I think we should turn to Scripture for counsel on this point. The divine voice says somewhere through the prophecy of Isaiah: “Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you.” Surely this is addressed to those who have wandered away from virtue. People at sea who have drifted off the direct course to the harbor can correct their course when they catch sight of a visible landmark—a beacon raised on high or a high point of land coming into view. In the same way, those who drift across the sea of life with unguided minds can be steered back toward the harbor of God’s will by the examples of Sarah and Abraham.
Human nature is divided into male and female, and both have equal power to choose between virtue and vice. For that reason the divine voice set before each a fitting example of virtue. Men can look to Abraham and women to Sarah. In this way, both can be guided by examples proper to them toward the life of virtue.
Perhaps it will be enough for us to remember one person renowned for the way he lived. He can serve as the beacon and show us how to bring the soul safely into the calm harbor of virtue, without being battered by the storms of life or shipwrecked in the depths of vice by wave after wave of passion. Perhaps this is why the lives of those great figures were recorded in such detail: so that, by imitating those who had already succeeded, those who came after them might be directed toward the good.
But someone may ask: “What if I am not from Chaldea, as Abraham is said to have been, nor was I raised by an Egyptian princess, as Moses was? My own life has nothing of this kind in common with those ancient figures. How can I place myself alongside one of them when I have no way to imitate someone whose circumstances are so far removed from mine?”
We would answer that being from Chaldea is in itself neither vice nor virtue. Living in Egypt or dwelling in Babylon does not shut anyone out of the life of virtue. Nor is God known to worthy people only in Judea, and Zion, taken in the obvious sense, is not God’s dwelling place. We need a subtler understanding and sharper sight. From the history we must discern what sort of people from Chaldea or Egypt we must keep our distance from. We must also discern what Babylonian captivity we must escape if we are to enter the blessed life.
Let Moses, then, be set before us in our discussion as an example of how to live. We will first run briefly through his life, as we have learned it from the divine voice. Then we will look for the meaning in the story that can guide us in virtue. Through it we may come to understand what the perfect life is, so far as it can be found among human beings.