kiss

• originated in ceremony of saliva exchange

70:3.7The cer­e­mony of adop­tion con­sisted in drink­ing each other’s blood. In some groups saliva was ex­changed in the place of blood drink­ing, this be­ing the an­cient ori­gin of the prac­tice of so­cial kiss­ing. And all cer­e­monies of as­so­ci­a­tion, whether mar­riage or adop­tion, were al­ways ter­mi­nated by feast­ing.

• Judas betrayed Jesus with

183:3.5As the guards ral­lied from their first fal­ter­ing at the sight of Je­sus and at the sound of his un­usual voice, and as the apos­tles and dis­ci­ples drew nearer, Ju­das stepped up to Je­sus and, plac­ing a kiss upon his brow, said, “Hail, Mas­ter and Teacher.” And as Ju­das thus em­braced his Mas­ter, Je­sus said, “Friend, is it not enough to do this! Would you even be­tray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

• early Christians greeted with a holy

194:4.7Un­mis­tak­ably, a new fel­low­ship was aris­ing in the world. “The mul­ti­tude who be­lieved con­tin­ued stead­fastly in the apos­tles’ teach­ing and fel­low­ship, in the break­ing of bread, and in prayers.” They called each other brother and sis­ter; they greeted one an­other with a holy kiss; they min­is­tered to the poor. It was a fel­low­ship of liv­ing as well as of wor­ship. They were not com­mu­nal by de­cree but by the de­sire to share their goods with their fel­low be­liev­ers. They con­fi­dently ex­pected that Je­sus would re­turn to com­plete the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fa­ther’s king­dom dur­ing their gen­er­a­tion. This spon­ta­neous shar­ing of earthly pos­ses­sions was not a di­rect fea­ture of Je­sus’ teach­ing; it came about be­cause these men and women so sin­cerely and so con­fi­dently be­lieved that he was to re­turn any day to fin­ish his work and to con­sum­mate the king­dom. But the fi­nal re­sults of this well-meant ex­per­i­ment in thought­less broth­erly love were dis­as­trous and sor­row-breed­ing. Thou­sands of earnest be­liev­ers sold their prop­erty and dis­posed of all their cap­i­tal goods and other pro­duc­tive as­sets. With the pass­ing of time, the dwin­dling re­sources of Chris­tian “equal-shar­ing” came to an end—but the world did not. Very soon the be­liev­ers at An­ti­och were tak­ing up a col­lec­tion to keep their fel­low be­liev­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem from starv­ing.