But we must return to the sequence of the argument, so that when we too draw near to the struggles against Egypt, brotherly help may come to meet us. We remember that at the beginning of the life of virtue Moses encountered conflict and warfare: an Egyptian was oppressing a Hebrew, and later one Hebrew was fighting another of his own people.
But when a person has risen to greater achievements of the soul through long and careful effort and through the illumination received on the height, the encounter becomes friendly and peaceful: the brother is moved by God to come and meet him. If we take what happened in the story in a more figurative sense, nothing in it will prove useless for our purpose.
For those who make progress in virtue are truly joined by the help that God placed within our nature. This help was already present from our first creation, but it becomes visible and recognizable when, through attention and sustained effort, we have made ourselves at home in the higher life and strip for the more demanding contests.
To explain the riddle without another riddle, I will state the meaning more plainly. There is a teaching handed down from our fathers and regarded as trustworthy. It says that when our nature fell into sin, God did not leave our fall without care. Instead, He appointed one of the angels, who have no bodily nature, to stand beside each person’s life as an ally. From the opposite side, the corrupter of our nature devised a corresponding countermeasure, using an evil and destructive demon to harm human life.
The human being stands between these two attendants, whose purposes oppose one another, and by what he himself does makes one stronger against the other. The good one sets before his thoughts the blessings of virtue—the good things that those who succeed can see through hope. The other presents material pleasures. They offer no hope of anything good, but because they are here now, can be enjoyed, and can be seen, they enslave the senses of those who lack understanding.
If, then, a person turns away from the things that lure him toward evil, gives his thoughts over to what is better, and in a sense puts wickedness behind him, he can set his soul like a mirror before the hope of good things. Then the images and reflections of the virtue shown to him by God can be impressed upon the purity of his soul. At that point the help of the brother comes to meet him and stand beside him. For the angel is, in a certain sense, a brother to the human soul in its rational and intellectual nature. As we have said, he appears and stands beside us when we draw near to Pharaoh.
No one should suppose that the exposition of the story must correspond at every point to the sequence of this interpretation. If some part of what is written falls outside this line of thought, that should not lead anyone to reject the whole approach. We should always remember the purpose of our discussion, the purpose we announced at the beginning: the lives of distinguished men are set before those who come after them as examples of virtue.
Those who want to imitate these men cannot literally pass through the same events. How could we again find a people multiplying in Egypt after migrating there, or a tyrant enslaving them, hostile to male offspring while multiplying what is softer and weaker? And the same is true of everything else contained in the story. Since it is impossible to imitate the marvelous deeds of the blessed by reproducing the events themselves, we must take from the material sequence whatever can be turned toward moral instruction. In this way the story can help those who are serious about virtue toward the same kind of life.
If the demands of the story force some event outside the line of interpretation we are following, we should pass it by as unhelpful and unprofitable for our purpose. We should not let such a detail interrupt the guidance toward virtue wherever that guidance can be drawn from the text.
I say this about what we understood in connection with Aaron in order to answer an objection that arises from what follows. Someone may say: “I do not question that an angel is akin to the soul in being spiritual and without a body, that the angelic nature existed before our own creation, or that an angel stands beside those engaged in struggle against their opponents. But it does not seem right to take Aaron as a figure of such an angel, since Aaron was the one who led the Israelites into idolatry.”
To this we will answer, even if we have to step outside the immediate sequence, with what we have already said: something that falls outside our purpose should not overturn the harmony found in the rest. We may also observe that both “brother” and “angel” can be used in more than one sense, even for opposite kinds of beings.
For someone can be called not only an angel of God but also an angel of Satan; and we call not only a good person but also an evil one a brother. Scripture speaks this way of the good: “Let brothers be useful in times of need.” Of the opposite kind it says, “Every brother will trip up his brother.”
Having added these points to the sequence of our argument, we will leave their more exact interpretation for its proper place and now return to the matter before us. The person who has been strengthened by the light that appeared to him and has gained such a brother as ally and supporter can now speak boldly to the people on behalf of the truth. He reminds them of the nobility inherited from their fathers and advises them how to escape the misery of working with clay and bricks.