ABSTRACT
An incandescent irony has burnished natural law theory from its very inception. Representing, as it does, the tes timony of reason on what is reasonable conduct for men, the authority of natural law has always been counterpointed by the authority of society which necessarily preaches its own convictions on what is proper behaviour and ultimate truth in matters political and ethical. As suggested, natural law would ultimately sink or swim thanks to some public au thority capable of interpreting its command. In medieval Latin Europe the authority was to become the Church. Today we have long passed that moment in history, and our own drama bears within itself lineaments already traced in pagan and republican Rome. The central figure was Cicero because he lived within a tension he discovered between the dictates of philosophy and the dictates of Roman pietas. Pub lic faith might very well enshrine natural law theory but then again it might not. Socrates against the Assembly and Plato's Republic that was too pure to be lived in by men suggest at the very least tension and at the most opposition between what a society believes to be true and what a philosopher discovers or thinks he discovers concerning truth. The issue cannot be resolved theoretically by merely opting for one or the other authority. Their relationships must be explored and this exploration belongs properly to political philosophy, but
to a political philosophy that takes seriously the role of reli gion and piety and prescription in mans corporate life. Such a political doctrine was shaped under the pressure of history by the genius of Cicero.
