There is endless variety in the details of the customs and laws which prevail in the world at large. [To give but a summary enumeration:][394] some peoples have entrusted the supreme power of government to monarchies, others to oligarchies, yet others to the masses. Our lawgiver, however, was attracted by none of these forms of polity, but gave to his constitution the form of what—if a forced expression be permitted—may be termed a “theocracy,” ascribing the sovereignty and majesty to God. To Him he persuaded all to look, as the Author of all blessings, both those which are common to all mankind, and those which they had won for themselves by prayer in their utmost adversities. He convinced them that no single action, no secret thought, could be hid from Him. He represented Him as One, uncreated[395] and immutable to all eternity;[396] in beauty surpassing all mortal comeliness, made known to us by His power, although the nature of His real being[397] passes knowledge. A Religion for the Many, not (like Greek philosophy) for the Few That the wisest of the Greeks learnt to adopt these conceptions of God from principles with which Moses supplied them, I am not now concerned to urge; but they have borne abundant witness to the excellence of these doctrines, and to their consonance with the nature and majesty of God. In fact, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Plato, the Stoics who succeeded him, and indeed nearly all the philosophers appear to have held similar views concerning the nature of God. These, however, addressed their philosophy to the few, and did not venture to divulge the true doctrine[398] to the masses who were prepossessed by (other) opinions; whereas our lawgiver, by making practice square with precept, not only convinced his own contemporaries, but so firmly implanted this belief concerning God in their descendants to all future generations that it cannot be moved. The cause (of his success) was that he far surpassed (other legislators) in promoting the good of all men to all time by his scheme of legislation; for he did not make religion a department of virtue, but the various virtues—I mean, justice, temperance, fortitude, and mutual harmony in all things between the members of the community[399]—departments of religion. Religion governs all our actions and studies and speech; none of these things did our lawgiver leave unexamined[400] or indeterminate. The Two Methods of Education Combined by Moses