cluding friendships and treaties. This custom prevailed among the Greeks who honce designated the salt as holy, and it still obtains among the Arabs. Dipping a piece of broad in salt, each of the contracting parties exclaims, "Salam (Peace)! I am the friend of your friends, and the foe of your foes." Solemn affirmations are corroborated by invoking the sacredness of salt, and may then more surely be relied upon than upon an oath. A place where salt is found is deemed inviolable. The Hebrews described an eternal and indissoluble alliance as a salt-covenant. Now, as the sacrifices were designed to effect an intimate and perpetual unity between God and man, they were to be offered with salt; and this was hence called "the salt of the covenant of God." Thus salt was undoubtedly prescribed not for bloodloss oblations alone, but for every kind of animal sacrifice; and this is confirmed by later allusions and express statements; and according to tradition, it was to be used with the show-bread also, and even with the oil and frank-inconse; in fact, with all substancos connected with sacrifices, excopt the wine, the blood, and the wood. It may hence be explained why salt was cast into springs of unwholesome water for the purpose of improving it. This act may indeed have had a natural and physical foundation, since some substances, among which was probably salt, were believed to possess the power of correcting distastoful qualities of the water: but it recommended itself chiefly on account of the symbolical significance of preservation and healing attributed to salt; and therefore the narratives which relate such changes in the nature of the water bear a miraculous character.

Again, as decay is associated with the ideas of death and impurity, salt, which prevents or counteracts decay, became the type of life and purity, the more so as it was believed "to be itself composed of the purest particles of water and sea"; it could be used for a metaphor like this, "have salt in yourselves", meaning benevolence, righteousnoss and good-will, and a poaceful communion with your fellow-men; and thus we may understand the pithy expression, "every man shall be salted with fire", that is shall be purified, since the same power was attributed to the salt as to the fire, which is pre-eminently the purifying element.

These Biblical notions were gradually extended and amplified, in which process they not always retained their original simplicity. Philo, correctly describing salt to imply a duration for over concludes, in his accustomed manner of spiritualisation, that it is second in rank only to the soul, "for as the soul is the cause of preserving the bodies from destruction, so likewise is salt, which best keeps them together, and

to some extent makes them immortal." Thereforo Philo compares it to the altar, "which preserves the sacrifices in a proper manner, and this too, though the flesh is consumed by firo." Christian mystics understood the salt to symbolise Christ preserving from corruption the soul by his doctrino, and the body by the promised resurrection; or they compared it to the Word of God which strengthens and purifies. More commonly accepted, however, was the following view. Unity with God is not possible, unless the heart be pure. But the heart can only remain so by steeling itself against temptation. Hence the "salt of the covenant" was regarded to typify wisdom which discerns sinful inclinations, and fortitude which conquers them; it was taken to intimate that untruth und hypocrisy, envy and malice, and all evil passions that corrupt and taint the health of the mind, render the offering unavailing in the eyes of God; and it was invested with the power of converting the sacrifice into a perpetual bond with God under the condition only that it reminded the worshippor himsolf of his moral obligations and roligious aims. Salt thus obtained a twofold significance and holiness. In this sense, Pythagoras commended that salt ought to be set before people as an admonition to justico. But it could thus also be used as a synonym for wisdom and penetration, judgment and intelligence. "Let your speech", wrote Paul to the Colossians, "be always with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man." The apostles were called "tho salt of the earth", that is, those who by teaching and guiding the world, guard it from degeneration and moral decay; so that, in that phrase, the term salt implies both the original and the collateral sense. The Greeks employed the word salt for wit or sarcasm. The Romans, on the testimony of Pliny, had no better term to express "the pleasures of the mind, the effusions of humour, and in fact all the amenities of life, supreme cheerfulness, and relaxation from toil", or intellectual acuteness, good sense and shrewdness. The Greeks and Romans shared indeed, on the whole, the Hebrew notions with regard to the use of salt at the sacred rites. They maintained the principle that no sacrifice ought to be offered unless accompanied by salted grits. They oven ascribed to the salt divino attributos, because they believed it conducos to goneration; and as the marine animals aro the most fruitful of all, cattle that were to be incited to breeding were fed with salt-beef and other salted food. Among the Romans, the saltcellar, the symbol of food and sustenance, was held in equal honour with the lares, and placed in the middle of the table at all meals, which thereby received the character of sacrifices; it formed an heirloom

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in the family, was preserved with the utmost care, and kept with scrupulous neatness. The sumptuary laws which restricted the use of all articles of luxury, permitted a bowl (patera) and salt-cellar of silver; the latter was, especially for the sacrificial service, made in the most elegant. and costly mannor possible, and was even in the earliest times of sovero simplicity, of precious metal, chiefly of silver. The Greeks called the salt "grace", "because it makes the food palatable that is necessary for life"; therefore they often worshipped Poseidon and Dometer in the same temple. They maintained that as all colours need light, so all fluids require salt to have an effect upon our sensation; that all meat is dead; and that the power of salt which joins it like a soul, imparts to it "grace" and a pleasant tasto. If in the East, persons cat together broad and salt, they are most solemnly pledged to mutual friendship which it is considered the height of impiousness to betray; their persons and their property, their safety and their honour, become objects of each other's sacred solicitude.

The Egyptian priosts alone, if they did not entirely abstain from salt, excluded it from their meals during the time of their purification, because they thought it whets the appetite boyond the natural necessities. But they were apparently singular in this view; and even they distinguished between pure and impure salt, the former salpetre or nitro, the latter marine salt, which was forbidden at sacrifices. Yet the Hebrews observed the peculiar custom of scattering salt over places destined for perpetual desolation, such as destroyed cities which were never to be robuilt. This practice probably originated in the noticed fact that tracts containing salt are remarkable for storility, and unproductiveness, and this opinion was naturally strengthened, in Palestine, by the aspect of the dreary regions round the Dead Sea, where the vegetation is scanty and stunted, and where the salt accumulates in cheerloss pits and marshes.

2. OIL.

Men were easily taught by experience to appreciate the valuable properties of oil. They found that it stimulates the vital powers of the healthy, revives the languishing energy of the feeble, and checks even the incipient decomposition of the dead. Oil was, therefore, from primitive ages, employed as a means for refreshing the body; as a restorative remedy in cases of illness, especially for wounds; and as a chiof ingredient for embalming corpsos. It was used as a symbol and accompaniment of joy, especially at festive repasts; it was resorted to when persons prepared to appear before superiors, or when

they rose from their ordinary life to proceed to some higher and more solemn function; while it was avoided in times of grief and mourning, and even of solemnity, as on the Day of Atonoment. It was thus naturally chosen to typify life, the more so as life and light appeared to be kindred qualities, and were more completely than in any other fluid or substance found united in oil, one of the choicest and richest products of the promised land. Hence oil was extensively regarded as an emblem of the spirit of God, of intelligent and godlike reason, of the higher and rational life of man. Anointing bocame synonymous with imparting the Divine spirit, which is the source of life and light in the ideal world, as oil in the world of matter. Now, the worship of God, and especially its centre, the sacrificial service, aims at the diffusion of the light of the mind and the life of the soul, of truth and righteousness, of wisdom and peace, of the knowledge of the Law and its exercise, of wisdom and happiness; in a word it tends to holiness, God's most comprehensive attribute and Israel's ultimate goal; it is intended to rouse the Divino or holy spirit. Therefore oil was also termed "the oil of holiness", or "the oil of holy ointment"; anointing was equivalent to bestowing holinoss or sanctifying, and this again coincided with consecrating or installing in the priestly office to serve before the Lord: these three notions were ' coupled in the command, "And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and hallow them, to serve Me as priests." Therefore, oil accompanied most of the bloodless offerings, whether the flour and cakes were mixed, poured over, anointod, or soaked with it (p. 77); and it markod them as consecrated to God. It was employed, with peculiar abundance, in the bloodless offering presented by the High-priest on the day of his consecration. It was used to set apart objects for religious purposes, or to appoint persons for sacred service. Thus the Hebrews anointed with oil memorial-stones or betylia; the Tabernacle with all its vessels, and particularly the altar, the instrument of atonement; the priests, the mediators between God and the people, and more especially the High-priest, who was "the anointed priest" par excellence, and was himself termed "the holy one of the Lord"; the prophets, the interpretors of God's will; and the kings, the carthly representatives of the Divino ruler. But oil was excludod, like frank-incense, from the sin-offering and the offering of jealousy. Its symbolical significance in the ordinances of the minchah seems to be indisputably established by these two exceptions, which

1 Exod. XXX. 30; comp. XXVIII.41; XL. 13.

2

2 Comp. Lev. II. 1, 4, 7, 15; VI. 8; VII. 12; etc.

prove that the oil did not form, as has been supposed, a chief part of the oblation itself, like the flour, but that it was a characteristic addition, like the frank-incense a circumstance rendered indubit

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able by the plain text, "And when any one will offer a bloodless offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frank-inconse thereon." The same conclusion is confirmed by the ordinance which fixes the relative quantity of flour, oil, and wine to be used for a minchah and its accompanying drinkoffering. As oil is never consumed alone, like wine or bread, but together with other products or preparations, which it is meant to make more savoury, especially in the East, where it is a frequent substitute for fat and buttor, so it is never mentioned as an independent gift, like the wino, but appears mingled or otherwise combined with the flour or the pastry.

The oil used for ordinary consumption and that employed for anointing, were probably identical in early times. But the Levitical law deomod it desirable to distinguish the latter, especially in the consecration of tho Sanctuary and its ministors, by the admixture of four sweet-smelling ingredients, myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia; because four was regarded as the number of perfection and totality; it indicated, on the one hand, that the sacred anointment should comprehend the entire wealth of fragrance which pervades the vegetable kingdom; and on the other hand, that the holiness of those for whom it was intended, should be absolute and perfect; hence the imitation of the compound and its use for profano purposes were throatened with excision, since God's holiness could manifost itself in His Sanctuary and in His servants only."

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2

3. WINE.

The application of wine in connection with offerings is too natural to demand any figurative interpretation. The wine "gladdens God and man" reason enough why it was deemed pre-eminently fit for the altar. But it is not impossible that the symbolising spirit of the ancients endowed it with a peculiar significance. Red wine was generally employed to recall the colour and nature of blood. The wine offered with the vegetable oblations represented the blood of animal sacrifices. The High-priest is declared to have poured out, as a libation, "the blood of the grape"; the same metaphor occurs repeatedly in the Hebrew Scriptures; and the Romans mixed blood of the victim with red wine to expross the kindred meaning of both.

1 Lev. II. 1; comp. ver. 15.

2 Exod. XXX. 23, 24; compare Commentary on Exodus, pp. 427-430,

3 See Gen. XLIX. 11; Deut. XXXII. 14; compare 1 Mace. VI. 34; Sir. XXXIX. 26.