name as in essence. We do not hear much of the Covenant in the Rabbinic
books, but its spirit pervades Judaism. Of all the legacy of the past
the Covenant was the most inspiring element. Beginning with Abraham, the
Covenant established a special relation between God and Abraham's seed. 'I
have known him, that he may command his children and his household after
him, that they may keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and
judgment' (Gen. xviii. 19). Of this Covenant, the outward sign was the
rite of circumcision. Renewed with Moses, and followed in traditional
opinion by the Ten Commandments, the Sinaitic Covenant was a further
link in the bond between God and His people. Of this Mosaic Covenant
the outward sign was the Sabbath. It is of no moment for our present
argument whether Abraham and Moses were historical persons or figments
of tradition. A Gamaliel would have as little doubted their reality as
would a St. Paul. And whatever Criticism may be doing with Abraham, it
is coming more and more to see that behind the eighth-century prophets
there must have towered the figure of a, if not of the traditional,
Moses; behind the prophets a, if not the, Law. Be that as it may, to the
Jew of the Christian Era, Abraham and Moses were real and the Covenant
unalterable. By the syncretism which has been already described Jeremiah's
New Covenant was not regarded as new. Nor was it new; it represented
a change of stress, not of contents. When he said (Jer. xxxi. 33),
'This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel, after
those days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their inward parts, and
in their heart will I write it,' Jeremiah, it has been held, was making
Christianity possible. But he was also making Judaism possible. Here and
nowhere else is to be found the principle which enabled Judaism to survive
the loss of Temple and nationality. And the New Covenant was in no sense
inconsistent with the Old. For not only does Jeremiah proceed to add in
the self-same verse, 'I will be their God, and they will be my people,'
but the New Covenant is specifically made with the house of Judah and of