Strauss criticizes Max Weber as an historicist whose relativism mars the ethical quality of his work. Strauss suggests that Weber escapes this presumptive relativism by a religious route, namely, by grounding values in revelation and by professing to await another revelation which would save us from relativism. This paper argues, in Weber's defence, against the charges of relativism and historicism. Strauss slights Weber's own understanding of 'value free' scientific inquiry. Value freedom can be interpreted not only as a methodological principle but also as a moral purpose. 1999 Academic Press One of the most penetrating critiques of Max Weber's 'value free' sociology came from the political theorist, Leo Strauss. The entire second chapter of Strauss's Natural Right and History (hereafter NRH) is devoted to the argument against Weber, whom Strauss called 'the greatest social scientist of our century' (NRH, p. 36). Strauss was obliged to confront Weber not only because of Weber's greatness but also because he seems to conflict at every point with the substantive position that Strauss apparently wants to defend. Strauss argues that it is at least possible to defend the view that there is a culturally invariant, universally knowable standard of right inherent in nature. Weber seems to argue, in contrast, that nature discloses no such standard; that there is, furthermore, an unbridgeable distinction between 'facts' and 'values' and that values therefore, are essentially without foundation in anything other than human will. If Strauss sets out to defend (or at least to open up some critical doubts about the modern presentiment against) natural right, Weber, on Strauss's reading, is the champion of a historicism that, in its acute modern form, most starkly rejects natural right. Strauss sees Weber, then, as the last historicist. A man of the highest probity, Weber is the one who carried German historicism to its logical limit and who, with courage and despair, stared unblinking into the abyss that historicism uncovers (NRH, p. 38) 1 . Strauss treats this 'greatest' of social scientists as a kind of philosopher. He reads Weber's sociological studies as existentialist texts, as records of a solitary confrontation with meaninglessness. 2 However, all of these claims are controversial. Strauss, quite arguably, practiced a form of writing no less esoteric than the great thinkers whose presumed esotericism is integral to Strauss's own hermeneutic. 3 Depending upon how esoteric Strauss is thought to be, his critique might, to some degree, mask a substantial measure of agreement with Weber. Perhaps Strauss criticizes Weber less for his alleged relativism and nihilism than for his unreserved publicity of those sad insights. 4 NRH is a convoluted and inconclusive book. 5 Perhaps it, in its totality, and Strauss, in the totality of his works, arrive at no more ultimate a foundation than Weber's apparent formulation of a radical and unresolved pluralism of ultimate values, of competing gods and demons. 6 However this may be, it is at least clear that Strauss does try to undo or, minimally, to criticize historicism from within-no naive return to the ancients is possible. Therefore Strauss perforce shares some common premises with Weber. 7 At least on the surface, Strauss rejects Weber's putative nihilism in the name of natural right. However, I shall argue that Strauss, who may, after all, share in this nihilism, had a deeper argument with Weber. Strauss sees Weber, albeit in a highly ironic way, as a 'religious' thinker. Strauss's problem is not only or primarily that, pace Weber, values lack foundation but that the only source of authentic values is, for Weber, religious