ABSTRACT
In Egypt the king was himself regarded as one of the gods, the son of Re, the sun-god, and he acted as the mediator between gods and men, the cosmological order and the social order. The authority and rule of Pharaoh reflected in politics the harmony and stability of the cosmos. Human society was a microcosm within the great macrocosm, which certainly could not be understood in and of itself. The idea of convention is backward-looking. Its lodestar is a golden age in the past to which people must try to conform. Non-conformity is a challenge to the whole structure of harmonious relationships with society and between men and gods. The concept of natural law has pervaded European thought from Aristotle to the present day, entering into Christian theology very early by way of Stoicism, as well as later, direct from Aristotle.
