Hence it was in a peculiar sense not just the Law and religion but the wisdom of Israel and the key to the ruling of Jews. Philo called it the ideal law of the philosophers, as Moses was the ideal lawgiver. Torah, he wrote in his book on Moses, was ‘stamped with the seals of nature’ and ‘the most perfect picture of the cosmic polity’.19 It followed that the greater the knowledge of Torah, the greater the right to rule, especially over Jews.
