On Joseph

Philo's portrait of the statesman: Joseph as the model public man, with a warning that human life is a dream only a wise ruler can interpret.

by Philo of Alexandria90 passages held

English, a translation held here, and your language

Original title: De Josepho
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

In Philo's commentary on Joseph's dreams, the dreamer is a figure of vanity, a man who loves glory and the body. Here, in a separate book, the same Joseph is the model statesman; the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sets Philo's responsible, courageous Joseph beside the glory-hungry one and leaves the tension standing. This book tells his story straight through, from the favoured son of seventeen tending his father's flocks — shepherding, Philo remarks, is training for kingship — to the slave in Egypt who refuses his master's wife, the prisoner who interprets dreams, the governor who stores grain against the famine, and the brother who forgives. Between the episodes Philo stops to draw the political lesson. The coat of many colours is the constitution, a thing of many shades that must change with circumstances; the statesman is an addition to nature, just as the laws of particular cities are additions to the one law of nature; and when Joseph is said to be sold, Philo sees the demagogue, who climbs the platform to please the crowd and becomes its slave. The boldest passage turns interpretation into a calling. Human life, Philo argues, is itself like a dream, full of confusion and false appearances, and the statesman must interpret the visions of people who believe themselves awake. The Greek title names the book's subject plainly: the life of the statesman, that is, on Joseph.

Key concepts

What does Joseph's coat of many colours stand for?

The constitution, the political order of a state. Philo reads the many-coloured coat as a many-shaped thing, open to endless variety in its affairs, its causes, its laws for strangers and its differences of time and place. The point is that political wisdom is not one fixed rule applied everywhere. It changes with circumstances, and the statesman who wears the coat has to change with them without losing himself.

Why is the statesman an addition to nature?

Because the laws of particular cities are additions to the one law of nature, and the statesman administers those particular laws. Nature has one law for all; cities add their own, suited to their circumstances. The statesman belongs to that second, added order. His work is legitimate, but it is secondary, and it is measured against the law of nature it supplements.

What is the demagogue in On Joseph?

The public man who has sold himself to the crowd. When Joseph is sold, Philo sees the politician who climbs the platform to please the people and becomes their slave. The crowd's desire speaks to him like a wanton woman: forget your own character, your upbringing and your pursuits, and do whatever pleases me. The demagogue is the statesman who obeyed.

Why does Philo compare human life to a dream?

Because waking life is as full of confusion and false appearances as sleep. Fortunes shift without warning, and what people are sure they see often is not so. Philo draws the consequence for politics: the statesman is an interpreter of dreams, reading the visions of people who think themselves awake and telling what is real in them from what only seems real.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The Statesman, the Constitution and the Crowd

What does a person owe the public they govern, and what must they refuse it? Philo reads Joseph's story as a handbook of statecraft with its temptations written in.

Joseph's shepherding at seventeen is training for kingship, since ruling a flock and ruling people are the same art. His coat of many colours is the constitution, a thing of many shades that must change with circumstances. The statesman is an addition to nature, as the laws of particular cities are additions to the one law of nature. And when Joseph is sold, Philo sees the demagogue: the crowd, like a wanton woman, tells the experienced public man to forget his own character and do whatever pleases it, and the man who climbs the platform to please it becomes its slave.

political philosophy
political leadership
political authority
political ethics
leadership
practical wisdom
justice

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Public Life as a Dream Only the Wise Can Read

What if the people who think they are awake are the ones dreaming? Philo gives the statesman the task of interpreting a world full of confusion and false appearances.

The boldest passage turns dream interpretation into a political calling. Human life, Philo argues, is itself like a dream: full of confusion, false appearances and fortunes that shift without warning, so that no one can be sure of what they think they see. The statesman is the one who interprets, reading the visions of people who believe themselves awake and telling apart what is real in them from what only seems. Joseph's skill in the prison, reading the dreams of Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker, becomes the pattern for every ruler who must see through appearances.

dreams
interpretation
uncertainty
truth
wisdom
prophecy

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Brothers Who Sold Him, and a Forgiveness That Holds

Can a wrong as great as being sold by one's own brothers be forgiven without remainder? Joseph's answer is yes, and Philo lets the brothers' own guilt test it.

The brothers' envy sends the favoured son into slavery, and years later they stand before him, not knowing him, as suppliants for grain. When he reveals himself they stand mute with their eyes on the ground, and he tells them not to be cast down: he forgives them everything and they need no mediator. After their father's death their old fear revives, and they suspect the pardon was only for Jacob's sake. Joseph weeps and says that his disposition has not changed. Their conscience convicts them more than any accuser, while his forgiveness holds.

forgiveness
family
envy
grief
conscience
generosity

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Within this work

passages held: 90
distinct concepts: 195
by passages held, corpus-wide: #526

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “family” and “grief”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 12 pairings. 41 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
family	grief	4
forgiveness	providence	4
family	forgiveness	3
political philosophy	virtue	3
family	justice	2
family	providence	2
family	virtue	2
forgiveness	political leadership	1
grief	justice	1
justice	political philosophy	1
political leadership	providence	1
political leadership	virtue	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Against Flaccus (In Flaccum)
Written as a demonstration of divine justice, this account of the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE and of the prefect Philo blamed for them stands with his historical and apologetic works.
EN
Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoriae I–III)
The first surviving treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, Philo's long verse-by-verse reading of Genesis, covering its second and third chapters in three books.
EN
Every Good Man Is Free (Quod omnis probus liber sit)
Written in the manner of the Greek schools rather than as commentary on Moses, it is, with On the Eternity of the World, one of Philo's philosophical treatises.
EN
On Abraham (De Abrahamo)
The first of Philo's lives of the patriarchs in the Exposition of the Law, following On the Creation of the World; its companions on Isaac and Jacob are lost, and On Joseph continues the set.
EN
On Cultivation (De agricultura)
Noah the farmer is a subject Philo splits across two treatises; this first one is built on the difference between near-synonyms, and On Planting continues it.
EN
On Dreams (De somniis I–II)
A treatise of the Allegorical Commentary, in two surviving books on the dreams of Jacob, Joseph and Pharaoh's court.
EN
On Drunkenness (De ebrietate)
Of the two books on drunkenness known in antiquity, this is the one that survives; it sits between On Planting and On Sobriety in the Allegorical Commentary's run on Noah and the vine.
EN
On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione)
Hagar's flight and the angel who finds her, Genesis 16:6–14, read within the Allegorical Commentary.
EN
On Joseph (De Josepho) you are here EN
On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (De congressu eruditionis gratia)
Philo's reading of Genesis 16 as a theory of education, set within the Allegorical Commentary; On Flight and Finding continues Hagar's story.
EN
On Planting (De plantatione)
The second of Philo's two treatises on Noah as farmer, turning from farming in general to the planting of the vineyard.
EN
On Rewards and Punishments (De praemiis et poenis et de exsecrationibus)
The closing treatise of the Exposition of the Law, on the rewards, punishments, blessings and curses the Law sets before its hearers.
EN
On Sobriety (De sobrietate)
A short sequel to On Drunkenness in the Allegorical Commentary, on Noah waking and pronouncing his blessings and curse. Its Greek title names exactly that: what Noah prayed for and cursed once sober.
EN
On the Change of Names (De mutatione nominum)
Genesis 17 and its renamings, from Abram and Sarai to Jacob and Joshua, read in the Allegorical Commentary; it also carries Philo's clearest statement that God has no proper name.
EN
On the Cherubim (De Cherubim)
Two short commentaries joined under one title: the cherubim at Eden's gate, then the birth of Cain. Within the Allegorical Commentary it picks up where the three books of Allegorical Interpretation stop.
EN
On the Confusion of Tongues (De confusione linguarum)
The Tower of Babel in the Allegorical Commentary, opening with a defence of Genesis against critics who likened it to Greek myth.
EN
On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
A portrait of the Therapeutae, classed with Philo's historical and apologetic writings; it opens by referring back to his account of the Essenes, the active life to this contemplative one.
EN
On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)
The overture to Philo's Exposition of the Law, the series that goes on to lives of the patriarchs and a code of laws. It stands apart as his reading of the creation story in its literal order.
EN
On the Decalogue (De decalogo)
The hinge of the Exposition of the Law, turning from the lives of the patriarchs to the written law.
EN
On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio ad Gaium)
The companion of Against Flaccus: an eyewitness history of the embassy Philo led to Gaius, and the fullest account he left of his own public life.
EN
On the Eternity of the World (De aeternitate mundi)
Among Philo's philosophical treatises, the one that names the Greek schools and their arguments most openly.
EN
On the Giants and On the Unchangeableness of God (De gigantibus; Quod Deus sit immutabilis)
Two treatises that editions usually separate but that read as one commentary, in the Allegorical Commentary, on the verses of Genesis leading up to the flood.
EN
On the Life of Moses (De vita Mosis I–II)
Philo's biography of Moses in two books, usually counted with the Exposition of the Law though it stands on its own.
EN
On the Migration of Abraham (De migratione Abrahami)
Abraham's call in Genesis 12, read as the soul's migration toward God; in the Allegorical Commentary it follows On the Confusion of Tongues in the order of Genesis.
EN
On the Posterity of Cain (De posteritate Caini)
The last of the Cain treatises in the Allegorical Commentary, following Cain from his exile through his descendants.
EN
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini)
One of the run of treatises on Cain and Abel in the Allegorical Commentary, taking up the brothers' offerings in Genesis 4.
EN
On the Special Laws (De specialibus legibus I–IV)
The largest work in the Exposition of the Law, in four books; it follows On the Decalogue and is followed by On the Virtues.
EN
On the Virtues (De virtutibus)
A pendant to On the Special Laws in the Exposition of the Law, gathering laws under the virtues they train rather than under the Ten Commandments.
EN
The Worse Attacks the Better (Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat)
It follows On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain in the Allegorical Commentary and carries the brothers' story on to the murder itself.
EN
Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Best known for its long passage on the Logos dividing the world into opposites, this reading of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 belongs to the Allegorical Commentary.
EN

— or open another of their works

On Joseph

Overview

Key concepts

What does Joseph's coat of many colours stand for?

Why is the statesman an addition to nature?

What is the demagogue in On Joseph?

Why does Philo compare human life to a dream?

Themes of the book

1The Statesman, the Constitution and the Crowd

2Public Life as a Dream Only the Wise Can Read

3Brothers Who Sold Him, and a Forgiveness That Holds

Within this work

What this book thinks together

Works held

The Statesman, the Constitution and the Crowd

Public Life as a Dream Only the Wise Can Read

Brothers Who Sold Him, and a Forgiveness That Holds