"... Philo also uses a treasure parable to elucidate his understanding of Scripture. For example, in his treatise, On the Unchangeableness of God ... The farmer is likened to Jacob, “when his father asked him the manner in which he had acquired this knowledge, saying, ‘How did you find this so quickly, my son?’, answered and said, ‘Because the Lord my God brought it before me’” (ibid. 92). Again, a special type of knowledge available to an individual only, is likened to a found treasure here. Philo goes on to explain that the found “treasure” refers to knowledge that is revealed by God to those he chooses, without the need to study (“without any toil or labour”) to gain access to it (ibid.). In fact, “it often happens to those who seek with great labour, that they miss that for which they are seeking; while others, who are seeking without any diligence, find with great ease even things that they never thought of finding” (ibid. 93). If the editors of Matthew’s gospel were familiar with such arguments, they might have used them to distinguish their own group of (Jewish-)Christians, who claimed the “treasure” of knowledge of the “kingdom of the heavens” for themselves, from Pharisees who “toiled” in the study of the Torah instead ..."