Jesus Was Adopted. Was Saint Joseph Adopted Too?

The Synoptic Gospels provide two separate genealogies of Jesus, and Saint Joseph, in Luke and Matthew.

These genealogies tell of Saint Joseph as having two fathers and two grandfathers. Having two different grandfathers is normal, but two fathers?

Here’s a hint. Saint Joseph wasn’t the only one to have two fathers. Jesus did, too.

This is the thought proposed by Saint Augustine in his extensive sermon on “the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord.”

“For Matthew, who is understood to make mention of that father of whom Joseph was born, enumerates the generations thus: This one begot the other, so as to come to what he says at the end, Jacob begot Joseph. But Luke — because he cannot properly be said to be begotten who is made a child either by adoption, or who is born in the succession of the deceased, of her who was his wife — did not say, Heli begot Joseph, or Joseph whom Heli begot, but Who was the son of Heli, whether by adoption, or as being born of the next of kin in the succession of one deceased.”

According to Saint Augustine, Saint Joseph’s biological father was Jacob – but his adoptive father was Eli. His heart was so receptive to adopting Jesus because he himself was adopted!

Saint Augustine builds upon this theme throughout his sermon, highlighting that we are all adopted children of God.

“Yet the Apostle Paul does continually use this very word adoption, and that to express a great mystery. For though Scripture testifies that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, it says, that the brethren and coheirs whom He has vouchsafed to have, are made so by a kind of adoption through Divine grace. When, says he, the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And in another place: We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. And again, when he was speaking of the Jews, I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh; who are Israelites, to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the testaments, and the giving of the law; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Where he shows, that the word adoption, or at least the thing which it signifies, was of ancient use among the Jews, just as was the Testament and the giving of the Law, which he mentions together with it.”

What beautiful words that tell us a lot about the Holy Family and adoption!