Salt of the Earth

Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. Mark 9:49-50

  Salted with Fire, janrichardsonimages.com, The Painted Prayerbook

What does this mean, to "be salted with fire"? 

To be salted can mean "to be seasoned". Maybe it makes sense to think of it like that, every one will be "seasoned" with fire. Season(v.) is from Old French assaisoner "to ripen, season". So if a person is salted it might mean he or she is ripened or brought to full potential. To be brought to full potential with fire is a kind of testing or trial which purifies (pyro-fies) like clay pots put in a kiln and precious metals in a fire.

And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. . . Zachariah 13:9

In Greek hala αλα, halas αλας is "salt".

Is one who is salted or seasoned with hala (salt) holy? Holy is from Old English halig "holy, consecrated, sacred, godly". From Proto-Germanic *hailaga. We are called to be holy and we are also called to be the salt of the earth.

   Madonna and Child. A Holy Salty Pair.

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Mt. 5:13

Salt is used to preserve and flavor food. It is also often used in ritual.

You are to offer them before the LORD, and the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burt offering to the LORD. Ezekiel 43:24

Does the  hala (salt) help to make the food halig (holy)? 

Salt preserves food and helps to make it complete in taste, make present the whole flavor, and in that sense, it is fit for royalty. It might even be considered to be angelic, holy, transformed, compared to bland unsalted (unholy, or un-hala) food.

    Fish in Salt

It is interesting that certain words used for greeting are similar to words for salt.

Hail (compare with hala[salt], hello) as "salutation in greeting" is from Old Norse heill "health, prosperity, good luck". If those who are salty are those who have been purified, then wouldn't this mean that they were healthy (hala-thy)?

Those who are healthy are those who are whole, or perhaps whole-y.

Health is from Old English hælp "wholeness, a being whole, sound or well." From Proto-Germanic *hailitho, from Pie *kailo- "whole, uninjured, of good omen".  Cognate Old English hal "hale, whole", Old English halig, Old English hælan "to heal".

Helen in Greek is Helene, probably the feminine form of helenos meaning "the bright one". Helen was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. She must have been quite healthy, and since she was beautiful would have been considered to be, perhaps, tasty . . . so was she salty?

  Helen on the Trojan Ramparts,Gustave Moreau, 1826- 1898. - Helen of Troy - beautiful and bright, like an angel.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies! -- Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, and all is dross that is not Helena. -Christopher Marlow, Doctor Faustus, The Harvard Classics, Scene XIII, ln. 88-94

Bright can mean intelligent, it can also mean something very shiny like the angels who are bright, holy, and whole which makes them salty (and probably intelligent).

    Angelic Energy, ashtarcommand crew.net

Salutations is ultimately from Latin salutationem "a greeting, saluting".

Perhaps we might say when greeting someone, "Salt!", or "Salt-utations!", or "salute-tations ", as well, since it is a good thing to be salty.

In Hebrew "salt" is melach, "angel" is malak," king" is melek, and "to become king or queen, to reign" malak. So again there is a similarity in the word for salt and also words meaning the kind of people who might be salty, whole or holy, namely angels, royalty, or the gods.

  Pala dei Linaioli(detail), by Fra Angelico

The English word natron is a French cognate from the Spanish natrón , from the Greek nitron. This, in turn, is from the Ancient Egyptian ntry "natrón". Natron was taken from dry lake beds in Ancient Egypt. It was used as a cleaning product domestically and for the body, in burial rituals and mummification. It was also used for fish and meat preservation, among other uses. 

It is interesting that the Ancient Egyptian word for gods / divine was very similar, ntr (neter). The gods (neter) were the royalty of the underworld / afterworld / neterworld. They would be the salty ones, would they not?

   Osiris, Lord/King of the Dead, God of Re-birth. One of the ntr

So, perhaps salt was named with the intent of meaning something "divine" or "of / like the gods". 

We might take salt for granted because it is so readily available to us, but try to imagine life without salt . . . it would be pretty bland. Life would also be pretty bland without salty people, but they are readily available to us as well. In fact you can be one yourself. You ARE the salt of the earth! Don't become tasteless. God is in you and all around you. Don't take that for granted. Act accordingly.

Om Nama Shivaya 

*The Sin of Sodom and Gomorrah - Genesis 19

When you look at what people have to say about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah they usually say it was homosexuality. God destroyed the cities because they were having samesex sex in those cities and it was obviously very abhorrent to God. According to the story, the men of the town did want to have sex with the male angel visitors. So because these men wanted to have sex with the male angel visitors the sin of the city was homosexuality. Others say, no, it is the fact that the men of the town were being inhospitable that is the sin. Both of these explanations seem to fall short of the obvious, i.e., rape. To quote a popular internet news clip,

Hide your kids, hide your wife . . . and hide your husband . . . 'cuz they rapin' everyone out here . . .  -A.Dodson

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were morally depraved rapists. They were bored with sex and the people available to have sex with. They had already had sex inside, outside, upside down and backwards. When the new people arrived they were turned on, something was happening, it was a new fix, something to quell the unbearable torture of their boring pointless existences, even if just for a moment. The visitors were angels, they were probably pretty compelling. I'm sure they were very beautiful.

    Archangel Michael - Legion, 2010

It is true that the men of the town preferred the angels over Lot's daughters, yes. However, we don't know what Lot's daughters looked like, and maybe there is a reason why they were able to remain virgins in such a town. Who knows? In any case, they were probably not as good looking or exciting as the angels, which for someone driven by uncontrolled depraved lust, would be a compelling consideration and might help tip the scales in favor of the angels. Let's see, Lot's plain daughters…or the hot mysterious guests, hmm.

    Archangel Gabriel - Legion, 2010

We know that the fiancés of Lot's daughters didn't come with them when Lot asked them to. Maybe they were happy to get out of the arrangement, besides not taking Lot seriously? Then the daughters ended up raping their own dad in order to have children. So, it is fair to say that the men (and women) of the town were perverse. They did not want to have sex for spiritual connection, but rather plain lust (or selfish aspiration). They were not asking to have sex with the visitors. They were demanding for them to be handed over for their own personal sexual gratification at the visitors' expense. And Lot wasn't all that great himself (offering to hand over his own daughters in place of the angel guests), but at least he hadn't sought to rape the angels himself and had instead tried to protect them, so they were going to save him for that good deed. However, Lot didn't even realize that the visitors didn't need his protection. He wasn't too bright, and did't exhibit a lot of faith or obedience on more than one occasion. The angels literally had to drag him out of the city by the hand. Genesis 19

I'm sure the angels didn't have wings when they showed up in town, but it is just a way of depicting their otherworldly awesomeness. Same thing with the halos in art which are meant to depict their bright auras. An angel is a shining one. Halos is a Greek word meaning "the disk of the sun or moon" which is shiny. Hals [hálas Koine] is a Greek word meaning "salt; sea" 

    Halos and Hals, by Julie O. /chthonickore

Sol is "sun" and sal is "salt" in Latin. There is a connection between that special something-ness of salt and the bright majesty of the sun. Halal is "shine" in Hebrew. Shine is zing, and salt is zing. Melach is "salt" in Hebrew and "angel" is malak. The malakim (angels) are melach (salty) like the majestic sea (hals), and salty like the sun (helios) and the moon (selene) which exhibit halos from their shinning radiance. It is this "saltiness" which makes the angels desirable. 

    Pink Himalayan Rock Salt, photo by Julie O. /chthonickore

Lend Me Your Ear

Uh no, Vincent, I didn't mean it like that. . . Vincent. . . can you hear me?

    Vincent VanGogh, Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear 1889

Being in a body and having organs for sensing and sensation makes us human, as opposed to, beings who are purely spiritual. The word "human" is related to the Latin humus ("ground, earth").  We are the living beings, i.e., animals (from Latin anima, "living principle, soul") made from the clay or humus.  We are, therefore, adam ("man"), i.e., the creature made from the adamah, "ground, earth" in Hebrew (related to, adom "red" and dam "blood"), or fertile ground, who were made to be living, or  Eve, from Hawwah / Chavvah, corresponding to chai "living."  That is, we are adam-eve's, or human animals.  We are the living clay. And because we are made in the image and likeness of God, the particular form of that clay has mystical, or godlike quality. This includes the  form of our ears.

In ancient Egypt people used pictures of ears carved into stone, a.k.a.,"ear-stele", as a way to address their prayers to the gods for intercession. Certain gods and goddesses held the tile of, "The Ear Which Hears," Mesedjer Sedjem. Among these was Ptah (the primal creator).  Another epithet of Ptah is said to be, "Ptah who listens to prayers." If you pronounce the word for "ear" in the ancient Egyptian language, mesedjer, it seems to be the same as our word "messenger," only without the 'n'. However, according to the etymological dictionary, the 'n' in "messenger" is in fact a parasitic addition to the word "messager." Therefore, "messager" became "messenger" due to the fact that people just wanted to say it like that. So, quite literally, a messenger can be said to be an ear, and the ear was used as messenger for the gods.

     Egyptian Ear-stele

It's curious, the ears on the stele even look a little bit like angel wings and an angel is, of course, a messenger.  We might even say our word "angel" comes from the notion of an ear, at least from the shape of the ear as being a hooked, or bent shape. This is because the Proto-Indo-European(PIE) root *ang / ank- is etymologically connected to the Greek ankylos "bent, crooked," Latin ang(u)ere "to compress in a bend, fold," Lithuanian anka "loop," Sandscrit ankah, "hook, bent".  

This ang/ank, then, appears to be related to the ancient Egyptian heiroglyph for "life" as well. The ancient Egyptian word for "life" ankh, was, perhaps, used as a word to describe the shape of its hieroglyph. So something with a similar shape as an ankh, would be "ankh-like", which is bent / curved / looped. The ankh hieroglyph is actually a tau (T), or "cross" with a bend / loop on it.  Ankh was also the ancient Egyptian word for "mirror."  A mirror gives you an image reflected (from Latin reflexionem, "a bending back"), or bent back to you. And a mirror is a messenger (angel) of truth (damn those mirrors!). In any case, the loop of the ankh is similar in shape to an ear, as well.

     Ankh

So, we could say that an angel is a messenger who is an, ang (like an ear) of el ("god"), ang + el. And one who is sent in a loop to and from God.

Hermes (which sounds close to hear-mes) is the Greek god who is messenger (ear) of the gods.  He is sometimes depicted with wings on his Petasos, like ears. 

    Hermes

We get our word "angel" from the Greek angelos, meaning "messenger, envoy". In Greek one of the titles of Hermes is Angelus Athanaton, "Messenger of the Gods", or, we might say, "Angel of the Gods". 

An angel is one who helps or serves. Shamash is the "helper" or "servant," as in the name given to the middle candle of the menorah which is used to light the other candles during Hanukkah.  A word that means to "hear" or "obey" in Hebrew is shama.  The ones who are the ears of God and hear him, serve both the gods and men. Maybe like the shamanic priests and witches called shamen, who are "ears" or "hearers" and conduits to the spirit world .

    Siberian Shaman, by Nicolaes Witsen 1692

Shamash / Samas, Akkadian for "sun" is also the name of the Mesopotamian sun god. Shemesh / semes is the Hebrew word for "sun." Shamash (God) who is the shemesh (sun) shema (hears) his shamash (servant). Whoa!

It is interesting that in the bible, when the guards come to arrest Jesus, Peter, a.k.a.., Cephas (from Aramaic keph/kafe "a rock") cuts off the ear of Malchus, the servant of Caiaphas ("rock, depression"), the High Priest.  The name, Malchus, means "king, councilor." Jesus tells Peter to stop, and heals Malchus' ear.  The words for king and angel in Hebrew are very similar, melech/melek "king" and mal'ach/mal'ak "angel." Mal'ach is from the root l-'-k meaning "to send/dispatch," thus the meaning "messenger," and  Melech is derived from the verb form of the word (malak) with the notion of "setting up or making to reign." A king/melech is specifically chosen or called by God to reign (eg. 1 Samuel 16:1). So, the two words seem like they could be ultimately be related in that respect. 

In any case, we could say, Peter cut off the mal'ach ("angel") of Malchus the shamash ("servant"), if we equate angel with ear, or, at least, we could say that Peter cut off the mesedjer (ear) of Malchus, if you don't want to play around. Technically, Peter was just "borrowing" the ear from Malchus, and Jesus gave it right back to him.  No harm done, right?  

Lend me your ear.

    Christ is Taken- Duccio di Buoninsegna, from Maesta Altarpiece 1308-1311