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, 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. And where he says, "Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another,"[99] he would call them to have life in themselves, and to join with others who have it, in making their life to be felt among their fellows.
A supposed utterance of Jesus, which has been a puzzle to critics and commentators, possibly has light thrown on it in this view of salt as corresponding with life. Discoursing on life, and the wisdom of striving to attain or to enter into life, even at a loss of much that man might value here on earth, Jesus, according to some manuscripts, said, "For every one shall be salted with fire."[100] This sentence is disputed by some, not being found in all the more ancient MSS., and its meaning does not seem to be clear to any.[101] It is obvious that whatever else "salted" here means, it does not mean "salted." To salt is to mingle, or to accompany, with salt. Clearly, fire does not do that. The Greek is as vague, or as ambiguous, as the English. There must be a conventional or popular, a figurative or symbolical, meaning in which "salt" is here used. What can this be?
"Fire" is here spoken of as the synonym, or equivalent, or parallel, of "salt." In this figure, fire is to accomplish what salt performs; the work of salt is to be done by fire. In what sense can this be true? Fire does consume and destroy the perishable;[102] it does bring out and refine that which is permanent and precious;[103] it does try and test and reveal the measure of real value in that which is submitted to it.[104] In the testing time, "each man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon [on the one Foundation], he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss: but he himself [who has builded] shall be saved; yet as through fire."[105]
The whole context of the passage in Mark's Gospel indicates that Jesus is speaking of life. He is showing the way to attain to life. He points to the final testing of life by fire. As salt is shown to correspond with life, and as this seems to have been understood by his hearers, would they not have seen that Jesus was pointing out that the measure of life, or salt, the reminder of God's covenant with his people, in every one of them, would be revealed in the testing of 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.[106] God wants "not yours, but you."[107] This was emphasized by priest and prophet in the history of the Jewish people, earlier and later. Paul re-echoed this primal thought when he appealed to Christians: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [yourselves] a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."[108] Without salt, without the symbol of life, no sacrifice was to be counted a fitting or acceptable offering at God's altar.
Salt is taken, in the world's thought, as an equivalent of wit, or lively wisdom, in speech. Thus Paul counsels the Colossian Christians: "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one."[109] Because the Athenians were noted for their life and wit in speech, "Attic salt" was a synonym of truest life in conversation. Cicero says of Scipio: "Scipio omnes sale superbat" ("Scipio surpassed all in salt," or "wit").
Pliny after describing the properties and uses of salt, says: "We may conclude then, by Hercules! that the higher enjoyments of life could not exist without the use of salt: indeed, so highly necessary is this substance to mankind, that the pleasures of the mind, even, can be expressed by no better term than the word 'salt,' such being the name given to all effusions of wit. All the amenities, in fact, of life, supreme liberty, and relaxation from toil [in a word, 'life,'] can find no word in our language to characterize them better than this."[110]
Pliny also calls attention to the fact that "salarium," from which we derive our word "salary," was the "salt money," bestowed as a reward or honorarium on successful generals and military tribunes.[111] The idea of a "living," or a support of life, is in the word "salary." And so when we say that a man is "not worth his salt," we mean that he is not worth his living.
Salt has been employed as money at various times and in various lands, and thus has been the means of supporting life. It has been so in Tibet and in India, and in the heart of Africa along from the sixth to the nineteenth centuries of our era. Thus even in lands where gold is abundant but less valued than salt.[112]
It is said of the people of a province in Tibet, that, while they reckon the value of gold by weight, the nearest approach to coined money which they have is in molded and stamped cakes of salt. "On this money ... the Prince's mark is printed; and no one is allowed to make it except the royal officers.... Merchants take this currency and go to those tribes that dwell among the mountains; ... and there they get a saggio of gold for sixty, or fifty, or forty pieces of this salt money; ... for in such positions they cannot dispose at pleasure of their gold and other things, such as musk and the like; ... and so they give them cheap." "This exchange of salt-cakes for gold, forms a curious parallel to the like exchange in the heart of Africa, narrated by Cosmas in the sixth century, and by Aloisio Cadamosto in the fifteenth."[113]