The Talmud emphasizes the home table of the Jew as the altar before the Lord, to be approached in sacrifice with the essential offering of salt. "As long as the Temple existed, the altar effected atonement, and now it is for the table of each man to effect atonement for him. It is for this reason that the description of the altar (in Ezekiel 41: 22) closes by saying, 'And he said unto me, This is the table that is before the Lord.'"[138]
It would seem, therefore, that bread and salt are as the body and the blood, the flesh and the life, offered in sacrifice at the home table of the Jew, as formerly at the altar of intercommunion with God.[139]
This view of the household table as an altar has been recognized by many Jews. Picart[140] says:
"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]
"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.
"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]
"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]
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.
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]
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]