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| 'Jesus in Limbo,' Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, 1530-1535. |
Holy Saturday—the liminal day after Good Friday and
before Easter Sunday. It’s a day of waiting, of anticipation, joy and sorrow, and
hesitatory excitement as we are torn between re-experiencing the loss of Jesus’
humanity yet possessing the knowledge that He will rise and has risen. Jesus’
body lies wrapped in the sepulchre, and His soul is in the underworld.
The two holiest creatures and the closest confidants of
Jesus occupy their respective stations as ordained by God the Father. Mary the
Mother of Jesus waits with the living on earth, while Joseph appointed Father
of Jesus waits with the ‘dead’ in the limbo of the fathers. Both wait for the
coming of their Son Jesus Christ. The hidden role of Joseph in this mystery is
not often explored and so this will be the focus of our reflection.
Edward Healy Thompson succinctly relates the role Joseph
played between the years of his death sometime before Jesus’ public ministry
started at the age of thirty, until this day, Holy Saturday, when the soul of
the crucified Lord visited Sheol:
The Blessed Trinity appointed Joseph to be their ambassador to the Fathers in Limbo, to announce to them the Incarnation and coming of the Son of God, of which he had been the ocular witness and in which he had taken so large a part. If, then, John the Baptist was the Precursor of Jesus on earth, Joseph was to be His Precursor to the souls detained in Limbo and anxiously looking out for their release. Joseph, returning to himself, said to Jesus, “Now I die happy, hoping that Thou wilt soon come to deliver us.”[1]
The Limbo of the Fathers
Just a recap—the limbus patrum, the Limbo of the
Fathers or the Limbo of the Patriarchs, was the ‘waiting ground’ in the
underworld where the souls of the righteous awaited the redemption of Christ. The
gates of heaven were closed until Christ came and opened them with the Key of
His sacrifice.
Hell is an imprecise word with broader meanings in the
English. In Greek we have hades and Hebrew Sheol—both are general
terms that refer to the entire underworld, including the Limbo of the Fathers
and hell-proper. We recite it in the Creed, Christ “descended into hell”. Almost
always by hell we mean the hell of the damned, but in the Creed it refers to
the Limbo of the Fathers. Aquinas calls it a relative hell, in the sense that
the souls of the saints… before Christ's coming… had rest through being exempt from punishment, but their desire was not set at rest by their attaining their end [i.e. perfect union with God in heaven]. Consequently the state of the saints before Christ's coming may be considered both as regards the rest it afforded, and thus it is called Abraham's bosom, and as regards its lack of rest, and thus it is called the limbo of hell.[2]
The Limbo of the Fathers was thus a quasi-place and state
of natural happiness which lacked the supernatural bliss of beatitude. It was a
place of longing and waiting. Our own experience of Holy Saturday is a simile
of the limbus patrum experience.
At tonight’s Easter Vigil Mass, in reference to the Limbo
of the Fathers we will hear the Exultet and the following stanza:
This is the night
when Christ broke the prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from the underworld.
Hæc nox est,
in qua, destrúctis vínculis mortis,
Christus ab ínferis victor ascéndit
This language is typical. The Abode of the Fathers is frequently
called a prison. A state of imprisonment because they cannot escape to
experience the freedom of eternal life in heaven. They have to wait for their
Liberator and Redeemer to unlock its gates, to break its bars, and to carry
them to the Father’s Bosom Above. In the meantime, waiting and longing, it is a
veritable prison sentence when one considers the freedom shut-off from them
because of Adam’s sin.
Joseph the Patriarch—Prisoner of the Lord
We are all likely aware of the story of Joseph in the Old
Testament. He was the favourite son of Jacob his father. His brothers were envious
and resented him, sold him into slavery, and he wound up in Egypt as the servant
of Potiphar. One day Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce Joseph, he resists her
advances and she falsely accuses him of attempted rape. Joseph is thrown into
prison and there in prison, just as in Jacob’s household and Potiphar’s house,
God’s favour is with him and all revere and respect him as an honest and just
man. Eventually two servants of Pharaoh, a cup bearer and baker, are thrown
into prison. There they have a dream, Joseph interprets it, and it comes to
pass: the baker is hanged and the cup bearer is restored to his office.
“Two whole years” pass (Gen 41:1) and Pharaoh dreams a
dream. No one is able to interpret it. The cup bearer then remembers Joseph and
mentions him to Pharaoh. We read of Joseph’s long-awaited liberation: “Then
Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the
dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in
before Pharaoh.” (Gen 41:14).
The Ancient Joseph as a Type of Jesus
On one level we can see the ancient Joseph as a type of
Jesus. This is the dominant reading of the Early Fathers. It’s not hard to miss
the parallels. Joseph was the beloved son of his father Jacob; Jesus iss the well-beloved
Son of God the Father. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold-off for
twenty silver pieces at the suggestion of Judah; Jesus was betrayed by one of
his Apostles, Judas (Judah in Hebrew), and was sold-off for thirty silver
pieces. Joseph was innocent yet condemned for a crime he never did; Jesus was
innocent yet condemned as a blasphemer. Joseph forgave his brothers and was
filled with mercy; Jesus forgave His executioners and all who took part in His crucifixion.
Our focus is on the Limbo of the Fathers. In this regard
we can see that the patriarch’s time in prison is an allegory of Jesus’ descent
into the underworld. Quodvultdeus (d. ~450 AD.) paves the way for this
interpretation:
Joseph was imprisoned. Our Joseph, that is, Christ, as Isaiah says, “was numbered with the transgressors.” [Is 53:12]. The innocent man is led among the guilty by the wisdom of God, who “went down with him”—as was written— “into the pit, and did not leave him in bonds.” [Wis 10:13-14]. This Joseph of ours, Christ, claims, “I became as a man without help, free among the dead.” [Ps 88:4-5]. What followed had to happen, that is, the fact that Joseph found in the commander of the prison the grace of which he was full and that all the keys and the entire surveillance were given to him. This occurred in order that to the one before whom heaven prostrated in the figure of the sun, the moon and the stars, and the earth in that of its crops, also the subterranean creatures of the prison might submit. And therefore, before our Joseph, that is Christ, “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” [Phil 2:10].[3]
Quodvultdeus is not explicit as to whether “the
subterranean creatures of the prison” are the demons and the damned in hell who
against their will must submit in worship to Christ or are the righteous in the
Limbo of the Fathers who knelt in worship before Christ when he visited them in
their prison. We can take it to refer to both however, since we know that both
are truths taught by Scripture and affirmed by Church teaching.
We read in Genesis that
the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's care all the prisoners who were in the prison (Gen 39:21-22).
The keeper of the prisons of Egypt was ultimately Pharaoh,
the ruler of the land, and likewise the Keeper of the Prison of the Limbo of
the Fathers was ultimately God the Father, in whose sight the slain Lamb of God
found favour. The Father entrusted to the Son all the souls who abided therein,
from Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah, all the prophets and holy ones who died
in God’s mercy. “All the prisoners who were” in this prison were “committed to”
Jesus’ care. On the day Pharaoh brought Joseph out of the prison, he was freed
from thereon. Yet when the Father brought Jesus out of the prison of the underworld,
Jesus exited its regions with a mighty host of souls whom He conducted to the
courts of heaven.
Yet in Pharaoh’s prison there was also an appointed
keeper of the prison—a keeper distinct from Joseph, even though the keeper passed
his own office into Joseph’s hands. So too, God the Father the Supreme Keeper
of the Prison of the Limbo of the Just appointed a keeper distinct from Jesus.
This keeper was St. Joseph—to this Joseph was entrusted the entire cohort of
the souls of the righteous until Christ came. All the holy ones, great and
small, submitted to St. Joseph’s authority, an authority given into his hands.
He instructed them in the mysteries of salvation, pointing to Jesus their
Redeemer. He announced His coming and when He finally came, Joseph, Appointed
Keeper of the Prison, handed over into Jesus’ care all those whom he had been
taking care of and instructing.
Joseph the Patriarch as a Type of St. Joseph
There is also another way we can interpret the ancient
Joseph and his imprisonment, not only as a type of Christ and His descent into
the underworld, but as a type of St. Joseph and his time in the Limbo of the
Fathers. This is corroborated by Tradition, because while seeing Joseph as a
type of Jesus was the dominant motif of the Church Fathers, seeing the first
Joseph as a type of St. Joseph was a dominant interpretation present in various
Doctors of the Church and venerable theologians. Both streams of interpretation
are valid.
This multiple way of reading Scripture should not concern
us. There are multiple layers of meaning to the sacred text, and each within
their sphere neither contradict nor undermine other valid meanings. All meaning
in Scripture is Christocentric—pointing to Christ, but in Christ abides all the
faithful as members of His Body. Mary and Joseph are the preeminent members of
Christ’s Body, and so while all the faithful can read-themselves into the sacred
text, Mary and Joseph are principal referents of Scripture and are especially foreshadowed
in the events of salvation, because God the Word ordained it thus—He wanted to
honour in the written word, they who were vital to bringing about the
incarnation of Himself as Word.
The first Joseph didn’t deserve to go to prison and nor
did St. Joseph deserve to go to the underworld. St. Joseph died in the grace of
the New Covenant and was perfectly united with the Godhead in Christ Jesus more
than any other human being except Mary. He thus outstripped all the saints, all
the martyrs in being a vessel of God’s holiness. We know that the greatest
saints go straight to heaven. Yet St. Joseph did not enjoy this luxury. God arranged
things in such a way that St. Joseph was made to reside in the prison of the
Limbo of the Fathers before he could rest in bliss.
Joseph at his death, dying comforted by the presence of Jesus
and Mary, was thus commissioned on his death bed for a mission—the mission of
bringing the light of Christ to “those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness” in
the limbus patrum. When the Egyptian prisoners saw the patriarch Joseph
enter their abode, they eventually saw a man of wisdom, kindness and holiness;
they were consoled in their imprisonment with the advent of this brotherly man.
All the more, when the multitude of the just, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Moses, David and so on, beheld Joseph’s soul descending into their
prison they were filled with tremendous consolation, a foretaste of the joy of
Christ, a glimpse of the luminous rays of heaven in the presence of he, St.
Joseph, whose whole being was permeated with the light of Christ.
Indeed, with St. Joseph’s coming into the prison of the just
in the underworld, the Scripture applies: “The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them
has light shined” (Is 9:2). This is one reason why St. Joseph in his Litany is
called Light of the Patriarchs. He was the aurora preceding the dawn of
His Son into that darkly abode. He brought them morsels of light to feast upon
as he passed on the Good News, the Gospel of Christ.
How ardent would have been Joseph’s longing for His Son’s
return—to deliver him from the prison of this place! Mary suffered above on
earth, longing to see Her Son risen from the dead. Joseph suffered in some way
too, longing to see his Son again, ‘face to face,’ soul to soul, and to finally
set His people free from their exile in Sheol, and to triumphantly set about
their exodus into heaven as He rose.
We read that “Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they
brought him hastily out of the dungeon” (Gen 41:14). This Pharaoh seems to be a
decent man unlike the one in Moses’ time, and the spiritual tradition has not
feared to see in this Pharaoh a type of Jesus the Divine King, since the old
Joseph was appointed as his second-in-command, just as Jesus made Joseph viceregent
of the Kingdom of God.
When we look at the above verse in a Christic and
Josephine light, we can read it as follows, “Jesus sent and called Joseph, and
they brought him hastily out of the dungeon.” We see in this an allusion to
Jesus’ summoning of Joseph to come forth and leave the Limbo of the Fathers,
announcing that his deliverance has finally come. “They brought him hastily out
of the dungeon”—because we can believe that Joseph, foremost among that mighty
host, was brought out hastily, first among the flock, first to taste beatitude
among men, once Christ had at last opened heaven to His People that longed for
His visitation beneath.
The Easter Joy of Joseph
What a glorious mystery to consider—the Easter joy of
Joseph, ransomed from the captivity of the dead and carried into heaven, by whom...? “They brought him”—angels we might say, and directed by the Lord of Lords.
Let us share in the Easter joy of Joseph. A joy in seeing
the Son of God victorious, accomplishing His task. A joy that knows that we too
have been delivered from the prison sentence of an eternal limbo of sorts, or worse,
even hell, and have also been delivered from the prison of our own sinfulness
by the power of He who has come to set us free. This Mighty King, Christ the
Risen Lord summons us to come to Him and taste beatitude. “Taste and see that
the Lord is good.” It’s not yet Easter yet as I write this, but that word
starting with “A” is very appropriate here.
[1]
The Life and Glories of Saint Joseph, originally published in 1888 by
Burns & Oates, Ltd. (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2013), Ch. XLV., 384.
[2]
Summa Theologica, Supp. Q.69., 4, co.
[3]
SC 101:238-40 as found in Old Testament II: Genesis 12-50, Ancient
Christian Commentary on Scripture, Mark Sheridan and Thomas C. Oden, eds. (Downers
Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2002), p.257.
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