The education found outside the faith is truly barren: always in labor, yet never bringing a living child to birth. What fruit worthy of such long labor has philosophy produced? Do not all its conceptions prove empty and fail to come to term, miscarrying before they reach the light of the knowledge of God? They might perhaps become truly human if they were not kept entirely within the womb of barren wisdom.
A person should therefore live with the Egyptian princess only long enough not to seem ignorant of what is held in honor among her people, and then return to his natural mother. Even while Moses was being raised by the princess, he was not separated from his natural mother, since the story says that he was nursed on his mother’s milk. This seems to teach us that, even if during our education we spend time with teachings from outside the faith, we must not separate ourselves from the milk of the Church that nourishes us. By this I mean the laws and customs of the Church, by which the soul is nourished and brought to maturity, receiving from them the starting point for its ascent.
The account is also right that anyone who gives his attention to teachings from outside rather than to those handed down from his fathers will find himself between two enemies. The foreigner in matters of religion stands against the Hebrew teaching and struggles to appear stronger than the Israelite. Many of the more superficial have thought it was stronger and, abandoning the faith of their fathers, joined themselves to the enemy and violated the teaching they had inherited. But the person who is great and noble in soul, like Moses, strikes dead the argument that rises up against the teaching that leads to reverence for God.
We can also find this kind of battle within ourselves. A human being stands in the middle like a prize contested by two opposing sides. Whichever side he joins, he makes that side victorious over the other. Idolatry and the worship of God, self-indulgence and self-control, justice and injustice, arrogance and humility—and every other pair of opposites—are plainly like a battle between an Egyptian and a Hebrew.
By his own example Moses therefore teaches us to stand beside virtue as our own kin and to destroy whatever attacks it from the opposite side. When reverence for God prevails, idolatry dies and is destroyed. In the same way injustice is destroyed by justice, and arrogance is put to death by humility.
The conflict between people of the same family also takes place within us. The teachings of harmful heresies would never have found room if opposing thoughts did not set themselves against those that are truer. If we are too weak to give victory to what is right, the worse position may gain the upper hand through its arguments and drive out the rule of truth. In that case we must flee from there as quickly as possible. Following the pattern of the story, we should turn toward a greater and higher teaching of the mysteries.
And if it becomes necessary again to associate with a foreigner—that is, if circumstances force us to engage with philosophy from outside the faith—we should do so. But first we must drive away the wicked shepherds from their wrongful use of the wells. By this I mean exposing the teachers of evil for their misuse of education.
Then we will live apart by ourselves. We will no longer become entangled with people fighting one another or stand between them as mediators. Instead, we will live with those under our care who share one mind and purpose. These are all the movements of the soul within us, tended like sheep under the direction of the reason that governs them.