Joseph

a noble instance of which we find in the history of Joseph, who governed Egypt under the auspices of Pharaoh.

Thus Joseph is said to have sworn by the life of Pharaoh, according to the received custom of the Egyptians.

The stratagem, which Joseph employed to obtain further discoveries without making himself known to his brethren, is much commended by Philo, as a mark of great policy, when, contrary to the convictions and feelings of his own mind, he accused them of being spies, and afterwards charged them with theft.

The lover of temperance continually unrolls the story of Joseph, and learns from him the deeds of temperance, finding him not only self-controlled against pleasures but settled in a fixed disposition toward virtue.

that chaste Joseph was sold;

" Why, even that wanton mistress, the Egyptian woman, was mad with passion for the fair Joseph, but the madness of the licentious woman did not overcome the virtue of the chaste man, nor, though she forced him with her hands toward the transgression, was he forced.

his brothers, in envy of him as a youth who saw further in the matter of knowledge, stripped off his many-coloured tunic, and taking him, cast him into a pit;

Reasonably, then, he never chooses the pleasant before the profitable—not even if a fair woman, having got him beforehand into some circumstance, should challenge him, forcing him after the manner of a courtesan—since not even did the master's wife avail to lead Joseph aside from his resolve;

You say that he was born "through" a virgin, not "of" a virgin, and "in" the womb, not "of" the womb — because the angel too in a dream said to Joseph, "For that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit," and did not say "of her.

even though for this reason the heresies have taken these things out of the gospel, namely that those who marvelled at his teaching said that his father Joseph the carpenter, and his mother Mary, and his brothers and sisters, were exceedingly well known to them.

Joseph too himself prefigured Christ, even by this alone (lest I delay the course of my argument), that he suffered persecution from his brothers and was sold into Egypt for the favour of God, just as Christ too was sold carnally by his brothers from Israel, when he is betrayed by Judah [Judas].

that he suffered persecution from his brothers for the grace of God, just as Christ too from the Jews, his brothers after the flesh, when he is blessed by his father even in these words:

For just as both Joseph, who had been a slave, and Daniel, who through captivity had changed his state, attained to the city of Babylon and to Egypt by the dress of barbarian free birth, so among us too the faithful, if it be necessary, may grant both to boys the bordered toga and the boyish robe, the badges of birth, not of power;

Hence very lately a dispute has arisen, whether a servant of God may take the administration of any dignity or power, if he can keep himself, either by some favour or by some shrewdness, untouched by every species of idolatry—according as both Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in the ornament and purple of the prefecture of all Egypt or Babylonia.

And if I look round upon their examples—of a certain David thrusting marriages upon himself even through blood, of a certain Solomon rich even in wives—being bidden to follow the better things, you have also Joseph wedded to one, and on this account I dare to call him better than his father;

For Joseph too, dismissing his brothers to bring his father, And do not, he said, fall into anger on the way.