The True Marriage of Mary and Joseph, and the Annunciation: Why It Was Announced and Why by Gabriel

Orientation #

He begins in the middle of a question on the Virgin’s betrothal — “Now I’ve got to read this second article” — and after a break announces “This is the last question on the Blessed Virgin,” moving to the Annunciation (q. 30). At the end he says “So we’ve got time for a little one here… Okay. Now next.”

The class, in order #

1. Objections against a true marriage (“that between Mary and Joseph there was not a true matrimony”) #

He reads the objections of q. 29, a. 2.

• Obj. 1: Jerome Against Helvidius calls Joseph the custos (guardian) of Mary rather than her husband; a true husband would be more than guardian. Aside: Thomas attacks Helvidius in the Compendium of Theology, calling his position on Mary’s virginity abominable; Jerome introduces his reply saying he long refused to dignify such a fool, and consented at last “so that he who does not know how to speak will at last learn how to keep silence” — like the Pythagorean school, where you kept silent for years.
• Digression on matrimonium: Fr. Merkelbach (moral theology) explains the sacrament is named from the mother because marriage is chiefly for the beginning of children, which is chiefly the woman’s office; inheritance is the father’s work, hence patrimony. Both contribute; the names follow the role.
• Obj. 2: Matthew 1 calls Joseph “the husband of Mary,” but Jerome and Chrysostom say Scripture’s custom is to call spouses “men” and “wives” even at betrothal — no suspicion of nuptials. True matrimony comes not from the espousal but from the wedding. He notes the genealogy stops begetting at Joseph: “Jacob begot Joseph… of whom was born Jesus”; Thomas in his commentary marks the change of wording ("Sic erat, in this way was Christ born") as deliberate, not an oversight.
• Obj. 3: Matthew 1:19 — Joseph, being just, did not wish to “hand her over” (into his house, to cohabit) and wished to dismiss her secretly, i.e. change the time of the nuptials, as Eugippius expounds; so the nuptials were not yet celebrated, especially as after contracting matrimony it is not licit to dismiss the spouse.

2. Sed contra: Augustine on continent spouses (“even observing a mutual consent… continence”) #

Augustine, On the Agreement of the Evangelists II: it cannot be that Joseph was severed from union with Mary because the evangelist says the Virgin brought forth Christ not from his embrace. In this example it is manifestly insinuated to faithful spouses that, keeping equal consent in continence, a marriage can remain and be called a marriage without carnal union.

3. Student question: can spouses vow continence? (“Can a man and a woman marry and take a vow of chastity?”) #

His answer, given as uncertain: they must intend to be married; he knows it can be done after marriage — a case in New Hampshire where a couple, already with children and the husband ill, consecrated themselves to continence under the bishop’s discernment. Whether it can be done at the very outset he does not know; a canonist would have to say. He distinguishes: intending relations but excluding children is an impediment and invalidates the marriage; intending consecrated chastity is another matter, though the Church would be slow to accept it from “two youthful people… high octane devotion at the beginning,” lest it be beyond their strength. Raised by students: St. Thérèse’s parents (he does not know the details); Paulinus of Nola, Augustine’s correspondent, who with his wife took a vow and founded a monastery; and desert-father stories where a proud monk is sent to an old poor couple living under such a vow.

4. Thomas’s body: first and second perfection (“attains to its own perfection”) #

1. A thing is true when it attains its perfection, and perfection is twofold: the first perfection is the very form of the thing, from which it gets its species; the second perfection is its operation, by which it attains its end.
2. The form of matrimony is a certain indivisible joining of souls, by which one spouse is indivisibly held to keep faith with the other. The end is offspring to be generated and educated.
3. To the first belongs concubitum conjugale; to the second, the other doings of man and wife by which they help each other to nourish the offspring — the first answering generanda, the second educanda. He checks concubitus: “lying together, sleeping together, intercourse,” and doubts the printed “conjugal intercourse” fits here.
4. Hence as to the first perfection it was altogether a true marriage: both consented to the conjugal bond, though not expressly to carnal union except under the condition “if it be pleasing to God.” Thomas argues from the angel’s words: “Do not fear to take Mary your spouse” (he notes the point is spouse, not merely wife). Augustine, On Nuptials and Concupiscence: she is called coniux from the first faith of betrothal, though he neither knew nor would know carnal union.
5. As to the second perfection in its first part — the act by which offspring are generated — it was not there: the marriage was unconsummated. Ambrose on Luke: Scripture’s calling Mary coniugium is not a taking away of virginity but a testification of the marriage.
6. But the second perfection as regards education of the offspring was there. Augustine: every good of nuptials was fulfilled in Christ’s parents — proles (the Lord Jesus), fides (no adultery), sacramentum (no divorce).

• His own boundary cases, put as questions to the class: a couple who cannot reproduce but adopt and educate a child — still a true marriage; a couple prevented by illness from consummating, who adopt.

5. Replies, and digressions on annulment (“Jerome takes their married tomb [ed.: matrimonium] from the consummation”) #

• Reply 1 and 2: Jerome takes “matrimony”/“nuptials” from the consummating act, the nuptial concubitum.
• Reply 3: With Chrysostom on Matthew, she was so betrothed that she also dwelt in his house — one who conceives in the man’s house is understood to conceive maritally, one outside is suspect; so her fame was not sufficiently provided for by betrothal alone. “He did not wish to hand her over” means he did not wish to defame her publicly; the added “wished secretly to dismiss her” means without public disgrace. Though dwelling in the house on the faith of betrothal, the solemn nuptials had not yet been celebrated, so “they had not come together.” Chrysostom: the evangelist does not say “before she was dwelling in the house,” because she was already there. The angel’s “do not fear to take Mary” means: do not fear solemnly to celebrate the nuptials. Others say she was only betrothed and not yet in the house, but the first agrees better with the Gospel.
• Anecdotes on the seriousness of the bond: a Catholic girl whose husband told her at the altar “this is the last time you’ll be in here” — she marched back, was put in her brothers’ custody, and the marriage was annulled (“a valiant woman”); and a man in Worcester whose wife secretly intended no children and who could not get an annulment for want of two prior witnesses, though she and the priest would testify. Against that, an item in The Wanderer: a man whose wife twice obtained a nullity decree and was twice reversed by the Roman Rota. His judgment: “The presumption is always in favor of the bond,” formerly perhaps excessively, now “the other extreme” — John Paul II stressed the presumption in his yearly address to the Rota.
• On betrothal in Shakespeare’s time and in the Gospel: much more serious than our engagement, almost equivalent to marriage; unfaithfulness counted as adultery, and death left the other a widow. “Nothing is serious anymore. Marriage isn’t serious, so who cares about it?”

6. Question 30 announced: four articles (“Then, we ought to consider about the Annunciation”) #

Whether it was suitable to announce to her what would be generated in her; through whom; in what way; and the order of the announcing. “Very thorough as usual, this Thomas.”

7. Objections against announcing at all (“Strange, you should ask that question”) #

• Obj. 1: The announcement would be for the Virgin’s consent; but consent seems unnecessary, since the conception was foreannounced in prophecy of predestination, which a gloss says is completed without our choice or consent. His repeated interjection: “How would she know that she’s the one?”
• Obj. 2: She already had the faith of the Incarnation, without which no one is in the state of salvation (Rom 3:22); what one believes with certitude needs no further instruction.
• Obj. 3: As she conceived Christ bodily, every holy soul conceives Him spiritually (Gal 4: “my little sons, whom I again bring forth until Christ be formed in you”); but that conception is not announced to us — “something didn’t come down and say, you should conceive Him in your soul, Mr. Berquist.”
• Sed contra: Luke 1:31, “Behold, you shall conceive in your womb.” He notes the Annunciation is only in Luke; Matthew has the telling to Joseph.

8. Four reasons it was fitting (“that she might her mind first be instructed”) #

1. That a fitting order of the Son of God’s union with the Virgin be kept — her mind instructed before she conceived in her flesh. Augustine, On Virginity: “More blessed is Mary in perceiving the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh”; the maternal nearness would have profited her nothing unless she more happily bore Christ in her heart than in her flesh. “Strong words, that Augustine.”
2. That she might be a more certain witness of this sacrament, being divinely instructed.
3. That she might offer the voluntary gift of her service — “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” “That’s a very good reason, isn’t it?”
4. That a certain spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature be shown; through the Annunciation the Virgin’s consent is awaited in place of the whole human nature. This is what St. Bernard picks up in his famous sermon — “We’re waiting for you… Say yes for us all.”

• He notes the order: three and four are similar, but three is more personal and four in the person of the whole human race. He observes the book he is using quotes Lumen Gentium 53 in the first paragraph and LG 55 at the fourth.
• Student remark he endorses: all these answers presuppose that you actually believe the Gospel, which nobody does now. His story of a radio talker dismissing the parting of the sea and the virgin birth; the joke of the Jewish grandmother — told the sea was only two inches deep, she says “Glory be to God, the whole Egyptian army drowned in two inches of water” — and its variant, “Were you there?”

9. Replies (“she did not suspect such holy things about herself”) #

• Reply 1: The prophecy of predestination is completed without our choice causing it, but not without our judgment consenting.
• Reply 2: She had express faith of the future Incarnation, but being humble she did not suspect such holy things of herself, so she had to be instructed. “She’s going to be instructed in humility.”
• Reply 3: The spiritual conception of Christ by faith precedes the Annunciation, which is through the preaching of faith, faith being ex auditu. One does not thereby know for certain that he has grace, but he knows the faith he received is true. A student asks what the objection was; his gloss: the objector reasons from the angel’s “full of grace” — one does not know for certain that he has grace, but one who has faith has certitude. “I’m sure that Mary is the mother of God, but I’m not sure that I have grace or that I love God” — Scripture says one does not know whether he is worthy of love or hate.

10. Objections against announcing through an angel (“she ought to be immediately by God announced”) #

• Obj. 1: Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 7: revelation is made immediately by God to the highest angels (seraphim see His goodness, cherubim His disposition); but the Mother of God is above all the angels. “I think that’s a good objection.”
• Obj. 2: If the common order must be kept (divine things revealed to men through angels), then likewise divine things should be brought to woman through man — 1 Cor 14, “let women keep silence in church… let them ask their husbands at home” — especially as Joseph was instructed by an angel. Aside: he phoned a colleague and the wife answered, “Can I speak to your lord and master?” — “Just a minute, he’s doing the dishes”; the husband might have answered, “I come among you as one who serves.”
• Obj. 3: No one can suitably announce what he does not know; the highest angels did not fully know the mystery, since Dionysius (ch. 7) says the question of Isaiah 63, “Who is this who comes up from Edom?”, is put in their person.
• Obj. 4: The greater should be announced by the greater, and this is the greatest of things announced to men; but Gabriel is not a seraph, only of the order of archangels, “which is next to the last” — the Church sings “Gabriel the archangel, we know you to be.” His comment: “I’m convinced of them all. Something’s wrong with this whole thing… how the heck am I going to answer those?”
• Sed contra: Luke 1, “Gabriel the angel was sent by God.”

11. Three reasons for announcing through an angel (“by the angels as a medium, divine things arrive at men”) #

1. That the divine ordering be kept, by which divine things reach men through angels as medium — Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 4: the angels were first taught the divine mystery of Christ’s divinity, and through them the grace of that knowledge passed to us; thus “the most divine Gabriel” taught Zachary, and taught Mary in what way the ineffable God-formation would be. He notes hierarchia as one of the Dionysian words, i.e. divine order. Aside: Fr. Bouray saying he had discovered another attribute of God, dignity.
2. That it suited human reparation through Christ. Bede in a homily: it is an apt beginning of man’s restoration that an angel be sent by God to a virgin consecrated to God, since the beginning of the fall was the serpent sent from the devil to the woman, deceiving her by the spirit of pride. His gloss: the fall began from the devil to Eve, then Eve to the man; so the redemption has a good angel to Mary in place of the devil to Eve, and is completed in the man. A patristic phrase he half-recalls: “a bad angel deceived a foolish virgin,” here a good angel instructs the wife. Student asks whether “the man” is Christ or Joseph; he answers Christ, the new Adam: God became man that man might redeem himself, and since the woman began the fall she should have a role before.
3. That it suited the virginity of the Mother of God. Jerome, sermon on the Assumption: fittingly is the angel sent to the virgin, because virginity is always next of kin to the angels — to live in the flesh without the flesh is not earthly but heavenly life. He connects Christ’s answer to the Sadducees: in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels (Matthew 19 and 22, inferred). Related: John Paul II holding consecrated chastity the most notable sign of consecrated life; and Thomas on Matthew — to ask whether one may divorce already implies a corrupt mind, and “for any reason” is worse still.

• Asides: the lily in paintings of the Annunciation fits this third reason; March 25 is really the feast of the Incarnation, not Christmas; a student describes six weeks of Advent with a Sunday for each announcement — Zachariah, Mary, the Visitation, the birth of John, the revelation to Joseph, and Genealogy Sunday; and his daughter Maria and daughter-in-law Elizabeth sending each other pictures of the Visitation.

12. Replies on the angel (“as regards the status of the present life, she is below the angels”) #

• Reply 1: The Mother of God is above the angels in the dignity to which she was divinely chosen, but in the status of this present life she is below them — even Christ, by reason of his suffering life, was made a little less than the angels (Psalm 8). Christ, being both viator and comprehensor, needed no instruction by angels as to knowledge of divine things; Mary was not yet among those who see God face to face, so she had to be instructed.
• Reply 2: Augustine, sermon on the Assumption: Mary is excepted from the general estimate, since she did not conceive by a man, nor was she under a husband who fathered the child — from her wholly integral flesh she received Christ from the Holy Spirit. So she was not to be instructed by means of the man but by an angel; she was instructed before the conception, Joseph after — “he’s the last to know.” He adds from Thomas’s commentary on Matthew: the more a man is withdrawn from the senses, the more angels can reveal to him in sleep; but the Virgin was instructed awake because belief was harder for her — she was the first and had no sensible evidence, whereas Joseph had the evidence of her pregnancy before him.
• Reply 3: The angels knew the mystery of the Incarnation, but asked, desiring to know its reasons more perfectly from Christ — reasons incomprehensible to every created intellect. Maximus: there is no question that the angels knew the Incarnation was to take place, but hidden from them was the unsearchable manner of the Lord’s conception, and how he remained whole in the womb, whole throughout the universe, whole in the narrow bowels of the Virgin. “The universe could not contain him — he was contained there.”
• Reply 4: Some say Gabriel was of the highest order, on Gregory’s word that the highest angel was thought worthy to announce the highest thing; but that does not make him highest of all the orders, only with respect to angels, for he was of the archangels — the Church names him archangel, and Gregory in the homily on the hundred sheep says archangels are those who announce the highest things. It is credible enough that he was the highest of the archangels. The name fits the office: Gabriel means the fortitude (power) of God, Michael “who is like God,” Raphael “the medicine of God” — El referring to God. By God’s fortitude the Lord of powers and mighty in battle was to be announced; he had come to fight the aerial powers, the demons.

His words #

• custos — guardian; Jerome’s word for Joseph.
• matrimonium — named from the mother, as patrimonium from the father (Merkelbach).
• coniugium — “joined with common yoke”; he prefers to render it simply “marriage” or “spouse.”
• first perfection / second perfection — the form giving the species vs. the operation attaining the end.
• concubitus — “lying together, sleeping together, intercourse”; he doubts the printed “conjugal intercourse.”
• generanda / educanda — the two parts of the end of marriage.
• proles, fides, sacramentum — offspring, no adultery, no divorce: Augustine’s three goods.
• prophecy of predestination — fulfilled without our choice causing it, but not without our judgment consenting.
• ex auditu — faith from hearing, i.e. from the preaching of faith.
• hierarchia — “one of those Dionysian words”; divine order.
• viator / comprehensor — wayfarer and one who sees God; Christ was both.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 29, a. 2 (whether there was a true marriage between Mary and Joseph) — objections, sed contra, body, replies.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 30, prologue and a. 1 (whether the Annunciation was fitting).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 30, a. 2 (whether it was fitting through an angel).
• Quoted within these: Jerome, Against Helvidius and sermon on the Assumption; Matthew 1:19; Augustine, On the Agreement of the Evangelists II, On Nuptials and Concupiscence, On Virginity, sermon on the Assumption; Chrysostom on Matthew; Ambrose on Luke; Eugippius; Luke 1:31; Romans 3:22; Galatians 4; 1 Corinthians 14; Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 4 and 7; Isaiah 63; Psalm 8; Bede, homily; Gregory, homily on the hundred sheep; Maximus.

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology (against Helvidius).
• Thomas Aquinas, commentary on Matthew (on “Sic erat”; on divorce; on revelation in sleep).
• Merkelbach, moral theology.
• Bernard of Clairvaux, sermon on the Annunciation.
• Lumen Gentium 53 and 55 (quoted in the book he is using).
• Paulinus of Nola; letters of Augustine to him.
• Matthew 19 (the Sadducees’ question) (inferred — he gives ch. 19).

His questions #

• Was there a true marriage between Mary and Joseph? — Yes, altogether true as to the first perfection, since both consented to the conjugal bond.
• Why is the sacrament named matrimonium and inheritance patrimonium? — Because the names follow the chief role: children from the mother, inheritance from the father.
• Can a man and woman marry intending from the start to live in continence? — Left open; he knows it can be permitted after marriage with the bishop’s discernment.
• If a couple cannot generate but adopt and educate a child, is that a true marriage? — Yes; the second perfection as to education is there.
• Why did the Blessed Virgin need to be told at all, since she already believed the Incarnation? — Because in her humility she did not suspect such holy things of herself.
• Do we know for certain that we have grace? — No; we know only that the faith we received is true.
• If the Mother of God is above the angels, why was she taught by one? — Because in the status of this life she was below them; even Christ in his passible life was made a little less than the angels.
• Why Gabriel and not a seraph? — Archangels announce the highest things, and his name, the fortitude of God, fits the office of announcing the Lord mighty in battle.
• Did the angels know the Incarnation? — Yes, but not the manner of the conception nor how he remained whole in the womb and whole in the universe.