Gayton, describing two friends (who were proof even against this ill sign), says:
"I have two friends of either sex, which do
Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too;
Of both which persons I can truly tell,
They are of patience most invincible,—
When out of temper no mischance at all
Can put,—no, not if towards them the salt should fall."[205]
In both the Old Testament and the New faithlessness to a formal covenant is reckoned a crime of peculiar enormity as distinct from any ordinary transgression of a specific law. Transgressing a covenant with the Lord is counted on the part of Israel much the same as worshiping the gods of the heathen. This is shown in repeated instances in the Old Testament.[206] In the New Testament, Paul includes among the grossest evil-doers of paganism those who are "filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God," and so down to "covenant-breakers," and those "without natural affection," as among the lowest and worst of all.[207] This idea shows itself continually in records and traditions, sacred and secular.
XII
SUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY
Primarily it is the blood, as the life, of two persons entering into a covenant with each other and with the Author of life, that is the nexus of the enduring covenant.[208] Secondarily, it is the blood, or life, of a substitute victim offered as a sacrifice to God, or to the gods, that is accepted as such a nexus,—the blood being shared by the contracting parties, or being poured out as an oblation to God, and the flesh being eaten conjointly by the parties covenanting.[209]
Yet, again, wine is accepted as representing blood. This is not only because wine resembles blood in appearance, and is called in the Bible record the "blood of the grape,"[210] but because wine is actually deemed, by many primitive peoples, real blood, and is supposed to affect its users as it does because it represents the spirit, or life, of the divinity whose blood it is.[211] On this point Frazer calls attention to the primitive views of Egyptians, Arabians, Aztecs, and others, citing authorities from Plutarch to Robertson Smith.[212]