“... If “having broken down the dividing wall, the fence” is paralleled by “having abolished… the hostility, the law…,” then it seems more likely that the fence is a reference to the law. The notion of the oral tradition as providing a fence for Torah was a familiar one (cf. m. ʾAbot 1.1, 2; 3.18), but Torah itself could be seen as providing a fence around Israel. In the second century B.C.E. the Epistle of Aristeas declared: “our lawgiver… fenced us about [ περιφράσσειν ] with impenetrable palisades and with walls of iron to the end that we should mingle in no way with any of the other nations, remaining pure in body and in spirit” (139) and “so that we should be polluted by none nor be infected with perversions by associating with worthless persons, he has fenced us about [ περιφράσσειν ] on all sides with prescribed purifications in matters of food and drink and touch and hearing and sight” (142). [...] It can easily be seen that in functioning as a fence to protect Israel from the impurity of the Gentiles, the law became such a sign of Jewish particularism that it also alienated Gentiles and became a cause of hostility ...”