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The Church Fathers · c. 400–500
The History of Joseph the Carpenter
Anonymous
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What it is
Jesus tells the apostles on the Mount of Olives how his foster father died at a hundred and eleven, afraid at the last, with Mary holding his feet and Jesus his hands, and Death waiting at the door until permitted to enter.
Why it lasted
The origin of the cult of Joseph and of his title as patron of a good death, which is why he appears at so many deathbeds in medieval and baroque art. The deathbed scene is one of the tenderest things in apocryphal literature.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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