Spirit of salt

“ They administered in the souls of men the heavenly salt of the Spirit, seasoning them and rendering them free from corruption and from going bad, instead of that unsavoury condition they were in. Flesh, if it be not salted, corrupts and is filled with ill savour, so that every one turns from the evil odour, and worms creep into the corrupted flesh, and there dwell, and feed, and burrow; but when the salt comes, the worms that dwell there are destroyed, and the offensive smell is at an end; for it is the property of salt to kill worms and to banish an ill smell. ”

“ For, that Spirit of Salt serves instead of them all, nor is it at all subject to corrupt as other Juices are, but conserves its sweet and pleasant essence without any decay. But if you would make use thereof singly or alone, then must a little Water or Sugar be mixed therewith, that the acidity or sharpness thereof may be a little allayed, and thus may it serve instead of a Sawce to be added to either baked or boiled Flesh or Fish. But now if a man be minded to add green Herbs for alterations sake of the tast, such as are Parsly, Garden Cresses, Spanish Pepper, and the like ”

“ But to return to our principall purpose, fire amongst other its properties and effects, is very purging, and also in flesh, and other corruptible substances, Salt consumes the greatest part of their corrupting humors: fire also doth the same, and analogically spiritual fire, which is nothing but the charitable ardor of the Holy Spirit, that inflames us with Faith, Charity, Hope. Shakes off the impurities of our souls, as it is Esa. ”

“ Water, which is the gift of God to the thirsty soul, mocks the thirsty soul when it brings with it salt, which is the representative of life. Salt in water is a savor of death unto death, while salt and water are also a savor of life unto life.
While salt as the equivalent of life is a symbol of permanency, it becomes, as the equivalent of death, a symbol of doom and destruction. ”

“ What then, said Florus, shall we say that salt is termed divine for that reason? Indeed that is very considerable, for men for the most part deify those common things that are exceeding useful to their necessities and wants, as water, light, the seasons of the year; and the earth they do not only think to be divine, but a very god. Now salt is as useful as either of these, protecting in a way the food as it comes into the body, and making it palatable and agreeable to the appetite. ”

“ Salt has ever been held the symbol of science and wisdom, as is shown, not only by its being the first syllable in the name of King Solomon, but inasmuch as Christ says to his disciples, 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' As meat without salt, so is man without knowledge. ”

“ I say, that the salts must (by the help of Fire and Art) first get a magnetick and attractive power and faculty afore they can draw a Life out of the air. Now then, after that the universal Life of the World is caught and fettered as it were by the salts, and hath turned the dead salts into living nitre, yet that life lies hidden in that Salt-petre invisibly, and can but a little or scarce any thing at all shew out or display its virtues by reason of the Gross body of the salt. ”

“ As blood is synonymous with life in primitive thought and practice, [64] and as salt has been shown to represent blood in the primitive mind, so salt seems to stand for life in many a form of primitive speech and in the world's symbolism. When, indeed, we speak of salt as preserving flesh from corruption, we refer to the staying of the process of death by an added element of life ”

“ 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. ”

“ The truth of this statement may be readily tested by sprinkling a little salt on the common earthworm. “What a comfort and real requisite to human life is salt! It enters into the constituents of the human blood, and to do without it is wholly impossible.” ”

“ Pliny, who, while not an original thinker, was a faithful and industrious collater of the sayings and doings of his contemporaries, and those who had gone before him, especially in the realm of material things, summed up the popular beliefs as to salt and its uses in the declaration that there is nothing better for the human body, in health or in sickness, than salt and sun, "sale et sole." ”

“ But salt has such power over dead and putrescent substances that by its means they will endure for ages.” Thus, too, the Apostles, by their sharp and fiery speech, and by their life, have bitten, pricked, dried up, and shaken off the vices of men. Hear S. Gregory (Hom. 17) : “If we are salt we ought to season the minds of the faithful. As is among brute beasts a rock of salt, so ought to be a priest among the people, that whosoever is joined to a priest, he may be seasoned, as if from a rock of salt, with the seasoning of eternal life.” ”

“ For the salt of the World, or the Universal Essential salt, is nothing else but Salt-petre, when it hath after a due time attracted a life out of the air, to which end my secret circulatory instrument was invented, that such an animation might be the more conveniently brought to pass. ”

“ To such I have no hesitation in saying that they are much deceived if they imagine that the habit of abstaining from salt is contributive to health; such crabbed and confined views, however, are significant of the fact that human nature is frequently antagonistic to, and at cross purposes with, that which is ordained by the laws of nature to be beneficial. ”

“ If our poet had asked the question, Where is the man, civilized or uncivilized, who can live without salt? every one of his readers would probably have replied unhesitatingly, 'He does not exist.' It is doubtful too whether he ever existed. It is asserted by competent authorities that terrestrial as well as marine life is conditioned upon the consumption of salt. ”

“ Do beings, forsooth, fashioned out of the mold,
So secretly, strangely, those elements hold
That may be developed in goodness and grace
To shine in demeanor, in form and in face
Till they, by renewal of heavenly birth,
Shall merit their title—the salt of the earth?
[Pg 8] To the landsman at home or the sailor at sea,
With nausea, scurvy, or canker maybe,
'Tis never in language to overexalt
The potent preservative virtue of salt—
A crystal commodity wholesome and good,
A cure for disease, and a savor for food. ”

“ Hesiod, Homer, Plato, Pythagoras, and other Philosophers, deliver that of all things, salt is most affine or near to God. I assert, that by the help of salt, many become the chosen Sons of God. If the Earth should want salt, there would not thence proceed any fruits affording necessary Aliment for Men, whence Mankind would perish, not being able to draw its Nourishment and Multiplication from the Air, but is constrained to take it from the Earth. Salt becometh Milk, Honey, Sugar, Wine, Bread, Flesh, and passeth into all those things which we want. ”

“ The references of Jesus to salt would seem to have fuller meaning, if "salt" be understood as equivalent to "life." Where he says to his disciples: "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, [Pg 65] wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men," [98] he would seem to remind them that they are the life of the world, if, indeed, they retain life in themselves. ”

“ There is nothing can be brought forth in the nature of things, without the medium of salt; yea, Man himself is not born without the Sun, Man, and Salt. Therefore a certain Philosopher saith very appositely, The vigour of salt is fiery, and of a Celestial Original. The sun and salt are the Parents of all things, which procreate all things, and without which nothing is procreated; Bread and Flesh, which are seasoned with salt, afford more Virtues than all other Foods which are not salted. Salt being added to Wine in its fermentation, rendereth it stronger and sweeter. ”

“ At the tables of the wealthy it is perfectly absurd to see the small amount of salt which is placed in the smallest receptacles, as if it were the most expensive article; and it is equally ridiculous to see the host and his guests, in the most finical grotesque manner, help themselves to the almost infinitesimal quantities of salt, as if it were a mark of good breeding and delicacy. This is how we pervert nature; our civilisation is a great good, undoubtedly, but at the same time it is frequently at variance with what is good for us. ”

“ Be it correct or incorrect, the human mind has never been able to rid itself of the idea.
Salt is sometimes used in the rite of blood brotherhood among primitive peoples, as is also wine, both wine and salt being counted the equivalent of blood, and the original and the substitute being sometimes employed together as if to intensify the symbolism. ”

“ It is true, that if we could putrifie Salt, it would discover all the Mysteries of Nature, for it hath all the Tinctures in it: but to destroy this substance, is a hard task, for he that would do it, must do something more, then Death can do, for even her Prerogative comes not so far. Howsoever it cannot be denyed, but some Wise men have attain’d to the putrifaction of Salts, but this Key they received from God, and it is the great Secret of their Art. ”

“ I have known people who accustom themselves to the use of salt baths, and who talk very glibly of the luxury of sea-bathing, who yet are in complete ignorance of the virtues of salt as a condiment and as a preserver of health, and who try to prove that salt so used is obnoxious, and consequently to be avoided. These salt baths are popular, not because they are beneficial, but by reason of their comparative novelty; and accordingly, many who would not think of using salt with their food, plunge headlong into the sea or into a salt-water bath, with all the vigour possible. ”

“ Christ saith in certain places, salt is good, or it is a good thing: When the Earth wanteth salt, being dead, it bringeth forth no Fruit; the same is Dung, when destitute of salt.
Here I have the eternal Truth Himself my Witness, reproving my impious Farnnerian Enemies, who endeavour to refel my Miraculum Mundi with their false Calumnies and Cavils. In which Book I have demonstrated by most manifest Arguments, that the Earth is rendered fat and fertile, not by Dung, but the Salt which is in it. ”

“ Under the two figures of salt and light our Lord showed the apostles what a high vocation theirs was in the kingdom of God. Under the first figure He described to them the priestly office. “Even as salt gives a savour to food and preserves it from corruption, so must you make sinful man holy and pleasing to God, and keep him from the corruption of sin.” ”

“ For which of them would believe us if, instead of saying that the living bodies of men hereafter will be such as to endure everlasting pain and fire without ever dying, we were to say that in the world to come there will be salt which becomes liquid in fire as if it were in water, and crackles in water as if it were in fire ”

“ It is, indeed, because salt represents life, that salt was to accompany every sacrifice under the Jewish dispensation. Not death, but life, was an acceptable offering to God, according to the teachings of the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New. ”

“ Is it not a blessing to know that nature has munificently provided a means whereby these distressing evils may be checked and definitely eradicated by a daily use of such an enemy to, and destroyer of, disease as the chloride of sodium, universally known as common salt? ”

“ This idea of foul treachery as equivalent to faithlessness in the matter of salt, seems to be perpetuated [Pg 113] in Da Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot is represented as having overturned the salt-cellar. [204] And even among English-speaking peoples the spilling of salt between two persons is said to threaten a quarrel ”

“ Yet this doomed and dead sea of salt is a source of life to man in its exhaustless supply of salt for his use. Preeminently is this salt of the Dead Sea a savor of life and of death.
The salt of the ocean is the world's treasure. Without it the greater portion of the earth's inhabitants would perish for lack of what vivifies and preserves animal life. Yet because of the salt in the ocean the very water, which man and beast must have or perish of thirst, is useless to both man and beast. ”

“ It is a constituent of most of our food and drinks, and nature has kindly furnished us with an appetite for it, though there are not a few who regard it quite in another light: that quadrupeds and birds (as I have before stated) should be fully alive to the vivifying properties of salt, and that mankind should be indifferent to, and in many instances totally ignorant of them, is somewhat curious and incomprehensible, but it is so. ”

“ Do you not think that that which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the principle of all things? And I assenting, he continued: Salt, in the opinion of some men, for instance the Egyptians you mentioned, is very operative that way; and those that breed dogs, when they find their bitches not apt to be hot, give them salt and seasoned flesh, to excite and arouse their sleeping lechery and vigor. Besides, the ships that carry salt breed abundance of mice; the females, as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking the salt. ”