III.  Such was Joseph your Superintendent of corn measures, whom I may call ours also; who by his surpassing wisdom was able both to foresee the famine and to cure it by decrees of government, healing the ill-favoured and starving kine by means of the fair and fat.6    Gen. xli. 29 sq.  And indeed you may understand by Joseph which you will, either the great lover and creator and namesake of immortality or his successor in throne and word and hoary hair, our new Peter,7    Athanasius. not inferior in virtue or fame to him by whom the middle course was destroyed and crushed, though it still wriggles a little weakly, like the tail of a snake after it is cut off; the one of whom, after having departed this life in a good old age after many conflicts and wrestlings, looks upon us from above, I well know, and reaches a hand to those who are labouring for the right:  and this the more, in proportion as he is freed from his bonds; and the other is hastening to the same end or dissolution of life, and is already drawing near the dwellers in heaven, but is still so far in the flesh as is needed to give the last aids to the Word, and to take his journey with richer provision.

Γʹ. Τοιοῦτος Ἰωσὴφ ὁ ὑμέτερος σιτομέτρης, ταυτὸν δὲ εἰπεῖν καὶ ἡμέτερος, ὃς καὶ προβλέπειν ᾔδει λιμὸν ὑπὸ σοφίας ὑπερβαλλούσης, καὶ θεραπεύειν λόγοις οἰκονομίας, ταῖς καλαῖς τῶν βοῶν καὶ πίοσι, τὰς αἰσχρὰς καὶ ἀτρόφους ἰώμενος. Καὶ Ἰωσὴφ ὁπότερον βούλει λαμβάνειν, εἴτε τὸν τῆς ἀθανασίας ἐραστὴν, καὶ δημιουργὸν, καὶ ἐπώνυμον: εἴτε τὸν ἐκείνου καὶ θρόνῳ, καὶ λόγῳ, καὶ πολιᾷ διάδοχον, τὸν νέον Πέτρον ἡμῖν, οὐχ ἧττον τὴν ἀρετὴν, ἢ τὴν κλῆσιν: ὑφ' ὧν τὸ μέσον ἐξεκόπη καὶ συνετρίβη, κἂν ἔτι σπαίρῃ μικρά τε καὶ ἀσθενῆ, καθάπερ τὸ οὐραῖον διακοπέντος τοῦ ὄφεως: ὧν ὁ μὲν ἐν γήρᾳ καλῷ καταλύσας τὸν βίον ἐπὶ πολλοῖς τοῖς ἀγωνίσμασι καὶ ἀθλήμασιν, ἄνωθεν ἐποπτεύει, εὖ οἶδα, νῦν τὰ ἡμέτερα, καὶ χεῖρα ὀρέγει τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ καλοῦ κάμνουσι, καὶ τόσῳ μᾶλλον, ὅσῳ τῶν δεσμῶν ἐστιν ἐλεύθερος: ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν αὐτὴν κατάλυσιν, ἢ ἀνάλυσιν, ἐπὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἄθλοις ἐπείγεται, καὶ πλησιάζει μὲν ἤδη τοῖς ἄνω, τοσοῦτον δὲ μετὰ τῆς σαρκός ἐστιν ἔτι, ὅσον βοηθῆσαι τῷ λόγῳ τὰ τελευταῖα, καὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ γενέσθαι μετὰ δαψιλεστέρων τῶν ἐφοδίων.