One guide to administering the sacraments Domínguez saw in the Santa Cruz sacristy would have been in use in these years. The collection of Latin scripts, first published in Mexico City in 1674 by Agustín de Vetancurt, wasn’t superceded until 1748. The Franciscan editor was born in Puebla, worked with Nahuatl speakers, then wrote histories.
The first page of his Manual de Administratrar los Santos Sacramentos featured a woodcut of Santo Joseph with a dedication to him as guardian.
Joseph is mentioned as the husband of Mary in the Gospel of Matthew, which was the book that inspired Francis of Assisi to exchange earthly goods for poverty. Sometime around the year 145, the Gospel of James appeared. It described Joseph’s selection by the temple as the guardian of the adolescent Mary, in a tale reminiscent of Cinderella. All unmarried men of the House of David were ordered to bring their rods to the temple, where a sign from the Lord would identify the chosen man. It read:
"Joseph took his rod last; and, behold, a dove came out of the rod, and flew upon Joseph's head."
The book by Joseph’s son circulated in Greek manuscripts, but apparently not in Latin. In the early 600s the Gospel of Saint Matthew appeared in Latin, supposedly in a translation by Jerome. It elaborated on James.
"But as soon as he stretched forth his hand, and laid hold of his rod, immediately from the top of it came forth a dove whiter than snow, beautiful exceedingly, which, after long flying about the roofs of the temple, at length flew towards the heavens."
This gospel circulated widely. Brandon Hawke noted it moved into Anglo-Saxon tradition from the Carolingians in France. In 1260, an Italian Dominican, Jacobus de Voragine, included Saint Matthew’s story of Joseph in his Legenda Aurea. More than a thousand copies survive in manuscript. William Caxton published the Golden Legend in English in 1483. Alexander Wilkinson found a Castilian Flos Sanctorum published in the 1470s, a Catalan one from Barcelona in 1495, and Le Leyendo de los Santos from Burgos in 1499.
Voragine both simplified Matthew’s version, and embellished it:
"then Joseph by the commandment of the bishop brought forth his rod, and anon it flowered, and a dove descended from heaven thereupon."
The Council of Trent discouraged the interest in the legends of saints to promote factual biographies. Voragine’s text was republished in revisions by Alonso de Villegas in 1578 and by the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra in 1599.
However, it’s the earlier image the Spanish shared with Caxton of the flowering rod that greeted the friars in Santa Cruz each time they opened the manual to read the baptismal language.
Notes: This James, better known as James the Just, was not the same disciple as James the Great, better known as Santiago. James the Just described Joseph as an elderly widow, which would have made himself the step-brother of Jesus.
Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio. Manuscript report, 1776, translated and annotated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez, The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956.
Hawk, Brandon W. "Preaching the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew in Anglo-Saxon England," York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, 2015.
James. Gospel, translated by Alexander Walker in Roberts.
Matthew. Gospel, translation by Alexander Walker in Roberts.
Roberts, Alexander, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 8, 1886; revised and edited by Kevin Knight.
Vetancurt, Agustín de. Manual de Administratrar los Santos Sacramentos, first published 1674; woodcut from 1729 edition.
Voragine, Jacobus de. Legenda Aurea, translated by William Caxton, 1483; edited by F. S. Ellis, 1900.
Wikipedia. Primary source for history of the apocryphal gospels.
Wilkinson, Alexander S. Iberian Books, 2010.
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