{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_46212/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_46212","id":"gutenberg_46212","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46212","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Covenants","Salt"],"text":"THE\n\n    COVENANT OF SALT\n\n    AS BASED ON THE SIGNIFICANCE AND SYMBOLISM\n    OF SALT IN PRIMITIVE THOUGHT\n\n\n    BY\n    H. CLAY TRUMBULL\n\n    Author of \"The Blood Covenant,\" \"The Threshold Covenant,\"\n    \"Kadesh-barnea,\" \"Studies in Oriental Social Life,\" etc.\n\n\n    NEW YORK\n    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\n    1899\n\n    Copyright, 1899\n    By H. CLAY TRUMBULL\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn 1884 I issued a volume on \"The Blood Covenant: A Primitive Rite\nand its Bearings on Scripture.\" Later I was led to attempt, and to\nannounce as in preparation, another volume in the field of primitive\ncovenants, including a treatment of \"The Name Covenant,\" \"The Covenant\nof Salt,\" and \"The Threshold Covenant.\" In 1896, I issued a separate\nvolume on \"The Threshold Covenant,\" that subject having grown into such\nprominence in my studies as to justify its treatment by itself. These\ntwo works, \"The Blood Covenant\" and \"The Threshold Covenant,\" have been\nwelcomed by scholars on both sides of the ocean to an extent beyond\nmy expectations, and in view of this I venture to submit some further\nresearches in the field of primitive thought and customs.\n\nBefore the issuing of my second volume, I had prepared the main portion\nof this present work on \"The Covenant of Salt,\" but since then I have\nbeen led to revise it, and to conform it more fully to my latest\nconclusion as to the practical identity of all covenants. It is in\nthis form that I present it, as a fresh contribution to the study of\narcheology and of anthropology.\n\nAs I have come to see it, as a result of my researches, the very\nidea of a \"covenant\" in primitive thought is a union of being, or of\npersons, in a common life, with the approval of God, or of the gods.\nThis was primarily a sharing of blood, which is life, between two\npersons, through a rite which had the sanction of him who is the source\nof all life. In this sense \"blood brotherhood\" and the \"threshold\ncovenant\" are but different forms of one and the same _covenant_. The\nblood of animals shared in a common sacrifice is counted as the blood\nwhich makes two one in a sacred covenant. Wine as \"the blood of the\ngrape\" stands for the blood which is the life of all flesh; hence the\nsharing of wine stands for the sharing of blood or life. So, again,\nsalt represents blood, or life, and the covenant of salt is simply\nanother form of the one blood covenant. This is the main point of\nthis new monograph. So far as I know, this truth has not before been\nrecognized or formulated.\n\nSimilarly the sharing of a common name, especially of the name of God,\nor of a god, is the claim of a divinely sanctioned covenant between\nthose who bear it. It is another mode of claiming to be in the one\nvital covenant. A temporary agreement, or truce, between two who\nshare a drink of water or a morsel of bread, is a lesser and very\ndifferent thing from entering into a covenant, which by its very nature\nis permanent and unchangeable. This difference is pointed out and\nemphasized in the following pages.\n\nIn these new investigations, as in my former ones, I have been aided,\nstep by step, by specialists, who have kindly given me suggestions\nand assistance by every means in their power. This furnishes a fresh\nillustration of the readiness of all scholars to aid any fresh worker\nin any line where their own labors render them an authority or a guide.\n\nBesides my special acknowledgments in the text and footnotes of this\nvolume, I desire to express my indebtedness and thanks to these\nscholars who have freely rendered me important assistance at various\npoints in my studies: Professor Dr. Hermann V. Hilprecht, the Rev. Drs.\nMarcus Jastrow, K. Kohler, and Henry C. McCook, Professor Drs. Hermann\nCollitz, H. Carrington Bolton, William H. Roberts, Morris Jastrow,\nJr., F. K. Sanders, William A. Lamberton, W. W. Keen, William Osler,\nJ. W. Warren, and D. C. Munro, Drs. J. Solis Cohen, Thomas G. Morton,\nCharles W. Dulles, Henry C. Cattell, and Frederic H. Howard, Rev. Dean\nE. T. Bartlett, President Robert E. Thompson, Drs. Talcott Williams,\nHenry C. Lea, and T. H. Powers Sailer, Messrs. Clarence H. Clark and\nPatterson Du Bois.\n\nThis third work is to be considered in connection with the two which\nhave preceded it in the same field. It is hoped that it will be\nrecognized as adding an important thought to the truths brought out in\nthose works severally.\n\nA previously published monograph on \"The Ten Commandments as a Covenant\nof Love\" is added to \"The Covenant of Salt\" as a Supplement, in order\nthat it may be available to readers of this series of volumes on\ncovenants, as a historical illustration of the subject under discussion.\n\n  H. C. T.\n\n  Philadelphia,\n  _October, 1899_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\n\nI.\n                                              PAGE\nCHARACTERISTICS OF A COVENANT                   1\n\n\nII.\n\nA COVENANT OF SALT                             11\n\n\nIII.\n\nBIBLE REFERENCES TO THE RITE                   15\n\n\nIV.\n\nBREAD AND SALT                                 21\n\n\nV.\n\nSALT REPRESENTING BLOOD                        35\n\n\nVI.\n\nSALT REPRESENTING LIFE                         51\n\n\nVII.\n\nSALT AND SUN, LIFE AND LIGHT                   71\n\n\nVIII.\n\nSIGNIFICANCE OF BREAD                          77\n\n\nIX.\n\nSALT IN SACRIFICES                              81\n\n\nX.\n\nSALT IN EXORCISM AND DIVINATION                 97\n\n\nXI.\n\nFAITHLESSNESS TO SALT                          107\n\n\nXII.\n\nSUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY               115\n\n\nXIII.\n\nADDED TRACES OF THE RITE                       121\n\n\nXIV.\n\nA SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH                    131\n\n\nXV.\n\nMEANS OF A MERGED LIFE                         139\n\n\nSUPPLEMENT\n\nTHE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A COVENANT OF LOVE      143\n\n\nINDEXES\n\nTOPICAL INDEX, 177.     SCRIPTURAL INDEX, 183.\n\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nCHARACTERISTICS OF A COVENANT\n\n\nOur English word \"covenant,\" like many another word in our language and\nin other languages, fails to convey, or even to contain, its fullest\nand most important meaning in comparison with the idea back of it. As\na matter of fact, this must be true of nearly all words. Ideas precede\nwords. Ideas have spirit and life before they are shaped or clothed\nin words. Words have necessarily human limitations and imperfectness,\nbecause of their purely human origin.\n\nWhen an idea first seeks expression in words, it is inevitable that it\nbe cramped by the means employed for its conveyance. At the best the\nword can only _suggest_ the idea back of it, rather than accurately\n_define_ and explain that idea. In practice, or in continued and varied\nuse, in the development of thought and of language, changes necessarily\noccur in the word or words selected to convey a primal idea, in order\nto indicate other phases of the idea than that brought out or pointed\nto by the first chosen word. While these changes and additions aid\nsome persons to an understanding of the root idea, they tend to confuse\nothers, especially those who are looking for exactness of definition.\n\nAs a rule, the earlier words chosen for the expression of an idea\nare more likely than later ones to suggest the main thought seeking\nexpression. Hence there is often a gain in looking back among the Greek\nand Sanskrit and Hebrew and Assyrian roots carried forward by religion\nor commerce into our English words and idioms, when we are searching\nfor the true meaning of an important custom or rite or thought. Yet\nthis will ordinarily be confusing rather than clarifying to an exact\nscholar. Only as a person is intent on the primal thought back of the\nchosen word is he likely to perceive the true meaning and value of the\nsuggestions of the earlier word or words found in his searching.\n\nArcheology is sometimes more valuable than philology in throwing light\non the meaning of ancient words. It is often easier to explain the use\nof an archaic word by a disclosed primitive custom or rite, than to\ndiscern a hidden primitive rite or custom by a study of the words used\nin referring to it. An archeologist may suggest a solution of a problem\nwhich hopelessly puzzles the lexicographer or grammarian. Sentiment\nand the poetic instinct are often more helpful, in such research, than\nprescribed etymological methods. He who looks for an exact definition\ncan never reach a conclusion. If he seeks a suggestion, he may find one.\n\n\"Covenant,\" as an English word, simply means, according to its\netymological signification, \"a coming together.\" At times the word is\nused interchangeably with such words as \"an agreement,\" \"a league,\"\n\"a treaty,\" \"a compact,\" \"an arrangement,\" \"an obligation,\" or \"a\npromise.\" Only by its context and connections are we shown in special\ncases that a covenant bond has peculiar or pre-eminent sacredness\nand perpetuity. This truth is, however, shown in many an instance,\nespecially in translations from earlier languages.\n\nEven in our use of the English word \"covenant\" we have to recognize,\nat times, its meaning as a sacred and indissoluble joining together of\nthe two parties covenanting, as distinct from any ordinary agreement\nor compact. And when we go back, as in our English Bible, to the Greek\nand Hebrew words rendered \"covenant,\" or \"testament,\" or \"oath,\" in\na sworn bond, we find this distinction more strongly emphasized. It\nis therefore essential to a correct view of any form of primitive\ncovenanting that we understand the root idea in this primal sort of\ncoming together.\n\nPrimitive covenanting was by two persons cutting into each other's\nflesh, and sharing by contact, or by drinking, the blood thus brought\nout. Earliest it was the personal blood of the two parties that was the\nnexus of their covenant. Later it was the blood of a shared and eaten\nsacrifice that formed the covenant nexus. In such a case the food of\nthe feast became a part of the life of each and both, and fixed their\nunion. In any case it was the common life into which each party was\nbrought by the covenant that bound them irrevocably. This fixed the\nbinding of the two as permanent and established.[1]\n\n  [1] See _Blood Covenant_ and _Threshold Covenant_, passim.\n\nLexicographers and critics puzzle over the supposed Hebrew or Assyrian\norigin of the words translated \"covenant\" in our English Bible, and\nthey fail to agree even reasonably well on the root or roots involved.\nYet all the various words or roots suggested by them have obvious\nreference to the primal idea of covenanting as a means of life-sharing;\ntherefore their verbal differences are, after all, of minor importance,\nand may simply point to different stages in the progressive development\nof the languages.\n\nWhether, therefore, the root of the Hebrew _b[)e]reeth_ means, as\nis variously claimed, \"to cut,\" \"to fetter,\" \"to bind together,\"\n\"to fix,\" \"to establish,\" \"to pour out,\" or \"to eat,\" it is easy\nto see how these words may have been taken as referring to the one\nprimitive idea of a compassed and established union.[2] So in the\nGreek words _diath[=e]k[=e]_ and _horkion_ it can readily be seen\nthat the references to the new placing or disposing of the parties,\nto their solemn appeal to God or the gods in the covenanting, and to\nthe testament to take effect after the death of the testator, or to\nthe means employed in this transaction, are alike consistent with the\nprimitive idea of a covenant in God's sight by which one gives over\none's very self, or one's entire possessions, to another. The pledged\nor merged personality of the two covenantors fully accounts for the\ndifferent suggested references of the variously employed words.\n\n  [2] See Gesenius's _Hebraeisches und Aramaeisches W\u00f6rterbuch_, 12th\n  ed., p. 120; Norwach's _Lehrbuch der Hebr\u00e6ischen Arch\u00e6ologie_, I., p.\n  358, note 1; Friedrich Delitzsch's _The Hebrew Language Viewed in the\n  Light of Assyrian Research_, p. 41; _Blood Covenant_, 2d ed., p. 264.\n\nTrue marriage is thus a covenant, instead of an arrangement. The twain\nbecome no longer two, but one; each is given to the other; their\nseparate identity is lost in their common life. A ring, a bracelet, a\nband, has been from time immemorial the symbol and pledge of such an\nindissoluble union.[3]\n\n  [3] _Blood Covenant_, 2d ed., pp. 64, 75, 77.\n\nMen have thus, many times and in many ways, signified their\ncovenanting, and their consequent interchange of personality and of\nbeing, by the exchange of certain various tokens and symbols; but these\nexchanges have not in any sense been the covenant itself, they have\nsimply borne witness to a covenant. Thus men have exchanged pledges of\ntheir covenant to be worn as phylacteries, or caskets, or amulets, or\nbelts, on neck, or forehead, or arm, or body;[4] they have exchanged\nweapons of warfare or of the chase; they have exchanged articles of\nordinary dress, or of ornament, or of special utility;[5] they have\nexchanged with each other their personal names.[6] All these have been\nin token of an accomplished covenant, but they have not been forms or\nrites of the covenant itself.\n\n  [4] _Blood Covenant_, 2d ed., pp. 232-238, 326-330.\n\n  [5] _Ibid._, pp. 14, 24, 28, 35 f., 62, 270; 1 Sam. 18 : 4; 20 : 1-13.\n\n  [6] _Ibid._, 2d ed., p. 334 f.\n\nCircumcision is spoken of in the Old Testament as the token of a\ncovenant between the individual and God. It is so counted by the Jew\nand the Muhammadan. In Madagascar, as illustrative of outside nations,\nit is counted as the token of a covenant between the individual and\nhis earthly sovereign. The ceremonies accompanying it all go to prove\nthis.[7] Again, men have covenanted with one another to merge their\ncommon interests, and to obliterate or ignore their racial, tribal, or\nsocial distinctions, as no mere treaty or league could do.\n\n  [7] _Ibid._, pp. 215-233; Gen. 17 : 1-14; Ellis's _History of\n  Madagascar_, pp. 176-186.\n\nIn tradition and in history men have covenanted with God, or with their\ngods, so that they could claim and bear the divine name as their own,\nthus sharing and representing the divine personality and power.[8] Thus\nalso in tradition different gods of primitive peoples and times have\ncovenanted with one another, so that each was the other, and the two\nwere the same.[9]\n\n  [8] _Blood Covenant_, 2d ed., p. 335.\n\n  [9] See Trumbull's _Friendship the Master-Passion_, p. 73 f.\n\nThere are seeming traces of this root idea of covenanting, through\nmaking two one by merging the life of each in a common life, in words\nthat make \"union\" out of \"one.\" In the Welsh _un_ is \"one;\" _uno_ is\n\"to unite.\" In the English, from the Latin, a unit unites with another\nunit, and the two are unified in the union. The two by this merging\nbecome not a _double_, but a larger _one_. Thus it is always in a true\ncovenant.\n\nWe have to study the meaning and growth of words in the light of\nascertained primitive customs and rites and ideas, instead of expecting\nto learn from ascertained root-words what were the prevailing primal\nideas and rites and customs in the world. In the line of such studying,\ncovenants and the covenant relation have been found to be an important\nfactor, and to have had a unique significance in the development of\nhuman language and in the progress of the human race from its origin\nand earliest history. The study and disclosures of the primitive\ncovenant idea in its various forms and aspects have already brought to\nlight important truths and principles, and the end is not yet.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nA COVENANT OF SALT\n\n\nAmong the varied forms of primitive covenanting, perhaps none is more\nwidely known and honored, or less understood, the world over, than\na covenant of salt, or a salt covenant. Religion and superstition,\ncivilization and barbarism, alike deal with it as a bond or rite, yet\nwithout making clear the reasons for its use. The precise significance\nand symbolism of salt as the nexus of a lasting covenant is by no\nmeans generally understood or clearly defined by even scholars\nand scientists. The subject is certainly one worthy of careful\nconsideration and study.\n\nA covenant of salt has mention, in peculiar relations, in the Bible.\nIt is prominent in the literature and traditions of the East. Here in\nour Western world there are various folk-lore customs and sayings that\nshow familiarity with it as a vestige of primitive thought. Among the\nislands of the sea, and in out-of-the-way corners of the earth, it\nshows itself as clearly as in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.\n\nIn some regions salt is spoken of as if it were merely an accompaniment\nof bread, and thus a common and indispensable article of food; but,\nagain, its sharing stands out as signifying far more than is meant by\nan ordinary meal or feast. An explanation of its meaning, frequently\noffered or accepted by students and specialists, is that in its nature\nit is a preservative and essential, and therefore its presence adds\nvalue to an offering or to a sacramental rite.[10] But the mind cannot\nbe satisfied with so superficial an interpretation as this, in view of\nmany things in text and tradition that go to show a unique sacredness\nof salt as salt, rather than as a preserver and enlivener of something\nthat is of more value. It is evident that the true symbolism and\nsanctity of salt as the nexus of a covenant lie deeper than is yet\nadmitted, or than has been formally stated by any scholar.\n\n  [10] See W. Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 203, 252;\n  Art. \"Salt,\" by W. R. S. in _Encyc. Brit._; Trumbull's _Studies in\n  Oriental Social Life_, pp. 106-112, with citations; Norwach's _Lehrbuch\n  der Hebr\u00e6ischen Arch\u00e6ologie_, II, p. 245, etc.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nBIBLE REFERENCES TO THE RITE\n\n\nA \"covenant of salt\" seems to stand quite by itself in the Bible\nrecord. Covenants made in blood, and again as celebrated by sharing\na common meal, and by the exchange of weapons and clothing, and in\nvarious other ways, are of frequent mention; but a covenant of salt is\nspoken of only three times, and in every one of these cases as if it\nwere of peculiar and sacred significance; each case is unique.\n\nThe Lord speaks of his covenant with Aaron and his sons, in the\nprivileges of the priesthood in perpetuity, as such a covenant. To\nhim he says: \"All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the\nchildren of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons\nand thy daughters with thee, as a due for ever: it is a _covenant of\nsalt_ for ever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee.\"[11]\n\n  [11] Num. 18 : 19.\n\nOf the Lord's covenant with David and his seed, in the rights and\nprivileges of royalty, Abijah the king of Judah says to Jeroboam, the\nrival king of Israel: \"O Jeroboam and all Israel; ought ye not to know\nthat the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David\nfor ever, even to him and to his sons by a _covenant of salt_?\"[12]\n\n  [12] 2 Chron. 13 : 5.\n\nAgain, the Lord, through Moses, enjoins it upon the people of Israel\nto be faithful in the offering of sacrifices at his altar, according\nto the prescribed ritual. \"Neither shalt thou suffer the _salt of the\ncovenant_ of thy God,\" he says, \"to be lacking from thy meal offering:\nwith all thine oblations thou shalt offer salt.\"[13]\n\n  [13] Lev. 2 : 13.\n\nWhile the word \"covenant\" appears more than two hundred and fifty\ntimes in the Old Testament, it is a remarkable fact that the term\n\"covenant of salt\" occurs in only these three instances, and then in\nsuch obviously exceptional connections. The Lord's covenant with Aaron\nand his seed in the priesthood, and with David and his seed in the\nkingship, is as a covenant of salt, perpetual and unalterable. And\nGod's people in all their holy offerings are to bear in mind that the\nsalt is a vital element and factor, if they would come within the terms\nof the perpetual and unalterable covenant.\n\nIn the Bible, God speaks to men by means of human language; and in the\nfigures of speech which he employs he makes use of terms which had and\nhave a well-known significance among men. His employment of the term\n\"covenant of salt\" as implying permanency and unchangeableness to a\ndegree unknown to men, except in a covenant of blood as a covenant of\nvery life, is of unmistakable significance.\n\nThere are indeed incidental references, in another place in the Old\nTestament, to the prevailing primitive idea that salt-sharing is\ncovenant-making. These references should not be overlooked.\n\nIn many lands, and in different ages, salt has been considered the\npossession of the government, or of the sovereign of the realm, to\nbe controlled by the ruler, as a source of life, or as one of its\nnecessaries, for his people. In consequence of this the receiving of\nsalt from the king's palace has been deemed a fresh obligation of\nfidelity on the part of his subjects. This is indicated in a Bible\npassage with reference to the rebuilding by Zerubbabel of the Temple at\nJerusalem, under the edict of Cyrus, king of Persia. \"The adversaries\nof Judah and Benjamin\" protested against the work as a seditious act.\nIn giving their reason for this course they said: \"Now because we eat\nthe salt of the palace [because we are bound to the king by a covenant\nof salt], and it is not meet for us to see the king's dishonor,\ntherefore have we sent and certified the king.\"[14]\n\n  [14] Ezra 4 : 14.\n\nAnd so again when King Darius showed his confidence in the Jews by\ndirecting a supply, from the royal treasury, of material for sacrifices\nat the Temple, and a renewal of the means of covenanting, he declared:\n\"Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to these elders of the Jews\nfor the building of this house of God: that of the king's goods, even\nof the tribute beyond the river, expenses be given with all diligence\nunto these men, that they be not hindered. And that which they have\nneed of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings\nto the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word\nof the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day\nwithout fail: that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savor unto the\nGod of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.\"[15]\nAnd again, in further detail: \"Unto an hundred talents of silver, and\nto an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and\nto an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much;\"[16]\nthe more salt they took, the more surely and firmly they were bound.\n\n  [15] Ezra 6 : 8-10.\n\n  [16] Ezra 7 : 22.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nBREAD AND SALT\n\n\n\"There would be nothing eatable,\" says Plutarch, \"without salt, which,\nmixed with flour, seasons bread also. Hence it was that Neptune and\nCeres [or Poseidon and Demeter as the Greeks called them] had both the\nsame temple.\"[17] And from the days of Plutarch until now, as has been\nalready mentioned, it has been customary to speak of the \"covenant\nof salt\" as synonymous with the \"covenant of bread and salt;\" or as\nidentical with the covenant of food-sharing in the rite of hospitality.\nBut the covenant of salt among primitive peoples has, and ever has had,\na sacredness and depth of meaning far beyond what is involved in the\nordinary sharing of food.\n\n  [17] Plutarch's _Sympos._ (Goodwin's edition), Book IV. Ques. IV., \u00a7 3.\n\nEven the sharing of water between two persons, or the giving and\nreceiving of a drink of water, is a compact of peace for the time\nbeing, as a truce between enemies.[18] The sharing of bread, or of\nflesh, means yet more than the sharing of water. It brings those who\njoin in it into the league or treaty of hospitality, by which the host\nis pledged to his guest while he is a guest, and for a reasonable time\nafter his departure.[19]\n\n  [18] See Trumbull's _Studies in Oriental Social Life_, pp. 361-363.\n\n  [19] See Burckhardt's _Travels in Syria_, p. 294 f.; _Beduinen und\n  Wahaby_, p. 144 f.; Niebuhr's _Beschreibung von Arabien_, p. 48;\n  Lane's _The Thousand and One Nights_, II., 423, note 21; Wetzstein's\n  _Sprachliches_, p. 28 f.; Denham and Clapperton's _Travels and\n  Discoveries in Africa_, p. xli; Warburton's _The Crescent and the\n  Cross_, fifth ed., II., 167 f.; Pierrotti's _Customs and Traditions of\n  Palestine_, p. 210 f.; Burton's _Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah_,\n  III., 86; Thomson's _The Land and the Book_, II., 40-43; Merrill's\n  _East of the Jordan_, pp. 488-491; Harmer's _Observations_, fifth ed.,\n  I., 388 f.; Doughty's _Travels in Arabian Deserts_, I., 228; _Studies\n  in Oriental Social Life_, pp. 73-142; W. Robertson Smith's _Kinship and\n  Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 149 f. Compare also Gen. 24 : 12-14; Deut.\n  23 : 3, 4; 1 Sam. 25 : 10, 11; 1 Kings 18 : 4; Job 22 : 7; Matt. 10 : 42;\n  Mark 9 : 41; John 4 : 9.\n\nDurzee Bey, a native chieftain in Mesopotamia, having put a bit of\nroast meat into the mouth of Dr. Hamlin, as they sat together in his\ndomicil, said: \"By that act I have pledged you every drop of my blood,\nthat _while you are in my territory_ no evil shall come to you. _For\nthat space of time_ we are brothers.\"[20] \"Where enmity subsists, the\nfiercer Arabs will not sit down at the same table with their adversary;\nsitting down together betokens reconciliation.\"[21]\n\n  [20] Hamlin's _Among the Turks_, p. 175 f.\n\n  [21] Russell's _Natural History of Aleppo_, Book II., chap. 4 (I., 232).\n\nA covenant of salt is, however, permanent and unalterable, as the truce\nor treaty is not. Yet this distinction, recognized by Orientals, does\nnot seem to be observed by all writers on Oriental customs, even by\nthose who are generally observant and experienced.\n\nIt is true that the sharing of salt is usually an accompaniment of\nbread-sharing; hence, a covenant of salt between two parties is\ngenerally, although not always, made by their partaking of bread\nand salt together. Moreover, because salt is a common ingredient in\nOriental bread, the eating of bread with another in the East may\ninclude the sharing of salt with him; but in such a case it is the\nsalt, and not the bread, which is the nexus of the perpetual covenant,\nin its distinction from the temporary compact of hospitality in the\nsharing of bread. The bread is the vehicle of the covenant-making salt.\nIndeed, they have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, \"My bread\nhad no salt in it,\" as a mode of accounting for any act of treachery,\nor failure in fidelity toward one who was a partaker of the bread of\nhospitality.\n\nIn the famous Oriental story of \"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,\"\nthe captain of the robber band who had visited Ali Baba in order to\nmurder him was unwilling to partake of any food which had salt in it.\nThis carefulness it was that excited the suspicion of Morgiana, the\nfaithful slave girl, and led her to ask, \"Who is he that eateth [only]\nmeat wherein is no salt?\" And when she recognized the robber captain\nunder his disguise, she said to herself: \"So ho! this is the cause why\nthe villain eateth not of salt, for that he seeketh now an opportunity\nto slay my master, whose mortal enemy he is.\"[22] This man was ready\nenough to partake of bread and flesh as a guest, and then strike his\nhost to the heart in violation of all the obligations of hospitality;\nas, indeed, has been done in many a case in the East in early and in\nrecent times,[23] but he could not consent, robber and murderer as he\nwas, to disregard a sacred \"covenant of salt.\"\n\n  [22] Burton's _Thousand and One Nights_, \"Supplemental Nights,\" III.,\n  398 f.\n\n  [23] See, for example, Layard's account of the murder of a Koordish\n  Bey by Ibr\u00e2heem Agha, after the latter had risen from the table of the\n  former (_Nineveh and its Remains_, I., 96 f.); also his account of\n  other murderous violations of the rites of hospitality (_Ibid._, I.,\n  107 f.; _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 38).\n\nThe story of the origin of the dynasty of the Saffaride Kaleefs, in\nthe ninth century, is an illustration of the surpassing power of the\ncovenant of salt. Laiss-el-Safar, or Laiss the coppersmith, was an\nobscure worker in brass and copper, in Khorassan, a province of Persia.\nHis son Yakoob wrought for a time at his father's trade, and then\nbecame a robber chieftain.\n\nHaving on one occasion found his way by night through a subterranean\npassage into the treasury of the palace of the governor, Nassar Seyar,\nwho was then in control of Seiestan, Yakoob gathered jewels and costly\nstuffs, and was proceeding to carry them off. Striking his bare foot,\nin the darkness, against a hard and sharp substance on the floor of\nthe room, he thought it might be a jewel, and stooped to pick it up.\nPutting it to his tongue, to test it after the manner of lapidaries, he\ndiscovered that it was rock salt that he had tasted in the governor's\npalace. At once he threw down his bale of stolen goods, and left the\npalace by the way he had entered.\n\nThe signs of attempted robbery being found the next morning, the\ngovernor caused a proclamation to be made throughout the city, that, if\nthe man who had entered the treasury would make himself known at the\npalace, he should be pardoned, and should be shown marks of special\nfavor. Yakoob accordingly presented himself at the palace, and freely\ntold his story. The governor felt that a man who would hold thus sacred\nthe covenant of salt could be depended on, and Yakoob was given a\nposition near his person.\n\nStep by step Yakoob went forward to power and honors, until he was\nchief ruler of Khorassan, and founder of the Saffaride dynasty in the\nPersian khaleefate. He died A.D. 878, and was succeeded by his brother,\nOmar II.[24]\n\n  [24] Price's _Mohammedan History_, II., 229 f.\n\nBaron du Tott, the Hungarian French traveler among the Turks and\nTatars, tells of his experience in this line with one Moldovanji\nPasha, who desired a closer intimacy than was practicable in the brief\ntime the two were to be together. \"I had already,\" says the Baron du\nTott, \"attended him halfway down the staircase [of my house], when\nstopping, and turning briskly to one of my domestics who followed me,\n'Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt.' I was not less\nsurprised at this fancy than at the haste which was made to obey him.\nWhat he requested was brought, when, taking a little salt between his\nfingers, and putting it with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate\nit with a devout gravity, assuring me that I might now rely on him.\"[25]\n\n  [25] Baron du Tott's _Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars_, Part I., p.\n  214, quoted in Bush's _Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures_.\n\nStephen Schultz, in his Travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa, gives\nthis illustration of the binding force of the covenant of salt: \"On\nthe 13th of June [1754] the deacon, Joseph Diab, a custom-house clerk,\nwas at table with us. Referring to the salt which stood on the table,\nhe said that the Arabs make use of it as a token of friendship. While\nthey are fond of it, they do not like to place it on the table. On one\noccasion, when he was with a caravan traveling to Babel [Bagdad], they\ncame into a neighborhood where Arabs were encamped. In the caravan\nwas a rich merchant. Seeing that one of the Arabs was making ready to\ncome to the caravan, he buried his money in the ground, built a fire\nover it, and then sat down to eat with the others near the fire. When\nthe Arabs arrived they were welcomed pleasantly, and invited to eat.\nThey accepted the invitation and sat down at the table. But when their\nleader saw the salt on the table, he said to the merchant, 'My loss is\nyour gain; for as I have eaten at a table on which is salt, I cannot,\nmust not, harm you.' When that caravan started on its way, the Arab\nleader not only refrained from taking what he had intended to demand,\nbut he escorted them without reward as far as the Euphrates, and gave\nthem over into the care of the Pasha of Bagdad, as friends of his\nprince Achsam. They were now safe.\"\n\nSchultz adds: \"It is not customary among Arabs to place salt on a\ncommon table, but only when an Arab prince enters into an alliance with\na pacha, which is called _baret-millah_, or the salt alliance. This is\ndone as follows: The Arab prince, when he wishes to live within the\njurisdiction of a pacha sends messengers to him to ask whether he may\ndwell in his territory as an ally. If the pacha consents, he sends\nmessengers to the prince, informing him that they will meet on such\na day. When the day arrives the pacha rides out to meet the prince,\nin the field which he has selected for his dwelling, and conducts him\nto his own quarters. Then the Arab prince asks the pacha how much he\nis to pay for permission to dwell in that field. The bargain is soon\nconcluded, according to the extent of the Arab encampment.\n\n\"As soon as the bargain is concluded, a repast is prepared, and a\nsalt-cellar, with some pieces of bread on a flat dish, is carried round\nthe apartment by the pacha's servants. The dish is first presented\nto the pacha, who takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and,\nholding it between two fingers toward the prince, calls out, 'Salaam!'\nthat is Peace, 'I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your\nenemy.' The dish is now presented to the Arab prince, who likewise\ntakes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and says to the pacha,\n'Peace! I am the friend of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy!'\nThereupon the dish with the bread is handed to the chief men of the\nArab prince, and to the ministers of the pacha, who receive it in the\nsame manner as their principals; with the exception that they simply\nsay, on taking the bread, 'Salaam!' 'Peace'\"[26]\n\n  [26] Schultz's _Leitungen des H\u00f6chsten nach seinem Rath auf den\n  Reisen durch Europa, Asia, und Afrika_, Part V., p. 246, quoted in\n  Rosenm\u00fcller's _Des alte und neue Morgenland_, II., 152 f.\n\nDon Raphel speaking of the \"conventions,\" or rather the \"covenants,\"\nwhich are recognized by the Bed'ween as sacredly binding on them, says:\n\"One kind of these conventions is made by their putting some grains of\nsalt with pieces of bread into each other's mouths, saying, 'By the\nrite of bread and salt,' or, 'By this salt and bread, I will not betray\nthee.' No oath is added; for the more sacred an oath appears to be,\nthe more easily does an Arab violate it. But a convention concluded in\nthis manner derives its force merely from opinion, and this is indeed\nextraordinary.... If a stranger who meets with them in the desert, or\ncomes to a camp, or before he departs from a city, can oppose this\nalliance to their rapacity, his baggage and his life are more safe,\neven in the midst of the desert, than during the first days of his\njourney with the securities of twenty hostages. The Arab with whom he\nhas eaten bread and salt, and all the Arabs of his tribe, consider him\nas their countryman and brother. There is no kind of respect, no proof\nof regard, which they do not show him.\"[27]\n\n  [27] Don Raphel's _The Bedouins, or Arabs of the Desert_, Part II, p.\n  59; quoted in Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 72 f.\n\nVolney says of the Druzes, \"When they have contracted with their guests\nthe sacred engagement of bread and salt, no subsequent event can make\nthem violate it.\"[28] This Volney illustrates by notable incidents.\n\n  [28] Volney's _Travels_, II., 76.\n\nMrs. Finn, wife of the English consul at Jerusalem, who was long\nresident in the East, gives the following illustration of the\nimportance of salt as well as bread to a binding covenant. After a\nfeast in the Hebron district of Palestine, one of the persons who\nshared it was waylaid and murdered by hired assassins. \"One of the men\n(Abdallah) concerned in the deed, not as an actor, but as spectator,\nhad been the night before actually eating with the victim. On hearing\nwhat had happened, the poor fellah woman who had cooked their supper,\nand who was much attached to the murdered man, bewailed herself,\nbeating her breast and crying, 'Wo is me! wo is me! I left out the salt\nby mistake when making the bread last night for their supper. Oh that\nI had put it in! then would not Abdallah have dared to let my lord be\nmurdered in his presence; he would have been compelled to defend him\nafter eating his bread and salt. Wo is me! wo is me!'\"[29]\n\n  [29] _Survey of Western Palestine_, Special Papers, p. 355.\n\nJohn Macgregor, while on the upper Jordan in his canoe Rob Roy, was\ntaken prisoner by the Arabs. As he parleyed with the old shaykh in his\ntent, Macgregor opened a box of fine salt and proffered a pinch of\nit to his captor. The shaykh had never before seen salt so white and\nfine, and, therefore, thinking it was sugar, he tasted it. Instantly\nMacgregor put a portion also into his own mouth, and with a loud,\nlaughing shout he clapped the old shaykh on his back.\n\nThe shaykh was dumbfounded. His followers wondered what had happened.\n\"'What is it?' all asked from him. 'Is it sukker?' He answered\ndemurely, 'La, meleh!' (\"No, it's salt!\") Even his home secretary\nlaughed at his chief.\" \"We had now eaten salt together,\" says\nMacgregor, \"and in his own tent, and so he was bound by the strongest\ntie, and he knew it.\" The result was that Macgregor and his canoe were\ncarried back in triumph to the river, and speeded on their way, while\nthe people on the banks shouted \"salaams\" to their brother in the\ncovenant of salt.[30]\n\n  [30] Macgregor's _The Rob Roy on the Jordan_, p. 259 f.\n\nSalt alone is a basis of an enduring covenant, but bread alone is not\nso. Yet bread and salt may be such a basis, because there is salt as\nwell as bread there. So commonly does salt go with bread that it is the\nexception when they are not together. Our English Bible asks, at Job\n6: 6, \"Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?\" But the\nSeptuagint reads: \"Can bread be eaten without salt?\"[31]\n\n  [31] See Swete's version of _The Septuagint_, in loco.\n\nIn India it is much the same as in Arabia, Palestine, and Persia.\nIn the Mahabharata, the great treasure-house of Hindoo wisdom, the\ncovenant of bread and salt finds specific recognition. When Krishna\nurges the hero Karna to join with him in the war against the Kauravas,\nhe says to him: \"If you will accompany me and join the Pandavas, they\nwill all respect you as their elder brother, and exalt you to the\nsovereignty.\" But Karna cannot be persuaded to this treacherous course,\nalthough he knows that to be true will cost him his life. \"I have seen\nbad omens,\" he says, \"and I know I shall be slain; but I have eaten the\nbread and salt of the Kauravas, and I am resolved to fight on their\nside.\"[32]\n\n  [32] Wheeler's _History of India_, I., 271.\n\nAgain, when Yudhishthira asked permission of Bhishma and Drona to fight\nagainst the Kauravas, they granted his request, and at the same time\nsaid: \"We fight on the side of the Kauravas because for many years we\nhave eaten their bread and salt, or otherwise we would have fought for\nyou.\"[33]\n\n  [33] _Ibid._, I., 297 f. Compare this with Ezra 4 : 1-14.\n\nIn Madagascar also the covenant of salt is known, as in other parts of\nthe East.[34] And thus on every continent and on the islands of the sea.\n\n  [34] M. Hamelin's _Adventures in Madagascar_, quoted in \"The Madagascar\n  News,\" Sept. 9, 1893.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nSALT REPRESENTING BLOOD\n\n\nThere are indications in the customs of primitive peoples that \"blood\"\nand \"salt\" are recognized as in some sense interchangeable in their\nnatures, qualities, and uses. And in this, as in many another matter,\nthe trend of modern science seems to be in the line of primitive\nindications.\n\nPeoples who have not salt available are accustomed to substitute for it\nfresh blood, as though the essential properties of salt were obtainable\nin this way. An observant medical scientist, writing of his travels in\neastern Equatorial Africa, tells of the habit of the Masai people of\ndrinking the warm blood fresh from the bullocks they kill; and this he\ncharacterizes as \"a wise though repulsive\" proceeding, \"as the blood\nthus drunk provided the salts so necessary in human economy; for the\nMasai do not partake of any salt in its common form.\"[35]\n\n  [35] Thomson's _Through Masai Land_, p. 430.\n\nSimilarly, Dr. David Livingstone noted the fact that when he was\namong peoples who had difficulty in procuring salt, fresh-killed meat\nseemed to satisfy the natural craving for salt, while vegetable diet\nwithout salt caused indigestion.[36] In portions of China, also, where\nsalt is not obtainable, or where it is too expensive for ordinary use,\nthe blood of pigs or fowls is carefully preserved and eaten as if a\nsubstitute for salt.\n\n  [36] Livingstone's _Travels in South Africa_, p. 26 f., 600.\n\nProfessor Bunge of Basel, who is quite an authority in the realm of\nphysiological and pathological chemistry, speaking on the relation of\nsalt and blood, says that \"at every period, in every part of the world,\nand in every climate, there are people who use salt as well as those\nwho do not. The people who take salt, though differing from each other\nin every other respect, are all characterized by a vegetable diet; in\nthe same way, those who do not use any salt are all alike in taking\nanimal food.\"\n\nHe says, moreover: \"It is ... noteworthy that the people who live on\nan animal diet without salt, carefully avoid loss of blood when they\nslaughter the animals. This was told me by four different naturalists\nwho have lived among flesh-eaters in various parts of northern Russia\nand Siberia. The Samoyedes, when dining off reindeer flesh, dip every\nmouthful in blood before eating it. The Esquimaux in Greenland are\nsaid to plug the wound as soon as they have killed a seal.\" Like\ntestimony comes from India, Arabia, Africa, Australia, and various\nparts of America.[37]\n\n  [37] Bunge's _Text-Book of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry_,\n  Wooldridge's translation, pp. 122-129.\n\nThe Jews of to-day, who are careful to drain the blood from slaughtered\nanimals prepared for food, are accustomed to put salt freely on the\nmeat thus drained. This is in accordance with the prescription of the\nTalmud, for the purpose of absorbing the blood not drawn out from the\nmain bloodvessels. At the close of two hours from the slaughtering, the\nmeat is washed for cooking. Whatever be the reason rendered for this\napplication of salt, and its remaining on the flesh for a time, may\nthere not thus be an instinctive supplying of the salts taken away by\ndraining out the blood?\n\n\"Salt\" and \"salts\" are terms often used interchangeably in the common\nmind. While they are distinct as employed by a scientist, it is not\nto be wondered at that they are confused by those who fail to note\nthe differences; nor is it important to consider these differences in\nprimitive thought and customs.\n\n\"A salt,\" as the chemists use the term, is a combination of an acid and\na base. There are many salts in use in the world; among these the one\nbest known and most widely used and valued is sodium chloride, or what\nis popularly known as \"common salt.\" This has been used and prized, the\nworld over, among all classes of men, from the earliest historic times.\n\nSalt has long been popularly claimed as an important element of the\nliquids of the body, as shown in the blood, in the tears, and in the\nperspiration, of mankind. Later scientific experiments have confirmed\nancient and traditional claims, that saline injections avail like blood\ntransfusion for the preservation of life in an emergency.[38]\n\n  [38] See _Des Injections sous-cutan\u00e9es massives de Solutions salines_,\n  par le Dr. L. Fourmeaux, Paris, 1897, pp. 5-7; also Quain's _Dict. of\n  Med._, art. \"Transf. of Salt.\"\n\nIt has long been common among ordinary people to administer salt to one\ntaken with a hemorrhage of the lungs, or stomach, or nose. This is the\nfolk-lore remedy in many regions. Moreover, under careful medical and\nsurgical direction it is now customary in the hospitals to keep on hand\na warm solution of salt to inject into the veins or tissues of persons\nbrought in sinking from a sudden loss of blood. Whatever connection the\ntwo ideas--the popular and the scientific--may or may not have, it is\nnot to be wondered at that it has long been thought that, when blood\nhas gone out from the body, salt might well go in.\n\nBlood transfusion, by which the blood or life of a stronger or fresher\nperson may permeate the being of a sinking one, has been known of for\ncenturies, and there are at least traces of it in tradition from the\nearliest ages.[39] More recent experiments have shown that a saline\nsolution is even safer and more efficacious than the warm blood from\nanother life; now, therefore, this has largely taken the place of\nblood in supplying the waste occasioned by severe hemorrhages.[40]\nVarious illustrations of this treatment are given as showing that\nwhen persons were in a very low condition through loss of blood, they\nhave been rescued and restored through copious injections of a saline\nsolution.[41]\n\n  [39] See _Blood Covenant_, pp. 115-126, with references to Pliny, and\n  to Roussel, and others. See, also, Dr. Thomas G. Morton's _Transfusion\n  of Blood_; W. H. Howell's _American Text Book of Physiology_, p. 362.\n\n  [40] See Dr. Bartholow's _Hypodermatic Medication_, pp. 126-142.\n\n  [41] See, for example, _Capital Operations without An\u00e6sthesia and the\n  Use of Large Saline Infusion in Acute An\u00e6mia_, a paper read by Dr.\n  Buchanan before the National Association of Railway Surgeons, pp. 18,\n  79.\n\nThe use of blood as food was forbidden to Noah and his sons after\nthe Flood.[42] A tradition of the Turkish or Tatar nations says that\nNoah's son Japheth was their immediate ancestor, and that Toutug, or\nToumuk, a grandson of Japheth, discovered salt as an article of diet\nby accidentally dropping a morsel of food on to salt earth, and thus\nbecoming acquainted with the savor of salt.[43] This carries back the\ntraditional discovery of salt to the age when blood was first forbidden\nas food.\n\n  [42] Gen. 9 : 4.\n\n  [43] Price's _Mohammedan History_, II., 458.\n\nIt was long ago claimed by some that the red corpuscles of the blood\nare dependent for their color and vitality on the presence of salt,\nand recent scientific experiments and discussion have continued in the\ndirection of the question thus raised.[44]\n\n  [44] See W. H. Howell's _American Text Book of Physiology_, p. 334.\n\nIt has been shown by experiment that many of the lower animals, as well\nas man, are dependent for their life on salt in their blood. \"When\nan animal is fed with a diet as far as possible free from salts, but\notherwise sufficient, it dies of _salts-hunger_. The blood first loses\ninorganic material, then the organs. The total loss is very small\nin proportion to the quantity still retained in the body; but it is\nsufficient to cause the death of a pigeon in three weeks, and of a dog\nin six, with marked symptoms of muscular and nervous weakness.\"[45] A\nmode of torture in former ages is said to have been to deprive a person\nof salt, and cause him to waste away with painful salt-hunger. It is\nsaid that this mode of torture is still employed in China.\n\n  [45] Voit, cited in Stewart's _Manual of Physiology_, Bailli\u00e8re,\n  Tindall, and Cox, 1895.\n\nAn Armenian story says that when a band of their people was in a\nstronghold of the mountains, and was besieged by the Turks, the latter\nfailing to subdue the former by other means cut off the supply of salt\nfrom the Armenians, and this quickly subdued them.\n\nIn 1830, a paper by Dr. W. Stevens, read before the London College\nof Physicians, and afterwards elaborated and published in a volume,\ncontended that the salient ingredients of the blood, \"the chief of\nwhich is common culinary salt, ... is the cause of the red color, of\nthe fluidity, and of the stimulating property, of the vital current.\"\nDr. Stevens claimed that the poison of the rattlesnake, and various\nother poisons, operate directly on the blood, and produce disease or\ndeath \"by interfering with the agency of the saline matter.\"[46]\n\n  [46] See _London Quarterly Review_, XLVIII., 96 (Dec., 1832, 375-391).\n\n\"On the subject of the poison of the rattlesnake,\" Dr. Stevens, in\nthis work, asserts that \"when the muriate of soda (common salt) is\nimmediately applied to the wound, it is a complete antidote. 'When an\nIndian,' he says, 'is bitten by a snake, he applies a ligature above\nthe part, and scarifies the wound to the very bottom; he then stuffs it\nwith common salt, and after this it soon heals, without producing any\neffect on the general system.'\" In view of the fact that it might be\nobjected that the salt is not the essential means of cure, but is an\naddition to the curative treatment, Dr. Stevens says that he has \"seen\na rabbit, that was under the influence of the rattlesnake poison, drink\na saturated solution of muriate of soda with great avidity, and soon\nrecover; while healthy rabbits would not taste one drop of the same\nstrong saline water when it was put before them.\"\n\nDr. Stevens gives various illustrations, out of primitive customs, and\nin the experience of modern practitioners, of curative and prophylactic\nuses of salt in the treatment of fevers, where the condition of the\nblood seems to be a main source of evil. Aside from the question\nwhether the claims of Dr. Stevens have been substantiated by later\nresearches and experiments, his investigations and assertions are\nof interest as showing that, in the realm of modern science as of\nprimitive practices, salt and blood have seemed to many to have\ninterchangeable values.\n\nIf, indeed, this theory of Dr. Stevens, elaborated so carefully in\nthe first third of the nineteenth century, in which he claims that\nsalt practically represents blood, stood all by itself in the history\nof medicine, it would have less importance than it has in a formal\ntreatise of this kind; yet even then it would show that such an idea\nhad before now found a place in the human mind. But it by no means\nstands thus alone; a similar claim has been made both earlier and\nlater.\n\nPliny, in his day, at the beginning of the Christian era, records it\nas the common belief that salt is foremost among human remedies for\ndisease, and among preventives of sickness of all kinds.[47] He gives\nprominence to salt as a cure of leprosy,[48] whereas blood transfusion\nand blood bathing was the traditional treatment of that disorder.[49]\nPliny also speaks of salt itself, and of salt fish in large quantities,\nas a supposed remedy for the bite of serpents,[50] this being in the\nline of asserted remedies among the Indians, according to Dr. Stevens.\nVarious other disorders, especially of the blood, are named by Pliny as\ncurable by salt.\n\n  [47] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45.\n\n  [48] _Ibid._\n\n  [49] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 116 f., 125, 287 f., 324.\n\n  [50] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 41; XXXII., 17.\n\nSeventy years after the treatise of Dr. Stevens, a volume, recently\npublished in London by C. Godfrey G\u00fcmpel on \"Common Salt,\"[51] claims\neven more than Pliny, or any writer since his day, for \"the vital\nimportance of common salt for our whole physical and social life.\" He\nclaims that of all the constituents of our life's blood \"there is none\nwhich can possibly surpass common salt in its necessity for a strong\nhealthy blood,\"[52] and that both the red corpuscles and the white are\nlargely dependent for their normal condition on \"the presence of common\nsalt in the system.\"[53]\n\n  [51] _Common Salt: Its Use and Necessity for the Maintenance of Health\n  and the Prevention of Disease_, p. 1.\n\n  [52] _Ibid._, p. 37.\n\n  [53] _Ibid._, p. 41.\n\nA writer in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, not long ago declared that\nthe government salt monopoly of the British Empire in India (since\npractically abolished, or modified) was a cause of greater evils than\nthose resulting from either opium or alcohol. This claim is based on\nthe idea that a lack of salt by the common people of India tends to a\ndeterioration of blood and consequent loss of life. Asiatic cholera\nis said to be promoted by the lack of salt in the blood. Men and\ncattle alike are said to be sufferers from this cause, and the soil is\nrendered less fertile. Whether this idea is well grounded is a minor\nmatter; that the idea has been in many minds is not to be questioned.\n\nThus it will be seen that in the primitive mind salt and blood have\nseemed to have common properties, and to be in a sense interchangeable,\nwhile the more careful observers in the world of science have rather\ngrown toward this thought than away from it. Be it correct or\nincorrect, the human mind has never been able to rid itself of the idea.\n\nSalt is sometimes used in the rite of blood brotherhood among\nprimitive peoples, as is also wine, both wine and salt being counted\nthe equivalent of blood, and the original and the substitute being\nsometimes employed together as if to intensify the symbolism. Stanley\ntells of the use of salt in this rite on the occasion of its\nperformance with Ngalyema in the Congo region.[54] And so again in\nother cases.[55]\n\n  [54] _The Congo_, I., 383-385.\n\n  [55] _Ibid._, II., 21-24, 79-90.\n\nIt is a common practice in the East to welcome an honored guest to\none's house by sacrificing an animal at the doorway, and letting its\nblood pour out on the threshold, to be stepped over by the guest,\nas a mode of adoption, or of covenant-making.[56] When such a guest\ncomes unexpectedly, and there is not time to obtain an animal for the\nwelcoming sacrifice, it is customary to take salt and strew it in\nlieu of blood on the threshold,--salt being thus recognized as the\nequivalent, or as a representative, of blood.[57]\n\n  [56] See _Threshold Covenant_, passim.\n\n  [57] _Ibid._, p. 5; Griffis's _Mikado's Empire_, pp. 467, 470; Isabella\n  Bird's _Untrodden Tracks in Japan_, I., 392.\n\nThe measure of love and honor accorded to the welcomed guest is\nindicated by the cost or preciousness of the sacrifice on the\nthreshold. There are traditions, at least, of the sacrifice of a son of\nthe host in this way. Again a favorite horse has been thus sacrificed.\nMore frequently it is a lamb that is the sacrifice. If there is no\nlamb available, a fowl or a pigeon is thus offered. The essential\nfactor in every case is the blood, the life, outpoured. If, however, no\nactual blood is obtainable, salt, as representing blood, is accepted\nas indicating the love and the spirit which prompts the welcome,\naccording to the giver's means. There could hardly be a fuller proof of\nthe identity of salt and blood in the primitive mind.\n\nWhen a Siamese student was asked by the writer whether the rite of\nblood-covenanting was known in his land, he replied: \"There is no\n'blood covenant' so far as I know. The custom is, if two persons are\ndesirous to become firm friends or brothers they drink together _salted\nwater_; then each takes an oath.\" He also suggested that he had heard\nthat in former times they drank _a fowl's blood_ in this rite.\n\nAgain, the mode of making a covenant of salt in some portions of the\nEast coincides with this suggested identification of salt with blood in\nthe primitive mind. In the Lebanon region, where the blood covenant, as\na bond of union, is still recognized and practised,[58] the covenant\nof salt is also well known, not only as between new comers who are to\nenter into a mutual alliance, but as bringing into union friends who\nwould be as one. In such cases a sword is taken, and salt is laid on\nits blade. The two friends in turn lick of the salt that is to unite\nthem, as if they were tasting of common blood after the fashion of the\n\"blood-lickers\" in Mecca.[59]\n\n  [58] See _Blood Covenant_, pp. 5-7.\n\n  [59] See Smith's _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 48.\n\nAnother illustration of this mode is given by Sir Frederick Henniker,\nin his notes of a journey in the East in 1819-20.[60] It was a shaykh\nof the Arabs who escorted him from Mt. Sinai northward, who cut this\ncovenant with Sir Frederick. On the request being made for such an\nassurance of fidelity from the shaykh, \"he immediately drew his sword,\"\nsays Sir Frederick, \"placed some salt upon the blade, and then put\na portion of it into his mouth, and desired me to do the same; and\n'Now, cousin,' said he, 'your life is as sacred as my own;' or, as he\nexpressed himself, 'Son of my uncle, your head is upon my shoulders.'\"\nBefore this act the two were as cousins; now they were as one, the head\nof one being upon the shoulders of the other. The similarity of this\nrite with that of the blood covenant, in both its form and meaning, is\nobvious.\n\n  [60] _Visit to Egypt, Nubia_, etc., p. 242.\n\nThis correspondence of salt and blood in primitive thought, and in\nfact, will perhaps throw light on a disputed reference in a fragment\nof Ennius[61] to \"_salsus sanguis_\" (salted blood, or briny blood). It\nwould seem that as the Jews held that the blood is the life, and the\nlife is in the blood, similarly Greeks and Romans recognized the truth\nthat salt is in the blood, and the blood is salt.\n\n  [61] Cited in _Macrobius_, 6, 2.\n\nIn the second century there were Christian ascetics who refused to take\nwine in the eucharist. Among these the Elkesaites and the Ebionites\nemployed bread and salt instead of bread and wine. This seems to have\nbeen a recognition of the fact that salt, like wine, represented\nblood.[62]\n\n  [62] See Clementine, _Homilies_, IV. 6; XIII. 8; XIV. 1, 8; XIX. 25,\n  cited in art. \"Elkesai\" in Smith and Wace's _Dict. of Christian Biog._\n\nProfessor Hermann Collitz, of Bryn Mawr, has suggested, in this\nconnection, that the very words, in Latin, for salt and blood, _sal_\nand _sanguis_, are from the same root.[63]\n\n  [63] Professor Collitz says, on this point: \"The Early European word\n  for salt, _sal_ (nominative _s[=a]l-d_, genitive _sal-n-\u00e9s_ according\n  to Joh. Schmidt) which probably goes back to the Indo-European period,\n  may be derived from the same root to which the Sanskrit _\u00e1s-r-g_\n  (genitive _as-n-\u00e1s_) 'blood,' and Latin _s-an-gu-i-s_ (genitive\n  _s-an-gu-in-is_) belong. The latter, as F. de Saussure (_Syst\u00e8me\n  primitif des voyelles Indo-Europ\u00e9ennes_, Leipzig, 1897, p. 225) has\n  shown, comes from a root _es_, which lost its initial vowel if the\n  suffix was accented. If we connect the two groups of words, we should\n  say that _sal_ is derived from this root _es_ by a suffix _al_, similar\n  to the suffix _el_ in the word for 'sun' (Indo-European _s[=a]'v-el_,\n  from root _s[=a]v_), or to the suffix _a-lo_ in Greek _meg-a-lo-s_ as\n  compared with _meg-a-s_. The root _es_ is probably the same from which\n  the word for 'to be' (Sanskrit _as-mi_, Latin _sum_) is derived, and\n  the meaning of which seems to have been originally 'to live.'\"\n\nCertainly salt is sometimes used as a substitute for blood in primitive\ncovenanting; on the other hand, blood is used for salt among some\nprimitive peoples as an essential accompaniment of food. These facts\nbeing noticed by the author of this volume first suggested to him the\nreal meaning of the covenant of salt.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nSALT REPRESENTING LIFE\n\n\nAs blood is synonymous with life in primitive thought and practice,[64]\nand as salt has been shown to represent blood in the primitive mind,\nso salt seems to stand for life in many a form of primitive speech and\nin the world's symbolism. When, indeed, we speak of salt as preserving\nflesh from corruption, we refer to the staying of the process of death\nby an added element of life; preserving by re-vivifying, rather than by\nembalming.\n\n  [64] See _Blood Covenant_, passim.\n\nPlutarch says of the power of salt in this direction: \"All flesh is\ndead and part of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt being added\nto it, like a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and poignancy.\"[65] All\nlife is from the one Source of Life, and in this sense it is that life\nis divine. Thus Plutarch calls attention to the fact that Homer[66]\nspeaks of salt as \"divine,\" and that \"Plato delivers, that by man's\nlaws salt is to be accounted most sacred.\"[67] No other material is\nthus reckoned from primitive days sacred and divine, unless it be\nblood, which is the synonym of life.[68]\n\n  [65] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_ (Goodwin's ed.), Book IV., Quest. IV., \u00a7 3.\n\n  [66] Homer's _Iliad_, IX., 214.\n\n  [67] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_ (Goodwin's ed.), Book V., Quest. X., \u00a7\u00a7 1,\n  2.\n\n  [68] Lev. 17 : 11; Deut. 12 : 23. _Blood Covenant_, p. 38 f.\n\nAn Oriental form of oath sometimes substitutes \"salt\" for \"life;\"\nas where the prime minister of Persia in a conference with James\nMorier, secretary of the English embassy, at Teheran, early in this\ncentury, swore \"by the salt of Fatti Ali Shah\"--the then reigning\nShah of Persia.[69] Indeed, to swear \"by the salt\" is a common form\nof asseveration among Arabs; as to swear by the life, one's own or\nanother's, is a well-known oath in the East.[70]\n\n  [69] Morier's _Journey through Persia_, p. 200.\n\n  [70] See, for example, Arvieux on _Customs of Bedouin Arabs_, p. 43,\n  quoted in Rosenm\u00fcller's _Das alte und des neue Morgenland_, II., 15.\n\nWhere we would say of one who is foremost in inspiriting and enlivening\na social gathering, \"He was the _life_ of the party,\" the Arabs say,\n\"He was the _salt_ of the party.\"\n\nThe \"salt of youth\" is synonymous with the virility and vigor of life,\nthat show themselves in the age of strong passion. Thus Justice Shallow\nsays to Master Page: \"Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen,\nMaster Page, we have some salt of our youth in us.\"[71] Iago refers\nto young gallants in their passion, \"as salt as wolves in pride.\"[72]\nAnd Menecrates refers to \"salt Cleopatra\" in her loves with Antony.[73]\nMrs. Browning seems to have a similar idea as to the significance of\nsalt, when she says in \"A Vision of Poets:\"\n\n   \"And poor, proud Byron,--sad as grave\n    And salt as life; forlornly brave,\n    And quivering with the dart he drave.\"\n\n  [71] _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II., Scene 3.\n\n  [72] _Othello_, Act III., Scene 3.\n\n  [73] _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act II., Scene 1.\n\nEven in Plutarch's day this truth was recognized by the Greeks as\npossibly having influenced the ancient Egyptians to forbid salt to\ntheir priests, who must be pure and chaste, because salt \"by its heat\nis provocative and apt to raise lust.\"[74] It would seem, however, that\nthe prohibition of salt as food to Egyptian priests is easier to be\naccounted for by the fact that it was recognized as the equivalent of\nblood and life. Therefore those priests were not to partake of salt,\n\"no, not so much as in their bread.\"[75]\n\n  [74] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., \u00a7\u00a7 1, 2.\n\n  [75] _Ibid._\n\nIn this line of thought Florus says of salt: \"Consider farther whether\nits power of preserving a long time dead bodies from rotting be not a\n_divine_ property, and opposite to death; since it preserves part, and\nwill not suffer that which is mortal wholly to be destroyed. But as the\nsoul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and\nkeeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies,\nand imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling\nto corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their\nunion and agreement with one another.\"[76]\n\n  [76] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., \u00a7\u00a7 1, 2.\n\nPhilinus goes a step farther when he asks: \"Do you not think that\nthat which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the\nprinciple of all things?\"[77] And Plutarch adds suggestively that\nsalt is by some supposed to be a means of life, not only exciting\ndesire for generation, but actually causing procreation; \"the females\n(among the lower animals), as some imagine, conceiving without the\nhelp of the males, only by licking salt. But [as he thinks] it is most\nprobable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals, and so makes\nthem salacious and eager to couple. And perhaps for the same reason\nthey call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to move\nand entice, _halmuron kai drimu_, 'saltish.' And I think the poets had\na respect to this generative power of salt in their fable of Venus\nspringing from the sea.\"[78]\n\n  [77] _Ibid._\n\n  [78] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., \u00a7\u00a7 1, 2.\n\nIn Central and South America it was deemed necessary to abstain from\nsalt while praying and sacrificing, with a desire to obtain children.\nSo far it was among the Maya nations of the New World as among the\npriests of Ancient Egypt.[79]\n\n  [79] See Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II., 678.\n\nAn Oriental proverb says: \"If thou takest the salt [the life, or soul]\nfrom the flesh [the body] then thou mayest throw it [the flesh] to the\ndogs.\" This has been explained by the rabbis, as considering \"salt\"\nhere synonymous with the soul, or life, of man, which comes from God,\nin distinction from man's body, which comes from his parents. \"God\ngives the spirit [the breath], the soul, the features, the hearing,\nthe organs of speech, the gait, the perceptions, the reason, and the\nintuition. When now the time comes for man to depart out of the world,\nGod takes his part, and the part which comes from the parents [the\nbody] he lays before them.\"[80]\n\n  [80] Niddah 31 a, quoted by Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow in _The Sunday\n  School Times_ for April 28, 1894.\n\nWhen Elisha, the prophet of Israel, was met by the men of Jericho,\nas he came from the scene of Elijah's translation to enter upon his\nmission as the successor of Elijah and was told of the death-dealing\npower of the waters of the city, his words and action seemed to\nemphasize the correspondence of salt with life. \"He said, Bring me a\nnew cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he\nwent forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast salt therein, and\nsaid, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not\nbe from thence any more death or miscarrying [of the land]. So the\nwaters were healed [were restored to life] unto this day, according to\nthe word of Elisha which he spake.\"[81]\n\n  [81] 2 Kings 2 : 19-22.\n\nA spring of water is in itself so important to a primitive people\nthat it is not to be wondered at that water is called the Gift of\nGod, and that a living spring is looked at as in a sense divine, and\nthat it has even been worshiped as a god among primitive peoples.[82]\nWhen, therefore, salt, as the synonym of life or of blood, is found\nin a spring of living water, it is natural to recognize the spot as\npeculiarly favored of God, or of the gods. Thus \"among inland peoples a\nsalt spring was regarded as a special gift of the gods. The Chaonians\nin Epirus had one which flowed into a stream where there were [as in\nthe Dead Sea] no fish; and the legend was that Heracles had allowed\ntheir forefathers to have salt instead of fish (_Aristotle_). The\nGermans waged war for saline streams, and believed that the presence of\nsalt invested a district with peculiar sanctity, and made it a place\nwhere prayers were most readily heard (Tacitus, _Ann._, XIII., 57).\"[83]\n\n  [82] See _Kadesh-barnea_, p. 36, and note, 298 f.; and _Studies in\n  Oriental Social Life_, pp. 213, 404 f.\n\n  [83] W. Robertson Smith in art. \"Salt\" in _Encyc. Brit._, 9th ed.\n\nThere is said to be a salt lake in the mountain region of Koordistan,\nwhich was changed from fresh water to salt, by St. Peter, when he first\ncame thither preaching Christianity. He wrought this change so that he\ncould influence the people to accept his teaching through sharing his\nlife by partaking of the salt. To this day the tradition remains, that,\nif the natives will bathe in that lake, they will renew their faith.\nAside from the question of any basis of truth in the legend, it remains\nas a survival of the primitive idea of a real connection of shared salt\nwith shared life.\n\nIt is customary among some primitive peoples to anoint or smear a\nnew-born babe with blood, as a means of giving him more and fuller\nlife.[84] Thus among the ancient Caribs, of South America, \"as soon as\na male child was brought into the world, he was sprinkled with some\ndrops of his father's blood;\" the father \"fondly believing that the\nsame degree of courage which he had himself displayed, was by these\nmeans transmitted to his son.\"[85] In one of the Kaffir tribes of South\nAfrica, when a new chief assumes authority, it was customary to wash\nhim in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who was put\nto death on the occasion. In order to give more life and character to\nthe freshly elevated representative of the ruling family, the family\nlife was drawn from the veins of one near him, in order that it might\nbe absorbed by him who could use it more imposingly.[86]\n\n  [84] _Blood Covenant_, p. 137 f.\n\n  [85] Edwards's _Hist. of Brit. West Ind._, I. 47, referred to in _Blood\n  Covenant_, p. 137 f.\n\n  [86] Shooter's _Kafirs of Natal_, p. 216, _ibid._\n\nThe Bheels are a brave and warlike race of mountaineers of Hindostan.\nThey claim to have been, formerly, the rulers of all their region, but\neither by defeat in war or by voluntary concession to have yielded\ntheir power to other peoples, whom they now authorize to rule in\ntheir old domain. When, therefore, a new rajput, or chief ruler,\ncomes into power in any of the surrounding countries, this right to\nrule is conceded, or ratified, by an anointing of blood drawn from\nthe toe or thumb of a Bheel. The right of giving this blood, or new\nlife, is claimed by particular Bheel families; and the belief that the\nindividual from whose veins the blood is drawn never lives beyond a\ntwelvemonth, in no degree operates to repress the desire of the Bheels\nto furnish the blood of anointing.[87]\n\n  [87] _Trans. Royal Asiat. Soc._, I., 69, _ibid._\n\nSalt is similarly used to-day, in the East and elsewhere.[88] A\nnew-born child is at once washed and salted. If an Oriental seems\nlacking in life or wisdom, or is, as we would say, exceptionally\n\"fresh,\" it is said of him, \"He wasn't salted when he was born.\" This\nidea would seem to be included in the prophet's reproach of Jerusalem:\n\"Neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee; thou wast not\nsalted at all, nor swaddled at all.\"[89]\n\n  [88] Van Lennep's _Bible Lands_, p. 569.\n\n  [89] Ezek. 16 : 4.\n\nAs at birth, so at death, salt seems to stand in primitive thought for\nblood, or life, in washing or anointing, in the hope of supplying the\nspecial lack or need of the individual. Among the cannibals of Borneo,\non the death of a rajah or chief, the desire seems to be to restore him\nto life if it be possible. His body is rubbed or bathed with salt. He\nis then dressed in his best apparel, and placed in a sitting posture.\nIn his hands are placed his shield and mandau. If this application\nof new life and this special appeal to action fail to arouse him,\nhe is counted as hopelessly dead; the arms are taken from him, the\nbody is undressed, and wrapped in a piece of cloth, and placed in the\nground.[90]\n\n  [90] Carl Bock's _Head Hunters of Borneo_, p. 224.\n\nA traveler in Asia Minor speaks of the practice among the Toorkomans\nof the mother's dipping a child two or three times into a skin of salt\nwater, at the time of his naming. This would seem to be a primitive\nrite, and not a Christian one. The father of the child meanwhile eats\nhoneyed cake, and drinks thickened milk.[91]\n\n  [91] W. Eassie, in _Notes and Queries_, 3d series, II., 318.\n\nMilk is sometimes accepted by the Arabs as a substitute for salt, as\nthe essential factor in the covenant of salt (the _milha_).[92] Milk is\nnature's life food, it stands for liquid life; two \"milk brothers\" are\nsomewhat as blood brothers, brothers by a common life.[93] \"There seem\nto be indications,\" says W. Robertson Smith,[94] \"that many primitive\npeoples regard milk as a kind of equivalent for blood as containing a\nsacred life. Thus to eat a kid seethed in its mother's milk might be\ntaken as an equivalent to eating 'with the blood,' and be forbidden to\nthe Hebrews[95] along with the bloody sacraments of the heathen.\"\n\n  [92] See references, in W. Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_\n  (p. 252, note), to Burckhardt and to _K[=a]mil_.\n\n  [93] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 10, 11.\n\n  [94] _Relig. of the Sem._, p. 204, note; also _Kinship and Marriage in\n  Early Arabia_, pp. 149, 150.\n\n  [95] Exod. 23 : 19; 34 : 26; Deut. 14 : 21.\n\nMilk has been employed instead of blood, and again of salt, for\ntransfusion in case of declining life from hemorrhage.[96] This would\nseem to justify the belief that milk and blood alike represent life in\npopular thought.\n\n  [96] Quain's _Dict. of Medicine_, art. \"Transfusion of Milk.\"\n\nA favorite experiment among young folks is to bring life to dead flies\nby covering them with salt. When flies are drowned purposely, or by\naccident, if one is taken from the water apparently dead, and laid\non the table, or on a plate, and covered with common salt, in a few\nseconds the fly will creep out from under the salt, and soon fly away\nas if unharmed. Other flies in the same condition, not treated with\nsalt, remain as dead. This has been tried by succeeding generations of\nyoung folks, and it is one of the folk-lore facts in support of the\nidea that salt is life.\n\nIt may, of course, be that the absorbent power of salt clears the\ntrachea of the fly, and thus permits the restoration of the natural\nbreathing. Of course, there is some explanation of the phenomenon; but\nthe fact remains that the common mind has been affected by such things\nin the direction of the belief that salt is life in a peculiar sense.\n\nAfter the foregoing pages were already in type, it was cabled as news\nfrom London that an English mechanic claimed to have discovered a\nmethod of resuscitating persons who have been drowned. He proposed to\ncover the entire body of the person taken from the water with dry salt,\nwhich is supposed to absorb the moisture, and thus draw the water from\nthe lungs and permit the air again to circulate freely. He claimed to\nhave revived a recently drowned cat, after letting it remain under salt\nfor thirty minutes; and that a drowned dog was thus restored in two\nhours.\n\nThis is simply the folk-lore idea of bringing the dead to life by the\napplication of salt as life. Like many another folk-lore idea, it is\ndeserving of attention because of some possible basis of truth below\nthe idea, apart from the question of fact in connection with the claim.\n\nIn \"The Barber's Story of his Fifth Brother,\" in \"The Arabian Nights,\"\nis an account of the hero's being beaten and slashed until he was\nsupposed to be dead from loss of blood, and his other injuries. Then a\nslave-girl, named El-Meleehah, the \"salt-bearer,\" came and stuffed salt\ninto his gaping wounds, after which his supposed corpse was thrown into\na subterranean vault among the dead. Yet by means of this application\nof salt he was saved to life, and regained his pristine vigor.[97]\n\n  [97] Lane's _Thousand and One Nights_, I, 365.\n\nThe references of Jesus to salt would seem to have fuller meaning, if\n\"salt\" be understood as equivalent to \"life.\" Where he says to his\ndisciples: \"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost\nits savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for\nnothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men,\"[98] he\nwould seem to remind them that they are the life of the world, if,\nindeed, they retain life in themselves. And where he says, \"Have salt\nin yourselves, and be at peace one with another,\"[99] he would call\nthem to have life in themselves, and to join with others who have it,\nin making their life to be felt among their fellows.\n\n  [98] Matt. 5 : 13; Luke 14 : 34.\n\n  [99] Mark 9 : 50.\n\nA supposed utterance of Jesus, which has been a puzzle to critics and\ncommentators, possibly has light thrown on it in this view of salt\nas corresponding with life. Discoursing on life, and the wisdom of\nstriving to attain or to enter into life, even at a loss of much that\nman might value here on earth, Jesus, according to some manuscripts,\nsaid, \"For every one shall be salted with fire.\"[100] This sentence is\ndisputed by some, not being found in all the more ancient MSS., and\nits meaning does not seem to be clear to any.[101] It is obvious that\nwhatever else \"salted\" here means, it does not mean \"salted.\" To salt\nis to mingle, or to accompany, with salt. Clearly, fire does not do\nthat. The Greek is as vague, or as ambiguous, as the English. There\nmust be a conventional or popular, a figurative or symbolical, meaning\nin which \"salt\" is here used. What can this be?\n\n  [100] Mark 9 : 49. Comp. A. V. and R. V.\n\n  [101] See notes and references in Nicoll's _Expositors' Greek\n  Testament_; Lange's _Commentary_; Meyer's _Commentary_, in loco, etc.\n\n\"Fire\" is here spoken of as the synonym, or equivalent, or parallel, of\n\"salt.\" In this figure, _fire_ is to accomplish what _salt_ performs;\nthe work of _salt_ is to be done by _fire_. In what sense can this\nbe true? Fire does consume and destroy the perishable;[102] it does\nbring out and refine that which is permanent and precious;[103] it\ndoes try and test and reveal the measure of real value in that which\nis submitted to it.[104] In the testing time, \"each man's work shall\nbe made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed\nin fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work, of what sort\nit is. If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon [on the\none Foundation], he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be\nburned he shall suffer loss: but he himself [who has builded] shall be\nsaved; yet as through fire.\"[105]\n\n  [102] Gen. 19 : 24, 25; Exod. 9 : 23, 24; Lev. 10 : 2; 13: 52-57;\n  Matt. 3 : 12; 7: 19; Luke 3 : 17; John 15 : 6.\n\n  [103] Mal. 3 : 2, 3.\n\n  [104] 1 Pet. 1 : 7.\n\n  [105] 1 Cor. 3 : 13-15.\n\nThe whole context of the passage in Mark's Gospel indicates that\nJesus is speaking of _life_. He is showing the way to attain to life.\nHe points to the final testing of life by fire. As salt is shown to\ncorrespond with life, and as this seems to have been understood by\nhis hearers, would they not have seen that Jesus was pointing out that\nthe measure of life, or salt, the reminder of God's covenant with his\npeople, in every one of them, would be revealed in the testing of fire?\n\nIt is, indeed, because salt represents life, that salt was to accompany\nevery sacrifice under the Jewish dispensation. Not death, but life, was\nan acceptable offering to God, according to the teachings of the Bible,\nboth in the Old Testament and the New.[106] God wants \"not yours, but\nyou.\"[107] This was emphasized by priest and prophet in the history\nof the Jewish people, earlier and later. Paul re-echoed this primal\nthought when he appealed to Christians: \"I beseech you therefore,\nbrethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [yourselves] a\n_living_ sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable\nservice.\"[108] Without salt, without the symbol of life, no sacrifice\nwas to be counted a fitting or acceptable offering at God's altar.\n\n  [106] See _Blood Covenant_, passim.\n\n  [107] 2 Cor. 12 : 14.\n\n  [108] Rom. 12 : 1.\n\nSalt is taken, in the world's thought, as an equivalent of wit, or\nlively wisdom, in speech. Thus Paul counsels the Colossian Christians:\n\"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may\nknow how ye ought to answer each one.\"[109] Because the Athenians were\nnoted for their life and wit in speech, \"Attic salt\" was a synonym of\ntruest life in conversation. Cicero says of Scipio: \"_Scipio omnes sale\nsuperbat_\" (\"Scipio surpassed all in salt,\" or \"wit\").\n\n  [109] Col. 4 : 6.\n\nPliny after describing the properties and uses of salt, says: \"We may\nconclude then, by Hercules! that the higher enjoyments of life could\nnot exist without the use of salt: indeed, so highly necessary is this\nsubstance to mankind, that the pleasures of the mind, even, can be\nexpressed by no better term than the word 'salt,' such being the name\ngiven to all effusions of wit. All the amenities, in fact, of life,\nsupreme liberty, and relaxation from toil [in a word, 'life,'] can find\nno word in our language to characterize them better than this.\"[110]\n\n  [110] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 41.\n\nPliny also calls attention to the fact that \"salarium,\" from which we\nderive our word \"salary,\" was the \"salt money,\" bestowed as a reward or\nhonorarium on successful generals and military tribunes.[111] The idea\nof a \"living,\" or a support of life, is in the word \"salary.\" And so\nwhen we say that a man is \"not worth his salt,\" we mean that he is not\nworth his living.\n\n  [111] _Ibid._\n\nSalt has been employed as money at various times and in various lands,\nand thus has been the means of supporting life. It has been so in\nTibet and in India, and in the heart of Africa along from the sixth to\nthe nineteenth centuries of our era. Thus even in lands where gold is\nabundant but less valued than salt.[112]\n\n  [112] Marco Polo's _Travels_, Col. Yule's translation, II., 29, 35, 36,\n  37, and notes to Chap. 47.\n\nIt is said of the people of a province in Tibet, that, while they\nreckon the value of gold by weight, the nearest approach to coined\nmoney which they have is in molded and stamped cakes of salt. \"On this\nmoney ... the Prince's mark is printed; and no one is allowed to make\nit except the royal officers.... Merchants take this currency and go\nto those tribes that dwell among the mountains; ... and there they\nget a _saggio_ of gold for sixty, or fifty, or forty pieces of this\nsalt money; ... for in such positions they cannot dispose at pleasure\nof their gold and other things, such as musk and the like; ... and so\nthey give them cheap.\" \"This exchange of salt-cakes for gold, forms a\ncurious parallel to the like exchange in the heart of Africa, narrated\nby Cosmas in the sixth century, and by Aloisio Cadamosto in the\nfifteenth.\"[113]\n\n  [113] _Ibid._\n\nVictor Hehn calls attention to the fact that \"the German copper-coin\nheller (haller or h\u00e4ller), the smallest coin still in use in Austria,\nreferred to in the German saying, 'to have not a red heller,'\nderives its name from the salt (_hal_), and the place where it was\nobtained.\"[114]\n\n  [114] Victor Hehn's _Das Salz_, p. 72.\n\nPythagoras, speaking as usual in figurative terms, described salt as a\npreserver of all things, as continuing life and as staying corruption,\nor death. He directed the keeping of a vessel of salt on every table,\nas a reminder of its essential qualities.[115]\n\n  [115] See Dacier's _Life of Pythagoras_ (Eng. trans.), pp. 60, 105.\n\nPliny says, moreover, that there are mountains of salt in different\ncountries in India, from which great blocks are cut as from a quarry;\nand that from this source a larger revenue is secured by the rulers\nthan from all their gold and pearls.[116]\n\n  [116] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 39.\n\nIn many countries of the world salt is a matter of government control,\nits manufacture and disposition being guarded as if life and death were\ninvolved in it. It is a common saying in Italy that a man must not dip\nup a bucket of water from the Mediterranean Sea; for he might make salt\nfrom the water, and so defraud the government.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nSALT AND SUN, LIFE AND LIGHT\n\n\nIn Oriental and primitive thought Salt and Sun are closely connected,\neven if they are not considered as identical. They stand together as\nLife and Light. Their mention side by side in various places tends to\nconfirm this view of their remarkable correspondence. The similarity\nof their forms accords with the Oriental delight in a play upon words,\neven apart from the question of any similarity in their meanings.\n\nPliny, who, while not an original thinker, was a faithful and\nindustrious collater of the sayings and doings of his contemporaries,\nand those who had gone before him, especially in the realm of material\nthings, summed up the popular beliefs as to salt and its uses in the\ndeclaration that there is nothing better for the human body, in health\nor in sickness, than salt and sun, \"_sale et sole_.\"[117]\n\n  [117] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45.\n\nNot only in the English and the Latin, but in the Greek, the Kymric,\nand the Keltic, this similarity in the form of the words for salt and\nsun is to be observed. The Greek _hals_ and _helios_, the Welsh _hal_\nand _haul_, the Irish _sal_ and _sul_, illustrate this so far as the\nform is concerned.[118] As to the signification of the words, it has\nalready been shown that \"salt\" represents \"life\" in primitive thought\nand speech. Similarly the sun was considered \"as the life-giver, the\nemblem of procreation.\" In consequence, \"son\" and \"sun\" are from the\nsame root.[119] In view of this it is not strange that salt and sun, as\nlife and light, were considered in primitive and popular thought as the\nmeans of health and hope for mankind.\n\n  [118] In the Old Irish and the Old Welsh _s_ and _h_ interchange, as\n  they do in the Zend. See Table of Grimm, in Sayce's _Introduction to\n  the Science of Language_, I., 305.\n\n  [119] Skeat's _Etymological Dictionary_, at words \"Salt,\" \"Son,\"\n  \"Solar,\" \"Sun;\" also Kluge's _Etymological Dictionary_, s. v. \"_Sonne_.\"\n\n\"The root of the word for salt is unknown. The name of the sun is\napparently a derivation from the root _su_ (or _s[=a]v_) 1. To generate.\n2. To impel, to set in motion, to bring about.\"[120] If the same be not\nthe root of the word \"salt,\" there is at least reason for thinking that\nthe meaning of the two words \"salt\" and \"sun\" are similar,--one gives\nlife, the other represents life.\n\n  [120] According to Prof. Dr. Hermann Collitz, of Bryn Mawr. Compare\n  Joh. Schmidt in Kuhn's \"Zeitschrift,\" XXVI., 9; and O. Schrader,\n  _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, p. 414. Trans. by F. B.\n  Jevons.\n\nTo the primitive mind it certainly would seem natural to ascribe the\ncreation of salt to the action or power of the sun. Peculiarly would\nthis be the case with dwellers by the ocean or sea, or inland salt\nlakes. As the sun shines upon the water drawn from the sea or lake, the\nwater is evaporated and the salt remains. This is the ordinary process\nof salt-making with all its benefits in various countries to the\npresent day. What thought is more natural, in view of this recognized\nfact, than that the sun is the generator, or the begetter, of salt\nwhich is life? If the sun is supposed to bring life, in what way does\nit more directly accomplish this than by this salt creation?\n\nThis would seem to give added significance and force to the words of\nJesus as to salt and light. If in the days of Jesus it was held, as\nPliny says, that there was nothing that could help the life of humanity\nlike salt and sun, life and light, the disciples of Jesus must have\nrecognized a peculiar meaning in the teachings of the Great Physician\nas he sent them out into the world to heal the sick, and raise the\ndead, and cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons,[121] when he\nsuggested that it was what they were, rather than what they did, that\nwas to be the help of humanity. In the same teaching he said, \"Ye are\nthe salt of the earth,\" \"Ye are the light of the world.\"[122]\n\n  [121] Matt. 10 : 8.\n\n  [122] Matt. 5 : 13, 14.\n\nThe recognized meaning of these words in the days of Jesus intensified\ntheir importance at every use of them, as when it was said that \"in\nHim was life; and the life was the light of men.\"[123] Salt was blood;\nblood was life; salt was life; life was light; blood and salt and light\nwere life.\n\n  [123] John 1 : 4.\n\nAmong folk-lore customs on both sides of the ocean, salt and a candle\nare carried across the threshold on moving to a new house, as if\nrepresenting life and light as needs in a new home. Sometimes the Bible\nalso is included, as if in recognition of the true basis of all sacred\ncovenanting. There are other folk-lore customs connecting salt and\nlight.[124]\n\n  [124] See Chap. X., _infra_.\n\nAccording to Professor Dr. Hilprecht, in the old Assyrian language,\n_[t.]\u00e2btu_, \"salt,\" and _[t.]\u00e2btu_, \"blessing,\" have the same ideogram,\nand are written exactly alike. \"This suggests the inquiry whether\nthey are not derived from the same root, _[t.]\u00e2bu_, 'to be good,' and\nwhether _[t.]\u00e2btu_, 'salt,' was not so called by the Assyrians as the\ngreat blessing given to man, as needed more than aught else for the\npreparation of food and the preservation of life.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nSIGNIFICANCE OF BREAD\n\n\nBread is the basis of a common meal, as blood is the basis of a\ncommon life. As, in the sacrifices, the body of the animal offered in\nsacrifice was the basis of a covenant meal, while the blood was the\nbasis of union with the divine; so in the symbolism of bread and wine,\nin any sacramental meal, or in any meal of sacred covenanting between\ntwo persons, the bread stood for the flesh, and the wine for the blood.\nSo, also, when bread and salt are used together, the salt would seem to\nstand for blood or life, and the bread to stand for the flesh or the\nbody.[125]\n\n  [125] See _Blood Covenant_, pp. 182-190; 268 f.; 350-355.\n\nBlood gives life; flesh as food gives sustenance. Salt represents life;\nbread represents sustaining food. In this light those who share salt\ntogether are in a life-sharing covenant; those who share bread together\nare sharers in a common growth. Covenant union in sacrifice is secured\nor consummated by blood-sharing; it is evidenced or celebrated by\nfood-sharing.\n\n\"Milk and honey\" seem to be a symbol of blood and flesh, or of salt\nand bread, from a divine source. They are supplied to man from the\nvegetable world, through the agency of living animals, by the power of\nthe Author of life. They stand for the vivifying and nourishing of the\nbody by a providential ministry to man. In this light they seem to be\nviewed by primitive peoples. The Land of Promise was represented to\nthe ancient Hebrews as \"a land flowing with milk and honey,\"[126] and\nthis figure seemed to represent to them all that could be desired in\nthe line of God's ministry to their material needs. It was many times\nrepeated to them, or by them, in this sense.[127]\n\n  [126] Exod. 3 : 8, 17; 13 : 5; 33 : 3.\n\n  [127] Lev. 20 : 24; Num. 13 : 27; 14 : 8; 16 : 13, 14; Deut. 6 : 3;\n  11 : 9; 26 : 9, 15; 27 : 3; 31 : 20; Josh. 5 : 6; Jer. 11 : 5;\n  32 : 22; Ezek. 20 : 6, 15.\n\nThis symbolism was preserved by the early Christians in connection with\nthe rite of baptism. Tertullian describing that rite says: \"Having come\nout from the bath, we are anointed with a blessed unction of holy oil;\"\nafterwards \"we first taste a mixture of honey and milk.\"[128]\n\n  [128] Tertullian. _De Coron._, v. 3, _adv. Prox._ XXVI., _de Bapt._\n  vii. and viii., cited in Blunt's _Annotated Book of Common Prayer_, p.\n  209.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nSALT IN SACRIFICES\n\n\nSalt seems to have been recognized as a vital element in sacrifices\nboth in the teachings of the Bible and in the customs of the pagan\nworld. In the Lord's injunction to Israel, it is said unqualifiedly:\n\"And every oblation of thy meal offering shalt thou season with salt;\nneither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be\nlacking from thy meal offering: with all thine oblations [offerings\nbloody or unbloody] thou shalt offer salt.\"[129]\n\n  [129] Lev. 2 : 13. See also Ezek. 43 : 21-24.\n\nAn alternative reading of the words of Jesus in Mark's Gospel refers\nto this custom when it says that \"every sacrifice shall be salted\nwith salt.\"[130] Josephus, in his \"Antiquities of the Jews,\" makes\nreference to the large quantities of salt required for sacrifices.[131]\nThis corresponds with the provision of the King of Persia for Jewish\nsacrifices, \"salt without prescribing how much,\"[132]--a limitless or\nindefinite amount.\n\n  [130] Mark 9 : 49. These words are by some critics counted a gloss; yet\n  the fact as a fact, with reference to salt in sacrifices, is undisputed.\n\n  [131] _Antiquities of the Jews_, XII, iii, 3.\n\n  [132] Ezra 7 : 21, 22.\n\nIn the Hebrew text which the Septuagint translators had before them,\nsalt is represented as always on the table of shewbread, and as an\nimportant factor in that memorial offering before the Lord. It reads:\n\"And ye shall put upon the pile [of bread] pure frankincense and\nsalt, and they shall be to the bread for a memorial lying before the\nLord.\"[133] Philo Jud\u00e6us makes mention of this salt with the bread, on\nthe sacred table in the Holy Place, and refers to the salt as a symbol\nof perpetuity.[134]\n\n  [133] Swete's _Septuagint_ at Lev. 24 : 7.\n\n  [134] _De Victimis_, \u00a7 3.\n\nIn the directions for the preparation of the holy incense for use by\nthe priests in the services of the tabernacle, the fragrant gums and\nspices were to be \"seasoned [or tempered together] with salt, pure and\nholy.\"[135] And this incense was for sacrificial offering.\n\n  [135] Exod. 30 : 34, 35, Revised Text, and marginal note.\n\nIt is still a custom among strict Jews to observe the rite of the\ncovenant of salt at their family table, before every meal. The head of\nthe house, having invoked the Divine blessing in these words, \"Blessed\nbe thou O Lord our God, King of the universe, who causest bread to\ngrow out of the earth,\" takes bread and breaks it in as many pieces as\nthere are persons present. Having dipped each piece into salt, he hands\na portion in turn to every one, and they share it together. In cases\nwhere there is less strictness of ritual observance on the part of\nmodern Jews, this ceremony is limited to the beginning of the Sabbath,\nat the Friday evening meal.\n\nThis might seem to be merely a renewal of the covenant which binds\nthe members of the family to one another and to God; yet it evidently\npartakes of the nature of a sacrifice, and it is so understood by\nthe more orthodox Jews. The primitive idea of an altar was a table\nof intercommunion with God, or with the gods. It was thus with the\nBabylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, the Persians,\nthe Arabs, the early inhabitants of North and South America, and with\nprimitive peoples generally.[136] Thus also the Bible would seem\nto count an altar and a table as synonymous. The prophet Malachi\nreproaches, in God's name, the Jews for irreverence and sacrilege. \"And\nye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon\nmine _altar_. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye\nsay, The _table_ of the Lord is contemptible.\"[137]\n\n  [136] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 167-190.\n\n  [137] Mal. 1 : 6, 7. See also Isa. 65 : 11 and Ezek. 41 : 22.\n\nThe Talmud emphasizes the home table of the Jew as the altar before\nthe Lord, to be approached in sacrifice with the essential offering of\nsalt. \"As long as the Temple existed, the altar effected atonement,\nand now it is for the table of each man to effect atonement for him. It\nis for this reason that the description of the altar (in Ezekiel 41 :\n22) closes by saying, 'And he said unto me, This is the table that is\nbefore the Lord.'\"[138]\n\n  [138] Tract B'rakhoth 55 _a._, cited by the Rev. Dr. M. Jastrow.\n\nIt would seem, therefore, that bread and salt are as the body and the\nblood, the flesh and the life, offered in sacrifice at the home table\nof the Jew, as formerly at the altar of intercommunion with God.[139]\n\n  [139] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 350-355.\n\nThis view of the household table as an altar has been recognized by\nmany Jews. Picart[140] says:\n\n  [140] _Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the\n  Known World_, I., 245. London, 1733.\n\n\"The German Jew sets bread and salt upon his table, but the loaf, if\npossible, must be whole. He cuts it without making a separation, takes\nit up with both his hands, sets it down upon the table, and blesses it.\nHis guests answer, Amen. Afterwards he rubs it with salt, and whilst he\nis eating it is as silent as a Carthusian. The bread thus consecrated\nis distributed to all who are at table. If he drinks wine, he blesses\nit as he did the bread before; takes it in his right hand, lifts it\nup, and pronounces the benediction over it; and all other drink, water\nalone excepted, is consecrated in the same manner. The master of the\nfamily concludes with Psalm 23, and then every one eats what he thinks\nconvenient, without further ceremony. The ceremony of cutting the loaf\nwithout separation has the same reason to support it; and a passage\nfrom Psalm 10 : 3 is a voucher for its solidity. The master of the house\nholds the bread in both his hands, in commemoration of the ten precepts\nrelating to corn; and each finger is the representative of one of\nthem.[141]\n\n  [141] Buxtorf _ex_ Talmud.\n\n\"The salt as the religious intention of it is typical of the ancient\nsacrifices. Meat without salt has no savor, which is proved from a\npassage in Job, chapter 6, verse 6.[142] This is civil policy confirmed\nby religion.\n\n  [142] _Ibid._, cap. xii.\n\n\"A modest deportment at table is much recommended; so likewise is\ntemperance and sobriety. Their bread must be kept in a very neat place,\nand preserved with all imaginary care. They must talk but little, and\nwith discretion at table, because, according to the opinion of the\nrabbis, the prophet Elijah, and each respective guest's guardian angel,\nare present at all meals. Whenever that angel hears anything indecent\nuttered there, he retires, and a wicked one assumes his place. They\nnever throw down bones of flesh or fish upon the ground; but, however,\nthis caution is not the result of cleanliness only, but fear, lest\nthey should hurt any of those invisible beings.[143]\n\n  [143] Dr. Kohler states that the reason for not throwing these\n  fragments on the ground, is because the Jews would not disgrace what is\n  regarded as a special gift of God.\n\n\"The knife that cuts their meat, must never touch what is made of\nmilk;[144] whatever, in short, strikes the senses in any manner, must\nbe blessed. They never rise from the table without leaving something\nfor the poor; but the knives must be removed before they return thanks,\nbecause it is written, 'Thou shalt set no iron on the altar.' Now a\ntable is the representative of an altar, at saying grace before, or\nreturning thanks after meal.\"[145]\n\n  [144] Because meat and milk are never to be eaten together. See p. 62,\n  _supra_. (Exod. 23 : 19; 34 : 26; Deut. 14 : 21.)\n\n  [145] Buxtorf _ex_ Talmud, cap. xii.\n\nThat the table was looked at as an altar among ancient peoples, is to\nbe inferred from various proverbs and practices with reference to it.\nThus one of the symbolic sayings of Pythagoras is, \"Pick not up what is\nfallen from the table.\"[146] A comment on this is, that as the table\nwas consecrated to divinities, whatever fell from it was not to be\nrestored, but to be left, as was the gleaning of God's fields, for the\npoor.[147] When the Syrophoenician woman said to Jesus, \"Yea, Lord:\nfor even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters'\ntable,\"[148] she spoke in recognition of this primitive truth, that\nthe crumbs from the table might be shared by whoever hungered.\n\n  [146] Dacier's _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 116.\n\n  [147] Lev. 19 : 9, 10; Deut. 24 : 19-21.\n\n  [148] Matt. 15 : 27.\n\nA usage in the early Latin Church would seem to be in the line of the\nJewish thought, that bread and salt at the table are a sacrifice, or\na sacrament; and it would also appear to be in recognition of the\nfact that salt stands for blood, or for life. The catechumens, before\nthey were privileged to share in the Eucharist, were made partakers\nof the sacrament of salt (_sacramentum salis_),--salt placed in the\nmouth, accompanied by the sign of the cross, and by invocations and\nexorcisms.[149]\n\n  [149] Bingham's _Antiquities of the Christian Church_, Book X., Chap.\n  2; Smith and Cheetham's _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, arts.\n  \"Catechumens,\" \"Salt.\"\n\nSt. Augustine, speaking of this sacrament, says: \"What they receive\nis holy, although it is not the body of Christ,--holier than any food\nwhich constitutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a sacrament.\"\nAnd, referring to its reception by himself, he says: \"I was now signed\nwith the sign of the cross, and was seasoned with his salt.\"[150]\n\n  [150] St. Augustine's Treatise on _Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism_,\n  II., 46.\n\nIn the Greek Church, salt is still deemed an essential element of the\nEucharistic bread. It is said, indeed, that the salt \"represents the\nlife, so that a sacrifice without salt is but a dead sacrifice.\" The\nsame is true of the Armenian and Syrian Christians, and Alcuin refers\nto the fact that, in his day, certain Christians in Spain insisted that\nsalt should be put into the bread for the Eucharist.[151]\n\n  [151] Smith and Cheetham's _Dict. of Chris. Antiq._, arts. \"Elements,\"\n  \"Salt.\"\n\nSalt is put into the mouth of an infant at its baptism, in the Roman\nChurch of to-day.[152] In administering the salt to the babe the priest\nsays: \"Receive the salt of wisdom. May it be a propitiation for thee\nto eternal life.\"[153] All \"holy water,\" in that church, contains salt\nas an essential element.[154] At the dedication of a church, water\nmixed with ashes and salt is employed for the sprinkling of the corners\nof the altar, and other portions of the church; and the remainder is\npoured out at the foot of the altar, where the sacrificial blood was of\nold poured out in the Temple offerings.[155]\n\n  [152] _Rituale Romanorum_, p. 29 f.\n\n  [153] _Ibid._\n\n  [154] _Ibid._, p. 276 f.\n\n  [155] Smith and Cheetham's _Dict. of Chris. Antiq._, art. \"Salt.\"\n\nIn the Br\u00e2hmanas, of the Vedic literature, salt is described as the\none \"sacrificial essence\" which is common to both sky and earth. In\nthe ritual directions for the \"ceremony of establishing a set of\nsacrificial fires, on the part of a young householder,\" the sacrificer,\nunder the guidance of the priests, is described as proceeding to equip\nAgni, the fire, with its proper equipments. He having brought water\nand gold,[156] it is said: \"He then brings salt. Yonder sky assuredly\nbestowed that (salt as) cattle on this earth: hence they say that salt\nsoil is suitable for cattle. That salt, therefore, means cattle; and\nthus he thereby supplies it (the fire) with cattle; and the latter\nhaving come from yonder (sky) is securely established on this earth.\nMoreover, that (salt) is believed to be the savor (_rasa_) of those\ntwo, the sky and the earth; so that he thereby supplies it (the fire)\nwith the savor of those two, the sky and the earth. That is why he\nbrings salt.\"[157]\n\n  [156] Fire is masculine, water is feminine, gold is seed, according to\n  the Vedic literature.\n\n  [157] M\u00fcller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XII., 278 (_Satapatha\n  Br\u00e2hmana_).\n\nAccording to the Br\u00e2hmanas, the first offered sacrifice was a man. When\n\"the sacrificial essence\" went out of the man in his offering, it went\ninto the horse, then into the ox, then into the sheep, then into the\ngoat. And afterwards it would seem to have been represented in salt. So\nin bringing salt to the fire for sacrifice, there are brought cattle,\nor animal offerings, with their blood and their life.[158]\n\n  [158] _Ibid._, p. 50.\n\nIt is said in Br\u00e2hmanic explanation of the pre-eminent value of salt\nas a sacrificial essence, that it was made thus by an original\nagreement between the sky and the earth. \"The sky and the earth were\noriginally close together. On being separated, they said to each other,\n'Let there be a common sacrificial essence (ya-_g\u00f1_-iyam) for us!'\nWhat sacrificial essence there was belonging to yonder sky, that it\nbestowed on this earth, that became the salt (in the earth), and what\nsacrificial essence there was belonging to this earth, that it bestowed\non yonder sky, that became the black (spots) in the moon. When he\nthrows salt (on the fire-place), let him think it to be that (_viz_:\nthe black in the moon): it is on the sacrificial essence of the sky and\nthe earth that he sets up his fire.\"[159]\n\n  [159] M\u00fcller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XII., 278, note.\n\nAmong the Booddhists in China, where the sacrifices are almost\nexclusively vegetable, salt and wine are added in separate cups.[160]\nThis would seem to suggest the symbolism of both blood and wine in the\nofferings.\n\n  [160] Morris's _China and the Chinese_, p. 154.\n\nSalt had its place in sacrifices in ancient Egypt. Herodotus tells,\nfor instance, of the great annual festival at Sa\u00efs, in honor of the\ngoddess Neith, corresponding to Athena or Minerva. Neith was, in fact,\nanother presentation of Isis, and was known as \"the great mother of all\nlife.\" In conjunction with the sacrifices on this occasion, there was\nthe Feast of Burning Lamps, when all the inhabitants burned, in the\nopen air, about their houses, lamps filled with oil and salt. He says,\nmoreover: \"The Egyptians who are absent from the festival [at Sa\u00efs]\nobserve the rite of the sacrifice, no less than the rest, by a general\nlighting of lamps; so that the illumination is not confined to the city\nof Sa\u00efs, but extends over the whole of Egypt.\"[161] Wilkinson says of\nthese lamps and their contents: \"The oil floated on water mixed with\nsalt;\" and he suggests a correspondence of this custom with a like one\nin India and in China.[162]\n\n  [161] Rawlinson's _History of Herodotus_, II., 92 (Book II., Chap. 62).\n\n  [162] _Ibid._, note. See also Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_, III.,\n  380.\n\nFriedrich, in his \"Symbolism of Nature,\" speaking of this festival,\nsays that the \"salt symbolized the creation of life, and the light that\nit came forth from darkness into existence; therefore this did well\nsuit the festival.\" And a collector of Etruscan remains, referring to\nthe magic lamp still used in Italy, says, in connection with these\nwords of Friedrich, that the \"wick fire seemed so mysterious to the\nRosicrucian Lord Blaize that he wrote a book on it, and on the blessed\nsecrets of salt.\"[163]\n\n [163] Leland's _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 324 f.\n\nSalt was essential to a sacrifice among the ancient Romans, as among\nthe Hebrews. A cake made of coarsely ground spelt, or wheat, mingled\nwith salt, was broken, or bruised, and sprinkled upon the head of\nthe victim for sacrifice, upon the fire of the altar, and upon the\nsacrificial knife. Hence the term \"immolation,\" or sprinkling with\nthis salted meal, came to be synonymous with sacrificing.[164] Pliny,\ntelling of the priceless value of salt, says of it in conclusion: \"It\nis in our sacred rites, more especially, that its high importance is\nrecognized, no offering ever being made unaccompanied by the salted\ncake [_sine mola salso_].\"[165] And Ovid says, that \"in days of old it\nwas plain spelt, and the sparkling grain of unadulterated salt that had\nefficacy to render the gods propitious to man.\"[166]\n\n  [164] Harper's _Latin Dictionary_, s. vv. \"Immolate,\" \"Mola.\"\n\n  [165] Pliny's _Hist. Nat._, Bostock and Riley's trans., XXXI., 41.\n\n  [166] Ovid's _Fasti_, I., 337. See, also, Cooper's _Virgil_, notes on\n  Aeneid, Books II. and XII.\n\nThere is good reason for believing that it was much the same with\nthe Greeks as with the Romans, although the fact that this is not\ndistinctly declared in the classic texts has led some modern scholars\nto call it in question. Barley-meal cakes, with or without salt, were\ncertainly employed by the Greeks in their sacrifices.[167] And Homer\nspeaks of salt as \"divine.\"[168] When, therefore, it is considered that\nsalt was counted essential in sacrifices among the ancient Egyptians,\nHindoos, and Hebrews, as also later among the Romans, it would seem to\nneed proof to the contrary to meet the natural presumption that the\nGreeks also made use of \"divine salt\" in their sacred sacrificial cakes.\n\n  [167] Homer's _Iliad_, I., 449, 458; II., 410, 421; _Odyssey_, III.,\n  425, 441; Philo's _Opera_, 2 : 240.\n\n  [168] _Iliad_, IX., 214. See Eustathius's Commentary, I., 748-750, ed.\n  Basle (p. 648, ed. Rome).\n\nSalt was offered at every little shrine by the wayside in Guatemala,\nin Central America, in olden time. It was an acceptable gift to the\ngods.[169]\n\n  [169] See Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II., 719.\n\nWellhausen, in treating of the remains of Arabian paganism,[170] tells\nof the custom of the old priests of throwing salt into the fire of\nsacrifice, unperceived by the worshiper as he appealed to the gods\nin his oath, and of the consequent startling of the offerer by the\nup-leaping flames, as though under a divine impulse. Various popular\nsayings are cited as incidental proofs of this custom; the purport of\nthem all being that salt in the fires of sacrifice is supposed to be an\neffective appeal to the gods.\n\n  [170] Wellhausen's _Reste Arabischen Heidentumes_, in _Skizzen und\n  Vorarbeiten_, III., 124, 131.\n\nPliny says that \"salt, regarded by itself, is naturally igneous, and\nyet it manifests an antipathy to fire, and flies from it.\"[171] This\nwould seem to be a reference to the tendency of salt to spring up, or\nflash and sparkle, when thrown into the flames.\n\n  [171] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45.\n\nIt has indeed been suggested that the very name \"salt\" was derived\n(through _saltus_, \"to leap\") from the tendency of this substance\n\"to leap and explode when thrown upon fire.\"[172] If there be any\nprobability in this suggestion, or in another, and more natural one,\nthat _saltus_ was from the same root as _sal_, \"salt,\" it is easy to\nsee that the primitive mind might infer that such was the affinity of\nsalt with the divine, that, when offered by fire, it leaped toward\nheaven, and so was understood to be peculiarly acceptable to God or to\nthe gods, in sacrifice. The Latin verb _salis_ has the twofold meaning\n\"to salt\" or \"to sprinkle before sacrifice,\" and \"to leap, spring,\nbound, jump;\" and the root _sal_ would seem to be in the Latin and the\nSanskrit alike.[173] Similarly, the word \"salacious,\" or lustful, had\nthis origin.\n\n  [172] See citation of Lennep, and Scheideus, in Richardson's _English\n  Dictionary_, s. v. \"Salt.\"\n\n  [173] See Harper's _Latin Dictionary_, s. vv. \"sal,\" \"salio,\" \"saltus.\"\n\nIt is evident that the primitive popular mind recognized salt as a\npeculiarly acceptable offering in sacrifice to God or the gods, and\nthat its very name in various combinations seemed to suggest the\naspiring or uprising heavenward.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nSALT IN EXORCISM AND DIVINATION\n\n\nThe line between sacrificial offerings and offerings for the purpose\nof exorcising evil spirits, or of propitiating good spirits, is not\nalways a clear line even in the mind of the offerer; but there are uses\nof salt among primitive peoples which must be placed under the head of\nexorcisms and divinations, and as an accompaniment of incantations,\nrather than under the head of sacrifices, even though they may be only\nperversions of the original idea of sacrifice.\n\nBurckhardt tells of the burning of salt, by way of exorcism, among\nthe people of Daraon, on the borders of Upper Egypt and Nubia. His\ncaravan was about being loaded for a journey. \"Just before the lading\ncommenced,\" he says, \"the Ababde women appeared with earthen vessels\nin their hands, filled with burning coals. They set them before the\nseveral loads, and threw salt upon them. At the rising of the bluish\nflame produced by the burning of the salt, they exclaimed, 'May you be\nblessed in going and in coming!' The devil and every evil genius are\nthus, they say, removed.\"[174]\n\n  [174] Burckhardt's _Travels in Nubia_, p. 157.\n\nAmong Muhammadan Arabs, in and out of Egypt, salt is sprinkled on\nthe floors of every apartment in the houses, on the last night of\nthe month of Ramadan, accompanied by the words, \"In the name of God,\nthe Compassionate, the Merciful!\" This is because the evil jinn, or\ngenii, are supposed to be confined in prison during that month, and the\nsprinkling of salt, with the prescribed invocation, ensures protection\nfrom them as they renew their work of harm. Salt is also sprinkled on\nthe floor after the birth of a child, as a propitiatory offering for\nmother and child, against the influence of the evil eye.[175]\n\n  [175] Lane's _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, pp. 41, 188.\n\nIn China, on the eve of the new year, salt is thrown into the fire,\nand the manner of its burning is taken as an indication, favorable\nor unfavorable, for the coming year. It is a species of divination\nby salt.[176] In Japan, the burning of salt, or the offering it in\nthis way to the gods, is a propitiatory sacrifice in time of danger;\nand it is scattered at the threshold for a similar purpose after a\nfuneral.[177] In Syria, also, the burning of a lump of salt in the\nfire is resorted to as a means of exorcising the malevolent spirit\nwhich afflicts one through the \"evil eye.\"[178]\n\n  [176] Doolittle's _Social Life of the Chinese_, II., 58 f.\n\n  [177] Griffis's _Mikado's Empire_, pp. 467, 470; Bird's _Untrodden\n  Tracks in Japan_, I., 392.\n\n  [178] George A. Ford, in _The Church at Home and Abroad_, Dec., 1889,\n  p. 501.\n\nWhile suspected persons, or persons of doubtful orthodoxy, were\nundergoing the \"ordeal of boiling water\" under ecclesiastical\nauthority, in the Middle Ages and earlier, it is said that \"by\nway of extra precaution, in some ritual it is ordered that holy\nwater and blessed salt be mingled in all the food and drink of\nthe patient--presumably to avert diabolical interference with the\nresult.\"[179]\n\n  [179] Mart\u00e8ne, _De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus_, Lib. III., c. vii., Ordo.\n  19; cited in Lea's _Superstition and Force_, p. 281.\n\nAmong the folk-lore customs in modern Greece salt has prominence in\nvarious ways. Salt must be pounded on certain days and in a certain\nway, in order to guard against ill luck. Salt must never be carried out\nof the house after dark.[180]\n\n  [180] Rodd's _Customs and Lore of Modern Greece_, p. 156.\n\nIn Scotland and in England, as well as in the East, the use of burning\nsalt in exorcism has continued in the more primitive regions down to\nthe present century. James Napier tells, for example, of the treatment\nto which he was subjected as a child, when it was surmised that he had\ngotten \"a blink of an ill e'e.\" He says: \"A sixpence was borrowed from\na neighbor, a good fire was kept burning in the grate, the door was\nkept locked, and I was placed upon a chair in front of the fire. The\noperator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled it with water.\nWith the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, and\nboth were put into the water in the spoon. The water was then stirred\nwith the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then the soles of my\nfeet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this solution thrice,\nand after these bathings I was made to taste the solution three times.\nThe operator then drew her wet forefinger across my brow,--called\n'scoring aboon the breath.' The remaining contents of the spoon she\nthen cast over the fire, into the hinder part of the fire, saying as\nshe did so, 'Guid preserve frae a' skith.' These were the first words\npermitted to be spoken during the operation.\"[181] Mr. Napier adds\nthat while in his case the \"scoring aboon the breath\" was accomplished\nby scoring with a finger wet with salt water, the suspected possessor\nof an evil eye was scored with the finger-nails, or some sharp\ninstrument, so as to draw blood. The blood and the salt seemed to have\ncorrespondent values.\n\n  [181] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 36 f.\n\nIn the southern counties of England, salt is thrown into the fire by\nway of invoking spiritual aid in behalf of a lass who would win back a\nrecreant lover. \"A pinch of salt must be thrown into the fire on three\nsuccessive Friday nights, while these lines are repeated:\n\n  \"'It is not this salt I wish to burn,\n    It is my lover's heart to turn;\n    That he may neither rest, nor happy be,\n    Until he comes and speaks to me.'\"[182]\n\n  [182] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 176.\n\nThere seems to be a special value in the sacred number \"three,\" in the\nappeals through salt to the spiritual powers. In the Scottish Lowlands,\n\"when a dead body has been washed and laid out, one of the oldest women\npresent must light a candle, and wave it three times around the corpse.\nThen she must measure three handfuls of common salt into an earthenware\nplate, and lay it on the breast. Lastly she arranges three 'toom,' or\nempty dishes, on the hearth, as near as possible to the fire; and all\nthe attendants going out of the room return into it backwards, repeat\nthis 'rhyme of saining:'\n\n  \"'Thrice the torchie, thrice the saltie,\n    Thrice the dishes toom for \"loffie\" (_i. e._, praise),\n    These three times three ye must wave round\n    The corpse, until it sleep sound.\n    Sleep sound and wake nane,\n    Till to heaven the soul's gane.\n    If ye want that soul to dee\n    Fetch the torch th' Elleree;\n    Gin ye want that soul to live,\n    Between the dishes place a sieve,\n    An it sail have a fair, fair shrive.'\"[183]\n\n  [183] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 53.\n\nIn connection with the putting of a plate of salt on the breast of a\ndead body, there were various usages. A plate of bread was sometimes\nset with the salt, and again a plate of earth was its accompaniment.\nAnd different reasons were assigned for the presence of the salt there.\nNapier says that many persons claimed for it a value in preventing the\nswelling of the body in process of decomposition, \"but its original\npurpose was to act as a charm against the devil, to prevent him from\ndisturbing the body.\"[184]\n\n  [184] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 60.\n\n\"Pennant tells us that formerly, in Scotland, the corpse being\nstretched on a board and covered with a close linen wrapper, the\nfriends laid on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing\na small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed; the earth an\nemblem of the corruptible body, the salt as an emblem of the immortal\nspirit [the life].\"[185]\n\n  [185] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 60.\n\nNapier adds: \"There was an older superstition which gave another\nexplanation for the plate of salt on the breast. There were persons\ncalling themselves 'sin-eaters,' who, when a person died, were sent for\nto come and eat the sins of the deceased. When they came, their _modus\noperandi_ was to place a plate of salt and a plate of bread on the\nbreast of the corpse, and repeat a series of incantations, after which\nthey ate the contents of the plates, and so relieved the dead person\nof such sins as would have kept him hovering around his relations,\nhaunting them with his imperfectly purified spirit, to their great\nannoyance, and without satisfaction to himself.\"[186] The basis of this\nplan of vicarious substitution of personality would seem to be, in the\nentering of the \"sin-eaters\" into oneness of life with the deceased\nthrough the salt covenant or the blood covenant, in partaking of his\nbody and blood in the bread and salt from his breast.\n\n  [186] _Folk-Lore_, p. 60.\n\nLeland, in his \"Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition,\" says that\nthere was, among the Tuscan Romans, an incantation, or an invocation,\nfor every emergency. \"If salt upset, they said, 'Dii avertite\nomen!'\"[187] In Sicily, a goddess known as the Mother of the Day \"is\ninvoked when salt is spilt.\"[188] He also cites various incantations\nand exorcisms, in which salt is an essential factor.[189]\n\n  [187] _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 12.\n\n  [188] _Ibid._, p. 148.\n\n  [189] _Ibid._, pp. 122, 204, 242, 264, 281, 286, 287, 312, 345.\n\nA custom prevails in some portions of Pennsylvania, even to this\nday, of carrying a bag of salt, with a Bible, over the threshold, on\nentering a new house for the first time. There are families who would\nnot consent to live in a home which had not been thus consecrated.[190]\nThis would seem to be a survival of the passing over the threshold\nwith an offering of blood. A correspondence of this practice with\nancient Etruscan customs seems to be indicated by the collections of\nLeland.[191] Among the Mordvins, a Finnish people on the Volga, salt\non bread is placed under the threshold of the bride's paternal home\nat the time of a marriage covenant.[192] This may be classed with\nsacrifices or with divination according to our idea of the workings of\nthe primitive Mordvin mind.\n\n  [190] _Threshold Covenant_, p. 21.\n\n  [191] _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 306.\n\n  [192] Ralston's _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 277 f.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nFAITHLESSNESS TO SALT\n\n\nThe fact that in its primitive conception a covenant of salt is a\npermanent and unalterable covenant, naturally suggests to the primitive\nmind the idea of treachery as faithlessness to salt. The Persian term\nfor a \"traitor\" is _namak har\u00e2m_, \"untrue to salt,\" \"one faithless\nto salt;\"[193] and the same idea runs through the languages of the\nOriental world.\n\n [193] Gesenius's _Thesaurus_, p. 790.\n\nBaron du Tott, referring to the sharing of bread and salt, says: \"The\nTurks think it the blackest ingratitude to forget the man from whom we\nhave received food, which is signified by the bread and salt.\"[194]\nBut it is obvious that it is faithlessness to salt, not to bread or\nordinary food, that is deemed blackest ingratitude. This is in India,\nas in Turkey. Tamerlane, the Mongol-Tatar chieftain, speaking, in his\ninstitutes, of one Share Behraum, who had deserted his service for the\nenemy and afterwards returned to his allegiance, says: \"At length my\nsalt which he had eaten overwhelmed him with remorse, he again threw\nhimself on my mercy, and humbled himself before me.\"[195] Frazer\nquotes a rebel chief in India as saying, when he capitulated after a\nsiege, and was asked if he would return to his old allegiance, \"No,\nI can no more visit my country; I must look for service elsewhere. I\ncan never face the rajah again; for I have eaten Ghoorka salt. I was\nin trust, and I have not died at my post. We can never return to our\ncountry.\"[196]\n\n  [194] _Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars_, Part I., p. 214; cited in\n  Bush's _Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures_, at Numbers 18 : 19.\n\n  [195] Quoted in Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 77.\n\n  [196] Frazer's _Journal of Tour through Himala Mountains_, quoted in\n  Burder, p. 77, at Ezra 4 : 14.\n\nBurton says that the Bed'ween of Arabia denounce the Syrians as\n\"abusers of the salt,\" because they cannot be depended on in their\nagreements.[197] And Dr. Thomson says that Orientals \"often upbraid\nthe civilized Frank because he does not keep bread and salt, is not\nfaithful to the covenant of brotherhood.\"[198]\n\n  [197] _Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah_, III., 114.\n\n  [198] _The Land and the Book_, II., 41.\n\nBurton says also, of the Bed'ween of El Hejaz: \"'We have eaten salt\ntogether' (_nahnu malihin_) is still a bond of friendship: there are,\nhowever, some tribes who require to renew the bond every twenty-four\nhours, as otherwise, to use their own phrase, 'the salt is not in their\nstomachs.'\"[199] And he quotes the advice to him of Shaykh Hamid,\nconcerning the Bed'ween who were to escort him from El Medinah, \"never\nto allow twenty-four hours to elapse without dipping hand in the same\ndish with them, in order that the party might always be 'malihin,' on\nterms of salt.\"[200] Treachery on the part of one who has even partaken\nof an ordinary meal with another is, however, counted, among Orientals,\na peculiar crime, as surprising as it is unusual.[201]\n\n  [199] _Pilgrimage_, III., 84.\n\n  [200] _Pilgrimage_, II., 334.\n\n  [201] Psa. 41 : 9; John 13 : 18.\n\nOf course, there is no human bond which will guard human nature against\nall possible treachery. These references to the measure of fidelity\namong different peoples or tribes are an indication of the relative\ndegree of faithfulness prevailing among them severally. Those who are\nfaithless to salt cannot be depended on for anything. If a man would\nnot be true to one who is of his own blood, of his own life, and to\nwhom he is bound in a sacred covenant of which his God is a party, he\ncould not be depended on in any emergency. The covenant of salt is all\nthis in the thought of the primitive mind.\n\nDon Raphel says, of the estimate of faithlessness to salt entertained\nby Arabs generally: \"When they have eaten bread and salt with any one,\nit would be a horrid crime not only to rob him, but even to touch the\nsmallest part of his baggage, or of the goods which he takes with him\nthrough the desert. The smallest injury done to his person would be\nconsidered as an equal wickedness. An Arab who should be guilty of such\na crime would be looked upon as a wretch who might expect reproof and\ndetestation from everybody. He would appear despicable to himself, and\nnever be able to wash away his shame. It is almost unheard of for an\nArab to bring such disgrace upon himself.\"[202]\n\n  [202] _The Bedouins or Arabs of the Desert_, Part II., p. 59; quoted in\n  Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 72.\n\nIt was said by the ancient Jews that Sodom was destroyed because its\ninhabitants had been faithless to salt, in maltreating guests who\nhad partaken of salt in their city. In a Talmudic comment on Lot's\nwife, the record is: \"Rabbi Isaac asked, 'Why did she become a pillar\nof salt?' 'Because she had sinned through salt. For in the night in\nwhich the men came to Lot she went to her neighbors, and said to them,\nGive me salt, for we have guests. But her purpose was to make (the\nevil-minded) people of the city acquainted with the guests. Therefore\nwas she turned into a pillar of salt.'\"[203]\n\n  [203] Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow refers to this in an article on \"The\n  Symbolical Meaning of Salt,\" in _The Sunday School Times_ for April 28,\n  1894.\n\nThis idea of foul treachery as equivalent to faithlessness in the\nmatter of salt, seems to be perpetuated in Da Vinci's famous painting\nof the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot is represented as having\noverturned the salt-cellar.[204] And even among English-speaking\npeoples the spilling of salt between two persons is said to threaten a\nquarrel; as though they had already broken friendship.\n\n  [204] It has indeed been questioned whether the overturned salt-cellar\n  in Da Vinci's picture, as shown in many an engraving of it, was in the\n  original painting, as it is not to be seen there now. But it would\n  seem clear that the copy of this painting by Da Vinci's pupil, Marco\n  d'Oggoni, in the Brera, shows the overturned salt-cellar, while the\n  original painting has had several retouchings and renovations. (See\n  _Notes and Queries_, 6th Series, Vol. X., p. 92 f.)\n\nGayton, describing two friends (who were proof even against this ill\nsign), says:\n\n   \"I have two friends of either sex, which do\n    Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too;\n    Of both which persons I can truly tell,\n    They are of patience most invincible,--\n    When out of temper no mischance at all\n    Can put,--no, not if towards them the salt should fall.\"[205]\n\n  [205] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 104.\n\nIn both the Old Testament and the New faithlessness to a formal\ncovenant is reckoned a crime of peculiar enormity as distinct from any\nordinary transgression of a specific law. Transgressing a covenant with\nthe Lord is counted on the part of Israel much the same as worshiping\nthe gods of the heathen. This is shown in repeated instances in the Old\nTestament.[206] In the New Testament, Paul includes among the grossest\nevil-doers of paganism those who are \"filled with all unrighteousness,\nwickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife,\ndeceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God,\" and so down\nto \"covenant-breakers,\" and those \"without natural affection,\" as among\nthe lowest and worst of all.[207] This idea shows itself continually in\nrecords and traditions, sacred and secular.\n\n  [206] Gen. 17 : 14; Deut. 17 : 2-7; Josh. 7 : 11-15; Judg. 2 : 20-23; 2\n  Kings 18 : 11, 12; Psa. 55 : 19-21; Isa. 24 : 5, 6; Jer. 11 : 9-11; 34 :\n  17-20; Hosea 6 : 4-7; 8 : 1.\n\n  [207] Rom. 1 : 31.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nSUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY\n\n\nPrimarily it is the blood, as the life, of two persons entering into\na covenant with each other and with the Author of life, that is the\nnexus of the enduring covenant.[208] Secondarily, it is the blood, or\nlife, of a substitute victim offered as a sacrifice to God, or to the\ngods, that is accepted as such a nexus,--the blood being shared by the\ncontracting parties, or being poured out as an oblation to God, and the\nflesh being eaten conjointly by the parties covenanting.[209]\n\n  [208] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 5-86; _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 193-202.\n\n  [209] Gen. 4 : 2-5; _Blood Covenant_, pp. 134-136.\n\nYet, again, wine is accepted as representing blood. This is not only\nbecause wine resembles blood in appearance, and is called in the Bible\nrecord the \"blood of the grape,\"[210] but because wine is actually\ndeemed, by many primitive peoples, real blood, and is supposed to\naffect its users as it does because it represents the spirit, or life,\nof the divinity whose blood it is.[211] On this point Frazer calls\nattention to the primitive views of Egyptians, Arabians, Aztecs, and\nothers, citing authorities from Plutarch to Robertson Smith.[212]\n\n  [210] Gen. 49 : 11; Deut. 32 : 14; Eccles. 39 : 26; 50 : 15;\n  1 Macc. 6 : 34; _Blood Covenant_, p. 191.\n\n  [211] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 139-142.\n\n  [212] Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II., 184 f.\n\nHe says, for example: \"We are informed by Plutarch that of old the\nEgyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to the\ngods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once\nfought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting\nbodies; and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition\nthat the drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the\ngods. The Aztecs regarded _pulque_, or the wine of the country, as bad,\non the account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But\nthese wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man,\nbut of the wine god by whom he was possessed and inspired.... Thus it\nappears that, on the primitive view, intoxication, or the inspiration\nproduced by wine, is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by\ndrinking the blood of animals.[213] The soul or life is in the blood,\nand wine is the blood of the vine.... Whoever drinks wine drinks the\nblood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit of the god of\nthe vine.\"\n\n  [213] Comp. _Blood Covenant_, pp. 114, 139-147.\n\nNaturally, a substitute or representative of the original, or real,\nnexus of a covenant, came to stand for the primary article with such\nprominence in the popular mind that it would be deemed an essential,\nnot only when the real was lacking, but while the real was actually\npresent. Therefore we find libations of wine accompanying actual blood,\nin sacrifices,[214] as well as used in substitution for it; so also of\nother substitutes, such as saffron water, milk, and coffee, at other\ntimes.[215]\n\n  [214] Exod. 29 : 40; Lev. 23 : 12, 13; Num. 15 : 5, 10; 28 : 14, etc.;\n  _Blood Covenant_, pp. 63-65.\n\n  [215] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 77, 346-350.\n\nAs salt represents blood and life, quite naturally salt is employed in\nsacrifices, not only where there is no blood or life, but also where\nthere is. And this accounts for the prominence of salt in sacrifices,\nand elsewhere, where blood or life is essential as a fitting offering,\nand as a bond of union.[216] Both wine and salt as substitutes for\nblood are frequently used together, as though one alone were not\nsufficient.[217]\n\n  [216] Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pliny, cited in Becker's _Charicles_, p.\n  330.\n\n  [217] See pp. 83 f., 92, _supra_; also Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II.,\n  67-70.\n\nSimilarly, bread is a recognized representative of flesh. It is so\nunderstood in sacred and secular records and traditions. When Jesus\nspoke of bread as his flesh, and as his body,[218] and of the fruit of\nthe vine as his blood, he used terms that in his day, and earlier,\nwere known in popular thought as representing the truth at the basis\nof the covenant by which two became one in a merged common life.[219]\nYet while bread was an accepted substitute for flesh, it was much used\nas an accompaniment of flesh[220] in sacrificial feasts. Thus bread\nand salt as recognized substitutes for flesh and blood came to be\ncommonly used even where real flesh and blood were the main factors in\nthe sacrifice. Substitutes for bread, such as honey and flour or meal,\nwere, as already shown, also used in connection with bread. Hence it is\nnot unnatural to find salt as blood accompanying blood itself. This is\nentirely in accord with primitive thought and customs generally.\n\n  [218] Comp. Matt. 26 : 26-28; Mark 14 : 22-24; Luke 22 : 19, 20; 1 Cor.\n  11 : 23-25.\n\n  [219] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 171-184.\n\n  [220] _Ibid._; Gen. 18 : 1-8; 31 : 54; Lev. 7 : 11-14; 23 : 15-20, etc.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nADDED TRACES OF THE RITE\n\n\nOn the occasion of a sacred alliance between clans, or in a treaty\nof peace at the close of a war, among the Kookies of India, there is\na formal appeal to the gods, in which salt has an important part.\nA _dhar_, or short sword, is placed on the ground between the two\nparties. On it, as on an altar, \"are arranged rice, salt, earth, fire,\nand a tiger's tooth. The party swearing takes the _dhar_ and puts the\nblade between his teeth, and, biting it, says, 'May I be cut with the\n_dhar_ in war and in the field; may rice and salt fail me, my crops\nwither, and I die of hunger; may fire burn all my worldly possessions,\nand the tiger devour me, if I am not faithful!'\"[221]\n\n  [221] Stewart, in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, XXIV.,\n  641, cited in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_, V., 39.\n\nAmong the Battas, in Sumatra, the more solemn form of their oath is,\n\"May my harvest fail, my cattle die, and may I never taste salt again,\nif I do not speak the truth.\"[222]\n\n  [222] Wooldridge's trans. of Bunge's _Physiological and Pathological\n  Chemistry_, p. 126.\n\nAmong the Dyaks of Borneo, when a question arises between disputants\nfor which there is no ordinary mode of settlement, each litigant is\ngiven a lump of salt, which the two drop into water simultaneously, and\nhe whose lump dissolves soonest is adjudged the loser.[223]\n\n  [223] K\u00f6ningswarter, _op. cit._, p. 202, cited in Henry C. Lea's\n  _Superstition and Force_, p. 257.\n\nIn the Kenyah tribe in Borneo, the ceremony of naming a child is made\nmuch of. Guests assemble on the occasion. After the more private\nceremony, participated in by a favored few, every guest present is\ngiven a package of salt and some ginger root, as wedding-cake is given\nin many lands, for a souvenir of the occasion.[224]\n\n  [224] On the testimony of Dr. W. H. Furness, 3d.\n\nA custom among Slavic peoples of presenting bread and salt to a ruler\nat the threshold of his domain, as he comes on a visit, would seem to\ncombine the two ideas of hospitality and of worship. When the Emperor\nof Russia visits one of his provinces, or subject cities, he is met\nat its threshold by its representative rulers, as his loyal subjects,\nwith bread and salt served on a golden or a silver-gilt placque. In the\nWinter Palace of St. Petersburg there are hundreds of these suspended\nover the doorways and on the walls, which placques were thus presented\nto different emperors on the occasion of such visits.\n\nWhen the Grand Duke Alexis visited America in 1872, he was received\nin this way by the wife of the Russian Minister at Washington. \"As\nthe Grand Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy carried a\nsilver salver on which was placed a round loaf of plain black bread,\non the top of which was imbedded a golden salt-cellar.\"[225] This was\nobviously more than a symbol of welcome to the home of the embassy. The\nGrand Duke came as a ruler and lord to his own, and his own received\nhim loyally, with symbols of reverent submission. It was more like\nthe threshold covenant of the East, when blood is poured out from an\noffered body at the doorway of a house, as one who would be honored as\nwell as welcomed comes in.\n\n  [225] Parley's _Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National\n  Metropolis_, II., 277.\n\nSome years later there was an account in the London Court Journal of\nthe making in Paris of an ornate golden dish for a similar use in\nRoumania. The burghers of Bucharest were arranging to present on this\ndish bread and salt to Princess Marie of Edinburgh, when she should\nmake her first entrance into their city as their future queen. The dish\nwas of gold worked in a purely Renaissance design, its edge being an\nopenwork pattern of interlaced ears of corn and branches of laurel. In\nthe center was the salt-cellar, shaped like an open tulip, and resting\nupon four graceful stalks.\n\nIn the days of Queen Elizabeth of England it was a custom of officials\nof the palace to rub bread and salt on the plates of the dining-table\nbefore each royal meal.[226]\n\n  [226] Agnes Strickland, _Queens of England_ (Students' Edition), p. 403.\n\nAmong the Kookies of the Hill Tribes in India, \"whenever they send\nany message of consequence to each other, they always put in the hand\nof the bearer of it a small quantity of salt, to be delivered with\nthe message as expressive of its importance.\"[227] This would seem to\nindicate a life-and-death matter in the message.\n\n  [227] Macrae, in _Asiatic Researches_, VII., 188; cited in Spencer's\n  _Descriptive Sociology_, V. 25.\n\nAn old English custom of having a salt-cellar at a certain point on the\nfamily table, and of seating those present above or below it, gave rise\nto the phrase \"sitting below the salt\" as indicative of an inferior\nposition at the household table. As salt was a symbol of hospitality\nand of covenanted union, he who was within the scope of salt-sharing at\na table was in a very different position from one who was outside of\nit.\n\nA reference to this custom by Sir Walter Scott, in his \"Tales of My\nLandlord,\" in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, provoked\nmuch discussion, and doubt was expressed as to the existence of the\ncustom in olden time. But abundant evidence was produced as to its\nveritableness.[228] An old English ballad was cited, in which one said\nsneeringly to his inferior:\n\n   \"Thou art a carle mean of degree,\n    Ye salte doth stand twain me and thee;\n    But an thou hadst been of ane gentyl strayne,\n    I wold have bitten my gant[229] aganie.\"\n\n  [228] See _Blackwood's Magazine_, Vol. I., No. 1, pp. 33-35; 132-134;\n  349-352; 579-582.\n\n  [229] Gant; that is, glove.\n\nAnd one of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1597, was instanced as saying:\n\n   \"A gentle squire would gladly entertaine\n    Into his house some trencher chaplaine;\n    Some willing man that might instruct his sons,\n    And that would stande to good conditions.\n    First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,\n    Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head.\n    Second, that he do, on no default,\n    Ever presume to sit above the salt.\"\n\nIt was a custom in Oxford University to give salt to a student who had\nconcluded his course as a \"freshman,\" and was finding admission into\nthe company of maturer, or salter, students or sophisters. Drinking\nsalt and water, or salt and beer, was a part of this ceremony. It was\ncalled \"salting a freshman,\" or \"college salting.\"[230]\n\n  [230] See _Notes and Queries_, First Series, I., 261.\n\nA series of plates, illustrative of certain student ceremonies at\nStrassburg University was published in 1666. \"The last [of these]\nrepresents _the giving of the salt_,--which a person is holding on a\nplate in his left hand, and with his right hand is about to put a pinch\nof it upon the tongue of each _becanus_, or freshman. A glass, probably\nholding wine, is standing near him. Underneath is the following couplet:\n\n   \"_Sal Sophi\u00e6 gustate, bibatis vinaque l\u00e6ta,\n    Augeat immensus vos in utrisque Deus!_\"[231]\n\n  [231] _Ibid._, I., 492.\n\nIn Hungary, at a wedding, there are customs that give solemn emphasis\nto the truth that two lives are newly made one in a sacred covenant.\nThe ceremony is presided over by the Vajda, or chief ruler, rather than\nby any Christian ecclesiastic. He stands with his back to a blazing\nfire as the primitive altar.[232] When his address is concluded, an\nearthen vessel is dashed to pieces as a symbol of their former life\nnow ended. Then the bridal couple are sprinkled with salt and brandy,\ndoubly standing for blood on the threshold of their married life.[233]\n\n  [232] _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 22 f., 39 ff., etc.\n\n  [233] _Martyrdom of an Empress_, p. 138 f.\n\nBread and salt seem to have a peculiar sacredness among the Hungarian\ngypsies. This incident, from a gypsy camp, is given in a Hungarian\nnewspaper: A gypsy who had lost his cash informed his leader of the\nfact, and at once an order was issued for its restoration. The money\nnot appearing, the gypsy chief bound two poles into the form of a\ncross, and fixed one end in the ground. On the top of the cross he\nfastened a piece of bread, and sprinkled it with salt. Each member of\nthe band was then called to swear upon this symbol that he had not\ncommitted the theft. All stood the test, until the last one, an old\nwoman, came forward. As she was about to take the oath, she turned\npale, put her hand in her pocket, and brought out the stolen money. She\nwas then soundly beaten, and kicked out of camp.[234]\n\n  [234] See quotation from the Pester Lloyd, in _Journal of the Gypsy\n  Folk-lore Society_, copied in \"The Journal of American Folk-lore,\" Vol.\n  II., No. 5, p. 140.\n\nThe primitive idea that the sovereign properly controls salt as a\nsource or means of life, and that a gift of salt from the sovereign\nlays a new obligation on the recipient, as illustrated in the days\nof Cyrus and Darius,[235] shows itself down to our own day. In the\ndays of Arabi Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt desired to raise a sum of\nmoney, at a time when the people were exceptionally poor in consequence\nof excessive taxation and the rigors of a recent famine. Instead of\nrelying on the ordinary and obnoxious tax collectors, the Khedive\nresorted to the pressure of the \"fidelity to salt idea.\"\n\n  [235] See p. 20, _supra_.\n\nSalt, as a gift, or as an appeal, from the government supply, was\nsent to every native house. Four pecks of salt to every two males in\nthe house was the average amount. The salt was laid, by a government\nofficial, upon the threshold of the house, early in the morning, before\nthe inmates arose. Of course, any person stepping over that salted\nthreshold was brought anew into a covenant with the giver.[236] Later\nin the day Egyptian soldiers called at every house to receive what the\ninmates would give in return. The appeal was irresistible. It was not\nlike an ordinary tax, to be evaded or resisted if possible. All would\ndo what they could. The least that any could think of returning was the\nusual price of the salt. Those who could afford more were glad to show\ntheir fidelity and loyalty in a corresponding liberality.[237]\n\n  [236] See _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 3-25.\n\n  [237] This was told to the author by an Oriental who was residing in\n  Egypt at the time.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nA SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH\n\n\nThat which is a means of life in one instance may be a means of death\nin another. A breath that might kindle a tiny spark into a living blaze\nmight also extinguish a quivering flame. The breeze that gives life\nto fire in one case gives death to fire in the other. And fire itself\nproves death to that which is perishable, while it gives added value\nto that which is purified in the furnace flames. Salt, like fire, is\na symbol both of life and of death. In different connections it is a\npreserver and a destroyer. \"To the one a savor from death unto death;\nto the other a savor from life unto life.\"[238]\n\n  [238] 2 Cor. 2 : 16.\n\nSalt is spoken of in the Bible as destructive of vegetable life, and a\nbarrier against new animal life. A piece of ground sown or strewed with\nsalt is deemed dead land: \"It is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass\ngroweth therein.\"[239] When Abimelech captured Shechem, \"he beat down\nthe city and sowed it with salt.\"[240] The Psalmist, speaking of the\npower and ways of God, declares:\n\n   \"He turneth rivers into a wilderness,\n    And watersprings into a thirsty ground;\n    A fruitful land into a salt desert,\n    For the wickedness of them that dwell therein.\"[241]\n\n  [239] Deut. 29 : 23.\n\n  [240] Judg. 9 : 45.\n\n  [241] Psa. 107 : 33, 34.\n\nThe prophet Jeremiah says of one who departs from God's service that\nhe \"shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land\nand not inhabited.\"[242] Ezekiel, foretelling a curse on the land\nof the Jews, says: \"The marshes thereof shall not be healed; they\nshall be given up to salt.\"[243] And Zephaniah declares that Moab\nshall become \"a possession of nettles, and salt-pits, and a perpetual\ndesolation.\"[244] Because there can be no fertility for new vegetable\nlife, there is no room or hope for new animal life for land thus sown\nwith salt and thus permanently sterile.\n\n  [242] Jer. 17 : 6.\n\n  [243] Ezek. 47 : 11.\n\n  [244] Zeph. 2 : 9.\n\nThe one great body of water that is called the Dead Sea is the saltest\nsea in the world. Five times the proportion of salt in the ocean is\nfound in this inland sea of salt. \"No fish can exist in the waters,\nnor is it proved that any low forms of life have been discovered\nthere.\"[245] An ancient legend declared that birds could not even\nfly over its waters, because of the curse from heaven on its briny\ndepths.[246] Yet this doomed and dead sea of salt is a source of life\nto man in its exhaustless supply of salt for his use. Preeminently is\nthis salt of the Dead Sea a savor of life and of death.\n\n  [245] George Adam Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, p.\n  502.\n\n  [246] Tacitus, _Hist._, v. 6, cited as above.\n\nThe salt of the ocean is the world's treasure. Without it the greater\nportion of the earth's inhabitants would perish for lack of what\nvivifies and preserves animal life. Yet because of the salt in the\nocean the very water, which man and beast must have or perish of\nthirst, is useless to both man and beast. The cry in the \"Ancient\nMariner\" is the cry of the human, always, on the ocean's surface:\n\n   \"Water, water, everywhere,\n      And all the boards did shrink:\n    Water, water, everywhere,\n      Nor any drop to drink.\"\n\nWater, which is the gift of God to the thirsty soul, mocks the thirsty\nsoul when it brings with it salt, which is the representative of life.\nSalt in water is a savor of death unto death, while salt and water are\nalso a savor of life unto life.\n\nWhile salt as the equivalent of life is a symbol of permanency, it\nbecomes, as the equivalent of death, a symbol of doom and destruction.\nThus the prophet Isaiah, speaking of his salvation as sure and\npermanent, says: \"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the\nearth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away [literally, shall be\nsalted] like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and\nthey that dwell therein shall die in like manner [or, like gnats]:\nbut my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be\nabolished.\"[247]\n\n  [247] Isa. 51 : 6.\n\nLife is in itself the destroyer of death, as light is the destroyer of\ndarkness. Hence that which makes anew does away with that which was of\nold. When, therefore, salt or fire is spoken of as the destroyer of\nthat which is not worthy of preservation, it is not to be wondered at\nthat this power is possessed by an element that purifies and revivifies\nthrough the process of destruction. The ground of a destroyed and\ncondemned city is guarded against a continuance of its old life of\nevil by being sown with salt, which is a savor from life unto life and\nfrom death unto death. The old heavens and the old earth which vanish\naway as by fire and salt,[248] are replaced by a new heaven and a new\nearth[249] which shall be enduring as gold tried in the fire, and as a\ncovenant of salt forever.\n\n  [248] Isa. 34 : 4; 2 Peter 3 : 10-12.\n\n  [249] Isa. 51 : 16; 65 : 17; 66 : 22; 2 Peter 3 : 13.\n\nThere is a sense in which that which is devoted to God is thereby\nforbidden to the use of man. Thus land sown with salt may be counted\nas devoted and as destroyed, _devoted_ to God and _destroyed_ for\nman.[250] The Hebrew word _korban_ was applied to what had thus been\ndedicated and doomed.[251]\n\n  [250] See Num. 21 : 2, 3.\n\n  [251] Mark 7 : 11. See the Rev. Dr. Jastrow, in _The Sunday School\n  Times_ for April 28, 1894; also W. Robertson Smith's _Religion of the\n  Semites_, p. 435; also Nowack, _Lehrbuch der Hebr\u00e6ischen Arch\u00e6ologie_,\n  II., 267.\n\nBlood also is used in the twofold sense of life and of death, in\ndifferent connections. Men say, \"We are bound together by blood,\"\nand \"We are of one blood,\" and \"Blood is thicker than water.\" They\nsay, also, \"There is blood between us,\" and \"Spilled blood cannot be\ngathered up,\" and \"Blood is a barrier.\" Salt, that stands for blood,\nmay similarly stand for life or for death, for peace or for discord. It\nis an old superstition that to put salt on another's plate is an evil\nomen. Hence the couplet:\n\n   \"Help me to salt,\n    Help me to sorrow!\"\n\nYet even this portent of ill luck may be canceled by a repetition of\nthe act, helping to a second portion of salt.[252] The taking of blood\nthat becomes a barrier may be followed by the taking of blood as a bond\nof union. Shedding of blood is atoned for by sharing of blood.\n\n  [252] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 120.\n  Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 104 f.\n\nEven the spilling of salt, which is so dreaded in primitive thought,\nmay, it is said, be rendered harmless if the person who was guilty of\nthe mishap will carefully gather up the spilled salt with the blade\nof a knife, and throw it over his left shoulder, with an appropriate\ninvocation.[253]\n\n  [253] Henderson, p. 120; Dyer, p. 104 f.; Napier, p. 139 f.\n\nIt is deemed dangerous to give away salt to a stranger; for because\nsalt is as blood and as life, one must be careful lest he put his blood\nand his life in the power of an enemy.[254] Salt is essential to the\npreservation of human life; at the same time, salt is the destruction\nof human life if it be in too great quantity or proportion. Thus the\nseeming contradiction is only in seeming.\n\n  [254] Henderson, p. 217.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nMEANS OF A MERGED LIFE\n\n\nAll life is from the Author and Source of life. Only as two persons\nbecome partakers of a common life by each and both sharing in that\nwhich is in itself life, can they become one in the all-inclusive\nLife. Having life from the Source of life, they can merge their common\npossession in each other, and in that common Source. Such merging in a\ncommon life, with an appeal to and by the approval of God, or the gods,\nhas been the root-idea of covenanting, in one way or another, from time\nimmemorial, among all peoples, the world over.\n\nIn primitive thought, and in a sense in scientific fact, the blood is\nthe life and the life is in the blood; hence they who share in each\nother's blood are sharers in a merged and common life. Covenanting\nin this way with a solemn appeal to God, or to the gods, has been a\nmode of sacred union from the earliest dawn of human history. Two\nthus covenanting are supposed to become of one being; the one is the\nother, and the two are one. Every form of sacrifice, Jewish, Egyptian,\nAssyrian, or ethnic, is in its primal thought either an evidence and\na reminder of an existing covenant between the offerer and the Deity\napproached, or an appeal and an outreaching for a covenant to be\nconsummated.[255]\n\n  [255] Compare, for example, Psa. 50 : 5, 16; Hos. 1 : 10; Rom. 9 : 26.\n\nSalt is counted as the equivalent of blood and of life, both in\nprimitive thought and, in a sense, in scientific fact; therefore salt,\nlike blood, has been deemed a nexus of a lasting covenant, as nothing\ncan be which is not life or its equivalent. Only as two persons are\nsharers of a common life can they be supposed to have merged their\nseparate identity in that dual union.\n\nAnd so we find that, in the primitive world's thought, shared salt has\npreciousness and power because of what it represents and of what it\nsymbolizes, as well as of what it is. Salt stands for and corresponds\nwith, and it symbolizes, blood and life. As such it represents the\nsupreme gift from the Supreme Giver. Because of this significance of\nsalt, when made use of as the means of a lasting union, the Covenant of\nSalt, as a form or phase of the Blood Covenant, is a covenant fixed,\npermanent, and unchangeable, enduring forever.\n\n\n\n\nSUPPLEMENT\n\n\n\n\nTHE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A COVENANT OF LOVE\n\n\nAll of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments, given from God on\ntwo tables, or tablets, of stone, to the people of Israel at Mount\nSinai.[256] But not all of us are accustomed to think of these Ten\nCommandments as ten separate clauses of a loving covenant between\nGod and his chosen people, recorded on stone tablets for their\npermanent preservation. Yet these witnessing tablets are repeatedly\ncalled in the Bible \"the tables of the covenant,\"[257] and \"tables of\ntestimony,\"[258] not the tables of the commandments; while the chest or\ncasket which contained them is called \"the ark of the covenant,\"[259]\nand \"the ark of the testimony,\"[260] not the ark of the commandments.\n\n  [256] Exod. 20 : 1-17; Deut. 5 : 1-22.\n\n  [257] Deut. 9 : 15.\n\n  [258] Exod. 32 : 15; 34 : 29.\n\n  [259] Num. 14 : 44; Deut. 10 : 8; 31 : 9, 25, 26; Josh. 3 : 3, 6, 8,\n  11, 14, 17; 4 : 7, 9, 18; 6 : 6, 8; 8 : 33; Judg. 20 : 27; 1 Sam. 4 :\n  3-5; 2 Sam. 15 : 24; 1 Kings 3 : 15; 6 : 19; 8 : 1, 6; 1 Chron. 15 :\n  25, 26, 28, 29; 16 : 6, 37; 17 : 1; 22 : 19; 28 : 2, 18; 2 Chron. 5 :\n  2, 7; Jer. 3 : 16.\n\n  [260] Exod. 25 : 22; 26 : 33, 34; 30 : 6, 26; 31 : 7; 39 : 35; 40 : 3,\n  5, 21; Num. 4 : 5; 7 : 89; Josh. 4 : 16.\n\nThere is obviously a world-wide difference between a loving covenant\nthat binds two parties to each other in mutual affection and fidelity,\nand a series of arbitrary commandments enjoined by a sovereign upon\nhis subjects; between a compact of union, having its statement of\npromises on the one hand and of responsibilities on the other, and an\ninstrument that asserts the rights of the ruler and defines the duties\nof the ruled. In our estimate of the Decalogue we have made too much\nof the _law_ element, and too little of the element of _love_. As a\nconsequence it has not been easy for us to see how it is that God's\nlaw is love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But the\nTen Commandments _are_ a simple record of God's loving covenant with\nhis people, and they are _not_ the arbitrary commandings of God to\nhis subjects. They indicate the inevitable limits within which God\nand his people can be in loving union, rather than declare the limits\nof dutiful obedience on the part of those who would be God's faithful\nsubjects. A close examination of the Decalogue will show that this is\nits nature and scope.\n\nIt must be borne in mind, in our Bible reading, that the Bible was\noriginally written by Orientals for Orientals, and that it is to be\nlooked at in the light of Oriental manners and customs, and Oriental\nmodes of speech, in order to its fullest understanding. Hence when we\nfind the term \"covenant,\" or the term \"commandment,\" in the Bible, we\nare to inquire into the Oriental meaning of that term, so that we may\nknow the sense in which it was employed by the Bible writers.\n\nNow a \"covenant\" among Orientals is, and always has been, a sacred\ncompact binding two parties in loving agreement. Oriental covenants\nare made in various forms and by various ceremonies. The most sacred\nof all forms of covenanting in the East is by two persons commingling\ntheir own blood, by its drinking or by its inter-transfusing, in order\nthat they may come into a communion of very life.[261] Two persons who\nwish to become as one in a loving blood-friendship will open each a\nvein in his own arm, and allow the blood to flow into a common vessel,\nfrom which both parties will drink of the commingled blood. Or, again,\neach person will open a vein in one of his hands, and the bleeding\nhands will be clasped together so that the blood from the one shall\nfind its way into the veins of the other. Or, yet again, the two will\nshare together the substitute blood of a sacred animal. Usually, in\nsuch a case, a written compact is signed by each party and given to\nthe other, with the stamp of the writer's blood upon it as a part of\nthe ceremony of covenanting; and this writing is carefully encased in\na small packet or casket, and guarded by its holder as his very life.\nIt is in the light of such customs as this that we are to read of the\nsacred covenant entered into between God and his Oriental people.\n\n  [261] See _The Blood Covenant_.\n\nIt was at the foot of Mount Sinai that Moses came before the people of\nIsrael with God's proffer to them of a covenant, whereby they should\nbear his name and be known as his people. \"And he took the book of\nthe covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said,\nAll that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient.\"[262] Then\nit was that Moses took of substitute blood and divided it into two\nportions, one half to be sprinkled on the altar God-ward, and the other\nhalf to be sprinkled on the people; and Moses said: \"Behold the blood\nof the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these\nwords\"--or, as the margin of the Revised Version has it, \"upon all\nthese conditions.\"[263]\n\n  [262] Exod. 24 : 7.\n\n  [263] Exod. 24 : 8.\n\nMoreover, we are told, in the Epistle to the Hebrews,[264] that Moses\nsprinkled the blood upon the record, or book, of the covenant, as\nwell as upon the people. It was after this--after the breach and the\nrenewal of the covenant between Israel and God--that the stone tablets\non which the covenant itself had a permanent record were encased in\na casket, or an \"ark,\"[265] which was thenceforward guarded sacredly\nas containing the charter of Israel's nationality, the witness, the\nevidence, the testimony, of the loving covenant between God and his\npeople.\n\n  [264] Heb. 9 : 19.\n\n  [265] Exod. 40 : 20.\n\nBut you may ask, Did not the tables of stone bear a record of specific\ncommandments, rather than of articles of a covenant? And are not\nthe words there recorded specifically called in the Bible the \"Ten\nCommandments\"? Look for yourselves, and see. It is true that our\nEnglish Bible speaks of the Ten Commandments recorded on these tables\nof stone; but the word here translated \"commandments\" is more literally\nto be rendered \"words,\"[266] as indeed it is given in the margin of the\nRevised Version; and it is applicable to any declaration, injunction,\nor charge, made by one to another. It is by no means to be understood\nas simply an arbitrary mandate from an absolute sovereign to his\nsubjects. Looking at the Ten Commandments as a set of moral laws\ncovering man's duties to God and to his fellows, they seem strangely\ndefective, when we find among them no command to pray to or to praise\nGod, nor any command to give sympathy or assistance to man. But\nwhen we look at them as clauses of a loving covenant, indicating the\nscope and limits of relations within which a child of God's duties\nGod-ward and man-ward are to be exercised, we find that they are\nfar-reaching and all-inclusive. Looking at them as the tables of the\ncovenant between God and his people in the light of Oriental views of\ncovenanting, we can see a great deal more in the words on those tables\nthan when we look at them as the tables of the commandments,--in the\nlight of our Western ideas of commandings.\n\n  [266] Exod. 34 : 28.\n\nA covenant involves the idea of a twofold agreement between the parties\nmaking it. Even though God himself be one of the parties, he will not\nrefuse to be explicit in his words of covenanting. And so we find it\nto be in the record on the tables of the covenant which were given to\nMoses at Mount Sinai. We call the opening words of that record the\n\"Preface to the Ten Commandments;\" but they are more properly God's\ncovenanting words with his people. \"I am Jehovah thy God, which brought\nthee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.\"[267]\nThe very name \"Jehovah\" includes the idea of a covenant-making and a\ncovenant-keeping God. The declaration of Jehovah's eternally existing\npersonality as Jehovah is in itself a covenant promise, for all time\nto come, to those who are his covenant people. It is as though he\nwere to say: \"I, who was and am, and am to be, the same yesterday and\nto-day, yea and forever, will be your God unfailingly. As I have given\nyou a loving deliverance out of Egyptian bondage, so I am ever ready to\ndeliver you from every evil that enthralls you.\"\n\n  [267] Exod. 20 : 2.\n\nMan, when he promises for the future, needs to say, \"I will do;\" but\nGod can say nothing stronger than \"I do,\" or than \"I am.\" Thus the\npromise of promises of Jesus to his disciples as their ever-present,\nall-sustaining Lord, is, \"Lo, I am with you alway;\"[268] not \"Lo, I\n_will be_,\" but \"Lo, I _am_.\" And so it is that God's covenant promise\nto Israel, to be their loving, guarding, and guiding God for all time\nto come, is in the words: \"I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out\nof the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.\"[269] And this is\nthe promise of \"the party of the first part,\" as we would say in modern\nlegal parlance, in this covenant between God and his people Israel.\n\n  [268] Matt. 28 : 20.\n\n  [269] Exod. 20 : 2.\n\nThen there follow the covenant agreements of God's people, as \"the\nparty of the second part\" in this loving compact. As it is God who\nprescribes or defines the terms on which this covenant is to be\nmade, the indication of those terms is mainly in the form of such\nprohibitions as will distinguish the people of God from other peoples\nabout them, in the bearing of that people toward God's personality,\ntoward God's institutions, and toward God's representatives. This is\nall that is needed in the fundamental articles of covenanting. The\ndetails of specific duties may be defined in special enactments under\nthe terms of this covenant, or they may be inferred from its spirit.\n\nThe first requirement is, that this covenanting God shall be recognized\nas the only God; that no other god shall be conceded a place in\nGod's universe. And this requirement is vital to any such covenant.\nA divided heart is no heart at all. He who can see any other object\nof love and devotion comparable with the one to whom he gives himself\nin covenant-union, is thereby incapacitated from a covenant-union.\nTherefore it is that this first word of the Ten Words of the covenant\nof God's people with their God is not an arbitrary mandate, but is the\nsimple expression of a truth which is essential to the very existence\nof the covenant as a covenant of union.\n\nAnd this principle is as vitally important now as it was in the days\nof Moses. The human heart is always inclined to divide itself when it\nought to be undivided. It is reluctant to be wholly and always true to\nGod alone. But, now as hitherto, without wholeness of heart a covenant\nof union with God is an impossibility. And, indeed, the very idea of\nother gods is an outgrowth of man's sense of an unfitness to be in\noneness of life with the One God,--in consequence of which man seeks\na lower divinity than the supreme God as the immediate object of his\nworship.\n\nThe second requirement in this covenant of union is, that no material\nimage or representation of this covenanting God shall be made use of\nas a help to his worship by his covenanting people; that, as a Spirit,\nGod shall be worshiped in spirit by his people. Here, again, is no\narbitrary mandate, but only the recognition of a vital truth. Because\nGod is Creator of all, no creation of God can be like God. Because God\nis a Spirit, the human mind can best commune with him spiritually,\nwithout having its conceptions of him degraded by any image or\nrepresentation--which at the best must be wholly unworthy of him.\n\nIn this second requirement, as in the first, a danger is indicated\nto which the Israelites were peculiarly exposed in their day, and to\nwhich all the people of God are exposed in any day. In the Assyrian, or\nChaldean, home of Abraham, there was practically no image worship, but\nthere was a belief in a plurality of gods. In the Egyptian home, from\nwhich the Israelites had just come out, images in great variety were\nthe objects of worship. As the covenant people of God, the Israelites\nwere to refrain from the polytheism of their ancestral home in the far\nEast, and from the grosser idolatry of their more recent home in the\nWest. And so it must be with the people of God at all times; they must\nworship only God, and they must worship God without any help from a\nmaterial representation of the object of their worship.\n\nAs there is still a temptation to give a divided heart to God, so there\nis still a temptation to seek the help of some visible representation\nor symbol of God's presence in his worship. The Christian believer does\nnot bow down to an idol, but many a Christian believer thinks that his\nmind can be helped upward in worship by looking at some representation\nof his Saviour's face, or at some symbol of his Saviour's passion. But\njust because God is infinitely above all material representations and\nsymbols, so God can best be apprehended and discerned spiritually.\nAnything coming between man's spirit and God the Spirit is a hindrance\nto worship, and not a help to it. Suppose a young man were watching\nfrom a window for his absent mother's return, with a wish to catch the\nfirst glimpse of her approaching face. Would he be wise, or foolish, in\nputting up a photograph of his mother on the window-pane before him, as\na help to bearing her in mind as he looks for her coming? As there can\nbe no doubt about the answer to that question, so there can be no doubt\nthat we can best come into spiritual communion with God by closing our\neyes to everything that can be seen with the natural eye, and opening\nthe eyes of our spirit to the sight of God the Spirit. This, again, is\nno arbitrary requirement of God; it is in the very nature of his being\nand of our own.\n\nThe third requirement of this compact is, that there shall be no\ninsincerity on the part of God's covenant people in their claiming\nand bearing his name, as the name of their covenanting God. This\nrequirement is not generally understood in this light; but all the\nfacts in the case go to show that this is its true light. In the\nOriental world, and in the primitive world everywhere, one's name\nstands for one's personality; and the right to bear one's name or even\nto call on one by his personal name, is a proof of intimate relation,\nif not of actual union, with him. God was now covenanting with this\npeople to be his people, thereby authorizing them to bear his name, and\nto be known as his representatives. In the very nature of things, this\nlaid upon them a peculiar obligation to bear his name reverently and in\nall sincerity.\n\nIt is not that God arbitrarily commanded his people to have a care in\nthe _speaking_ of his name, as if he were jealous of its irreverent\nmention; but it is that he reminded them that the coming into the\nprivileges of his name was the coming into the responsibilities of that\nname. It was as though Mr. Moody were taking a little street waif into\nhis home to train the boy as his own son, and were formally giving\nto that boy the right to take and bear his name. Naturally he might\nsay: \"Understand, now, my boy, that, wherever you go, they'll say,\n'There goes a young Moody.' Now, I value my name, and I don't want it\ndisgraced. See to it that you take care of that name wherever you are.\"\nSo God said to his people: \"Thou shalt not take\"--shalt not assume,\nbear, carry--\"the name of the Lord thy God in vain\"--insincerely,\nvainly; \"for the Lord will not\"--cannot--\"hold him guiltless that\ntaketh\"--claimeth the privileges of--\"his name in vain\"--vainly,\ninsincerely.\n\nThis covenant obligation also is on us as it was on God's people\nof old. As Christians we are baptized into the name of the Father,\nthe Son, and the Holy Ghost.[270] Wherever we go, we are counted\nas members of God's family. His name is on us, and his honor is in\nour keeping. Wherefore, \"let every one that nameth the name of the\nLord\"--claimeth it as his own name--\"depart from unrighteousness;\"[271]\nand let him never feel that it is a light or a vain thing to bear that\nname before the world.\n\n  [270] Matt. 28 : 19.\n\n  [271] 2 Tim. 2 : 19.\n\nThus we see that the first three of the ten requirements of the loving\ncovenant of God's people with their God are simply the requirements to\nworship God as the only God, to worship him in unhindered spirituality,\nand to worship him in all sincerity. These three fundamental\nrequirements seem to have been in the mind of our Lord Jesus when he\nsaid to the woman of Samaria at the well of Jacob: \"God\"--the One\nGod--\"is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and\ntruth.\"[272]\n\n  [272] John 4 : 24.\n\nComing to the fourth requirement of the loving covenant of God and\nhis people, we find it differing in form from the preceding three\nrequirements; differing also from the form of all but one of those\nwhich follow it. The preceding three are in the negative form; this\nis in the affirmative form, beginning with the injunction, \"Remember\"\n(Keep in mind). Of course, there is a reason for this. The first three\nrequirements are in the line of obvious, if not of self-evident,\ntruths; the requirement of one day in seven for rest and worship\nis not, however, of obvious importance. Hence this requirement is\nspecifically affirmed as an article of the covenant, while the others\nguard against departures from primal principles of vital moment.\n\nThe \"Sabbath\" was a recognized institution long before the days of\nMoses. Traces of its strict and sacred observance in the ancestral\nhome of Abraham are disclosed in the Assyrian records unearthed\nin these later days. And now that the Lord, at Sinai, is drawing\naway his covenant people from the sins and errors of their fathers\nand neighbors, he reminds them that there is good in some of the\nobservances of the past, which they are not to forsake or forget.\n\"Remember,\" therefore he says, \"the sabbath day to keep it holy\"--as\nyour fathers in all their polytheism had a care to observe it of old.\nBear _that_ institution in mind, as worth your remembering.\n\nAnd here again there is affirmed a principle which is for all time and\nfor all people. Although the reason for setting apart one day above\nanother for rest and worship is not on the surface of things, the\nexperiences of mankind, as well as the teachings of God's Word, go to\nshow that there is such a reason below the surface. In the long run,\nman can do more work, and do it better, in six days of a week, than he\ncan in seven; and unless a man worships God at stated times, he is not\nlikely to worship him at all. So it is that God makes it a part of his\nloving covenant between himself and his people, that ever and always\nthey shall worship him statedly, as well as worship him sincerely,\nspiritually, and solely; because without this stated recognition of the\ncovenant, the covenant itself would be forgotten.\n\nAnd now we come to the fifth of the ten covenant requirements: \"Honor\nthy father and thy mother.\" This also is in the affirmative form, and\nfor a very good reason. God is here declaring, as it were, that those\nwho are in legitimate authority are so far his representatives. He\nwants it understood that while no other gods are in existence, even\nin a subordinate place in the universe, he has his representatives\nin various spheres of human government and rule, and they are to be\nhonored accordingly by his covenant people.\n\nWe are accustomed to speak of the division of the Ten Commandments into\ntwo tables, the first comprising four requirements, and the second\nsix; but it will be seen that this fifth requirement belongs with the\npreceding four in the group of those which look God-ward. It is as\nthough the one table pointed upward from ourselves, while the other\npointed outward. We are to honor those who are over us in the Lord,\nnot as our fellows, but as our superiors; not because of what they\nare as men, but because they are, within the scope of their rule, the\nrepresentatives of our God.\n\nBy Oriental custom the terms \"father\" and \"mother\" are by no means\nlimited to one's natural parents, but are applicable to superiors in\nyears, or in wisdom, or in civil or religious station. This truth was\nimpressed on my mind by an incident in my journey across the desert\nof Sinai. My companions in travel were two young men, neither of them\na relative of mine,--as my dragoman very well knew. When, however, in\nmid-desert, we met an old Arab shaykh, through whose territory we were\nto pass, my dragoman introduced me as the father of these young men.\n\"No, they are not my _sons_,\" I said to the dragoman; but his answer\nwas: \"That's all right. Somebody must be father here.\" And when I found\nthat, according to the Arab idea, every party of travelers must have a\nleader, and that the leader of a party was called its \"father,\" I saw\nthat it would look better for me to be called the father of the young\nmen, than for one of them to be called my father.\n\nTraces of this idea are found in the Bible use of the term \"father.\" In\nGenesis, Jabal is said to be \"the father of such as dwell in tents,\nand have cattle;\"[273] the man who started the long line of nomad\nshepherds. Jubal is called \"the father of all such as handle the harp\nand pipe;\"[274] the pioneer instrumental musician of our race. Joseph\nin Egypt speaks of himself as \"a father to Pharaoh,\"[275] in view of\nthe confidence reposed in him by the ruler of the empire. \"Be unto me a\nfather and a priest,\"[276] says Micah to the young Levite, in the days\nof the Judges; because a religious guide is, in the East, counted as in\na peculiar sense a representative of God.\n\n  [273] Gen. 4 : 20.\n\n  [274] Gen. 4 : 21.\n\n  [275] Gen. 45 : 8.\n\n  [276] Judg. 17 : 10.\n\nIt is not merely that the terms \"father\" and \"mother\" _may_ include\nothers besides human parents, but it is that no Oriental would think\nof limiting those terms to that relationship. Hence this fifth\nrequirement of the covenant of God's people with their God, just\nas it stands, is in substance: Honor those who are over you in the\nLord, as the representatives of the Lord; for the powers that be are\nordained of God,[277] and he who fails to honor them lacks in due\nhonor to him who has deputed them to speak and to act for himself.\nAnd herein is affirmed a principle which is as important to us to-day\nas it was to the Israelites in the days of Moses. Indeed, it may be\nquestioned whether any precept of the ten covenant requirements has a\nmore specific bearing on the peculiar needs of the American people,\nthan this injunction to reverence those who are in authority because\nthey are God's representatives in their sphere. Anarchy can have no\ntolerance in the mind of a child of God; but reverence for rightful\nauthority has its home there.\n\n  [277] Rom. 13 : 1.\n\nTurning from the first table of the covenant with its upward look,\nto the second table with its outward look, we find that each new\nrequirement in its order stands for a great principle which is\napplicable alike to all peoples and to all times, and which has its\nbasis in man's loving union with God. The first of this series, the\nsixth of the ten requirements, is: \"Thou shalt not kill;\" or, \"Thou\nshalt do no murder.\" Here is a great deal more than an ordinance\nforbidding the striking down to death of a fellow-man. Here is a call\nof God to guard sacredly the life of every child of God, as that which\nis dear to God. In the Oriental world, as in the primitive world\ngenerally, blood stands for life, and life is supposed to proceed from\nGod and to return to God. When, therefore, an Oriental is told that he\nmust not take it upon himself to shed another's blood, he realizes that\nthat prohibition is equivalent to saying that it is not for him to\ndecide when a life that God has given shall be recalled to God.\n\nThis idea it is that runs through the whole system of what is popularly\nknown as \"blood revenge\" in the East. \"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by\nman shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man,\"[278]\nwas the declaration of God as early as the days of Noah; and it is\nin the line of that declaration that any man in the East who sheds\nanother's blood must surrender his own blood to the other's family, at\nthe present day--as ever since the days of Noah. Not personal revenge,\nbut divine equity, is the real basis of this system. Not because the\nlife belongs to the man, but because it belongs to God, must it be\nguarded sacredly, and be accounted for--if taken away.\n\n  [278] Gen. 9 : 6.\n\nIt is on this principle that the civil magistrate, as the messenger\nof God, takes the life of one who has taken another's life, in these\ndays of the Christian dispensation. \"He beareth not the sword in vain:\nfor he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth\nevil.\"[279] A child of God must count sacred every life which God has\ngiven; and except while acting as a specific messenger of God, he must\nnever send back a human life to God.\n\n  [279] Rom. 13 : 4.\n\nThe seventh covenanting requirement is a call to regard the family\ninstitution as an institution of God's appointing, and to refrain from\naught that tends to its injury. \"Thou shalt not commit adultery\" means\na great deal more than Refrain from unchastity because of its harm to\nyourself or to your neighbor. It means, Guard God's primal institution\nfor man, as an institution which God holds dear. At the very beginning\nof the race, it was ordained of God that one man and one woman--the\ntwain, not the three, or the four, but the twain--should be one flesh\nin loving union.[280] This institution of God's ordaining is dear to\nGod, and it ought to be dear to every child of his; therefore God\nsays to those who would be in loving compact with him, \"Thou shalt\nnot commit adultery.\" Because your and my interests are made one, you\nmust not, you cannot, as my loving people, do aught that shall prove\ninjurious to the family--to the institution which I have established,\nand which is dear to my heart.\n\n  [280] Gen. 2 : 24.\n\nThis, again, is not an arbitrary commandment; nor is it one for a\nsingle period, or for a single people only. It is the enunciation of\na principle which is vital to the well-being of all peoples at all\ntimes. It was so from the beginning, and it must be so unto the end.\nThe family is the unit in the State and in the Church. It must not be\nignored in the realm of society, of government, or of religion. He who\nwould be true to God must be true to the institution of the family. And\nwho shall say that we have no need of remembering this truth in our\nland and day?\n\nThe eighth requirement of the covenant guards the rights of property\nas within the plan and ordering of God. \"Thou shalt not steal\" is\nannounced as an article of the loving compact of God's people with\ntheir God. Not merely because your fellow-man would object to your\ntaking his property from him, but because the rights of property are of\ndivine appointment, are you to refrain from claiming as your own that\nwhich now belongs to another.\n\nThis idea of regarding property rights as of God's appointment is\npeculiarly prevalent in the Oriental mind. The lines of tribal division\nin the desert are recognized as having divine sanction; and now, as\nin the days of old, it is hardly less than sacrilege to remove an\nancient landmark in the East. Tribes which are at enmity will make\nraids across these border lines for purposes of plunder; but this is\nin the nature of what \"civilized\" nations call a \"military necessity.\"\nAgain, a stranger who enters a tribal domain without obtaining consent\nis treated as a smuggler, and all his property is confiscated\naccordingly. This, however, merely shows the primitive origin of the\n\"high tariff\" principle. Orientals who plunder from their enemies, or\nwho collect impost duties from immigrants, do so in the belief that God\nsanctions these habits of the ages.\n\nWhen one of the Arabs of our party, in crossing the desert of Sinai,\nfound he had dropped a bag of meal, he went back to look for it, in\nperfect confidence that it would be left untouched by others. On my\nasking him if he had no fear that another Arab had carried it off, he\nreplied that no Arab would steal from an Arab. Dr. Edward Robinson[281]\nsaw a black tent hanging on a tree, where, as he was told, it had\nremained a full year awaiting its owner's return; and he says that if\na loaded camel dies on the desert its owner draws a circle in the sand\nabout it, and leaves it without any fear that it will be disturbed in\nhis absence. Burckhardt[282] illustrates the estimate put by the Arabs\non stealing, by the story of an Arab father who bound his own son hand\nand foot, and cast him headlong to death from a precipice, because the\nson had stolen from one of his tribal fellows. Life can only be taken\nat the call of God; but, according to this Oriental view, he who\nviolates the property rights of one of God's children forfeits his very\nlife to God.\n\n  [281] _Biblical Researches_, 11th ed., I., 142.\n\n  [282] _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land_, p. 475 f.\n\nThe principle underlying this estimate of the sacredness of property\nrights, like every other principle enunciated in the Decalogue, is not\nan outgrowth of an arbitrary commandment, but it inheres in the very\nnature of God's dealings with the sons of men. What hast thou that\nthou didst not receive by God's consent?[283] What has thy fellow that\nhe did not receive by the same permission? It is God who gives. It is\nfor God to take away.[284] No loving child of God will refuse to heed\nthe limits which his Father has assigned in the distribution of his\npossessions among the children of his love. That was the way in which\nthe Orientals were taught to look at it. That is the way in which we\nought to view it. Anti-property communism is rebellion against God.\n\n  [283] 1 Cor. 4 : 7.\n\n  [284] Job 1 : 21.\n\nNinth in the list of the covenant requirements comes the summons to\nhold in sacred regard the personal reputation, or good name, of every\nchild of God. \"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor\"\nis a prohibition of slander, or of careless speech affecting the\ngood name of one's fellow-man. This is not, as many have supposed, a\nmere injunction to truthful speech on all occasions. Lying needs no\nspecific prohibition in a loving compact between God and his people;\nalthough the duty of truthfulness is inseparable from the thought\nof any compact with God--who could not be God if he were to approve\nuntruthfulness.[285] But a disregard by man of the reputation of his\nfellow-man does need to be guarded against in such a compact; therefore\nits mention has a place here. A child's good name is always dear to\nhis father. He who loves and honors the father will not be heedless of\nthe reputation of the child. God is the Father of all. The good name\nof every one of his children is dear to him. He who loves and honors\nGod will not be careless of the reputation of any one of God's dear\nchildren. Therefore it is that, in the loving covenant of God with his\npeople, it is declared that love for God includes a truthful fidelity\nto the good name of every child of God.\n\n  [285] Num. 23 : 19.\n\nHow the application of this principle comes home to us in our social\nlife as God's children! We are jealous of the good name of the members\nof our own families. We are tender of the reputation of those whom we\nknow to be very dear to our dearest friends. But how careless we are of\nthe good name of those in whom we feel no special concern, or of the\nreputation of those who happen to be personally disagreeable to us!\nWe hear and repeat the words spoken to their discredit without knowing\nwhether or not those words are true. By our unguarded speech or looks\nwe help, perhaps, to give a false impression to others concerning them.\nAnd all the while they are God's dear children, and every spiteful or\nthoughtless blow at them is a stroke at him. Is this consistent with\nour claim of loving union with their God and ours?\n\nIt was in the line of this principle that our Lord Jesus gave emphasis\nto his one new commandment, that those who loved him should love one\nanother, as being dear to him;[286] and, again, that he declared that\nwhoever ministered tenderly to one of his disciples should be reckoned\nas ministering to himself.[287] God links himself in loving sympathy\nwith all his children, and he wants their welfare to be held dear by\nall who hold him dear.\n\n  [286] John 13 : 34.\n\n  [287] Matt. 25 : 40.\n\nAnd now we come to the tenth and last of the requirements of this\ncovenant. Here we find an injunction that goes deeper than those which\nprecede it on the second tablet of the written compact. \"Thou shalt not\ncovet.\" Not only, Thou shalt not openly disregard human life, or the\nfamily institution, or the property or the reputation of any one of\nthy fellows; but, Thou shalt not want to do any of these things. Thou\nshalt recognize thine own lot, and thy possessions, and the lot and the\npossessions of others, as God's assignment to thee and to them; and\nthou shalt be contented within the sphere which he has deemed best for\nthee.\n\nThis requirement in the second table of the compact corresponds with\nthe third requirement in the first table. The one says that the child\nof God must be sincere and unfeigned in his loving devotedness to God\nas his Father; the other says that the child of God must accept in all\nheartiness his Father's ordering concerning himself, in his relations\nto all his brothers and sisters in the great family of God.\n\nHere it is that we find the more spiritual teachings of the Decalogue\nconcerning man's obligations to his fellow-man in the loving service of\nGod, as they are pointed out, and emphasized in the words of Jesus, in\nwhat we call the Sermon on the Mount.[288] Here it is that the lesson\ncomes home to us that it is not enough for us to refrain from actual\nmurder and adultery and theft and false witnessing; but that it is\ninconsistent with our devotedness to God as our loving Father for us to\nhave a hateful thought toward one of his dear children; for us to look\nlongingly in the direction of another family assignment than that which\nis ours in the way of God's appointment; for us to turn a wistful or\nan envious thought toward any possession of another which we have no\nright to seek after. And all this is not of God's arbitrary commanding,\nbut is in the very essence of God's loving covenanting with his chosen\npeople. Therefore it is that the Apostle urges Christians to keep\nthemselves from \"fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and\ncovetousness, the which is _idolatry_;\"[289] the indulging in which is\nbeing untrue to God as one's covenant God.\n\n  [288] Matt. 5 : 3 to 7 : 27.\n\n  [289] Col. 3 : 5.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now in the light of these disclosures of the nature and meaning\nof the successive clauses of this covenant of God with his Oriental\npeople, let us look back upon it as a whole in its spirit and\nteachings, in order that we may see what is covered by it, and wherein\nits applications are for us as well as for God's people of old. God\nmust be recognized as God alone. No heart can love God as God, unless\nthat heart loves God wholly. God must be worshiped spiritually; for\nspiritual things are spiritually discerned, and only as a man is lifted\nabove sight and sense can he be in communion with the spiritual and\nthe infinite. Union with God must be sincere and unfeigned; for only\nby a complete and willing surrender of one's self can one's self\nbe merged into a holy and infinite Personality. The loving worship\nof God must have its stated times, and hence, of course, its stated\nplaces, in order to have its fitting hold on the worshiper; and the\nrecognition of this truth in the covenant is the authorization of all\nlegitimate seasons and methods of worship. God's representatives in the\nfamily, in the State, and in the Church, are to be honored as God's\nrepresentatives; and herein is the authorization of all right forms of\nhuman rule. These are the teachings of the first table of the covenant;\nand those of the second table are like unto them.\n\nHe who loves God must love those who are God's. As the Apostle\nexpresses it: \"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he\nis a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,\ncannot love God whom he hath not seen. And [therefore] this [second]\ncommandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother\nalso.\"[290] Every child of man is a child of God. Wayward and prodigal\nson though he be, he still is one who was made in the image of God; and\nhis Father's heart goes out toward him unfailingly in love. Hence he\nwho loves the Father must guard with sacredness the life of every child\nof that Father. He must honor the institution of the family, which is\nthe human hope of the children of that Father. He must hold dear the\nproperty possessions and the good name of each and every child of that\nFather. And in his heart there must be such love for that Father's\nchildren as the children of his Father, that he will have no wish to do\naught that shall harm any one of them in any degree.\n\n  [290] 1 John 4 : 20, 21.\n\nThus it is that the spirit and substance of the entire covenant compact\nstand out in those words of our Lord which lose their meaning if we\nlook at the Ten Commandments as ten arbitrary commandings of God. When\na certain lawyer came to Jesus with the knotty question, \"Master,\nwhich is the great commandment in the law?\" Jesus said unto him: \"Thou\nshalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy\nsoul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment.\nAnd a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as\nthyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the\nprophets.\"[291] And thus it is that we are enabled to realize that\n\"love ... is the fulfilment of the law.\"[292]\n\n  [291] Matt. 22 : 36-40.\n\n  [292] Rom. 13 : 10.\n\nThe \"Ten Commandments\" are the law, the law of the covenant of love;\nbut, be it remembered, they are not the \"Mosaic law.\" They were not\noriginated by Moses; nor were they done away with when the Mosaic\nlaw was fulfilled and abrogated in Christ. They are the law of the\npromptings of love; an orderly statement of the principles which rule\nin a heart which is devoted to God. Their origin is in the nature of\nGod; and their continuance must be coexistent with the needs of the\nchildren of God. With all our shortcomings in love, and with all our\nfailures in fidelity to our covenant-union with God in Christ Jesus,\njust so far as we are in oneness with God by faith shall we be true to\nthe principles of this covenant-compact of God with his people. \"God\nis love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth\nin him.\"[293] \"And hereby know we that we know him, if we keep his\ncommandments.\"[294]\n\n  [293] 1 John 4 : 16.\n\n  [294] 1 John 2 : 3.\n\n\n\n\nINDEXES\n\n\n\n\nTOPICAL INDEX\n\n\n  Aaron, God's covenant with, 17.\n\n  Ababde women, reference to, 99.\n\n  \"Abusers of the salt,\" 110.\n\n  Added traces of the rite, 123-130.\n\n  \"Agreement\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Alexis, Grand Duke, reference to, 125.\n\n  \"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,\" reference to, 254.\n\n  Altar and table as synonymous, 85.\n\n  \"Ancient Mariner,\" reference to, 135.\n\n  Animal food supplies lack of salt, 38.\n\n  Antony and Cleopatra, reference to, 55.\n\n  Arabia, Bed'ween of, reference to, 110.\n\n  \"Arabian Nights,\" reference to, 64.\n\n  Arabs: regard for salt covenant among, 29;\n    not accustomed to put salt on table, 29 f.;\n    rite of bread and salt among, 31;\n    John Macgregor taken prisoner by, 32 f.;\n    swearing by salt of, 54;\n    milk sometimes accepted as substitute for salt by, 62;\n    honesty of, 111 f., 166.\n\n  Archeology: its value compared with philology, 4.\n\n  Ark of the covenant, reference to, 145.\n\n  Armenians, supply of salt cut off, 43.\n\n  \"Arrangement,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Arvieux: cited, 34.\n\n  Asiatic cholera promoted by lack of salt, 46.\n\n  Asiatic Quarterly Review, reference to, 46.\n\n  Assyrian roots, gain of looking among, 4.\n\n  Assyrian: word for \"salt,\" 76;\n    words translated \"covenant,\" 6 f.\n\n  \"Attic salt,\" synonym of life in conversation, 68.\n\n\n  Babe: anoint with blood, 59;\n    more life to a, 59.\n\n  Bancroft, H. H.: cited, 57, 95.\n\n  Band, symbol and pledge of union, 7.\n\n  Barley-meal cakes employed in sacrifice, 94.\n\n  Bartholow, Dr.: cited, 41.\n\n  Battas, in Sumatra, form of oath of, 123.\n\n  Bed'ween, conventions for covenants of, 30 f.\n\n  Bey, Durzee, reference to, 24.\n\n  Bheels, in India, reference to, 60.\n\n  Bible: references to the rite in, 17;\n    carried over threshold of new house, 76, 106;\n    estimate of treachery in, 113.\n\n  Bingham's \"Antiquities:\" cited, 89.\n\n  Bird Bishop, Isabella: cited, 47, 100.\n\n  Birth of child, salt at, 61.\n\n  Blackwood's Magazine, reference to, 127.\n\n  \"Blood Covenant\": reference to, 6, 7, 8, 9, 41, 45, 48, 53,\n  54, 59, 60, 62, 67, 79, 85, 86, 117, 118, 119, 120, 147.\n\n  Blood: fresh, drunk by people of Masai, 37;\n    salt representing, 37-50;\n    drained from animals slaughtered by Jews, 39;\n    transfusion of, 41;\n    use of, as food, 41;\n    red corpuscles of, 42 f.;\n    saline ingredients in, 42 f.;\n    anointing a new-born babe with, 59;\n    Kaffir new chief washed in, 60;\n    represented by wine, 117;\n    atoned for by blood, 137;\n    sprinkled by Moses, 148;\n    shedding man's, 162 f.\n\n  \"Blood-licker\" in Mecca, 48.\n\n  \"Blood revenge\" in the East, 163.\n\n  Blunt, on Book of Common Prayer: cited, 80.\n\n  Bock, Carl: cited, 61.\n\n  \"Boiling water, ordeal of,\" 101.\n\n  Booddhists in China, customs among, 92.\n\n  Bracelet as symbol and pledge of union, 7.\n\n  Br\u00e2hmanas, reference to, 90 f.\n\n  Bread: salt as an accompaniment of, 14;\n    and salt, 23-34;\n    significance of, 79, 80;\n    and flesh, 119.\n\n  Bridal couple, sprinkled with salt, 128 f.\n\n  Browning, Mrs., quotation from, 55.\n\n  Buchanan, Dr., reference to, 41.\n\n  Bunge, Professor: cited, 38, 39, 123.\n\n  Burckhardt: cited, 24, 99 f., 100, 166.\n\n  Burder: cited, 31, 110, 112.\n\n  Burning Lamps, Feast of, 92 f.\n\n  Burning of salt, 99 f.\n\n  Burton: cited, 24;\n    quotation from, 26.\n\n  Bush's illustrations, reference to, 109.\n\n  Buxtorf: cited, 87 f.\n\n  Cadamosto, Aloisio, reference to, 69.\n\n  Cannibals, bathing body of chief in salt after death, 61.\n\n  Catacazy, Madame de, reference to, 125.\n\n  Ceres, reference to, 23.\n\n  Cattle, salt as meaning, 91.\n\n  Characteristics of a covenant, 3-10.\n\n  Chemist's use of term \"salt,\" 39.\n\n  China: blood substitute for salt in, 38;\n    depriving a person of salt a mode of punishment in, 42;\n    customs among Booddhists in, 92.\n\n  Church, salt in dedication of a, 90.\n\n  Cicero, reference to, 68.\n\n  Circumcision as token of a covenant, 8.\n\n  Clapperton: cited, 24.\n\n  \"College salting,\" 128.\n\n  Collitz, Professor Hermann, reference to, 50, 74.\n\n  \"Compact,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  \"Conventions,\" Bed'ween, 30 f.\n\n  Corpse, salt on a, in Scotland, 103.\n\n  Cosmas, reference to, 69.\n\n  Covenant: meaning of the word, 3 f.;\n    characteristics of a, 3-10;\n    etymology of, 5;\n    words used interchangeably with, 5;\n    marriage a, 7;\n    circumcision as token of, 8;\n    various kind of, 9, 13;\n    Bible references to, 17.\n\n  Covenanting, exchange of tokens and symbols in, 8.\n\n  Cross, sign of the, reference to, 89.\n\n  Curative powers of salt, 43 f.\n\n  Customs preceding words, 9.\n\n\n  Dacier, reference to, 70, 88.\n\n  Daraon, burning of salt among people of, 99.\n\n  Darius, King, directing supply from royal treasury, 20.\n\n  David, God's covenant with, 17 f.\n\n  Da Vinci's painting, reference to, 113.\n\n  Dead body, salt on breast of, 104.\n\n  Dead Sea, reference to, 58, 134.\n\n  Death: from _salts-hunger_, 42;\n    salt used at, 61;\n    or life, 133-138.\n\n  Dedication of a church, 90.\n\n  Definition, not easily reached, 5.\n\n  Delitzsch, Friedrich: cited, 7.\n\n  Denham: cited, 24.\n\n  _Dhar_, used in treaty of peace, 123.\n\n  Diab, Joseph, reference to, 28.\n\n  Discovery of salt as article of diet, 41.\n\n  Disputes settled by salt and water, 124.\n\n  Divination, salt in, 99-106.\n\n  Division of Ten Commandments, 159 f.\n\n  Doolittle: cited, 100.\n\n  Doughty: cited, 24.\n\n  Du Tott, Baron, quotation from, 27, 28.\n\n  Dyer, Thistleton: quotation from, 104;\n    cited, 113, 137, 138.\n\n  Eassie, W.: cited, 62.\n\n  Ebionites, salt and bread employed by, 50.\n\n  Edwards's \"History of West Indies,\" quotation from, 60.\n\n  Egypt: salt forbidden to priests in ancient, 55;\n    Feast of Burning Lamps in, 92 f.;\n    burning salt in, 99;\n    Muhammadan Arabs in, 100.\n\n  Egyptian: use of salt in sacrifice, 93;\n    idea of wine and blood, 118;\n    collection of taxes, 130.\n\n  Egyptians, table an altar among, 85.\n\n  El Hejaz, Bed'ween of, reference to, 110.\n\n  Elijah, reference to, 58.\n\n  Elisha, reference to, 57.\n\n  Elizabeth, Queen, reference to, 126.\n\n  Elkesaites, bread and salt employed by, 50.\n\n  Ellis's \"History of Madagascar:\" cited, 8.\n\n  England, burning salt in, 101.\n\n  Esquimaux, value of blood among, 39.\n\n  Etruscan: symbolism, 93;\n    customs, salt in, 105.\n\n  Etymology of \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Eucharist, salt in the, 89.\n\n  \"Evil eye:\" reference to, 100 f.;\n    treatment received by James Napier for, 101 f.\n\n  Evil spirits, exorcising, 99.\n\n  Exactness of definition not to be reached, 5.\n\n  Exchange of tokens and symbols as a means of covenanting, 8.\n\n  Exorcism, salt in, 99-106.\n\n\n  Faithlessness to salt, 109-114.\n\n  \"Father,\" Oriental meaning of, 160.\n\n  Feast of Burning Lamps, 92 f.\n\n  Fidelity to salt, 130.\n\n  Finn, Mrs., quotation from, 32.\n\n  \"Fire: salted with,\" 65;\n    salt leaping up in, 95;\n    salt thrown into, 100.\n\n  Fish, salt in Dead Sea in lieu of, 58.\n\n  Flesh and bread, 119.\n\n  Flies, dead, life brought to, by salt, 63.\n\n  Flood, use of blood as food forbidden after the, 41.\n\n  Floor, salt sprinkled upon, 100.\n\n  Florus, reference to, 55.\n\n  Food: salt indispensable in, 14;\n    use of blood as, 41.\n\n  Ford, George A.: cited, 101.\n\n  Founder of Saffaride dynasty, 27.\n\n  Fourmeaux, L.: cited, 40.\n\n  Frazer: quotation from, 110;\n    cited, 118 f.\n\n  \"Freshman, salting a,\" 128.\n\n  \"Friendship the Master-Passion,\" reference to, 9.\n\n  Funeral, salt scattered at threshold after, 100.\n\n  Furness, W. H., 3d, reference to, 124.\n\n  Germans, waging war for saline streams, 59.\n\n  German Jews, customs among, 86.\n\n  Gesenius: cited, 7, 109.\n\n  Ghoorka salt, eating, 110.\n\n  Ginger root, salt and, given as wedding-cake, 124.\n\n  God's covenant with his people, 150 f.\n\n  Gold, salt in exchange for, 69.\n\n  Greek Church, salt deemed essential in Eucharist by, 89.\n\n  Greek words translated \"covenant,\" 7.\n\n  Griffis, William Elliot: cited, 47, 100.\n\n  Grimm, reference to, 74.\n\n  G\u00fcmpel, C. Godfrey: cited, 45.\n\n  Gypsies, Hungarian customs among, 129.\n\n\n  Hall, Bishop, reference to, 127.\n\n  Hamelin, M.: cited, 34.\n\n  Hamlin, Dr.: cited, 24.\n\n  Harmer: cited, 24.\n\n  Harper's Latin Dictionary, reference to, 94, 96.\n\n  Hospitality, salt symbol of, 126.\n\n  Hebrew roots, gain of looking among, 4.\n\n  Hebrew words translated \"covenant,\" 6 f.\n\n  Hebrews, forbidden to eat \"with the blood,\" 62.\n\n  Hehn, Victor: reference to, 69;\n    quotation from, 70.\n\n  Hemorrhage, salt administered in, 40.\n\n  Henderson: cited, 103, 104, 137, 138.\n\n  Henniker, Sir Frederick, reference to, 49.\n\n  Herodotus: reference to, 92;\n    cited, 119.\n\n  Hilprecht, Dr. Herman V.: cited, 76.\n\n  \"Holy water:\" salt essential element of, 90;\n    and salt mingled in food and drink, 101.\n\n  Homer: cited, 53, 94.\n\n  \"Honey, milk and,\" symbol of blood and flesh, 80.\n\n  Howell, W. H.: cited, 41, 42.\n\n  Hungarian gypsies, customs among, 129.\n\n  Hungary, wedding customs in, 128.\n\n\n  Iago, reference to, 55.\n\n  Ideas precede words, 3.\n\n  Importance of salt in covenant, 32.\n\n  Infant, salt put into mouth of, 90.\n\n  Inspiration by wine, 118.\n\n  Intoxication by wine, 118.\n\n\n  Jabal, reference to, 160.\n\n  Japheth, reference to, 41.\n\n  Jastrow, Rev. Dr. Marcus: cited, 57, 86, 112, 137.\n\n  Jesus: references of, to salt, 64 f.;\n    new commandment of, 169.\n\n  Jews: careful to drain blood from slaughtered animals, 39;\n    observing covenant of salt at table, 84;\n    table customs among, 87.\n\n  Josephus: cited, 83.\n\n  Jubal, reference to, 161.\n\n  Judas Iscariot, reference to, 113.\n\n\n  \"Kadesh-barnea,\" reference to, 58.\n\n  Kaffir chief, washed in blood upon assuming authority, 60.\n\n  Karna, reference to, 34.\n\n  Kauravas, reference to, 34.\n\n  Kluge: cited, 74.\n\n  Kohler, Dr. K.: cited, 88.\n\n  Kookies of India, treaty of peace among, 123.\n\n  Koordistan, salt lake in region of, 59.\n\n  Krishna, reference to, 34.\n\n  Kuhn: cited, 74.\n\n\n  Laiss-safar, worker in brass and copper, 26.\n\n  Lane: cited, 24, 64, 100.\n\n  Lange, reference to, 65.\n\n  Layard: cited, 26.\n\n  Lea, Henry C.: cited, 101, 124.\n\n  \"League,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Lebanon region, blood covenant in, 48.\n\n  Leland, quotation from, 93.\n\n  Leprosy, prominence of salt as cure for, 45.\n\n  Life: dependent on salt, 42;\n    salt representing, 53-70;\n    seasoned with, 67;\n    and light, 73-76;\n    savor of, 133-138.\n\n  Light, life and, 73-76.\n\n  Livingstone, Dr. David: cited, 37 f., 38.\n\n  London Court Journal, reference to, 125.\n\n  London Quarterly Review, reference to, 43.\n\n  Lot's wife turned to pillar of salt, 103.\n\n  Lying, reference to, 167 f.\n\n\n  Macgregor, John, experiences with Arabs, 32 f., 33.\n\n  Macrae, quotation from, 126.\n\n  Macrobius: cited, 49.\n\n  Madagascar, covenant of salt in, 34.\n\n  Mahabharata, quoted and cited, 33 f.\n\n  Man offered in sacrifice, 91.\n\n  Marie, Princess, reference to, 125.\n\n  Marriage: a covenant, 7;\n    salt and bread placed under threshold at, 106.\n\n  Mart\u00e8ne: cited, 101.\n\n  \"Martyrdom of an Empress,\" 129.\n\n  Masai people, reference to, 37.\n\n  Meal, salt of the covenant not to be lacking from the, 18.\n\n  Meaning of the word \"covenant,\" 3 f.\n\n  Means of a merged life, 141, 142.\n\n  Meat, eating of, as a pledge, 24.\n\n  Mecca, \"blood-lickers\" in, reference to, 48.\n\n  Mediterranean Sea, water not to be taken from, 70.\n\n  Merged life, means of, 141, 142.\n\n  Merrill, Selah: cited, 24.\n\n  \"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" reference to, 55.\n\n  Message-bearer, salt in hand of, 126.\n\n  Meyer's commentary, reference to, 65.\n\n  Milk: substitute for salt, 62;\n    used instead of blood, 62.\n\n  \"Milk and honey\" standing for blood and flesh, 80.\n\n  \"Milk brothers,\" reference to, 62.\n\n  Money, salt as, 69.\n\n  Morier, James, reference to, 54.\n\n  Morris's \"China:\" cited, 92.\n\n  Morton, Dr. Thomas G.: cited, 41.\n\n  Mountains of salt, 70.\n\n  M\u00fcller, F. Max, reference to, 91 f.\n\n  Moody, D. L., reference to, 156.\n\n  Moses, reference to, 148, 158.\n\n  \"Mother,\" Oriental meaning of term, 160.\n\n  Mount Sinai, Moses at, 148.\n\n\n  Name signifying personality, 155 f.\n\n  Naming child, ceremony of, 124.\n\n  Napier, James: cited, 101 f., 104, 138.\n\n  Neptune, reference to, 23.\n\n  Nicoll, reference to, 65.\n\n  Niebuhr: cited, 24.\n\n  Noah: use of blood as food forbidden to, 41;\n    reference to, 163.\n\n  Norwach: cited, 7, 14, 137.\n\n\n  Oath: Oriental form of, 54;\n    different forms of, 123.\n\n  \"Obligation,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Old Testament, word \"covenant\" in, 18.\n\n  Oriental: form of oath, 54;\n    meaning of terms \"father\" and \"mother,\" 160;\n    summit of treachery, 111.\n\n  Orientals, Bible written by, 146.\n\n  Othello, reference to, 55.\n\n  Oxford University, giving salt to students in, 127.\n\n\n  Page, Master, reference to, 54.\n\n  Pasha, Arabi, reference to, 130.\n\n  Pasha, Moldovanji, reference to, 28.\n\n  Paul, reference to, 67.\n\n  Perley, quotation from, 125.\n\n  Perpetuity, salt as symbol of, 84.\n\n  Perspiration, salt shown in, 40.\n\n  Philinus, reference to, 56.\n\n  Philology, archeology sometimes more valuable than, 4.\n\n  Pierrotti: cited, 24.\n\n  Plato, reference to, 53.\n\n  Pledge, eating meat as a, 24.\n\n  Pliny: cited, 45, 68, 70, 73, 94, 119.\n\n  Plutarch: cited, 23, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 119.\n\n  Poison of rattlesnake, 43.\n\n  Polo, Marco: cited, 69.\n\n  Preface to Ten Commandments, 150.\n\n  Price's \"Mohammedan History:\" cited, 27, 42.\n\n  Priests, salt forbidden to, 55.\n\n  Primitive covenanting, 6.\n\n  \"Promise,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Pythagoras: reference to, 70;\n    quotation from, 88.\n\n\n  Quain's \"Dictionary of Medicine:\" cited, 40, 62.\n\n\n  Ralston's \"Songs of Russian People:\" cited, 106.\n\n  Raphel, Don: reference to, 30;\n    quotation from, 31;\n    cited, 111 f.\n\n  Rattlesnake, poison of, 43.\n\n  Rawlinson's \"Ancient Egypt,\" quotation from, 93.\n\n  Resuscitating drowned persons by salt, 63.\n\n  Richardson's English Dictionary, reference to, 96.\n\n  Ring as symbol and pledge of union, 7.\n\n  Robbery attempted by Yakoob, 26 f.\n\n  Robinson, Dr. Edward: cited, 166.\n\n  Rodd's \"Customs:\" cited, 101.\n\n  Rosenmuller: cited, 30;\n    reference to, 54.\n\n  Russell's \"Natural History of Aleppo,\" quotation from, 24.\n\n\n  \"Sabbath,\" a recognized institution before Moses, 158.\n\n  Sacrifice on threshold, 47.\n\n  Sacrifices, salt in, 83-96.\n\n  \"Sacrificial essence, the,\" 91.\n\n  Saffaride dynasty, founder of, 27.\n\n  Saffaride Kaleefs, story of the origin of the dynasty of, 26.\n\n  St. Augustine: cited, 89.\n\n  St. Peter, fresh water changed to salt by, 59.\n\n  Sa\u00efs, annual festival at, 92.\n\n  Salary, derivation of word, 68.\n\n  Saline injections, 40.\n\n  Salt: as preservative, 14;\n    indispensable in food, 14;\n    spoken of as an accompaniment of bread, 14;\n    a vital element, 18;\n    covenant of, perpetual and unalterable, 18;\n    of the covenant not to be lacking, 18;\n    in many lands the possession of government, 19;\n    bread and, 23-34;\n    nothing eatable without, 23;\n    on a common table, 29 f.;\n    importance of, to a covenant, 32;\n    representing blood, 37-50;\n    and salts, 39;\n    discovery of as article of diet, 41;\n    as antidote for snake-bite, 43;\n    as saline ingredient of blood, 43;\n    curative powers of, 43 f.;\n    supply of, cut off from Armenians, 43;\n    strewn on threshold, 47;\n    representing life, 53-70;\n    and sun, 73-76;\n    in sacrifices, 83-96;\n    in the Eucharist, 89;\n    as sacrificial essence, 91;\n    leaping up in fire, 95;\n    in divination, 99-106;\n    in exorcism, 99-106;\n    not to be carried out of house after dark, 101;\n    on a corpse in Scotland, 103;\n    carried across threshold upon entering new house, 106;\n    faithlessness to, 109-114;\n    and ginger root given as wedding-cake, 124;\n    water mocking thirst, 135.\n\n  Salt-cellar as point of division on family-table, 126.\n\n  Salt-making, ordinary process of, 75.\n\n  Salted cake, essential in sacrificial offering, 94.\n\n  Salted water, drinking of, as a covenant, 48.\n\n  \"Salted with fire,\" 65.\n\n  \"Salting a freshman,\" 128.\n\n  Salts, salt and, 39.\n\n  Salts-hunger, death from, 42.\n\n  Samaria, woman of, reference to, 157.\n\n  Samoyedes dipping flesh in blood before eating it, 38.\n\n  Sanskrit roots, gain of looking among, 4.\n\n  Savor of death, 133-138.\n\n  Savor of life, 133-138.\n\n  Sayce, Professor A. H., reference to, 74.\n\n  Schrader, O.: cited, 74.\n\n  Schultz, Stephen: cited, 28, 29 f., 30.\n\n  Scipio, reference to, 68.\n\n  Scotland, salt on a corpse in, 103.\n\n  Scott, Sir Walter, quotation from, 127.\n\n  Seal killing by Esquimaux, 39.\n\n  Seasoned: with life, 67;\n    with salt, 67.\n\n  Second requirement of God's covenant, 153.\n\n  Sentiment valuable in research, 5.\n\n  Septuagint, The, reference to, 33, 84.\n\n  Settling dispute by salt and water, 124.\n\n  Shallow, Justice, reference to, 54.\n\n  Shewbread, salt on table of, 84.\n\n  Shooter's \"Kafirs:\" cited, 60.\n\n  Sign of the cross, reference to, 89.\n\n  Significance of bread, 79, 80.\n\n  \"Sin-eaters,\" reference to, 105.\n\n  \"Sitting below the salt,\" 126.\n\n  Sixth requirement of God's covenant, 162.\n\n  Skeat: cited, 74.\n\n  Smith, George Adam, quotation from, 134.\n\n  Smith, W. Robertson: cited, 14, 24, 48, 59, 62, 137.\n\n  Snake-bite, salt as antidote for, 43.\n\n  Sodom destroyed because of faithlessness to salt, 112.\n\n  \"Son\" and \"sun\" from same root, 73.\n\n  Spencer, Herbert: cited, 123, 126.\n\n  Spilling of salt, 138.\n\n  Stanley, Henry M., reference to, 46 f.\n\n  Stealing, Arab estimate of, 166.\n\n  Stevens, Dr. W.: cited, 43.\n\n  Stewart's \"Manual of Physiology:\" reference to, 42;\n    quotation from, 123.\n\n  Strassburg University, reference to, 128.\n\n  Strickland, Agnes: cited 126.\n\n  Student, in Journal of Asiatic Society, giving salt to, 127.\n\n  \"Studies in Oriental Social Life,\" 14, 23, 24, 58.\n\n  Substitute together with reality, 117-120.\n\n  Substituting salt for blood, 37.\n\n  Sun, salt and, 73-76.\n\n  Supply of salt cut off from Armenians, 43.\n\n  Survey of Western Palestine, reference to, 32.\n\n  Swearing by salt, 54.\n\n  Sword, salt on blade of, 49.\n\n  Syrophoenician woman, reference to, 88.\n\n\n  Table: of shewbread, salt on, 84;\n    an altar, 85;\n    customs among Jews, 87.\n\n  Tacitus: cited, 135.\n\n  Tamerlane, Mongol-Tartar chieftain reference to, 109.\n\n  Tatar tradition of salt, 41.\n\n  Taxation in Egypt, 130.\n\n  Tears, salt shown in, 40.\n\n  Ten Commandments, division of, 159 f.\n\n  Thirst, salt water mocking, 135.\n\n  Thomson, W. M.: cited, 24;\n    quotation from, 37.\n\n  \"Three,\" value as sacred number, 103.\n\n  Threshold: pouring blood on, 47;\n    Bible carried across, in new house, 76;\n    salt and candle carried across, 76;\n    salt scattered at, 100;\n    salt and Bible carried across, in new house, 106;\n    salt and bread under, 106.\n\n  \"Threshold Covenant,\" reference to, 6, 47, 106, 117, 128, 130.\n\n  Torture: depriving of salt as a means of, 42;\n    treachery, Oriental summit of, 111;\n    Bible summit of, 113.\n\n  \"Treaty,\" used interchangeably with \"covenant,\" 5.\n\n  Truce between enemies, sharing water as, 23 f.\n\n  Twain made one, 7.\n\n\n  Van Lennep: cited, 61.\n\n  Various kinds of covenant, 9.\n\n  Vegetable: diet used by those who take salt, 38;\n    life, salt destructive of, 133.\n\n  Virgil, reference to, 94.\n\n  Volney: cited, 31.\n\n\n  Warburton: cited, 24.\n\n  Water: sharing of, 23;\n    fountain of, cured, 58;\n    not to be dipped from Mediterranean Sea, 70.\n\n  Wellhausen: cited, 95.\n\n  Wetzstein: cited, 24.\n\n  Wheeler's \"History of India:\" cited, 34.\n\n  Wilkinson's \"Ancient Egypt:\" cited, 93.\n\n  Wine: representing blood, 117;\n    and salt, 119.\n\n  Wit, salt equivalent of, 67.\n\n  Woman of Samaria, reference to, 157.\n\n  Words: ideas precede, 3;\n    limitations and imperfectness of, 3;\n    customs precede, 9.\n\n\n  Yakoob, a robber chieftain, 26.\n\n  \"Youth, salt of,\" 54.\n\n  Yudhishthira, reference to, 34.\n\n\n  Zerubbabel, rebuilding of the temple by, 19.\n\n\n\nSCRIPTURAL INDEX\n\n\n\n\n  GENESIS.\n\n  TEXT                    PAGE\n\n   2 : 24                  164\n   4 : 20, 21              161\n   9 : 4                    41\n   9 : 6                   163\n  17 : 1-14                  8\n  17 : 14                  114\n  18 : 1-8                 120\n  19 : 24, 25               66\n  24 : 12-14                24\n  31 : 54                  120\n  45 : 8                   161\n  49 : 11                  117\n\n  EXODUS.\n\n   3 : 8, 17                80\n   9 : 23, 24               66\n  13 : 5                    80\n  20 : 1-17                145\n  20 : 2              150, 151\n  23 : 19                   88\n  23 : 19; 34 : 26          62\n  24 : 7, 8                148\n  25 : 22                  145\n  26 : 33, 34              143\n  29 : 40                  119\n  30 : 6, 26               145\n  30 : 34, 35               84\n  31 : 7                   145\n  32 : 15                  145\n  33 : 3                    80\n  34 : 26                   88\n  34 : 28                  149\n  34 : 29                  145\n  39 : 35                  145\n  40 : 3, 5, 21            145\n  40 : 20                  149\n\n  LEVITICUS.\n\n   2 : 13                   18\n   2 : 13                   83\n   7 : 11-14               120\n  10 : 2                    66\n  13 : 52-57                66\n  17 : 11                   54\n  19 : 9, 10                88\n  20 : 24                   80\n  23 : 12, 13              119\n  23 : 15-20               120\n\n  NUMBERS.\n\n   4 : 5                   145\n   7 : 89                  145\n  13 : 27                   80\n  14 : 8                    80\n  14 : 44                  145\n  15 : 5, 10               119\n  16 : 13, 14               80\n  18 : 19                   17\n  21 : 2, 3                137\n  23 : 19                  168\n  28 : 14                  119\n\n  DEUTERONOMY.\n\n   5 : 1-22                145\n   6 : 3                    80\n   9 : 15                  145\n  10 : 8                   145\n  11 : 9                    80\n  12 : 23                   54\n  14 : 21                   62\n  14 : 21                   88\n  17 : 2-7                 114\n  23 : 3, 4                 24\n  24 : 19-21                88\n  26 : 9, 15                80\n  27 : 3                    80\n  29 : 23                  133\n  31 : 9, 25, 26           145\n  31 : 20                   80\n\n  JOSHUA.\n\n   3 : 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 145\n   4 : 7, 9, 18            145\n   4 : 16                  145\n   5 : 6                    80\n   6 : 6, 8                145\n   7 : 11-15               114\n   8 : 33                  145\n\n  JUDGES.\n\n   2 : 20-23               114\n   9 : 45                  134\n  17 : 10                  161\n  20 : 27                  145\n\n  1 SAMUEL.\n\n   4 : 3-5                 145\n  25 : 10, 11               24\n\n  2 SAMUEL.\n\n  15 : 24                  145\n\n  1 KINGS.\n\n   3 : 15                  145\n   6 : 19                  145\n   8 : 1, 6                145\n  18 : 4                    24\n\n  2 KINGS.\n\n   2 : 19-22                58\n  18 : 11, 12              114\n\n  1 CHRONICLES.\n\n  15 : 25, 26, 28, 29      145\n  16 : 6, 37               145\n  17 : 1                   145\n  22 : 19                  145\n  28 : 2, 18               145\n\n  2 CHRONICLES.\n\n   5 : 2, 7                145\n  13 : 5                    18\n\n  EZRA.\n\n   4 : 14                   20\n   6 : 8-10                 20\n   7 : 21, 22               83\n   7 : 22                   20\n\n  JOB.\n\n   1 : 21                  167\n  22 : 7                    24\n\n  PSALMS.\n\n  41 : 9                   111\n  50 : 5, 16               142\n  55 : 19-21               114\n  107 : 33, 34             134\n\n  ECCLESIASTES.\n\n  39 : 26                  117\n  50 : 15                  117\n\n  ISAIAH.\n\n  24 : 5, 6                114\n  34 : 4                   136\n  51 : 6                   136\n  51 : 16                  136\n  65 : 11                   85\n  65 : 17                  136\n  66 : 22                  136\n\n  JEREMIAH.\n\n   3 : 16                  145\n  11 : 5                    80\n  11 : 9-11                114\n  17 : 6                   134\n  32 : 22                   80\n  34 : 17-20               114\n\n  EZEKIEL.\n\n  16 : 4                    61\n  20 : 6, 15                20\n  41 : 22                   85\n  43 : 21-24                83\n  47 : 11                  134\n\n  HOSEA.\n\n   1 : 10                  142\n   6 : 4-7                 114\n   8 : 1                   114\n\n  ZEPHANIAH.\n\n   2 : 9                   134\n\n  MALACHI.\n\n   1 : 6, 7                 85\n   3 : 2, 3                 66\n\n  1 MACCABEES.\n\n   6 : 34                  117\n\n  MATTHEW.\n\n   3 : 12                   66\n   5 : 3 to 7 : 27         170\n   5 : 13                   65\n   5 : 13, 14               75\n   7 : 19                   66\n  10 : 8                    75\n  10 : 42                   24\n  15 : 27                   88\n  22 : 36-40               173\n  25 : 40                  169\n  26 : 26-28               119\n  28 : 19                  156\n  28 : 20                  151\n\n  MARK.\n\n   7 : 7-11                137\n   9 : 41                   24\n   9 : 49               65, 83\n   9 : 50                   65\n  14 : 22-24               119\n\n  LUKE.\n\n   3 : 17                   66\n  14 : 34                   65\n  22 : 19, 20              119\n\n  JOHN.\n\n   1 : 4                    76\n   4 : 9                    24\n   4 : 24                  157\n  13 : 18                  111\n  13 : 34                  169\n  15 : 6                    66\n\n  ROMANS.\n\n   1 : 31                  114\n   9 : 26                  142\n  12 : 1                    67\n  13 : 1                   161\n  13 : 4                   163\n  13 : 10                  173\n\n  1 CORINTHIANS.\n\n   3 : 13-15                66\n   4 : 7                   167\n  11 : 23-25               119\n\n  2 CORINTHIANS.\n\n   2 : 16                  133\n  12 : 14                   67\n\n  COLOSSIANS.\n\n   3 : 5                   171\n   4 : 6                    67\n\n  2 TIMOTHY.\n\n   2 : 19                  157\n\n  HEBREWS.\n\n   9 : 19                  148\n\n  1 PETER.\n\n   1 : 7                    66\n\n  2 PETER.\n\n   3 : 10-12               136\n   3 : 13                  136\n\n  1 JOHN.\n\n   2 : 3                   174\n   4 : 16                  174\n   4 : 20, 21              172\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  _OTHER BOOKS BY DR. TRUMBULL_\n\n  War Memories of an Army Chaplain\n\n  _With 14 full-page Illustrations_\n\n  _Crown 8vo. $2.00_\n\n\"This is incomparably the best chaplain's story which the great war has\nproduced.\"--_Boston Journal_.\n\n\"Mr. Trumbull gives us no story, merely single incidents, and in them\nwe find the tenderness and reverence and bravery and indomitable\nspirit of the American soldier. His book is throughout a eulogy of the\nAmerican private soldier; the man upon whose patience and fidelity,\nobedience to superiors, and heroism the success of our arms must\neventually depend.\"--_New York Times_.\n\n\"Chaplain Trumbull has given us an interesting volume, which is well\nworth reading, for its impressions have the stamp of truth, and he\ntells his story well.\"--_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_.\n\n\"It is safe to say that no chaplain in the Civil War was more widely\nknown or did more effective service than the Rev. H. Clay Trumbull....\nAdd to this qualification the fact that Mr. Trumbull is a man of\nhearty sympathy, wide knowledge of human nature, and genial humor,\nand it will be concluded that this volume, called 'War Memories of\nan Army Chaplain,' is well worth reading. Emphatically it is so, and\nparticularly at this time, when the subject of soldier life and the\ntreatment of soldiers is so near to us. The book abounds in significant\nand entertaining incidents, and is thoroughly enjoyable from cover to\ncover.\"--_The Outlook_.\n\n\"Mr. Trumbull has given us a book upon the Civil War which is in some\nrespects unique.... Mr. Trumbull's chapters on Religious Services\nin the Field, on Chapels, on Sermons, on Pastoral Work, are full of\ninteresting matter.\"--New York _Evening Post_.\n\n\"This is an interesting and valuable work, not primarily historical\nin aim, yet casting upon the history of the Civil War a good deal of\nimportant light.... This personal record is as entertaining as it can\nbe; parts of it are thrilling.\"--_The Historical Review_.\n\n\"A volume packed full of interesting reminiscences, anecdotes, and\nrelations that bring back to us the war period from a fresh standpoint.\nPerhaps nobody knows as much about real army life as the regimental\nchaplain.\"--_Review of Reviews_.\n\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS\n  153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK\n\n  Other Books by\n  Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull\n\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS\n\n  The Blood Covenant\n\n  A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture\n\n  _8vo. $2.50_\n\n\"The facts are indisputable, and they tell their own story. Nor can\nwe refrain from commending the volume as a most striking and valuable\ncontribution to the religious thought of the world. It is emphatically\none of the few books that no religious thinker can afford to be\nwithout.\"--_President_ W. R. HARPER, _in the Old Testament Student_.\n\n\"We thank the author for this fruit of vast labor and persevering\nresearch. It is worthy of the study of all students of\nreligion.\"--_Rev._ CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D. D.\n\n\"It seems to us to throw a true and important light upon the sacrament\nof the Holy Communion, and to rescue it alike from Roman perversion and\nZwinglian degradation. Throughout we have been impressed by its reserve\nof power, its care not to press unduly any analogy. It seems to us a\nmodel of what biblical study should be.\"--_The Churchman_.\n\n  The Threshold Covenant\n\n  Or, The Beginning of Religious Rites\n\n  _8vo. $2.50_\n\n\"It is brimful of accurate knowledge and new points of view, and is\nwritten so charmingly that a child could understand and follow.\"--A. H.\nSAYCE, _Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford_.\n\n\"Un livre o\u00f9 s'allient \u00e0 une si admirable familiarit\u00e9 avec les\ncivilisations de l'antiquit\u00e9 tant de sagacit\u00e9 ex\u00e9g\u00e9tique et de\npuissance de synth\u00e8se et d'invention.\"--_Revue de l'Histoire des\nReligions, Paris_.\n\n\"I am delighted to have been able to make early acquaintance with\na book so full of facts which really illuminate the dark places of\nprimitive times. That the explanation of the Hebrew Scriptures profits\nmuch by it is clear.\"--_Professor Dr._ T. K. CHEYNE, _Oxford_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Transcriber's notes\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected but otherwise\n  variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been\n  retained. Italics are represented thus _i_, breve thus [)e] and\n  macron is thus [=a].\n\n  Repeated chapter headings on consecutive pages have been removed.\n  Footnote 63. The word 'sum' in the original has been corrected to\n  'sun', which is more reasonable in the context.","title":"The Covenant of Salt: As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive Thought","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":38270}