On Joseph 1–29

The life of the saints is the rule of living for everyone else, and therefore we receive the sequence of the Scriptures set out more fully, so that, as we come to know Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the other just men by reading, we may follow with shining footsteps a kind of path of innocence opened for us by their virtue. Since I have often treated of them, today the story of holy Joseph presents itself. Though there were very many kinds of virtue in him, the virtue of chastity shone out in him especially. It is right, then, that, having learned in Abraham the tireless devotion of faith, in Isaac the purity of a sincere mind, in Jacob a singular patience of spirit and in labors, you should turn your mind from that general class of virtues to the particular kinds of discipline. For though the former are more widespread, the latter are more clearly defined, and they penetrate the mind the more easily the more they are circumscribed and determined.

Let holy Joseph, then, be set before us as a mirror of chastity. For in his character and in his actions modesty shines, and a certain brightness of grace, the companion of chastity, gleams. Hence he was also loved by his parents more than the other sons. But this was the occasion of envy, which should not be passed over in silence.

From here, then, the plot of the whole story proceeded, and at the same time we may learn that the perfect man is not moved by the injury of a grievance to avenge it, nor repays evil for evil. Hence David too says: 'If I have repaid those who returned evil to me.' What would there be for which Joseph deserved to be preferred to the others, if he had either injured those who injured him or loved those who loved him? For most people do this. But that is wonderful, if you love your enemy, as the Savior teaches. Rightly, then, is he to be admired who did this before the gospel: when injured he spared, when attacked he forgave, when sold he did not return the injury but repaid insult with kindness — what after the gospel we have all learned and cannot keep.

Let us learn, then, of the envy suffered even by saints, so that we may imitate their patience, and recognize that they were not of a superior nature but of superior observance, and that they did not not know vices but corrected them. But if envy scorched even the saints, how much more must we take care lest it inflame sinners?

We are instructed, then, what the affection of parents ought to be for the sake of their children. To love one's children is sweet, and to love them more intensely is very sweet; but often fatherly love itself, unless it keeps moderation, harms children, if either excessive indulgence makes the loved one slack, or the preference of one turns the others away from brotherly affection. More is gained for a son for whom the love of his brothers is gained. This is the more splendid generosity of fathers, this the richer inheritance of sons. Let equal favor join the children whom equal nature has joined. Piety knows no gain of money in which there is a loss of piety. Why do you wonder if quarrels arise between brothers over a farm or a house, when envy blazed up among the sons of holy Jacob over a tunic?

What then? Is Jacob to be blamed because he preferred one to the others? But neither can we take from parents the freedom to love more those whom they believe deserve more, nor should we cut off in children the eagerness to please more. Indeed Jacob loved more the one in whom he foresaw greater marks of virtue, so that it seems not so much that a father preferred a son as that a prophet preferred a mystery; and rightly he made him a many-colored tunic, to signify that he was to be preferred to his brothers by the garment of various virtues.

Indeed divine grace shone out in him while still a boy, since he dreamed that, when he had bound sheaves with his brothers, as it seemed to him in the vision, his sheaf rose and stood upright, while his brothers' sheaves turned and bowed down to his sheaf. In this the future resurrection of the Lord Jesus was surely revealed. When the eleven disciples saw him in Jerusalem, they worshiped him, and all the saints, when they rise again, will worship him, bringing the fruits of good works, as it is written: 'But coming they will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves.' Hence his brothers, though from envy they disparaged the trustworthiness of the dream, nevertheless expressed its interpretation in their own words and answered him: 'Shall you indeed reign over us, or shall you indeed have dominion over us?' For that vision signified the king to come, whom all the flesh of the human race would worship on bended knee.

He saw another dream and told it to his father and brothers: that the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. Hence his father rebuked him, saying: 'What then is this vision that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers come and bow down to you upon the earth?' Who is he whom parents and brothers worshiped upon the earth but Christ Jesus, when Joseph and his mother with the disciples worshiped him, confessing true God in that body, of whom alone it is said: 'Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all stars and light'? And what does the father's rebuke signify but the hardness of the people of Israel, from whom is Christ according to the flesh, whom even today they do not believe to be God nor will worship as Lord, because they know he was born from among them? So they hear his answers and do not understand; they read that sun and moon praise him, but they will not believe it was said of Christ. So Jacob is mistaken in a type not his own, but he is not mistaken in his own love. Fatherly love does not go astray in him; rather, the disposition of a people that would go astray is expressed.

So it was not that the patriarch did not believe so great a dream; he prophesied both things together by a twofold oracle, representing both the person of the just and that of the people: that the Son of God would come to earth, who would be both loved by the just and denied by the faithless. He saw, then, the mysteries of the future incarnation, who sent his son to his brothers to see whether the sheep were well. What sheep was God already then seeking in that patriarch's concern but those of whom the Lord Jesus himself said in the gospel: 'I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'? 'And he sent him,' it says, 'to Shechem,' which by interpretation means 'shoulder' or 'back,' that is, to those who would not turn to the Lord but, fleeing from his face, would turn their backs — which is properly the mark of a sinner; for Cain went out from the face of God, and the prophet says: 'You will make them turn their back.' But the just man does not turn away from the Lord but goes to meet him, saying: 'My eyes are ever toward the Lord.' And Isaiah, when the Lord said: 'Whom shall I send?', offered himself of his own accord, saying: 'Here am I.' And Simeon waited to see Christ the Lord, and after he saw him, since he had seen the forgiver of sins and the redeemer of the whole world, as though relieved of sin he asked to be released from the use of this flesh, saying: 'Now dismiss your servant, Lord, for my eyes have seen your salvation.' And Zacchaeus first found the prerogative of his commendation in climbing a tree to see Christ. So Joseph was sent by his father to his brothers — rather, by that Father who did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all, by that Father of whom it is written: 'God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.'

'And Joseph wandered,' it says, because he could not find his brothers. Not without reason did he wander, who was seeking the wanderers; for the Lord knows those who are his. Indeed Jesus too, tired from the journey, sat by the well. He was weary, who did not find the people of God he was seeking; for it had gone out from the face of the Lord. For whoever follows guilt goes out from Christ. The sinner goes out; the just man goes in. Indeed Adam, a sinner, hid himself; but the just man says: 'Let my reasoning enter into your sight.'

Joseph found his brothers in Dothan, which means 'failing.' For where is he who deserts God, if not in failing? Nor is it surprising that those failed who did not hear him saying: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.' So Joseph came to Dothan, and they saw him coming from afar, before he drew near to them, and they raged, to kill him. Rightly were they far away who were in failing, and therefore they raged, because Christ had not drawn near to them. For if the type of Christ had drawn near to them, they would surely have loved their brother; but those who were plotting fratricide could not be near. 'Behold,' it says, 'that dreamer is coming. Now come, let us kill him.' Did not those who were plotting the sacrilege of fratricide say these words, as Solomon says of them:

'Let us take away the just man, for he is useless to us'? And they added in Genesis: 'And we shall see what his dreams will be.' This was written of Joseph and fulfilled in Christ, when the Jews said at his passion: 'If he is the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he wants him.' Were these brothers so impious as to kill their brother? And whence the merits of such great patriarchs, that the law should designate the tribes of the whole people by their names? How do names of piety and marks of crime agree? So these too labored under the type of the people, not through a fault of their own soul. Hence all the envy, hence the plotting of fratricide: envy by way of figure, piety by way of affection.

Indeed Reuben and Judah, keeping the devoted rights of brotherhood, wished to free him from their hands; and rightly Judah is preferred in his father's blessing, when it is said to him: 'The sons of your father shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion's whelp, and he is the expectation of the nations.' This surely fits Christ alone, for whom it was reserved to be worshiped by his brothers and awaited by the nations, and to wash his robe in wine by the passion of his own body, because he stained his flesh with no blemish of sin. Asher too surely did not believe that this fitted himself: 'Asher, his bread is rich, and he is with princes.' And what of Joseph himself, to whom it was said: 'My son Joseph is to be increased, my son is to be increased, my son envied, my youngest son, return to me' — against whom they took counsel and cursed, in whom the blessing prevailed above the blessings of the abiding mountains and the desires of the everlasting hills — whom did he understand to be signified in himself, except him who, surpassing the merits of all and above the desires of all the saints, holds the summit of immeasurable power, whom no one equals even in wish? The envy of the patriarchs, then, is compensated by grace: they are both excused from guilt and consecrated by the gift of revelation. For it is not so blameworthy to have spoken what belongs to the people as it is blessed to have seen what belongs to Christ. They took on the role of a sinful people, to receive the grace of the Lord the Redeemer. Certainly grace abolished the guilt; guilt did not lessen the grace.

And so that we may recognize that all this is a mystery concerning the people and the Lord Jesus, 'Come,' he says, 'let us sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites.' What interpretation does the name Joseph have, except that it signifies divine grace and the image of the most high God? Who, then, is sold but he who, though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave? For we would not have bought him unless his own had sold him. Badly they sold, worse they bought. They sold to traders; the good fragrance was bought from traitors. For Judah sold, the Ishmaelites bought, who by Latin interpretation are signified as 'those hating their God.' Therefore in one place we find Joseph bought for twenty gold pieces, in another for twenty-five, in another for thirty, because Christ is not worth the same price to all — to some less, to others more. The faith of the buyer is the increase of the goods. To the more devout God is more precious; to the sinner the Redeemer is more precious. He is worth more to one who has more grace; but he is also worth more to one to whom much has been forgiven, because the one to whom more has been forgiven loves more, as the Lord himself declared in the gospel about that woman who poured ointment on his feet, washed them with tears, wiped them with her hair, and dried them with kisses, of whom he said to Simon: 'Therefore I tell you, her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much. But he to whom less is forgiven loves less.' Sometimes the differences of price express not only quantity but also number, as you have in the case of the ointment which the Lord said was poured out for his burial, (as) it is written, Judas saying: 'This could have been sold for three hundred denarii,' in which number not quantity but the signification of the cross seems to be expressed. So here too the difference of twenty or thirty gold or silver pieces gives a sign of a double or triple perfection. For twenty-five gold pieces of the jubilee, which is the number of remission, signify a most precious portion. Here too, so that you may notice the figure of the Lord's passion, the patriarch Judah says: 'Let us hand Joseph over to the Ishmaelites, but let our hands not be laid upon him.' And above he had said well: 'But do not lay hands on him,' which the Jews said at the Lord's passion: 'It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,' so that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, signifying by what death he was to die.

Already then, therefore, the sign of the future cross was figured, and also that he was stripped of his tunic, that is, of the flesh which he took on, stripped of the comely variety of the virtues. So his tunic, that is, the flesh, not the Godhead, was bloodied, and they could take from him the garment of flesh, not the immortality of life. This tunic the beasts of the Jews bloodied, those of whom he says:

'Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves.' As for the cistern being dry, what wonder if the cistern of the Jews has no water, who have forsaken the fountain of living water and made for themselves broken cisterns? And so that you may know that this is truly a mystery, the Lord himself says of himself: 'They put me in the lower pit, in darkness and in the shadow of death.'

Those, then, buy Christ who bring good fragrances, incense, with which they burn the altars of a devout mind — hence David too says in Greek: 'Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight' — and resin, too, by which broken marbles are joined. There is a spiritual resin which can make firm the fracture of your soul, join what is torn apart, and bind what is loosened. For this spiritual resin strengthens and puts together certain shattered members of the soul, so that they are joined without a flaw. Indeed Jeremiah seeks this, to heal Babylon if he can, saying: 'Take resin for her corruption, if perhaps she may be healed. We cared for Babylon, and she was not healed.' The synagogue was not healed, because this resin passed over to the church. Therefore traders came from Gilead, that is, from the possession or dwelling of testimony, bringing their goods to the church, so that this resin might cure the sins of the nations, of whom it is said: 'Be strong, you slack hands and loosened knees.' Sincere faith is resin. Peter applied it when he said to the lame man: 'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise and walk.' And rightly he rose and walked. He had it when he said to the paralytic: 'Aeneas, the Lord Jesus heals you: rise and make your bed.' And he rose and made his bed. He had it when he said to the dead woman: 'Rise in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.' And the dead woman rose. By the mixing of this resin those stones are bonded together from which God is able to raise up children to Abraham. By the medicine of this resin the lame is raised, the paralytic restored, the dead woman brought back to life.

That they sprinkled his tunic with a kid's blood seems to signify that, attacking him with false testimonies, they brought into odium of sin him who forgives the sins of all. For us he is a lamb, for them a kid. For us the Lamb of God was slain, for whom he took away the sins of the world; for them a kid, whose errors he heaped up and whose offenses he accumulated. Therefore he says: 'Fill up the measure of your fathers.' And rightly Jacob, deploring the losses of his posterity, wept as a father for a lost son, mourned as a prophet the destruction of the Jews. Indeed he also tore his garment, which we read was done at the passion of the Lord Jesus by the high priest, in whom there was not a private person but the function of a public office. And the veil of the temple was torn, so that by such signs it might be shown that the mysteries were profaned, the people stripped of saving garments, and the kingdom divided, to be destroyed, because every kingdom divided will easily be destroyed. And truly divided, when what was Christ's began now to be the devil's. For those could not remain undivided who separated the Son from the Father.

Joseph, then, was sold, taken to Egypt, and bought by the chief of the cooks. Not an idle character, one who would cook raw food so that souls might feast on the sweetness of faith; for no food is sweeter than knowledge and teaching. Before, there was in Egypt a raw faithlessness, which no ardor for divine knowledge and no desire for true knowledge had softened, and which the fiery words of the Lord had not cooked. Joseph was sold in Egypt because Christ was to come to those to whom it was said: 'By your sins you were sold,' and therefore he redeemed with his own blood those whom their own sins had sold. But Christ, sold by taking on our condition, not by guilt, is not held by the price of sin, because he himself did no sin. By the price, then, he incurred our debt, not his own; he took away the bond, removed the moneylender, freed the debtor. One paid what was owed by all. We were not allowed to go out of slavery. He took this on for us, to drive back the slavery of the world, restore the freedom of paradise, and bestow new grace by the honor of fellowship with him. So much for the mystery.

But as for the moral sense, since the Lord our God wills all to be saved, he gave through Joseph comfort and instruction to those who are in slavery, so that they might learn that even in the lowest condition character can be superior, and that no state is without virtue if each one's soul knows itself: that the flesh is subject to slavery, not the mind, and that many slaves are freer than their masters if, though placed in slavery, they think they must abstain from slavish works. Every sin is slavish; innocence is free. Hence the Lord too says: 'Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.' For how is not every greedy man a slave, who auctions himself for a petty profit of money? He who has amassed what he will not use fears everything, lest he lose what he has amassed; he will keep it at greater risk the more he has gained. How is he not a beggar to whom what he possesses is small? For even if he seems rich to me, to himself he is needy, and he does not comfort his desires with testimonies, since he does not know how to trust what he wants. And how is he too not a slave who is subject to lust? First he burns with his own fires and is consumed by the torches of his own breast. To these the prophet rightly says: 'Walk in the light of your fire and in the flame you have kindled.' He takes on all fears; he lies in wait for the sleep of individuals, so that to possess one by desire he becomes the slave of all. He serves, then, and a wretched slavery indeed, who makes masters for himself, who wishes to have those he must fear; for nothing is so proper to slavery as always to fear. But he is always free in any condition of servitude who is not captured by love, not held by the chains of avarice, not bound by fear of crime, who looks on the present untroubled and whom the future does not terrify. Does not the one seem to you to rule in slavery, the other to serve in freedom? Joseph served, Pharaoh reigned: the slavery of the one was happier than the kingdom of the other. Indeed all Egypt would have collapsed in famine, had he not subjected his kingdom to the counsel of a slave.

Slaves by origin, then, have something to glory in: Joseph too was a slave. Those who have come from freedom into slavery by some necessity have something to console them. They have something to imitate, so that they may learn that they can change their condition but not their character, that there is freedom even among house-born slaves and constancy in slavery. Masters too have something to hope for from good slaves. Abraham found a wife for his son through a house-born slave. 'The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house because of Joseph, and the blessing of the Lord was on all his property, in the house and in the fields.' 'And he turned over,' it says, 'all that he had into Joseph's hands.' We notice that slaves governed what their masters could not govern.

But why should I describe the arrangements of the slave in a private house, when he ruled an empire? Yet it is more that he first ruled himself; and though he was handsome in appearance and very beautiful in face, he did not turn the beauty of his face to the injury of another but kept it for his own grace, thinking himself more beautiful if he were proved more comely not by loss of chastity but by the cultivation of modesty: that that is true beauty which does not capture others' eyes nor wound frail minds, but wins the judgment of all, harmful to none, praiseworthy for himself. If some woman looked at him with wanton eyes, the crime belongs only to her who saw wrongly, not to him who did not wish to be wrongly seen; nor is there guilt in being seen. It was not in the slave's power not to be seen; the husband ought to have guarded his wife's eyes. If he feared nothing regarding his wife, Joseph thought it a testimony to her chastity, not an indulgence of carelessness. Yet let men too learn to beware of the eyes of women; even those who do not wish to be loved are loved. Indeed Joseph was loved, who despised the one who loved him. And Scripture excused him well, saying: 'His master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph,' that is, he did not show himself off nor capture her unawares; she cast her nets and was caught in her own snare, she spread her nooses and stuck in her own bonds.

And she said to him: 'Sleep with me.' The first darts of the adulteress are her eyes, the second her words; but he who is not captured by the eyes can resist a word. Defense is at hand where the affection is still free. Therefore it is written that he refused. First, then, he overcame by the engagement of the mind, repelling her attack as with the shield of the soul; then he brandished his speech like a spear, so that she might call herself back. 'And he said to his master's wife.' Rightly she is called his master's wife, not his mistress, who could not extort what she wanted to obtain. For how was she mistress, who had no effective power of command, who did not keep a mistress's discipline, who offered slaves incitements to lust? He was master, who did not receive the torches of a lover, did not feel the bonds of a seductress, whom no fear of death terrified, who preferred to die free of crime rather than choose a partnership in criminal power. He was free, who thought it base not to return kindness for kindness. Indeed he does not excuse himself as fearful nor beware as one timid of danger, but as one indebted to his master's kindness and to his own innocence he flees the crime of ingratitude and, as a just man, shudders at the stain of sin and the contagion of guilt. The third dart the adulteress brandished was persistence in pleading. 'But Joseph did not listen to her.' You have what to beware of after the first words. Lust is not only slippery but also shameless, importunate, wanton, and the adulteress has nothing to respect. She who did not grieve at the first losses of modesty lies in wait to capture.

Then, when he went in for the sake of his duty and the task entrusted to him, with witnesses and household removed, she seized him, saying: 'Sleep with me.' Joseph is excused by the testimony of Scripture, because he could not abandon the service entrusted to him by his master. For it was not enough that he went into the inner parts of the house secure about himself, as one who could not be caught; the just man ought to have taken care not to give the frenzied woman an opportunity, lest she perish by his sin. But one who saw that his master's wife was against him ought also to have guarded against offending his master by neglecting his duty. At the same time he still thought hers a boldness of words, not of seizing.

He is excused for going in; he is praised for slipping away, and he did not value the garments of the body more than the chastity of the soul. He left behind as not his own what the adulteress held in her hands, and judged as another's what could be grasped by the touch of a shameless woman. A great man indeed, who when sold knew nothing of a slave's character, when loved did not love in return, when asked did not consent, when seized fled; who, when accosted by his master's wife, could be held by his garment but could not be captured in soul; and he judged it a contagion to endure even her words for long, if he stayed longer, lest the incitements of lust pass through the adulteress's hands. So he put off his garment, shook off the crime, and, leaving behind the spoils by which he was held, fled stripped indeed but not naked, because he was better covered by the garment of modesty; for no one is naked except one whom guilt has stripped. Indeed in the earlier passages we have that Adam, after he deserted the commandments of God by transgression and contracted the debt of grave sin, was naked. Hence he too says: 'I heard your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself.' For he understood that he was naked, who had lost the insignia of divine protection. And therefore he hid, because he did not have the garment of faith, which surely he put off by transgressing. You see a great thing: the one was naked who did not lose his tunic; this one was not naked who put off the garments which he left in the adulteress's hands. The same Scripture declared the one naked and denied it of the other. And therefore this man stripped himself rather than became naked, keeping the incorrupt garments of the virtues, stripping off the old man with his deeds to put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge according to the image of the creator; but the other remained naked, who could not clothe himself again, stripped of the unique spoil of virtue. Hence he received a tunic of skin, because a sinner could not have a spiritual one. So Joseph left his garments and laid bare the shamelessness of the adulteress, which afterward could not be hidden.

Then she went out of doors and herself published the attempts of her adultery, raising her voice, because the Hebrew had fled, leaving his garments. So she herself betrayed what she ought to have concealed, so as to injure an innocent man by a fabricated crime. But the just man did not know how to accuse, and therefore the shameless woman did this with impunity. I would say that she was truly the one stripped, even while she kept another's garments, she who had lost all the coverings of chastity; and that he was well enough adorned, well enough defended, whose voice was not heard but whose innocence spoke. So later Susanna, while she was silent at the trial, spoke better by an oracle, and therefore deserved the prophet's defense, she who did not seek the help of her own voice. I would call him happier, then, when he was sent to prison, because he was undergoing martyrdom for chastity. For modesty is a good gift, but of less merit when it involves no danger; but where it is defended even at the risk of one's life, there it is crowned more fully. With the case unheard and the truth unexamined, Joseph is sent to prison as though guilty of the crime; but the Lord did not desert him even in prison. Let the innocent not be troubled when they are attacked with false charges, when justice is crushed and they are thrust into prison.

God visits his own even in prison, and therefore there is more help where there is more danger. But what wonder if Christ visits those placed in prison, who said that he himself was shut up in prison in his own, as you have it written: 'I was in prison, and you did not come to me'? Where does the divine mercy not penetrate? Joseph found such grace that he who had been shut up in prison himself rather kept the bars of the prison: the keeper of the keys gave up his office to him and entrusted all the prisoners to his authority. So not only did Joseph not feel the prison, but he even relieved others of the hardship of prison.

The authors of this injury, then, were a woman and eunuchs. But the woman is of the Egyptian women, who are accustomed to mix wanton talk with men, to provoke the modest, to pursue those who flee, to press hard on the bashful. Since she could not defend her own vices, she accused the innocent, adding treachery to treachery, holding what was another's, herself condemning others, setting no limit to her fury. For what was the cause of her cruelty but that she saw her desires opposed and her longings cheated by refused consent? Behold why the prison is opened to receive the innocent, why chains are loosed from the guilty to be put on the faithful, why the adulterers of truth are let go so that he may be shut up who refused the adultery of faith.

And what shall I say of those eunuchs? They ought to be an example to other eunuchs, because their state is fragile and slight, and all their hope lies in the king's will; a slight offense is the greatest danger to them, and their prosperity a mean service. One boasted that he was in charge of the wine, the other of the bakers. Both gave offense and were sent to prison, and were entrusted to holy Joseph by the keeper of the prison himself; and when they had been there many days, they saw a dream. And when Joseph visited them again, he found them sad and troubled in mind, because they were troubled by a dream for which they found no interpreter. 'Is not the interpretation of a dream through God?' he said. 'Tell it to me, then.' And the one in charge of the wine told his dream: 'There was a vine before me, and on the vine three roots, and it was flowering, putting forth shoots, ripe clusters of grapes, and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand. And I took it and pressed it into the cup and gave the cup into Pharaoh's hands.' And Joseph said to him: 'The three roots are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will remember your office and will restore you to your former office, and you will give the cup into Pharaoh's hands. But remember me yourself when it is well with you, and show me mercy, and remember me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this prison; for I was stolen by theft from the land of the Hebrews, and here I have done nothing evil, but they cast me into the pit of this prison.'