| DOCTRINES AND DOGMAS |
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| 3 MAJOR THEMES AND
MOTIFS |
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The concept of covenant--that is, a
binding promise--is of far-reaching importance in the relations between
individuals, groups, and nations. It has social, legal, religious, and other
aspects. This section is concerned primarily with the term in its special
religious sense and especially with its role in Judaism and Christianity. |
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Covenants in the ancient world were
solemn agreements by which societies attempted to regularize the behaviour of
both individuals and social organizations, particularly in those contexts in
which social control was
either inadequate or nonexistent. Though ancient pre-Greek civilizations
apparently never developed a descriptive theory of covenants, analysis of
covenant forms and the ancient use of language yields a definition that
essentially is the same as that found in modern law. It is a promise or
agreement under consideration, usually under seal or guarantee between two
parties, and the seal or symbol of guarantee is that which distinguishes
covenant from modern contract. |
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The concept of covenant has been of
enormous importance in the biblical tradition; from it there is derived the long
traditional division of the Bible
into the Old and New Testaments
(Covenants). In postbiblical Judaism and sporadically in Christianity, the
concept of covenant has been a major source and foundation of religious thought
and especially of the concept of the religious
community, but the nature and content of covenant ideas have undergone an
extremely complex history of change, adaptation, and elaboration. (see also Torah, New
Testament) |
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Though both covenant and law in the
ancient world were means by which obligation was both established and
sanctioned, and are often virtually identified with each other in modern
scholarly literature, there are, nevertheless, very important contrasts between
the two that should not be obscured. A covenant is a promise that is sanctioned
by an oath. This promise in
turn was accompanied by an appeal to a deity or deities to "see" or
"watch over" the behaviour of the one who has sworn, and to punish any
violation of the covenant by bringing into action the curses stipulated or
implied in the swearing of the oath. Legal procedure, on the other hand, may be
entirely secular, for law characteristically does not require that each member
of the legal community voluntarily swear an oath to obey the law. Further, in
ordinary legal procedure the sanctions of the law are carried out by appropriate
agencies of the society itself, not by transcendent powers beyond the control of
man and society. (see also punishment) |
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Because a person can bind only himself
by an oath, covenants in the ancient world were usually unilateral. In
circumstances in which it was desirable to establish a parity (equivalence)
treaty, such as in rare cases in political life, the parity was obtained by the
simple device of what might be termed a double covenant, in which both parties
would bind themselves to identical obligations, and neither was therefore
subjected to the other. |
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The oath was usually accompanied by a
ritual or symbolic act that might take any of an enormous range of forms. One of
the most frequent of these was the ritual identification of the promisor with a sacrificial
animal, so that the slaughter and perhaps dismemberment of the animal dramatized
the fate of the promisor if he were to violate the covenant. |
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That covenants most probably originated
in remote prehistoric times is indicated by the fact that they were already
well-developed political instruments by the 3rd millennium BC. To judge from
later parallels and from the modern observations of anthropologists, covenants
may very well have developed at least in part out of marriage contracts between
exogamous tribes or bands; i.e., those
groups that stayed within the required patterns of intermarriage. Whether or not
this was the case, the most important functions of covenants for 1,000 years
before the 13th-century BC Sinai covenant (see below) had to do with the
creation of new relationships, both familial and political. Though the old
theory of "social contract"--i.e.,
the basic agreement about the social and political order--as the basis of
large social organizations has not for some time been much in favour among
social scientists, very early historical evidence seems increasingly to suggest
that covenants may have been much more instrumental in society than has been
realized. |
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Typically, so far as existing sources
now reveal, a covenant between social groups regularized in advance the
relationships between two societies after one had been subjugated by a superior
coercive force, usually by military action or the threat thereof. In the Mari
documents (18th-century-BC archives from the palace at Mari in Syria), such a
covenant was called a salimum, a
"peace," probably because the promises made by the vanquished brought
to an end the necessity of military operations against the vassal ruler or
state. As is the case throughout so much of human history, ancient states
characteristically seem to have regarded their neighbours as either enemies or
vassals. Thus it is not surprising that covenants made under duress had little
vitality, particularly when the terms of the covenant called for a considerable
annual tribute to the overlord state. |
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About the beginning of the late Bronze
Age (c. 1500 BC), there
occurred a major step forward in both the form and the concept of political
covenants as is attested by treaties
of the Hittite Empire of Asia Minor. Though the realities of political life were
probably little changed, since the foreign policy of the Hittite Empire was
primarily military, the structure of suzerainty treaties from this time on
included rather strenuous efforts to demonstrate that the vassal's obligations
to the Hittite overlord were really founded upon the former's self-interest, not
merely upon the brute military force of the latter. (see also international agreement, Hittite
religion) |
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By far the most evidence for
international treaties in the ancient world comes from Hittite sources, which
were contemporary with the events that preceded and led up to the formation of
the ancient Israelite federation of tribes in Palestine.
The treaty form in written texts was highly developed and flexible but usually
exhibited the following structure: preamble, historical prologue, stipulations,
provisions for deposit and public reading, witnesses, and curses and blessings
formulas. (1) The preamble names the overlord who grants the treaty-covenant to
the vassal. The titles and laudatory epithets of the Great King are also given.
(2) The historical prologue describes the previous relationships between the two
parties in some detail, usually emphasizing the benevolent acts of the Great
King toward the vassal. Thus the covenant is based upon the demonstrated
benefits that have already been received and therefore holds out the expectation
of continuing advantage for faithful obedience to the covenant. There is an
implication that obedience to obligations is based upon gratitude. (3) The
stipulations, which in form are much like those of the ancient Mesopotamian
law codes (case law), define in advance the obligation of the vassal in certain
circumstances. In addition, there are also generalized statements of obligation
of a type that has been called "apodictic law" (regulations in the
form of a command). The obligations deal particularly with military assistance,
the treatment of fugitives, and foreign policy. Treaty relationships with other
independent states are a violation of covenant. (4) Provision is made for
deposit of the treaty in the temple and for periodic public reading. Because the
temple is the "house of the god," the written document was placed
there for the watchful attention of the deity. The treaty obligations, however,
were also binding upon the vassal's citizenry, and so at stipulated intervals
the text was read to the assembly, both as a reminder and a warning. (5) The
list of witnesses included, in addition to the major deities of both states,
deified elements of the natural world, such as mountains, rivers, heaven and
earth, winds, and clouds. The witnesses were those powers that were believed to
be beyond human control and upon which man and society were regarded as
completely dependent. They were invoked to apply the appropriate sanctions of
the covenant. (6) The curses and blessings formulas are the sanctions that
furnish not only negative but also positive motivations for obedience. They
include the natural and historical calamities beyond human control, such as
disease, famine, death without posterity, and destruction of the society itself.
The blessings are of course the opposite: prosperity, peace, long life,
continuity of kingship and society. |
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In view of the obsession with rituals
that characterized Hittite culture, some elaborate ceremony probably accompanied
the ratification of covenant, such as the account of one preserved in the
document known as "The Soldiers' Oath," but it is not described in
existing covenant texts. |
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Scholars in Europe and America in the
20th century have seen an astounding similarity between this treaty structure
and the biblical traditions of the Sinai covenant. Publication of texts in the
mid-1950s was followed by an enormous amount of scholarly discussion, but as yet
no conclusions can be said to represent a scholarly consensus. The formal
similarity to biblical traditions cannot be denied, but the problem of what
historical conclusions can be drawn from the formal similarities is highly
sensitive and controversial. While the following synthesis is a probable, and
historically plausible, interpretation, it must be admitted that other
possibilities can by no means be excluded. |
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The 100 years between 1250 and 1150 BC
saw the complete destruction, or reduction to virtual impotence, of every major
political state in the eastern Mediterranean region and the beginning of a
"dark age" that has yielded very few written materials from which
historical conclusions can be drawn. The reasons for the universal catastrophe
are far from clear, but the reversion of society to communities of peasants and
shepherds with a subsistence level economy can be well illustrated
archaeologically. The earliest biblical traditions illustrate the conditions in
Palestine at this time, though it is a difficult task to distinguish genuine
ancient traditions from the use of the past by biblical writers to give
religious validity to social realities or institutions of much later date. (see
also Sinai
covenant) |
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In view of the highly elaborate social
structure of the old Bronze Age states--with its apex in the military
aristocracy, a highly complex priesthood, and ritual--and the equally complex
social structure of the many local enclaves and tribes--each with its particular
god -- the monotheistic and
ethically centred religious ideology of early Israel has been regarded for
millennia as a miracle of "revelation,"
which cannot be explained on the basis of usual historical principles and
concepts. Yet, ancient Israel was an historically existent community created,
and precariously maintained, by a unity of which the religious ideology was the
foundation for two centuries, until military considerations resulted in the
formation of a political centralization of power about 1000 BC. The covenant
tradition is the only instrument by which the effective functioning of that
unity can be understood, and its importance is underlined by the biblical
traditions themselves. The structure of the Hittite treaties now makes available
an historical precedent that enables scholars to understand the structure of
early Israelite thought and consequently its functional operation in history. |
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The Decalogue (The Ten
Commandments) given by Yahweh,
the God of the Israelites, at Sinai, plus the various traditions associated with
earliest Israel yield all of the important elements of the Hittite treaty form
but in an extremely succinct and simple form. Yahweh is identified as the
covenant giver, and the historical prologue is the only possible one according
to the ancient traditions: the announcement that it is this God who delivered
the assembled group from bondage in Egypt (in the 13th century BC). This
delivery is a free, voluntary act of the deity that forms the basis of the
obligations that the community can either accept together with a lasting
relationship to that God or reject, thus entailing a permanent hostility
(hatred) between the God and human beings. It is the common relationship to a
single sovereign God that furnished the basis for a radically new kind of
community, which grew with rapidity first in Transjordan, then in Palestine
proper, until it included virtually all the nonurban population of the region.
(see also Exodus) |
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The new community was the answer,
temporarily at least, to the old dilemma of civilization: how to maintain peace
among a large and diverse population, perform the necessary social functions of
cooperation and protection, and control individual attacks upon the security and
property of others without the enormous and expensive paraphernalia of political
bureaucracy, military machine, and the ruinous tax collector. It was, for all
functional purposes, the Kingdom (or Rule) of Yahweh, which excluded the
deification of any other factor in human history or nature that was of
importance to human life and well-being. The Sinai covenant marked the
beginnings of nearly all the various theological themes that were to be so
greatly elaborated upon in the following millennia: the Providence, or Grace, of
God; the Kingdom of God; the
sin of man and the wrath of God; the Holy People as the community of God; the
rewards and punishments of the obedient and the disobedient respectively; and
above all, the ethical norms as the essence of divine command over against the
universal pagan obsession with proper ritual as the normative expression of
man's subjection to the divine will. |
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The Sinaitic covenant stipulations may
be expressed in modern functional terms in the following manner: (1) The
commandment to have no other gods involves the obligation to refuse subjection
to all other social and human concerns and their symbolization in art forms so
as to give them a position of parity or superiority to Yahweh and his commands.
(2) The commandment not to take the name of God in vain emphasizes the
unconditional sanctity of oaths that Yahweh was called upon to guarantee and
enforce. (3) The commandment to observe the Sabbath,
the seventh day, the original social function of which is still unknown, could
very well have grown out of a common village custom, for even in Rome in the 1st
century BC, good farming practice permitted work animals and slaves to rest
every eighth day--and this is precisely the interpretation given in Deut. 5:14.
(4) The commandment to honour father and mother emphasizes the treatment of
parents with respect and deference, which must have been of particular
importance in a time of social upheaval and polarization. (5) The commandment
not to kill meant that killing of persons by persons, even by accident if it
involved negligence, was a usurpation of the divine sovereignty over persons.
Contrary to modern reinterpretations, among opponents of capital punishment and
pacifists, this could not include execution of persons for crime or killing of
the enemy in warfare, for in
both cases human beings were acting as the agents of Yahweh under divine
command, just as the various officials of states have long carried out similar
functions without incurring personal guilt for their acts. (6) Other
commandments against theft, adultery, and false witness categorically prohibit
acts that call into question the security of property, of family relationships
and true lineal succession, and the integrity and therefore the justice of
juridical procedures in society. (7) Finally, the prohibition of coveting what
one's neighbour has excludes an enormous range of social attitudes and
motivations that modern man now takes for granted as normal, if not essential. |
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Most, if not all, of the Ten
Commandments are ethical obligations of which violations are very difficult if
not impossible for society to detect, much less to enforce or punish. The Sinai
covenant, therefore, marked the beginnings of a systematic recognition that the
well-being of a community cannot be based merely upon socially organized force,
nor can the political power structure be regarded, as in ancient pagan states,
as the manifestation of the divine, transcendent order of the universe. |
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Traces remain in the biblical traditions
to indicate that the new community formed from a "rabble" at Sinai was
in very short time joined by a considerable part of the population of
Transjordan and Palestine proper. After the destruction (in the late 13th
century) of the military chiefdoms ruled by Sihon and Og in the area east of the
Jordan River, the Hebrews held a covenant ceremony at Shittim (northeast of the
Dead Sea), which has been greatly elaborated upon in tradition as the
"second giving of the Law," Deuteronomy.
Though it is true that the Book of Deuteronomy from the 7th century BC exhibits
the same basic structure as that of the old covenant form, it is at present
impossible to reconstruct the original form or content of the Shittim covenant.
It may be presumed that entry into the community by covenant was followed by the
allotment of land as tenured fiefs from Yahweh and the organization of the
population into "tribes." This organization probably was the last
event of the Hebrew leader Moses'
life, and the sequel in the more important covenant at Shechem
(northwest of the Dead Sea) took place under the leadership of Joshua,
the successor of Moses. |
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Shechem evidently had had an important
covenant tradition long before Israel existed. The name of its god, Baal Berit
("Lord of the Covenant"), presupposes some kind of covenant basis for
the local social structure, just as a considerable segment of the population can
be shown to have originated from Anatolia. |
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The Shechem covenant narrative has been
preserved at least in part in Joshua, in which Joshua appeals to the family and
clan heads to choose between the new dominion of Yahweh and the continuation of
the old ancestral cults of the Amorite tradition "beyond the River."
As in the case of the Transjordan covenant at Shittim, this covenant followed
the defeat of a coalition of petty kings and evidently the removal of many
others according to the list of Joshua. Again, there ensued an allotment of
fields and an organization of the population into administrative units called
"tribes," each under a nasi (literally,
"one lifted up"). (see also Joshua,
Book of) |
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The entire process from the covenant at
Sinai to the unification of perhaps a quarter of a million people by a covenant
involving a religious loyalty to a single deity took only a little over one
generation. It began with a group of probably considerably less than 1,000
people who left Egypt with Moses. |
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The subsequent history of the Sinai
covenant tradition is very complex. The Book of Deuteronomy preserves slight
traces of a covenant-renewal ceremony held every seven years, which is
inherently plausible and which would function as a means for obtaining the
oath-bound loyalty to Yahweh and his dominion of those who had come into the
community from the outside or who had come of age in the intervening period. |
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Since early Israel
was a religious confederacy of tribes that bitterly rejected the old military
chiefdoms and their religious ideology, which elevated a Baal, or local
agricultural deity--the god with the club as a symbol of the supernatural power
undergirding the king--to a position of preeminence in the pantheon, it follows
that the authentic Yahwist traditions stemming from Moses could not furnish a
religious ideology to legitimize the monarchy when it was finally established
first under Saul (reigned c. 1020-1000
BC) and then successfully under David
(reigned c. 1000-962). Furthermore,
early in David's reign, he had incorporated by military force most of the
existing city-states of Palestine and Transjordan into his empire, and that
population had never given up the old Bronze Age cults. |
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It is not surprising, therefore, that
this double dilemma of the new political structure should have driven the royal
bureaucracy to pre-Mosaic sources as a solution to the problem. One result was
the reintroduction of the age-old pagan concept of the king as the
"chosen" one of the gods and a radically different--and
opposite--concept of covenant, in which it was now Yahweh, not the king or the
people, who bound himself by oath. Possibly modelled after old royal covenants
by which ancient pagan kings made a grant to their faithful retainers, the
Davidic covenant introduced a radically different (and thoroughly pagan) element
into the Mosaic tradition, and the two traditions contended with one another for
the next 1,000 years. (see also sacred
kingship) |
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Since the old Israel-Jacob (pre-Mosaic)
traditions also could not furnish an ideological base for unifying the old
Israelite and non-Israelite populations under the monarchy, pre-Mosaic epic
traditions of Abraham (perhaps
19th-18th centuries BC) were appealed to to furnish the "common
ancestor" symbol of unity, and the covenant tradition--no doubt, already a
part of that epic--was readapted to bring it up to date. The deity (now
identified with Yahweh) bound himself by oath to fulfill certain promises to
Abraham, though the content of the promise, in the form now received, was by and
large a description of the historical situation of the Davidic empire. Though it
is difficult to see what the social or ideological function may have been, the
covenant with Noah (the hero of the Flood) in Genesis exhibits the same
structure. The result of all these radical changes in a very short time was a
complete confusing of the religious tradition and structure and a permanent
deposit of the pre-Mosaic pagan religious ideology into the biblical tradition.
It seems virtually certain that the Sinai tradition was itself systematically
reinterpreted in the so-called ritual decalogue of Exodus
in which it is dogmatically stated that the Sinai obligations were entirely
ritual in nature, rather than ethical-functional. The first tables of stone of
the Ten Commandments, after all, had been "broken," which in the
ancient world was a customary phrase used to indicate the invalidation of
binding legal documents. |
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The next several centuries illustrate
the constant battle between the Mosaic and the reintroduced pagan elements. The
prophets proclaimed and supported the disintegration (c. 922 BC) of the Solomonic empire into a northern (Israel) and a
southern (Judah) kingdom as the divine chastisement of Yahweh for gross
disobedience. Particularly in the north, which did not retain the Davidic
dynasty, the prophets periodically proclaimed the necessity and inevitability of
wiping out one royal dynasty after another. Elijah,
a 9th-century BC rustic prophet, ridiculed the idea that the Israelites could
limp along on both legs--i.e., observe
loyalty to both the Yahwistic and the Baal cults. Reforms were carried out
occasionally, but not until the time of Josiah, the young king of Judah (late
7th century BC), and the discovery of an old copy of the Mosaic legal-ethical
tradition (the Deuteronomic code) in c. 621
BC was serious reform undertaken--and there with little permanent success. The
preservation of the Mosaic tradition was a function of the destruction of the
monarchical state and its religious symbol, the temple, which nearly all the
pre-exilic (before 587/586 BC) prophets had predicted. (see also Judaism) |
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Though the prophet Jeremiah (late 7th
century BC) had predicted a "new covenant" written upon the heart
(Jeremiah), not until the time of the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah in the 5th
century is there another biblical narrative of covenant making, this time one of
incalculable importance for the future of both postbiblical Judaism and
Christianity and perhaps even for certain aspects of political theory or
practice in the West (e.g., "Covenant"
of the United Nations, Mayflower Compact, and constitutions). |
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The account in Nehemiah is not so much
that of a covenant as it is of a constitutional convention, the purpose of which
was to establish as binding law the complex of traditions that had been
preserved and recorded as the "law of God which was given by Moses, the
servant of God" (Nehemiah). It is a one-party enactment by the authorities
and representatives of the community, in which Yahweh appears only as the deity
addressed in the long historical prologue in the form of a prayer. The content
is a recapitulation of the Deuteronomic history (interpretations of the
7th-century BC document), narrating the benevolent acts of Yahweh and the sin
and punishment of the people. In order to avoid the curses, and obtain the
blessings, the community resolved henceforth to observe the "law of
God." From this time on, the dominant concept of covenant in Judaism
identifies it with circumcision,
the ritual by which on the eighth day of his life, the male Jew becomes
obligated to obey the law of Moses, the berit
(covenant). The Sinai covenant had become permanently identified with the
accumulation of legal-ritual tradition, and the community was identified not as
the complex variety of all those who wished and accepted the rule of God but as
the ethnic group of those who were heirs of the promise to Abraham in direct
lineal (and fictitious) descent. (see also Ezra, Book of,
Old Testament) |
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The cup of wine at the Last
Supper of Jesus and his
disciples before Jesus' crucifixion is identified in all New
Testament sources as the (new) covenant by Jesus himself, but in spite of
millennia-long controversy, theological elaboration, and discussion, the nature
and meaning of the covenant has never been adequately understood historically,
and the variety of interpretations regarding covenant in the New Testament
itself indicates that very early in the tradition it had become a problem. Here
it is possible only to indicate some significant associations that might explain
why it was called a "covenant" and how the ancient Sinaitic tradition
was radically renewed but the basic structure retained. (see also Eucharist) |
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First, it has been noted that a most
important aspect of covenant traditions common to most ancient cultures was the
ritual identification of the oath taker with the sacrificial
victim. The identification of the bread and the wine with the body and blood of
Christ at the Last Supper apparently was interpreted in this sense, so that the
subsequent death of the victim entails the symbolic death--the ultimate curse
for breach of covenant--of all those who were thus identified with the victim.
Consequently, the curses of the law were nullified. The death of Jesus thus
becomes in the Christian proclamation the centre of the historical
narrative--the historical prologue of the covenant--leading up to the covenant
enactment, or the sacramentum, to use
the Latin term of the early church, which in secular use at that time meant
primarily the soldier's oath of loyalty to the emperor (see above Late
Bronze Age developments ). The
Christian covenant was thus a highly complex historical act that brought about a
relationship of the believer to Christ whose (normally) unseen Glory was
identified with that of God himself, whose Lordship was viewed as operational in
history, and whose community (of believers) was identified with the Kingdom
(Dominion or Rule) of God. If God in the Old Testament could rule without kings,
God could, for the New Testament writers, rule without the elaborate structure
of the accumulated legal traditions. They were regarded as valuable for
edification and for warning but no longer as having binding validity. The anathema,
or curse, was no longer tied to the definitions of legal violation but rather to
rejection of God's rule in Christ. The community in turn was no longer the
lineal descent group with a parochial ritual tradition but the assembly (ekklesia) of those who had through the covenant accepted a
relationship to the dominion of Christ. (see also God, Kingdom of) |
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The obligations could not, in the New
Testament viewpoint, be again defined in legal terms, nor could they be enforced
by social power structures, which could deal only with external formal acts, not
with the basic springs of behaviour, such as love or hate. The content of
obligation was thus not defined; instead, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew)
and other New Testament literature, it is the criteria (motivations, ethical
norms, personality traits) by which the rule of God is recognized upon which the
emphasis falls. The presumption is that anyone who is capable of recognizing the
rule of God in his experience in society will also be capable of understanding
what the nature of his obligation will be in specific circumstances. The curses
and blessings alike are then postponed until the final judgment. The motivations
of fear of punishment and hope of reward are irrelevant to the daily routine of
ethical choice, which is thus not only possible (i.e.,
not prescribed in advance by legal definition) but unavoidable and also
necessary to make responsible ethical decisions in a world that is characterized
by cultural diversity and change. |
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Covenant concepts in early Christian
theology apparently centred on the transferrence of the Davidic covenant to the
Messianic figure--i.e., Christ. The
fundamental theological problem of the early church was to validate the
authority of Christ against both paganism and Judaism and to maintain the
authority of the new religious community. After the great theologian Augustine
(354-430), little attention was given to covenants until the Reformation
in the 16th century. Though Luther (1483-1546) referred to and discussed the
biblical covenants, it was never of particular importance to his theology. It is
rather in Reformed theology, particularly that of John Calvin (1509-64) and the
later Puritans of the 17th
century, that its further elaboration took place. One aspect of the use of
covenant may be cited in the famed Mayflower
Compact of November 11, 1620 (drawn up by the Pilgrims, Separatists from
the Church of England) by which a "civil body politic" was formed that
would in turn enact laws and offices for the general good. (see also covenant theology,
Reformed church, Presbyterian
churches, Pilgrim Fathers) |
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The theological elaboration of covenant
in Puritan and Separatist theology centred on the themes of election, grace, and
Baptism. It is curiously ironic that covenant enactment, such as the Mayflower
Compact, became historically operative but remained essentially secular, while
the religious covenant became predominantly a theological concept associated
particularly with Baptism--the ritual means by which a person became a
participant in the covenant of grace. The essential elements in the biblical
covenant--i.e., that of free,
voluntary acceptance of ethical obligation on the basis of and as response to
past experience--has virtually always given way to covenant as fixed religious
dogma that legitimizes the social structure. Covenant historically has been a
means by which new communities are formed, particularly in times of rapid
change, social dislocation, or political breakdown. Covenants have rarely been
the actual instruments by which societies actually functioned for long, but they
are extremely frequent as ideological foundations for sociopolitical legitimacy. |
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Covenants (mithaq, 'ahd) were of great importance in the formative period of Islam
(7th century AD, or 1st century AH--after the Hegira, Muhammad's flight
from Mecca to Medina). More than 700 verses of the Qur`an,
the Muslim sacred scripture, have to do with various aspects of covenant
relationships. As one recent Muslim writer, Sayyid Qutb, states, Islam
combines both the Old and the New Testaments (covenants) and the Last Covenant,
of Islam, as well. All revelation from Adam to Muhammad is
regarded by Muslims as a unit, mediated through a series of prophets, or
messengers, with whom God made a covenant: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
Though the concept is difficult, it seems that the prophet in each case was
given a revelation and a religion to which he covenanted with God to witness
faithfully. This concept of a covenant of the prophets conveys the conviction of
the unity of revelation as well as the unity of God in past history. |
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On the second level, the Muslim
community itself is often regarded as being composed of those who have accepted
the covenant with God. In this connection, the grace, or providence,
of God in nature or creation is of great importance. In addition to this view is
the repeated emphasis upon the doctrine that God alone is man's sole benefactor,
and for these reasons the response of gratitude is an important element in the
structure of the covenant. It is also necessary that rewards and punishments are
included. These are predominantly, as in the Christian concepts, focussed upon
the hereafter, paradise, and hell, though not exclusively so. The recipients of
the rewards and punishments are described as those who obey or disobey Allah's
(God's) commands, which include prayer, paying the zakat (head tax: an obligatory charity), belief in the messengers of
Allah, fearing God alone, and refraining from theft, adultery, murder,
and false witness. They are further obligated to show kindness to parents and to
strive in the cause of God with their persons and property. |
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On the historical and social level, it
seems quite certain that the community of the formative period in Islam
was based on covenant acts, in which persons or groups formally proclaimed their
acceptance of Muhammad's message and swore an oath of loyalty, accepting
the obligations outlined above. References to the clasp of hands indicate that
this was probably regarded as the formal act of commitment and acceptance by the
community. In later Muslim theology, as in Christianity, the covenant idea seems
to have been of comparatively little importance. |
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It seems that only in the religions
stemming from the biblical tradition is covenant of central importance. Though
gods are often invoked as guarantors of promises sworn to in Iranian and Indic
(Hindu) religious traditions, the covenant with a deity or the community as a
covenant-bound one apparently was of relatively little importance, or possibly
the concept has not been recovered by modern scholarship. The great importance
of Mithra in early Iranian religion as god of the covenant and Mitra-Varuna
in Indic (Hindu) religion suggests that such concepts may have been more
important than is now realized. Thus, modern scholarship has yet to indicate the
importance of the covenant concept in Indo-Iranian and other religions. (G.E.Me.)
(see also Mithraism) |
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