Saint Joseph spouse Virgin Mary
Church Fathers
According to the bishop of Salamis, Epiphanius, in his work The Panarion (AD 374–375) Joseph became the father of James and his three brothers (Joses, Simeon, Judah) and two sisters (a Salome and a Mary or a Salome and an Anna) with James being the eldest sibling. James and his siblings were not children of Mary but were Joseph's children from a previous marriage. After Joseph's first wife died, many years later when he was eighty, "he took Mary (mother of Jesus)".Eusebius of Caesarea relates in his Church History (Book III, ch. 11) that "Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph and an uncle of Jesus." Epiphanius adds that Joseph and Cleopas were brothers, sons of "Jacob, surnamed Panther."Origen quotes the Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity Celsus (from his work On the True Doctrine, c. 178 AD) as controversially asserting that Joseph left Mary upon learning of her pregnancy: "...when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera."  Origen, however, argues that Celsus's claim was a fabricated story.
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