[41] These are the constituent parts of the sheaves bound by the brothers of the dreamer, sons of the same father as he, while the sheaf of his uterine brother is made up of days and time, cause of nothing as cause of everything.
[42] The dreamer himself, interpreter of dreams to boot, lays hold of vainglory, deeming it a possession of highest importance and splendour and advantage to human life. Accordingly it is in the first instance from dreams, things beloved of night, that he becomes known to the sovereign of the land of the body, not from “doings” luminous with the self-evidence of manifest fact, things which need day to exhibit them.
[43] The next step is that he is proclaimed procurator or protector of all Egypt, to stand second only to the sovereign in the signs of honour shewn to him, a position set down as more insignificant and absurd in wisdom’s judgement than the infliction of indignity and defeat.
[44] In the next place he puts round his neck “a golden collar” (Gen. 41:41 f.), a manifest halter, a circlet and hoop of unending necessity, not a life of orderly sequence, not the chain which marks Nature’s doings: these are properties of Tamar, whose adornment is not a collar but a necklace (Gen. 38:18). Yes, and he puts on his finger a royal ring (Gen. 41:42), a gift and pledge, by which nothing is given, nothing pledged, in sharp contrast once more to that which was given to Tamar by Judah, king of the nation that sees, even Israel.
[45] For this king gives the soul a seal (Gen. 38:18), a gift all-beauteous, by which he teaches it that when the substance of the universe was without shape and figure God gave it these; when it had no definite character God moulded it into definiteness, and, when He had perfected it, stamped the entire universe with His image and an ideal form, even His own Word.
[46] To go back to Joseph. He mounts the second chariot (Gen. 41:43), elated by mental dizziness and empty conceit, and becomes the victualler (ibid. 48) and keeper of the body’s treasuries, providing food for it from all quarters: and thus threatens serious danger to the soul.
[47] Not the least significant testimony to his principle and ambition for life is his name. “Joseph” means an “adding,” and vainglory is always making additions.
To what is genuine it adds what is counterfeit, to what is appropriate what is alien, to what is true what is false, to what is sufficient what is excessive, to vitality debauchery, to life’s maintenance vanity.