Commentaria in Genesim
But what if flight is not permitted? Hear what St. Euphrasia the Martyr did, who, condemned to a brothel because she would not sacrifice to idols, when she was assailed by a wicked youth, eluded him by this artifice, and both took counsel for her modesty and gained martyrdom. If, she said, you will spare me, I will teach you a drug, anointed with which you will be unable to be hurt in battle by any weapon or iron. He promised, if she would make him believe it; then she: Take the proof on me; and anointing her neck with wax mixed with oil: Strike it, she said, as hard as you can. The youth did so, and with one blow cut off her head. In this stratagem you will admire equally the cleverness and the constancy of the virgin: witness Nicephorus, book 7 History, chap. 13. For she had then no other remedy for preserving chastity than this pious fraud, to which the youth, gaping after her modesty, drove her, and to preserve it she preferred to die; whence she justly deceived the youth, who therefore ought to be reckoned the author of her death, both physically and morally. She herself therefore is a martyr, not her own homicide.
Note second, with Rupert, the five heroic virtues of Joseph: first, temperance and continence; heroic because, being a youth of 27 years, and handsome, and loved and entreated in secret by his mistress promising ample things, he did not love in return, but stood constant in his chastity. Second, justice and fidelity; because he shrank from the bed of his master. Third, prudence; because seized, he fled. Fourth, fortitude; because he did not fear the furies of insane love, prison and death itself, and for the sake of his chastity despised them. Fifth, constancy; because though solicited daily by his mistress, he stood firm like adamant.
Hence St. Chrysostom says that he admires the deed of Joseph more than that the three Hebrew children remained unhurt in the Babylonian furnace. For as they, so also Joseph in the midst of the fires shone forth unscathed, not burned, but purer, more entire, stronger and brighter: so that it may rightly be cried out to Joseph, what the demons cried out to St. Dominic (not the founder of the Order, but another of the same Order) when he was victor in a like temptation: “Thou hast conquered, thou hast conquered, because thou wast in the fire, and wast not burned.” Hence also St. Ambrose admires Joseph thus ruling over concupiscence and all things. Hear him, book On Joseph, chap. 5: “A great man,” he says, “was Joseph, who, sold, yet knew not a servile disposition, loved, did not love in return, entreated, did not yield, seized, fled away. Who, when he was accosted by the wife of his lord, could be held by the garment, but could not be taken in mind: and not even the words themselves did he suffer for long; for he judged it contagion, if he delayed longer, lest through the adulteress’s hands the incentives of lust should pass. And so he put off the garment, shook off the crime. He was the lord, who did not receive the torches of the loving woman, who felt not the bonds of the seductress, whom no dread of death terrified, who chose rather to die free of crime than to choose the partnership of criminal power.” And St. Gregory, homily 15 on Ezechiel: “We strive,” he says, “to conquer the allurement of the flesh. Let Joseph come to memory, who, when his mistress tempted him, took pains to keep the continence of the flesh even at the peril of his life. Whence it came to pass that, because he knew how to rule his members well, he was set also over the ruling of all Egypt.”
Allegorically: Joseph, says Rupert, is Christ, the Egyptian woman is the Synagogue, which carnally loves the Messiah, awaiting his kingdom earthly and carnal; but Christ, leaving her the cloak, that is, the ceremonies of the law, fled to the Gentiles, by whom he is adored in spirit and in truth. Symbolically, Philo: Joseph, he says, is the prince, or king; Putiphar the master is the people, with whom is the right of the kingdom itself; the wife is concupiscence and lust, by which the people is often led: this Joseph constantly resists, that is, the true prince, if he sincerely loves and protects the public good.
So tropologically, the master is reason, the wife is concupiscence: this Joseph resists, that is, the continent and constant spirit.
13. AND WHEN THE WOMAN SAW.—Note here the versatile temper, the shamelessness and wickedness of the woman, namely: “A woman either loves or hates,” there is nothing between. Second, her malice, boldness and wiles, with which she hurls her crime at Joseph. Third, her furies, with which she prepares death for him whom she formerly loved, namely:
A woman is most savage then, when shame adds goads to hatred.
19. TOO CREDULOUS.—For he gave Joseph no place to clear himself, nor inquired into the fact; but at once condemned the innocent. Second, the jealous man did not observe that this very garment was a sign of violence proceeding from the woman, and of the innocence and reverence of Joseph. For if he himself (as Philo wisely says) had wished to use violence on his mistress, he could easily, being stronger than a woman, have kept his own garment, nay even wrested hers from her.
20. AND HE CAST JOSEPH INTO PRISON.—“They humbled,” says David, Psalm civ, “his feet in fetters, the iron pierced his soul”; but a little after, God directing, Joseph became, though among the bound, free, nay a prince. Joseph consoles himself in prison, says Josephus, thinking God more powerful than those who bound him. For he knew that he and his innocence were a care to God; nor did he doubt that God would deliver him from these bonds with glory, either present or future. Whence “gladly,” says St. Ambrose, “for chastity’s sake did he undergo this martyrdom of prison and death.” For Joseph, being imprisoned on the calumny of adultery, was in certain danger of martyrdom and death.
Allegorically, Joseph is Christ, who, innocent, delivered by Juda and the Jews, was shut up in the prison of death, but among the dead as it were free; by God the Father made lord of all the bound, and so received the power and dominion of hell. So Prosper and Rupert. Hear St. Ambrose, book On Joseph, chap. 6: “Consider now,” he says, “that true Hebrew (Christ), that interpreter not of a dream but of truth and of a splendid vision, who from that fulness of the Godhead, from the abundance of heavenly grace, had come into this bodily prison; whom the allurement of this world could not change, etc.; at last, seized by the garment of the body by a certain adulterous hand of the Synagogue, he put off the flesh, and ascended free from death. The harlot calumniated, when she could not behold him: whom the prison did not terrify, nor the powers below hold; nay rather from where he had descended as if to be punished, thence he freed others; where they were bound by the chains of death, there he himself loosed the chains of the dead.”
Again, this our patriarch Joseph by his chastity, innocence, patience and grace foreshadowed Joseph the spouse of the Blessed Virgin, whose dignity and sanctity above most other Saints may be gathered even from this, that he was the foster-father of Christ and of the Virgin, and was called and believed the father of Christ. For, as St. Bernard says, hom. 2 on Missus est: “That Joseph, sold through brotherly envy and led into Egypt, prefigured the selling of Christ: this Joseph, fleeing Herod’s envy, carried Christ into Egypt. That one, keeping faith with his master, would not be joined with his mistress: this one, acknowledging his mistress, the mother of his Lord, a virgin, himself also continent, faithfully guarded her. To that one was given understanding in the mysteries of dreams: to this one it was given to become privy to and partaker of the heavenly sacraments. That one kept grain, not for himself but for all the people: this one received the living bread from heaven to be kept, as much for himself as for the whole world.”
23. NEITHER KNEW HE ANYTHING,—not Joseph, but the keeper of the prison, who had entrusted the prisoners and all things in the prison to Joseph. See what was said verse 6. Elegantly St. Chrysostom (or whoever the author is: for the style savours of a Latin author), hom. On Joseph sold, vol. 1: “Joseph, most holy, enters the prison, a visitor rather than a prisoner; a provider, not a fellow-captive; a physician, not a sick man. So he becomes set over all, becomes manager for the comfort of the accused. Rejoice, innocence, and exult; rejoice, I say, because everywhere thou art unharmed, everywhere secure. If thou art tempted, thou profitest; if thou art humbled, thou art raised up; if thou fightest, thou conquerest; if thou art slain, thou art crowned. Thou in servitude art free, in danger safe, in custody glad. The envious praise thee, enemies succumb. The powerful honour thee, princes look up to thee, magnates seek thee out. The good obey thee, the wicked envy thee; and thou canst never fail to be victorious, even if among men a just judge be lacking.”