Little definite information has come down to us about the chosen soul who was to be, in God's providence, the earthly guardian of Our Lady and the Foster—father of the Incarnate Word. All that is reliably known of this "Just man" named Joseph is contained in the first 2 chapters of the Gospels of St. Matthew and Luke. In the apocryphal writings, which furnish us with many interesting details, it is next to impossible to separate those reports which may be based on true historical occurrences from those which are the probably no older than 14, With St. Thomas Aquinas we may believer that at the time of Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel, young Mary and Joseph were merely affianced.