Commentaria in Genesim
Hence Anacharsis said that envy is the saw of the mind; and Socrates, that it is an ulcer of the soul. Hence also Evagoras held that the envious are more unhappy than other men, and twice as wretched: since others are tormented only by their own evils, but the envious are besides tormented by the goods of others. Fourthly, envy generally makes more famous and more fortunate him whom it envies: so Joseph’s brothers, by selling him from envy, were the cause why he was exalted in Egypt. Fifthly, St. Gregory, book 5 of the Moralia, on that saying, “Envy slayeth the little one,” teaches that the envious man is of small mind, narrow heart, and poor and abject spirit, for by envying others he shows himself less and lower than they, and betrays his smallness and poverty: for what he envies, that he himself lacks and vehemently covets. Sixthly, envy also eats away and consumes the body. Hence the Wise Man says, Proverbs 14: “The life of the flesh is the health of the heart: envy is the rottenness of the bones.” Seventhly, St. Basil, in the sermon On envy, teaches that the most effective remedy against envy is contempt of glory and of all temporal goods, as being fleeting and perishable, and love and desire of eternal goods. On which matter see St. Gregory, book 5 of the Moralia, at the end.
So also Crates the Theban said that he had for his country the contempt of glory and poverty, over which fortune exercises no right. He said also that he was a citizen and disciple of Diogenes the Cynic, who lay open to no snares of envy. For riches and honours generally win the envy of men. So Laertius reports of him, book 6. Truly also does Nazianzen say in his iambic Distichs: “Christ nodding assent, envy can do nothing; Christ refusing, labour can do nothing.” Eighthly, Cato the elder said that those who use fortune moderately and soberly are least subject to envy. For men envy not us, he said, but the goods that surround us; and again, those who use their goods insolently kindle envy against themselves.
Plutarch is witness in the Roman Apophthegms. St. Gregory Nazianzen, when through rivals and envious men the Church was troubled, withdrew and said: “Far be it that on my account any quarrel should arise among the priests of God. If this tempest is on my account, take me up and cast me into the sea.” So Cleobulus, asked by someone what are chiefly to be avoided, answered: The envy of friends, but the snares of enemies.
See also the fourteen properties of envy in Pererius here, number 30 and following.
Our Vincent Regius assigns eight remedies of envy, book 4 of his Evangelical Disquisitions, chapter 16.
6. HEAR MY DREAM.—This dream, as the event showed, was not natural but sent by God, by which God foretold and signified things to come, both to Joseph and to his brothers.
7. I THOUGHT WE WERE BINDING SHEAVES—of crops and corn. Aptly was this symbol a portent of the brothers’ journey into Egypt, to procure corn in time of famine. Again, that the sheaves of the brothers adore the sheaf of Joseph clearly signified that the brothers would adore Joseph in Egypt. So Theodoret, Question 93.
Tropologically, this sheaf of Joseph is Christ, whom all the readings of the Law and the Prophets, all the Saints and Angels surround and adore, says Rupert. And St. Ambrose, book On Joseph, chapter 11: “In which, he says, the future resurrection of the Lord Jesus was surely revealed, whom when they saw him in Galilee, the eleven disciples adored; and all the Saints when they have risen will adore, bringing forth the fruits of good works, as it is written:
But they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.”
9. THE SUN, AND THE MOON, AND ELEVEN STARS ADORED ME.—Here by another symbol and dream the former vision is confirmed by God. The sun signifies the father, the moon the mother, namely Bala, who as the handmaid of Rachel, she being now dead, was like a mother to Joseph, say Lyranus and Abulensis; the eleven stars signify the eleven brothers, who were to adore Joseph in Egypt. Further, the sheaves seemed to adore Joseph by bowing themselves to him, and bending and prostrating their ears of corn before him. So the sun, moon and stars, lowering themselves from on high to his feet, seemed to venerate him: perhaps they even appeared clothed in a human face (as painters paint them), and lowered it before Joseph and prostrated it to the ground.
Here learn that fathers and princes (as Jacob was) ought to be in the family and the republic what the sun is in the universe. Like this is what we read of Aesop, that great fabulist, in his Life, namely that he was received magnificently, like the king’s ambassadors, by Nectanabo, king of Egypt. For the king, clad in the royal robe, wearing on his head a jewelled tiara, surrounded by a circle of nobles, sat on a lofty throne. Then the king asked him: To what do you liken me, and those who are about me? The fabulist answered: You I liken to the spring sun, and these to precious ears of corn. At which saying the king was so delighted that he honoured the man with admiration and gifts. See what I shall say on Isaias chapter 45, verse 1. A notable mirror of a family, then, is one in which the father is as the sun, the mother as the moon, the children as stars by the splendour of their manners. Wherefore St. Ambrose, book On Joseph, chapter 3, proves that the child Jesus was adored by Joseph and Mary, from that of Psalm 148:3: “Praise ye him, sun and moon.” Joseph, he says, is in the likeness of the sun, Mary takes the place of the moon. For as the sun warms the earth, so the father warms and cherishes the family. As the moon borrows light from the sun, so the wife receives from her husband her dignity and power. Again, as the moon is now full, now empty, so the mother is now with full womb, now empty; thirdly, the moon presides over moist things... or despise this dream (for, suspecting that this dream was from God and portended things to come, he considered the matter in silence), but that by this rebuke he might free Joseph from the envy of his brothers, and keep him in modesty.
Jacob was given to consideration, as was his father Isaac, who went out to meditate in the field, Genesis 24; and therefore in all his works he was circumspect, composed and holy. Hear St. Bernard, book 1 On Consideration, chapter 7: “Consideration, he says, purifies the mind; then it rules the affections, directs the acts, corrects excesses, composes the manners, makes life honourable and orderly; lastly, it confers knowledge of things divine and human alike. This is it which distinguishes things confused, draws together things gaping, gathers things scattered, searches out secrets, tracks down truths, examines likelihoods, probes things feigned and painted over. This is it which ordains beforehand what is to be done, reflects again on what has been done, so that nothing may remain in the mind either uncorrected or needing correction. This is it, finally, which in prosperity foresees adversity, and in adversity, as it were, feels it not: of which the one is of fortitude, the other of prudence.”
Allegorically, St. Ambrose, book On Joseph, chapter 3, says: Joseph, sent by his father to his brothers feeding the sheep, is Christ sent by the Father into the flesh, that he might save us, and especially the Jews, as his brethren. Whence he himself says: “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.”
13. COME, I WILL SEND THEE.—Hence it is plain that Jacob had called Joseph away from his brothers and the flocks, that by his absence he might allay the envy of his brothers. After some time, thinking it allayed, he sends Joseph back to them, to be a go-between between them and himself, and so again win the goodwill of his brothers for himself. Besides, the father would not have him sit idle at home. For virtue is nourished by business, and withers by sloth.
14. SENT FROM THE VALE OF HEBRON.—Hence it is plain that Jacob, like Isaac and Abraham, dwelt in Hebron, and thence sent Joseph to his brethren.
THE DREAMER.—In Hebrew baal hachalomot, that is, lord of dreams, that is, having and possessing dreams; secondly, skilled in feigning dreams;
and boys; so also the mother is wholly engaged in the education and government of children; fourthly, the moon rules the night, the sun the day: so also the husband administers the light abroad, the wife at home. These greater lights in the family are followed by those lesser lights of the twinkling stars in the multitude of children, of whom God said to Abraham: “Look up to heaven and number the stars if thou canst; so shall thy seed be.” So Fernandez, vision 3, at the end. Allegorically, Joseph here bears the type of Christ. Hear St. Ambrose in the place already cited: “Who is he, he says, whom his parents and brethren adored upon the earth, if not Christ Jesus, when Mary and Joseph with the disciples adored him, confessing that the true God is in that body, of whom alone it was said: Praise ye him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars and light.”