Salt

In a world without refrigeration, salt was essential and valuable: it preserved meat and fish from decay, seasoned otherwise bland food, and was even rubbed on newborns. It was traded as a commodity and used to seal agreements.

Because it preserved and did not spoil, salt symbolised permanence and loyalty; offerings were seasoned with “the salt of the covenant,” and a binding, enduring agreement was called a “covenant of salt.” To “eat salt” with someone implied lasting friendship and obligation.

Jesus told his followers, “Ye are the salt of the earth” — called to preserve a decaying world from corruption and to give it savour, while warning that salt which “lost its savour” was good for nothing. To be salt is to make a tangible, preserving difference precisely by being distinct.