The Covenant of Salt / As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive Thought

portant meaning in comparison with the idea back of it. As a matter of fact, this must be true of nearly all words. Ideas precede words. Ideas have spir

ea. In practice, or in continued and varied use, in the development of thought and of language, changes necessarily occur in the word or words selected to convey a primal idea, in order to indicate other phases of the idea than that

and Assyrian roots carried forward by religion or commerce into our English words and idioms, when we are searching for the true meaning of an important custom or rite or thought. Yet this will ordinarily be confusing rather tha

iscern a hidden primitive rite or custom by a study of the words used in referring to it. An archeologist may suggest a solution of a problem which hopelessly puzzles the lexicographer or grammarian. Sentiment a

"an agreement," "a league," "a treaty," "a compact," "an arrangement," "an obligation," or "a promise." Only by its context and connections are we shown in special cases tha

y ordinary agreement or compact. And when we go back, as in our English Bible, to the Greek and Hebrew words rendered "covenant," or "testament," or "oath," in a sworn bond, we find this d

was the nexus of their covenant. Later it was the blood of a shared and eaten sacrifice that formed the covenant nexus. In such a case the food of the feast became a part of the life of each and both,

ably well on the root or roots involved. Yet all the various words or roots suggested by them have obvious reference to the primal idea of covenanting as a means of life

n.[2] So in the Greek words diathēkē and horkion it can readily be seen that the references to the new placing or disposing of the parties, to their solemn appeal to God or the gods in the covenanting, and to the testament to take effect after the death of the testator, or to the means employed in this tran

e; each is given to the other; their separate identity is lost in their common life. A ring, a brac

y have simply borne witness to a covenant. Thus men have exchanged pledges of their covenant to be worn as phylacteries, or caskets, or amulets, or belts, on neck, or forehead, or arm, or body;[4] they have exchanged weapons of warfare or of the chase; they hav

tive of outside nations, it is counted as the token of a covenant between the individual and his earthly sovereign. The ceremonies accompanying it all go to prove this.[7] Again, m

name as their own, thus sharing and representing the divine personality and power.[8] Thus also in tradition different gods

at make "union" out of "one." In the Welsh un is "one;" uno is "to unite." In the English, from the Latin, a unit unites with another unit,

stoms in the world. In the line of such studying, covenants and the covenant relation have been found to be an important factor, and to have had a unique significance in the development of human language and in the progress of t