Commentaria in Leviticum
Second, salt was a symbol and type of evangelical doctrine and apostolic preaching: it is the highest wisdom, with which we ought to season all our actions and oblations. For every action of ours must answer to this wisdom as to a rule, and be conformed to it in all things. Hence Christ said to the Apostles: “You are the salt of the earth.”
Third, by salt is signified eternal durability: salt, then, is a symbol both of the eternity of God, which the offerers of victims protested by salt, and of the integrity and incorruption of soul and body, which God requires in the offerer. For, as Philo says in his book On Victims, the first preserver of bodies is the soul; the second is salt: for salt guards bodies longest, and makes them in a manner immortal; therefore, says Philo, the altar is called hagiasma, from preserving victims; yet the flesh of victims is consumed by fire: whence it is gathered that this victim, seasoned and preserved with salt, must be taken mystically, namely as the mind of the offerer and his alacrity, strengthened by virtues; for this guards and preserves the purity and incorruption of the soul. So Philo.
Hence allegorically and anagogically, heavenly salt is Christ, who by His grace and glory seasons and preserves both bodies and souls for eternity, that they may rise again to immortal life.
Neither shalt thou take away the salt of the covenant of thy God from thy sacrifice.—Why it is called “the salt of the covenant,” R. Solomon gives a silly and foolish reason, namely this: The earthly waters, he says, at the beginning of the creation of all things, took it ill to be separated from the heavenly waters by the interposed firmament; that God therefore might appease them, He promised that He would bring it about that the sacred use of waters should be in the tabernacle of the covenant; then that salt, which is made from waters, should be perpetually used in sacrifices. So this buffoon, who has not a grain of salt here, and, lacking brains, needs hellebore.
I say, therefore: it is called “the salt of the covenant,” that is, the salt of this law, by which I command salt to be used in the mincha. For the law was the ground, condition and bond of the covenant and pact between God and the Hebrews. Hence the tables of the law were called the tables of the covenant, and often elsewhere the law itself is called the covenant. But it is peculiarly said of this law of salt that it is the salt of the covenant, because by salt the firmness of the law and covenant was signified;
and therefore in covenants salt was wont to be used, for victims were sacrificed with salted meal to ratify the covenant. And it is likely that this was done in the covenant of the Hebrews with God, Exodus 24:5; hence 2 Paralipomenon 13:5 and Numbers 18:19 it is called a covenant of salt, a firm and stable covenant. For as salt preserves flesh from putrefaction, so a covenant of salt metaphorically signifies a covenant free from corruption and violation, a firm and perpetual covenant.
The salt of the covenant, then, is the same as the salt that confirms the covenant, or the symbol of a firm and stable covenant.
For the same cause of old salt was set before guests, before other things, that by salt the firmness and perseverance of friendship might be signified; wherefore many Gentiles held it ominous if salt was spilt on the table, as though thereby the overthrow or rescinding of friendship were portended. So Pierius in the Hieroglyphics, under Salt.
Note: In every flesh sacrifice, in which, for example, an ox, sheep or goat was immolated, a meal sacrifice was also used; but not conversely: for the mincha, or meal and fine flour, could be offered alone without flesh. In every flesh sacrifice, then, oil, incense, fine flour and salt were to be used; but no leaven or honey could be used in a sacrifice, whether it were of flesh or of meal.
The rite, therefore, of flesh sacrifices was this: The priest laid the flesh of the victim to be burnt upon the altar; then, of the fine flour seasoned and mixed with oil and salt, he took a handful and laid it upon the victim to be burnt, and at the same time poured wine over the victim; lastly he laid on incense with the flour, then put fire beneath, and burnt and consumed to God the victim with these its libations, as will appear from Numbers 15:4 and following.
Verse 14. But if thou offer a gift of the firstfruits of thy corn (still in the ear, as will appear from what follows) to the Lord, of the ears yet green, thou shalt dry it at the fire, and break it small like meal.—This is the third species of mincha, or meal sacrifice: for the first species was the offering of fine flour; the second was the offering of loaves; this third was the offering of green ears.
God speaks here of the first-fruits of the crops, or of the barley harvest, whose sheaf was offered at the Pasch on the second day of the unleavened bread: for the Hebrews could reap nothing of barley or of the crops unless they had first offered this sheaf of ears to God as the first-fruits.
Note: The Hebrews had to offer three kinds of first-fruits to God. First, these of the ears at the Pasch; second, the first-fruits of loaves from the wheat harvest at Pentecost, as is plain from chapter 23, verses 15 and 17. Third, the first-fruits of all the crops at the feast of Tabernacles, as is plain from Exodus 23:16 and 19.
Note second, that these ears were green, not altogether, but at once whitening and ripening; otherwise they could not have been broken small into meal, since there would as yet have been no grains of meal formed.
The third species of mincha was the offering of ears.
The Septuagint for “green” here and elsewhere render “new.”
Breaking it like meal—The Hebrew is geres carmel, which Vatablus renders “what the most fertile field has poured forth”; for this in Hebrew is called carmel. But our interpreter, the Septuagint and the Chaldee render it better, the bruising or breaking of the ear, or of the corn, that is, bruised corn; or meal, supply, thou shalt offer, as follows: for it could not be flour, since the ears were still green.
Note: All this was done not by the priest but by the lay offerer. For he himself bruised the first-fruits of his ears like meal, then poured oil over them, and lastly laid incense upon them, and so offered them to the priest, that he might burn part of them to God and keep the rest for himself; whence follows:
Verse 16. Of which the priest shall burn, for a memorial of the gift, a part—that is, that this part burnt to God may be a memorial and sign that this whole gift, that is, sacrifice, has been offered to God. See what was said on verse 2. Allegorically, the first-fruits of the crops at the Pasch is Christ rising at the Pasch, as the first-born of the dead. So Cyril, book 17 On Adoration, chapter 23.
Tropologically, the offering of green ears signifies neophytes in the service of God and the way of perfection; these dry the ears by fire when they mortify the body and subdue it to the spirit; they break them into meal when they deny their own will; they put on oil, that is, cheerfulness of heart; and incense, that is, prayers; lastly, they always bear in mind the memorial of God, that is, the fear of God, and therefore refer all things to Him. So Radulphus.
Cassian, book 4 On the Institutes of the Renunciants, chapter 8: A novice, he says, “who is about to renounce the world is first taught in the monastery to conquer his own wills, and they are eager often to command him such things as they perceive to be contrary to his mind. For they declare that a monk can by no means prevail over anger, or sadness, or the spirit of fornication unless he has first learned to mortify his wills by obedience; and that he cannot retain true humility of heart, nor firm concord with the brethren, nor remain long in the monastery, who has not learned to overcome his wills.”
Again, it is the novice’s part, says Rufinus, to study purity of heart, and that which the Psalmist says, Psalm 45:11: “Be still and see that I am God”; finally, to strive to return to infancy and first innocence.
Pachomius, from a rule delivered to him by an angel, ordered novices to work with their hands, and to do their work simply, and to be kept from the more sacred studies.
Abbot Pinufius in Cassian, book 4 On the Institutes, chapter 32, teaches the novice that he ought to imitate and put on Jesus crucified, so that the fear of God may be his constant cross, by which he crucifies his appetites, especially of excellence and pride, through true and assiduous humility and humiliation. Cassian, book 4, chapter 12, teaches the novice that in the monastery, according to the Psalmist’s saying, he should be “as a deaf man not hearing, and as a dumb man not opening his mouth,” discerning nothing, judging nothing of the things commanded him. “Therefore,” he says, “thou oughtest not to hope for thy patience from the virtue of others, that is, to possess it only when thou art provoked by no one.”