ABSTRACT
The idea of covenant was a minor theme at best in Greek and Roman political thought, the application of federal devices in the real world was more widespread. Christianity, like Judaism, regards itself as being founded upon a covenant, but a fundamentally different covenant, from God in the person of Jesus, who, for Christians, is the source of human salvation. Christians understand their covenant as fulfilling the promise of the old covenant with Israel as presaged, in the Christian view, by such prophets as Isaiah and Jeremiah. Clement of Alexandria, a Greek theologian, had his own gloss on the three-covenant theory, suggesting that God established a covenant of philosophy for the Greeks, a covenant of the Mosaic Law for the Jews, and a covenant of faith for the Christians. Another possible channel of transmission of covenant ideas may have been through the Pelagiasian heresy.
