This verse has a fairly sudden shift of metaphor from "salt of the earth" to "city on a hill". It may be related to the expression "salt and light", which was then used to describe the Law. This verse is unparalleled elsewhere in the New Testament, but a version of it is found in the
apocryphal
Gospel of Thomas. In Thomas the focus of the verse is on the city's security and impregnability rather than its symbolism. Gundry notes that at this time cities would frequently have been located on hills for defensive reasons. Schweizer notes that this might be a reference to
Mount Zion at the start of
Isaiah 2. Scholars are divided on whether this is a specific reference to the idea of a
New Jerusalem. Albright and Mann note that
Cicero described
Rome as light to the world, but that it is unlikely that this verse borrows from him. See also
Isaiah , ,
60:3. This scripture was cited at the end of
John Winthrop's lecture or treatise,
A Model of Christian Charity; it served as a warning to his fellow Puritan settlers of Boston in 1630 that God and their enemies would be watching, if they failed to uphold their covenant: "we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." President
Ronald Reagan frequently invoked Winthrop's words as the very birth of America's destiny as the exceptional nation of the world, misquoting Winthrop. Along with
Matthew 5:13, this verse became the theme of
World Youth Day 2002:
"You are the salt of the earth ... you are the light of the world". ==Commentary from the Church Fathers==