Part 5

"The German Jew sets bread and salt upon his table, but the loaf, if possible, must be whole. He cuts it without making a separation, takes it up with both his hands, sets it down upon the table, and blesses it. His guests answer, Amen. Afterwards he rubs it with salt, and whilst he is eating it is as silent as a Carthusian. The bread thus consecrated is distributed to all who are at table. If he drinks wine, he blesses it as he did the bread before; takes it in his right hand, lifts it up, and pronounces the benediction over it; and all other drink, water alone excepted, is consecrated in the same manner. The master of the family concludes with Psalm 23, and then every one eats what he thinks convenient, without further ceremony. The ceremony of cutting the loaf without separation has the same reason to support it; and a passage from Psalm 10 : 3 is a voucher for its solidity. The master of the house holds the bread in both his hands, in commemoration of the ten precepts relating to corn; and each finger is the representative of one of them.[141]

[141] Buxtorf _ex_ Talmud.

"The salt as the religious intention of it is typical of the ancient sacrifices. Meat without salt has no savor, which is proved from a passage in Job, chapter 6, verse 6.[142] This is civil policy confirmed by religion.

[142] _Ibid._, cap. xii.

"A modest deportment at table is much recommended; so likewise is temperance and sobriety. Their bread must be kept in a very neat place, and preserved with all imaginary care. They must talk but little, and with discretion at table, because, according to the opinion of the rabbis, the prophet Elijah, and each respective guest's guardian angel, are present at all meals. Whenever that angel hears anything indecent uttered there, he retires, and a wicked one assumes his place. They never throw down bones of flesh or fish upon the ground; but, however, this caution is not the result of cleanliness only, but fear, lest they should hurt any of those invisible beings.[143]

[143] Dr. Kohler states that the reason for not throwing these fragments on the ground, is because the Jews would not disgrace what is regarded as a special gift of God.

"The knife that cuts their meat, must never touch what is made of milk;[144] whatever, in short, strikes the senses in any manner, must be blessed. They never rise from the table without leaving something for the poor; but the knives must be removed before they return thanks, because it is written, 'Thou shalt set no iron on the altar.' Now a table is the representative of an altar, at saying grace before, or returning thanks after meal."[145]

[144] Because meat and milk are never to be eaten together. See p. 62, _supra_. (Exod. 23 : 19; 34 : 26; Deut. 14 : 21.)

[145] Buxtorf _ex_ Talmud, cap. xii.

That the table was looked at as an altar among ancient peoples, is to be inferred from various proverbs and practices with reference to it. Thus one of the symbolic sayings of Pythagoras is, "Pick not up what is fallen from the table."[146] A comment on this is, that as the table was consecrated to divinities, whatever fell from it was not to be restored, but to be left, as was the gleaning of God's fields, for the poor.[147] When the Syrophoenician woman said to Jesus, "Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table,"[148] she spoke in recognition of this primitive truth, that the crumbs from the table might be shared by whoever hungered.

[146] Dacier's _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 116.

[147] Lev. 19 : 9, 10; Deut. 24 : 19-21.

[148] Matt. 15 : 27.

A usage in the early Latin Church would seem to be in the line of the Jewish thought, that bread and salt at the table are a sacrifice, or a sacrament; and it would also appear to be in recognition of the fact that salt stands for blood, or for life. The catechumens, before they were privileged to share in the Eucharist, were made partakers of the sacrament of salt (_sacramentum salis_),--salt placed in the mouth, accompanied by the sign of the cross, and by invocations and exorcisms.[149]

[149] Bingham's _Antiquities of the Christian Church_, Book X., Chap. 2; Smith and Cheetham's _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, arts. "Catechumens," "Salt."

St. Augustine, speaking of this sacrament, says: "What they receive is holy, although it is not the body of Christ,--holier than any food which constitutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a sacrament." And, referring to its reception by himself, he says: "I was now signed with the sign of the cross, and was seasoned with his salt."[150]

[150] St. Augustine's Treatise on _Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism_, II., 46.

In the Greek Church, salt is still deemed an essential element of the Eucharistic bread. It is said, indeed, that the salt "represents the life, so that a sacrifice without salt is but a dead sacrifice." The same is true of the Armenian and Syrian Christians, and Alcuin refers to the fact that, in his day, certain Christians in Spain insisted that salt should be put into the bread for the Eucharist.[151]

[151] Smith and Cheetham's _Dict. of Chris. Antiq._, arts. "Elements," "Salt."

Salt is put into the mouth of an infant at its baptism, in the Roman Church of to-day.[152] In administering the salt to the babe the priest says: "Receive the salt of wisdom. May it be a propitiation for thee to eternal life."[153] All "holy water," in that church, contains salt as an essential element.[154] At the dedication of a church, water mixed with ashes and salt is employed for the sprinkling of the corners of the altar, and other portions of the church; and the remainder is poured out at the foot of the altar, where the sacrificial blood was of old poured out in the Temple offerings.[155]

[152] _Rituale Romanorum_, p. 29 f.

[153] _Ibid._

[154] _Ibid._, p. 276 f.

[155] Smith and Cheetham's _Dict. of Chris. Antiq._, art. "Salt."

In the Brâhmanas, of the Vedic literature, salt is described as the one "sacrificial essence" which is common to both sky and earth. In the ritual directions for the "ceremony of establishing a set of sacrificial fires, on the part of a young householder," the sacrificer, under the guidance of the priests, is described as proceeding to equip Agni, the fire, with its proper equipments. He having brought water and gold,[156] it is said: "He then brings salt. Yonder sky assuredly bestowed that (salt as) cattle on this earth: hence they say that salt soil is suitable for cattle. That salt, therefore, means cattle; and thus he thereby supplies it (the fire) with cattle; and the latter having come from yonder (sky) is securely established on this earth. Moreover, that (salt) is believed to be the savor (_rasa_) of those two, the sky and the earth; so that he thereby supplies it (the fire) with the savor of those two, the sky and the earth. That is why he brings salt."[157]

[156] Fire is masculine, water is feminine, gold is seed, according to the Vedic literature.

[157] Müller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XII., 278 (_Satapatha Brâhmana_).

According to the Brâhmanas, the first offered sacrifice was a man. When "the sacrificial essence" went out of the man in his offering, it went into the horse, then into the ox, then into the sheep, then into the goat. And afterwards it would seem to have been represented in salt. So in bringing salt to the fire for sacrifice, there are brought cattle, or animal offerings, with their blood and their life.[158]

[158] _Ibid._, p. 50.

It is said in Brâhmanic explanation of the pre-eminent value of salt as a sacrificial essence, that it was made thus by an original agreement between the sky and the earth. "The sky and the earth were originally close together. On being separated, they said to each other, 'Let there be a common sacrificial essence (ya-_gñ_-iyam) for us!' What sacrificial essence there was belonging to yonder sky, that it bestowed on this earth, that became the salt (in the earth), and what sacrificial essence there was belonging to this earth, that it bestowed on yonder sky, that became the black (spots) in the moon. When he throws salt (on the fire-place), let him think it to be that (_viz_: the black in the moon): it is on the sacrificial essence of the sky and the earth that he sets up his fire."[159]

[159] Müller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XII., 278, note.

Among the Booddhists in China, where the sacrifices are almost exclusively vegetable, salt and wine are added in separate cups.[160] This would seem to suggest the symbolism of both blood and wine in the offerings.

[160] Morris's _China and the Chinese_, p. 154.

Salt had its place in sacrifices in ancient Egypt. Herodotus tells, for instance, of the great annual festival at Saïs, in honor of the goddess Neith, corresponding to Athena or Minerva. Neith was, in fact, another presentation of Isis, and was known as "the great mother of all life." In conjunction with the sacrifices on this occasion, there was the Feast of Burning Lamps, when all the inhabitants burned, in the open air, about their houses, lamps filled with oil and salt. He says, moreover: "The Egyptians who are absent from the festival [at Saïs] observe the rite of the sacrifice, no less than the rest, by a general lighting of lamps; so that the illumination is not confined to the city of Saïs, but extends over the whole of Egypt."[161] Wilkinson says of these lamps and their contents: "The oil floated on water mixed with salt;" and he suggests a correspondence of this custom with a like one in India and in China.[162]

[161] Rawlinson's _History of Herodotus_, II., 92 (Book II., Chap. 62).

[162] _Ibid._, note. See also Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_, III., 380.

Friedrich, in his "Symbolism of Nature," speaking of this festival, says that the "salt symbolized the creation of life, and the light that it came forth from darkness into existence; therefore this did well suit the festival." And a collector of Etruscan remains, referring to the magic lamp still used in Italy, says, in connection with these words of Friedrich, that the "wick fire seemed so mysterious to the Rosicrucian Lord Blaize that he wrote a book on it, and on the blessed secrets of salt."[163]

[163] Leland's _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 324 f.

Salt was essential to a sacrifice among the ancient Romans, as among the Hebrews. A cake made of coarsely ground spelt, or wheat, mingled with salt, was broken, or bruised, and sprinkled upon the head of the victim for sacrifice, upon the fire of the altar, and upon the sacrificial knife. Hence the term "immolation," or sprinkling with this salted meal, came to be synonymous with sacrificing.[164] Pliny, telling of the priceless value of salt, says of it in conclusion: "It is in our sacred rites, more especially, that its high importance is recognized, no offering ever being made unaccompanied by the salted cake [_sine mola salso_]."[165] And Ovid says, that "in days of old it was plain spelt, and the sparkling grain of unadulterated salt that had efficacy to render the gods propitious to man."[166]

[164] Harper's _Latin Dictionary_, s. vv. "Immolate," "Mola."

[165] Pliny's _Hist. Nat._, Bostock and Riley's trans., XXXI., 41.

[166] Ovid's _Fasti_, I., 337. See, also, Cooper's _Virgil_, notes on Aeneid, Books II. and XII.

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.[167] And Homer speaks of salt as "divine."[168] When, therefore, it is considered that salt was counted essential in sacrifices among the ancient Egyptians, Hindoos, and Hebrews, as also later among the Romans, it would seem to need proof to the contrary to meet the natural presumption that the Greeks also made use of "divine salt" in their sacred sacrificial cakes.

[167] Homer's _Iliad_, I., 449, 458; II., 410, 421; _Odyssey_, III., 425, 441; Philo's _Opera_, 2 : 240.

[168] _Iliad_, IX., 214. See Eustathius's Commentary, I., 748-750, ed. Basle (p. 648, ed. Rome).

Salt was offered at every little shrine by the wayside in Guatemala, in Central America, in olden time. It was an acceptable gift to the gods.[169]

[169] See Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II., 719.

Wellhausen, in treating of the remains of Arabian paganism,[170] tells of the custom of the old priests of throwing salt into the fire of sacrifice, unperceived by the worshiper as he appealed to the gods in his oath, and of the consequent startling of the offerer by the up-leaping flames, as though under a divine impulse. Various popular sayings are cited as incidental proofs of this custom; the purport of them all being that salt in the fires of sacrifice is supposed to be an effective appeal to the gods.

[170] Wellhausen's _Reste Arabischen Heidentumes_, in _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III., 124, 131.

Pliny says that "salt, regarded by itself, is naturally igneous, and yet it manifests an antipathy to fire, and flies from it."[171] This would seem to be a reference to the tendency of salt to spring up, or flash and sparkle, when thrown into the flames.

[171] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45.

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."[172] If there be any probability in this suggestion, or in another, and more natural one, that _saltus_ 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 seem to be in the Latin and the Sanskrit alike.[173] Similarly, the word "salacious," or lustful, had this origin.

[172] See citation of Lennep, and Scheideus, in Richardson's _English Dictionary_, s. v. "Salt."

[173] See Harper's _Latin Dictionary_, s. vv. "sal," "salio," "saltus."

It is evident that the primitive popular mind recognized salt as a peculiarly acceptable offering in sacrifice to God or the gods, and that its very name in various combinations seemed to suggest the aspiring or uprising heavenward.

X

SALT IN EXORCISM AND DIVINATION

The line between sacrificial offerings and offerings for the purpose of exorcising evil spirits, or of propitiating good spirits, is not always a clear line even in the mind of the offerer; but there are uses of salt among primitive peoples which must be placed under the head of exorcisms and divinations, and as an accompaniment of incantations, rather than under the head of sacrifices, even though they may be only perversions of the original idea of sacrifice.

Burckhardt tells of the burning of salt, by way of exorcism, among the people of Daraon, on the borders of Upper Egypt and Nubia. His caravan was about being loaded for a journey. "Just before the lading commenced," he says, "the Ababde women appeared with earthen vessels in their hands, filled with burning coals. They set them before the several loads, and threw salt upon them. At the rising of the bluish flame produced by the burning of the salt, they exclaimed, 'May you be blessed in going and in coming!' The devil and every evil genius are thus, they say, removed."[174]

[174] Burckhardt's _Travels in Nubia_, p. 157.

Among Muhammadan Arabs, in and out of Egypt, salt is sprinkled on the floors of every apartment in the houses, on the last night of the month of Ramadan, accompanied by the words, "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful!" This is because the evil jinn, or genii, are supposed to be confined in prison during that month, and the sprinkling of salt, with the prescribed invocation, ensures protection from them as they renew their work of harm. Salt is also sprinkled on the floor after the birth of a child, as a propitiatory offering for mother and child, against the influence of the evil eye.[175]

[175] Lane's _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, pp. 41, 188.

In China, on the eve of the new year, salt is thrown into the fire, and the manner of its burning is taken as an indication, favorable or unfavorable, for the coming year. It is a species of divination by salt.[176] In Japan, the burning of salt, or the offering it in this way to the gods, is a propitiatory sacrifice in time of danger; and it is scattered at the threshold for a similar purpose after a funeral.[177] In Syria, also, the burning of a lump of salt in the fire is resorted to as a means of exorcising the malevolent spirit which afflicts one through the "evil eye."[178]

[176] Doolittle's _Social Life of the Chinese_, II., 58 f.

[177] Griffis's _Mikado's Empire_, pp. 467, 470; Bird's _Untrodden Tracks in Japan_, I., 392.

[178] George A. Ford, in _The Church at Home and Abroad_, Dec., 1889, p. 501.

While suspected persons, or persons of doubtful orthodoxy, were undergoing the "ordeal of boiling water" under ecclesiastical authority, in the Middle Ages and earlier, it is said that "by way of extra precaution, in some ritual it is ordered that holy water and blessed salt be mingled in all the food and drink of the patient--presumably to avert diabolical interference with the result."[179]

[179] Martène, _De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus_, Lib. III., c. vii., Ordo. 19; cited in Lea's _Superstition and Force_, p. 281.

Among the folk-lore customs in modern Greece salt has prominence in various ways. Salt must be pounded on certain days and in a certain way, in order to guard against ill luck. Salt must never be carried out of the house after dark.[180]

[180] Rodd's _Customs and Lore of Modern Greece_, p. 156.

In Scotland and in England, as well as in the East, the use of burning salt in exorcism has continued in the more primitive regions down to the present century. James Napier tells, for example, of the treatment to which he was subjected as a child, when it was surmised that he had gotten "a blink of an ill e'e." He says: "A sixpence was borrowed from a neighbor, a good fire was kept burning in the grate, the door was kept locked, and I was placed upon a chair in front of the fire. The operator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled it with water. With the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, and both were put into the water in the spoon. The water was then stirred with the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this solution thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste the solution three times. The operator then drew her wet forefinger across my brow,--called 'scoring aboon the breath.' The remaining contents of the spoon she then cast over the fire, into the hinder part of the fire, saying as she did so, 'Guid preserve frae a' skith.' These were the first words permitted to be spoken during the operation."[181] Mr. Napier adds that while in his case the "scoring aboon the breath" was accomplished by scoring with a finger wet with salt water, the suspected possessor of an evil eye was scored with the finger-nails, or some sharp instrument, so as to draw blood. The blood and the salt seemed to have correspondent values.

[181] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 36 f.

In the southern counties of England, salt is thrown into the fire by way of invoking spiritual aid in behalf of a lass who would win back a recreant lover. "A pinch of salt must be thrown into the fire on three successive Friday nights, while these lines are repeated:

"'It is not this salt I wish to burn, It is my lover's heart to turn; That he may neither rest, nor happy be, Until he comes and speaks to me.'"[182]

[182] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 176.

There seems to be a special value in the sacred number "three," in the appeals through salt to the spiritual powers. In the Scottish Lowlands, "when a dead body has been washed and laid out, one of the oldest women present must light a candle, and wave it three times around the corpse. Then she must measure three handfuls of common salt into an earthenware plate, and lay it on the breast. Lastly she arranges three 'toom,' or empty dishes, on the hearth, as near as possible to the fire; and all the attendants going out of the room return into it backwards, repeat this 'rhyme of saining:'

"'Thrice the torchie, thrice the saltie, Thrice the dishes toom for "loffie" (_i. e._, praise), These three times three ye must wave round The corpse, until it sleep sound. Sleep sound and wake nane, Till to heaven the soul's gane. If ye want that soul to dee Fetch the torch th' Elleree; Gin ye want that soul to live, Between the dishes place a sieve, An it sail have a fair, fair shrive.'"[183]

[183] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 53.

In connection with the putting of a plate of salt on the breast of a dead body, there were various usages. A plate of bread was sometimes set with the salt, and again a plate of earth was its accompaniment. And different reasons were assigned for the presence of the salt there. Napier says that many persons claimed for it a value in preventing the swelling of the body in process of decomposition, "but its original purpose was to act as a charm against the devil, to prevent him from disturbing the body."[184]

[184] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 60.

"Pennant tells us that formerly, in Scotland, the corpse being stretched on a board and covered with a close linen wrapper, the friends laid on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed; the earth an emblem of the corruptible body, the salt as an emblem of the immortal spirit [the life]."[185]

[185] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 60.

Napier adds: "There was an older superstition which gave another explanation for the plate of salt on the breast. There were persons calling themselves 'sin-eaters,' who, when a person died, were sent for to come and eat the sins of the deceased. When they came, their _modus operandi_ was to place a plate of salt and a plate of bread on the breast of the corpse, and repeat a series of incantations, after which they ate the contents of the plates, and so relieved the dead person of such sins as would have kept him hovering around his relations, haunting them with his imperfectly purified spirit, to their great annoyance, and without satisfaction to himself."[186] The basis of this plan of vicarious substitution of personality would seem to be, in the entering of the "sin-eaters" into oneness of life with the deceased through the salt covenant or the blood covenant, in partaking of his body and blood in the bread and salt from his breast.

[186] _Folk-Lore_, p. 60.

Leland, in his "Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition," says that there was, among the Tuscan Romans, an incantation, or an invocation, for every emergency. "If salt upset, they said, 'Dii avertite omen!'"[187] In Sicily, a goddess known as the Mother of the Day "is invoked when salt is spilt."[188] He also cites various incantations and exorcisms, in which salt is an essential factor.[189]

[187] _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 12.

[188] _Ibid._, p. 148.

[189] _Ibid._, pp. 122, 204, 242, 264, 281, 286, 287, 312, 345.