The social life of man requires structure and commonly recognized rules of conduct. Within this context, the Gk. word with the widest range of meaning is nomos, which originally denoted a system for distributing property, based upon collective agreement. Then it acquired the more general sense of a commonly agreed public order, or, in the plur., the laws that regulate life. However, nomos or the plur. nomoi has a religious basis, being anchored in transcendence and therefore