By Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP
Was St Joseph a carpenter? A carpenter is a worker who builds or repairs wooden objects and structures. According to the Greek Gospels St Joseph was a tekton indeed, as attested by St Matthew 13:55, and St Mark 6:3. The word tekton means a builder in general and a carpenter in particular. Little over a century after Our Lord, around 155-160, St Justin Martyr states in his Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 88, “When Jesus came to the Jordan, He was considered to be the son of Joseph the carpenter; and He appeared without comeliness, as the Scriptures declared; and He was deemed a carpenter (for He was in the habit of working as a carpenter when among men, making ploughs and yokes; by which He taught the symbols of righteousness and an active life).” Tradition has accepted this interpretation, which is followed in the English Bible.
In French the word carpenter (charpentier) excludes joinery. It restricts the woodwork to the wooden structure supporting the roof of a house. A carpenter in this sense is the man who assembles wooden beams and timber frame on the top of the walls to support the roof of the house. This fits very well with the main function of St Joseph as the putative Father of Jesus. The only true father of Jesus is God the Creator, whom Genesis describes as “roofing” the earth with a solid dome called the firmament or vault. Thus, since Jesus as God is the Son of the divine Father who roofed the earth, as man Jesus is the foster-son of a roof-builder. The word firmament in Genesis reads stereóma, meaning a solid body, a support, strength, firmness. In the New Testament, the same word stereóma expresses the moral quality of steadfastness: “in spirit I am with you; rejoicing, and beholding […] the steadfastness of your faith which is in Christ” (Col 2:5).
The role of Saint Joseph as head of the Holy Family surely implied moral strength. St Joseph is therefore a carpenter in a spiritual sense as well, securing and joining together the virtues which build the moral edifice of the soul of the just man. Just like the young Jesus would have learned from St Joseph his trade as an apprentice carpenter, from St Joseph as well Jesus would have learned and developed human virtues as St Luke affirms: “And so Jesus advanced in wisdom with the years” (2:52).
The professional handling of wood beams further points to the core mission of the Lord Jesus. He came to die on the Cross for the salvation of mankind. But what is a cross, essentially, but two wood beams assembled? No doubt, when Our Lord would have first seen the cross prepared for Him in the courtyard of Pontius Pilate, after his scourging, He would have accurately reckoned the weight and solidity of these two pieces of wood. For at least two decades in Nazareth, as the apprentice of St Joseph, He would have carried, adjusted, and assembled similar pieces of wood. With a professional eye then, Jesus the foster-son of the carpenter St Joseph, would have walked towards the wooden beams and would have thought, more ardently even than his apostle St Andrew did when led to the place of martyrdom, “O good Cross, so long desired and now set up for my longing soul, I confident and rejoicing come to you; exultingly…”
Since the cross is the instrument of our redemption, so the cross is to the salvation of mankind what roof beams are to a household: without them there is no shelter, no home, no safety, no peace. The cross is the new firmament set by the Redeemer upon our vulnerable heads, to protect us from the assaults of evil. God the Eternal Father had sent His beloved Son Jesus Christ to perform this supernatural carpentry work: that is, the salvation of the world through the Cross. Similarly, St Joseph the carpenter had trained his adopted son Jesus to handle wood beams. As Man, Jesus was most adequately prepared for handling the Cross. But unlike Isaac carrying the wood of his sacrifice unaware of its purpose, while only his father Abraham knew it; on the contrary Jesus knew why He was training as a carpenter, while St Joseph didn’t know that his foster-son would die on a cross.
May St Joseph teach us to perform every work as a supernatural sharing in the Redemption of the world wrought by his foster-son, his God and ours, the Saviour Jesus.
Article first published in Dowry No53, Spring 2022