See the extraordinary degree of their blindness: they themselves interpreted the dream. In fact, it is not possible to claim that it was in ignorance of the future that they bore him ill will; rather, it was learning the future from the dreams that added to their hatred. O excess of stupidity! They should have shown Joseph greater favor after learning the facts, set aside any grounds for hatred, banished the passion of envy. But they were dulled in their thinking and could not see at a glance that everything they were doing rebounded on themselves, and so they aggravated their hatred of him. O why, poor tormented creatures, do you display such envy, denying your condition as brothers and the fact that the revelation of dreams makes obvious God’s favor for him? After all, surely you do not now believe that the events foretold by God can be thwarted? You see, just as you made an interpretation of the dream, so will it shortly come to pass, no matter how many ruses you intend to devise. I mean, the Lord of all, creative and wise as he is, revealing the abundance of his characteristic power, often allows many obstacles to develop before fulfillment so that he may put into effect his previous decisions and thus demonstrate the extraordinary degree of his power.

Why do you envy and hate the righteous, if God revealed to him his own mysteries and made clear through visions what would have happened at the end of time? Why do you grieve at the sight of his embroidered tunic, if the just Father honored him by loving him more than everybody else, and sent him to visit you as a Shepherd among the shepherds, and presented to the world a trustworthy witness and a sheaf for his old age, and raised from the dead a holy firstborn as first fruits? Why do you get angry if the sun and the moon and the eleven stars worship him? They are there from the ancient times to prefigure him. And neither Jacob was called sun, nor Rachel was called moon, and the events did not happened in this manner.

Indeed, God’s grace shone on Joseph even in his boyhood. For he had a dream that when he was binding sheaves with his brothers—so it appeared to him in the vision—this sheaf rose up and stood straight, while the sheaves of his brothers turned and bowed down to his sheaf.^[1] Now in this the resurrection of the Lord Jesus that was to come was revealed. When they saw him at Jerusalem, the eleven disciples and all the saints bowed down; when they rise, they will bow down bearing the fruits of their good works, just as it is written, Coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.^[2] Although his brothers disparaged the reliability of the dream out of their envy, still they expressed his interpretation of it in their own words when they replied, Are you to be our king? Are you to rule over us? For that vision indicated the King who was to come, and before him all human flesh would bow down with bended knee.^[3]

Moreover, Joseph saw another dream and told it to his father and brothers, that the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him.^[1] On this account his father reproved him and said, What will be the meaning of this vision that you have dreamed? Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers will come and bow to the ground before you?^[2] Who is he before whom parents and brothers bowed down to the ground but Jesus Christ? Joseph and his mother with the disciples bowed down before him and confessed the true God in that body, of whom alone it was said, Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you stars and light.^[3] Further, what is the meaning of the father’s reproach but the hardness of the people of Israel? Christ comes from them according to the flesh, but today they do not believe that he is God and are not willing to bow down to him as their Lord, because they know that he was born from among themselves. Accordingly they hear his replies, but they do not understand them. They themselves read that the sun and moon praise Christ, but they are unwilling to believe this was said with reference to Christ. Therefore Jacob is mistaken in regard to the symbol, which refers to another, but is not mistaken in the love, which is his own. In him paternal love did not go astray, but rather there is depicted an affection for a people that was going to go astray.

Moreover, Joseph had another dream in which the sun, the moon and eleven stars worshiped him. His father replied to him, Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers will come to bow to the ground before you? This could not be fulfilled in that Joseph; but in our true Joseph, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, the mysteries of that dream were fulfilled. The sun, the moon and eleven stars worshiped him when after the resurrection holy Mary as the moon, blessed Joseph as the sun and eleven stars, that is, the blessed apostles, bent down and prostrated before him. Then was fulfilled the prophecy that said, Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.^[1] The interpretation of this dream was not accomplished in that Joseph for the important reason that we read his mother had died many years before he saw the aforementioned dreams. Truly, how could it happen to his brothers that they should adore him like the stars, since the night of envy had made them obscure and gloomy? They had lost the brightness of the stars, because they had extinguished in themselves the light of charity. We truly believe that this was deservedly fulfilled in our Lord and Savior, for, as I already said, we read that blessed Joseph, blessed Mary and the eleven apostles worshiped him quite frequently. That the apostles possessed the light of the stars our Lord himself tells us in the Gospel: You are the light of the world.^[2] Again, he says concerning the same men and those who are similar: When the just will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.^[3]

Therefore the patriarch did not refuse to believe in a dream so mighty, for in a twofold prophecy he prophesied both together; that is, he represented and personified the just man and the people, because the Son of God was going to come to earth to be loved by just men and denied by unbelievers. And so Jacob, in sending his son to his brothers to see if it was well with the sheep,^[1] foresaw the mysteries of the incarnation that was to come. What sheep was God searching for in the concern manifested even at that time by the patriarch? The very ones of whom the Lord Jesus himself said in the Gospel, I did not come except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.^[2] And he sent him to Shechem,^[3] which name is interpreted as shoulder or back. That is, to those who did not turn to the Lord but fled from his face and turned away, an expression properly applied to the sinner, for Cain went out from the face of the Lord,^[4] and the psalmist says, You will make them turn their back.^[5] Now the just person does not turn away from the Lord but runs to meet him and says, My eyes are ever toward the Lord.^[6] And when the Lord said, Whom shall I send? Isaiah offered himself of his own accord and said, Behold, here I am.^[7] Simeon also waited to see Christ the Lord; after he saw him, because he had seen the Pardoner of sins and Redeemer of the whole world, he asked to be freed from the use of this flesh, just as he had been relieved of his sin, and said, Now dismiss your servant, Lord, because my eyes have seen your salvation.^[8] Zacchaeus too first gained the special privilege of having the Lord’s commendation bestowed on him for this, that he climbed a tree to see Christ.^[9] Therefore Joseph was sent by his father to his brothers, or rather by that Father who has not spared his own Son but has delivered him for us all,^[10] by that Father of whom it is written, God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.^[11]

Now all this happened so that Joseph’s regard for his brothers might be demonstrated and their murderous intent might come to light. On the other hand it happened also as a type of things to come, the outlines of truth being sketched out ahead of time in shadow. As Joseph went off to his brothers to visit them, to those who had no respect for brotherhood or for the reason of his coming and who first intended to do away with him and then sold him to foreigners, so too our Lord in fidelity to his characteristic love came to visit the human race. Taking flesh of the same source as ours and deigning to become our brother, he thus arrived among us. Paul too cries out in these words, It is not the condition of angels he takes to himself but descent from Abraham. Hence the need for him to become like his brothers in everything.^[1]

And Joseph was wandering about,^[1] because he could not find his brothers. And it was right that he wandered about, for he was seeking those that were going astray. Yes, the Lord knows who are his.^[2] Indeed, Jesus also, when he was wearied from his journey, sat at the well.^[3] He was wearied, for he was not finding the people of God whom he was seeking; they had gone out from the face of the Lord.^[4] The person who follows sin goes out from Christ. The sinner goes out; the just person enters in. Indeed, Adam hid himself as a sinner,^[5] but the just person says, Let my prayer enter in before you.^[6]

Jacob sent his son to manifest solicitude for his brothers, and God the Father sent his onlybegotten Son to visit the human race, which was weak from sin and like lost sheep. When Joseph was looking for his brothers he wandered in the desert. Christ also sought the human race, which was wandering in the world; he too as it were, wandered in the world because he was seeking the erring. Joseph searched for his brothers in Shechem. Shechem is interpreted as a shoulder, for sinners always turn their backs in the face of the just, and shoulders are behind. Just as Joseph’s brothers, struck with envy, offered their back rather than their face to fraternal love, so also the unhappy Jews preferred to envy rather than to love the Author of salvation who came to them. Of such people it is said in the psalms: Let their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, and keep their backs always feeble.^[1]

Now Joseph found his brothers in Dothan, which means desertion. And where is the person who deserts God but in desertion? No wonder if they deserted who did not hear him saying, Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.^[1] Therefore Joseph came to Dothan, and they saw him coming from afar, before he drew near to them, and they raged that they might kill him.^[2] It is right that they were far off who were in desertion, and so they were raging, because Christ had not drawn near to them. For if the model of Christ had drawn near to them, they would surely have loved their brother. But they could not be near, for they were plotting fratricide. Behold, that dreamer is coming. Now therefore come, let us kill him.^[3] Were not the men who were saying such words plotting a sacrilegious fratricide, as Solomon says of them, Let us remove the just one, because he is profitless to us?^[4]

And in Genesis they also said, And we shall see what will become of his dreams.^[1] This is written in regard to Joseph, but it is fulfilled in regard to Christ, when the Jews said in the course of his passion, If he is the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusts in God; let him deliver him now, if he wants him.^[2] But were those brothers so unholy as to kill their brother? And from what source do the merits of the mighty patriarchs derive, so that the law designates the tribes of the entire people by their names? How are names of holiness in accord with marks of crime? In this also they served as a model of the people; their own souls were not toiling under a burden of crime. This gave rise to all the enmity and the plotting of fratricide; the enmity is by way of figure, the holiness by way of love.

Indeed, Reuben and Judah observed the holy bonds of brotherhood and desired to free Joseph from their hands.^[1] Judah receives the preference by his father’s blessing, and rightly so, when it is said to him, The sons of your father shall bow down to you. A lion’s whelp is Judah, and he is the expectation of nations.^[2] Surely this is appropriate to Christ alone, for whom it was in store that he should be worshiped by his brothers and awaited by the nations and that he should wash his tunic in wine by the passion of his own body, because he did not stain his flesh with any spot of sin. . . .

Conferring together against that counsel, the brothers abused him in whom the blessing prevailed over the blessings of the enduring mountains and was stronger than the desires of the everlasting hills.^[3] Who did Joseph understand was being prefigured in himself? Only he who surpasses the merits of all people and possesses the summit of limitless power beyond the desires of all the saints, he whom no one matches in prayer. And so, in the case of the patriarchs, enmity is repaid through grace, for they are excused from their guilt and made holy by the gift of revelation. For it is not so much a matter of blame in having said what refers to the people as it is a matter of happiness in having seen what refers to Christ. The people assumed the character of a sinner to receive the grace of their Lord and Redeemer. Assuredly grace destroyed guilt; guilt did not diminish grace.

Accordingly, even at that time, the cross that was to come was prefigured in sign; and at the same time that he was stripped of his tunic,^[1] that is, of the flesh he took on, he was stripped of the handsome diversity of colors that represented the virtues. Therefore his tunic, that is, his flesh, was stained with blood, but not his divinity; and his enemies were able to take from him his covering of flesh but not his immortal life.

Joseph was rejected by his brothers and was received by the Ishmaelites;^[1] in the same manner our Lord and Savior was rejected by the Jews and received by the pagans. The Ishmaelites who received Joseph carried along with them all kinds of perfumes, and this fact showed that the pagans by embracing the faith would spread the different perfumes of justice all over the world.

And so that we may recognize that all this is a mystery in reference to the people and to the Lord Jesus, Come, let us sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites. What is the interpretation of the name Joseph? Only that it means God’s grace and expression of God the highest. And so who is being sold? Only that man who since he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.^[1] . . . They sold him to traders; the latter bought a good fragrance from traitors. Judah sold him, the Ishmaelites bought him,^[2] and in our tongue their name means holding their own God in hatred. Therefore we find that Joseph was bought for twenty gold pieces by one account, for twenty-five by another and thirty by another, because Christ is not valued at the same price by all people.^[3] To some he is worth less, to others more. The faith of the buyer determines the increase in the price. To one who is more pious, God is more valuable; to a sinner a Redeemer is more valuable. He is also more valuable to the people who have more grace. But he is more valuable as well to the one to whom many things have been given, because he loves more to whom more has been forgiven. The Lord himself said just this in the Gospel in reference to the woman who poured ointment over his feet, bathed them with her tears, wiped them with her hair and dried them with her kisses. Of her Christ says to Simon, Wherefore I say to you, her sins, many as they are, have been forgiven her, because she has loved much. But he to whom less is forgiven, loves less.^[4]

Here too, so that you may note the symbolic representation of the Lord’s passion, the patriarch Judah says, Let us sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites and let not our hands be laid upon him. And earlier he had done well to say, Do not lay hands upon him,^[1] which is what the Jews said in the Lord’s passion, It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.^[2] Thus the word of Jesus could be fulfilled, signifying by what death he was going to die.^[3]

Let us observe a great mystery: for Joseph twenty pieces of gold were given, for the Lord thirty pieces of silver.^[1] The servant was sold at a higher price than the Master. To be sure people are wrong in fixing the price of the Lord, because the One who is sold is beyond human evaluation. Let us consider this mystery with more attention. For the Lord the Jews offered thirty pieces of silver; for Joseph the Ishmaelites offered twenty pieces of gold. The Ishmaelites bought the servant at a higher price than that paid by the Jews for the Master. The first worshiped in Joseph the image of Christ; the latter only had contempt for the reality itself that was in Christ. Therefore the Jews offered a lower price for Christ, because they estimated the passion of the Lord to be cheap. But how is it possible to estimate the passion of the Lord to be cheap, when it is the price for the redemption of the entire world? Listen to the apostle, who demonstrates that to us by saying, You were bought at a high price.^[2] And listen to the apostle Peter, who says in a similar manner, You were ransomed from your futile ways not with perishable things like silver and gold but with the precious blood of the immaculate Son of God.^[3] If we were bought back from death with gold or silver, our ransom would have been cheap, because humanity is more precious than gold and silver; but in truth we are ransomed at an invaluable price, because the one who ransomed us through his passion is invaluable.

What an unlawful contract! What baleful profit! What illicit sale! The one who caused the same birth pangs as yourselves, the one so dear to your father, the one who came to see you, who never did you the slightest wrong, you endeavored to sell—and sell to savage people traveling down to Egypt.

What unlawful frenzy! What dreadful malice! I mean, even if you did this out of fear of the dreams, convinced that they would certainly come to pass in every detail, why did you attempt the impossible and give evidence by what you did of your hostility toward God, who had foretold this to Joseph? If, on the contrary, you give no credence to the dreams but consider them nonsense, why did you do what brought you everlasting defilement and caused your father irreparable grief? But what excess of passion—or rather, of a bloodthirsty intention! You see, when someone is obsessed with some improper exploit and becomes intoxicated with improper designs, he does not keep before him the unsleeping eye; he has no respect even for nature or anything else that could bring him to compassion. That was the situation with these men too. They were not concerned that he was their brother, that he was only a youth, that he was so dear to their father, that he had no experience of life in foreign parts or living in exile and yet was on the point of departing for such a land and living among savages. Instead, they abandoned every sane consideration and had one thing on their minds, allowing their envy to have (as they thought) an immediate effect.

Upon seeing Joseph, his brothers discussed his death; just as when the Jews saw the true Joseph, Christ the Lord, they all resolved with one plan to crucify him. His brothers robbed Joseph of his outside coat that was of divers colors; the Jews stripped Christ of his bodily tunic at his death on the cross. When Joseph was deprived of his tunic he was thrown into a cistern, that is, into a pit; after Christ was despoiled of human flesh, he descended into hell. Afterward Joseph is lifted up out of the cistern and is sold to the Ishmaelites, that is, to the Gentiles; when Christ returns from hell, he is bought by all nations at the price of faith. Upon the advice of Judah, Joseph is sold for thirty pieces of silver; Christ is sold for the same amount upon the counsel of Judas Iscariot. Now in different translations Joseph is not written as sold at the same price, for some say it was twenty pieces of silver and others thirty. This spiritually signifies that Christ was not to be believed and loved equally by all people. In fact, even in the church some love him more, others less, for Christ means more to the soul that loves him with greater charity. Joseph went down to Egypt; Christ went into the world. Joseph saves Egypt from want of grain; Christ frees the world from a famine of the Word of God.