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

“This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ...days of old it was plain spelt, and the sparkling grain of unadulterated salt that had efficacy to render the gods propitious to man.\" 3 There is good reason for believing that it was much the same with the Greeks as with the Romans, although the fact that this is not distinctly declared in the classic texts has led some modern scholars to call it in question. Barley-meal cakes, with or without salt, were certainly employed by the Greeks in their sacrifices.4 And Homer speaks of salt as \"divine.\" 5 When, therefore, it is considered that salt was counted 1 Harper's Latin Dictionary, s. vv. \" Immolate,\" \" Mola.\" 2 Pliny's Hist. Nat., Bostock and Riley's trans., XXXI., 41. 3 Ovid's Fasti, I., 337. See, also, Cooper's Virgil, notes on Aeneid, Books II. and XII. Homer's Iliad, I., 449, 458; II., 410, 421; Odyssey, III., 425, 441; Philo's Opera, 2: 240. 5 Iliad, IX., 214. See Eustathius's Commentary, I., 748-750, ed. Basle (p. 648, ed. Rome). It has indeed been suggested that the very name \"salt\" was derived (through saltus, \"to leap\") from the tendency of this substance \"to leap and explode when thrown upon fire.\" 1 If there be any probability in this suggestion, or in another, and more natural one, that'sallus was from the same root as sal, \"salt,\" it is easy to see that the primitive mind might infer that such was the affinity of salt with the divine, that, when offered by fire, it leaped toward heaven, and so was understood to be peculiarly acceptable to God or to the gods, in sacrifice. The Latin verb salis has the twofold meaning \"to salt\" or \"to sprinkle before sacrifice,\" and \"to leap, spring, bound, jump;\" and the root sal would...”