begot Solomon … Matthan begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ (Matthew 1:1-16 DRV). Then how does one explain the genealogy given in the Gospel of St. Luke? In this account Joseph is still a descendent of King David, but his father is not Jacob but rather Heli: And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years; being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi … Nathan the son of David … (Luke 3:23, 31 DRV). Heli (also known as Joachim) was the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph’s bride. According to the Law, upon marrying 16 the Virgin Mary, Joseph’s “legal father” or “father-in-law” became Heli. In St. Matthew’s account, the word “begot” is used when descending the family tree, this refers to biological fathers or at guardians thought of as fathers. In St. Luke’s account, the words “son of” are used instead of “begot.” This may refer to “son in the eyes of the law.” However, many of the names in St. Luke’s account are also biological fathers, so this may cause confusion. One must now look to other divinely inspired sources for confirmation that Jacob was indeed St. Joseph’s biological father. Per the visions of the German Mystic Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), St. Joseph’s father was indeed Jacob, as confirmed by other mystics as well as was prefigured in the Old Testament: Joseph’s grandfather Matthan had descended from David through Solomon. He had two sons, Joses and Jacob. Jacob was Joseph’s father (A. Emmerich, 1953, pg. 17).