par exemple... "si on peut parler de" + le mot que vous avez choisi pour traduire "salvation"

salvation is not the right word; so the speaker is softening it by adding the expression "as it was."

ou "et en effet ce le fut" (equiv. à "for indeed it was")

ne pas confondre "as it was" et "as it were" equiv. à "so to speak".

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Note added at 1 day14 hrs (2015-01-18 00:00:11 GMT)
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Dans le registre de la langue parlée : "c'est le cas de le dire" http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=257271

"Mon salut, c'est le cas de le dire, s'est produit quand un oncle éloigné..."

I guess the idea of having chosen the right word can be underlined this way.

I have no idea if this could possibly work in FR, but it does at least to me convey the general notion behind it.

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Note added at 33 minutes (2015-01-16 10:09:37 GMT)
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I think we ought to be reading the source expression as 'for that is indeed what it amounted to'.

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Note added at 4 heures (2015-01-16 13:58:09 GMT)
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"I was trudging home through the bitter wet November night when salvation came in the form of a number 10 bus."

Typical hyperbole, but a common enough expression.

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Note added at 2 jours12 heures (2015-01-18 22:30:20 GMT)
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I'd like to refute a claim made in a response to a peer comment under another answer, in which one of our FR colleagues claims that many EN people would confuse the two expression "as it was" and "as it were" in a context like this; I'm sorry, but that's simply not true!

Many EN people these days DO blur the differences between the indicative and more traditionally correct subjunctive in ordinary usage, a very typical example being the common expression "If I were you..." (subjunctive mood), which these days is very commonly rendered as "If I was you..." (indicative mood); not all that long ago, that would have been seen as a sign of an ignorant, poorly-educated speaker (and was used as such by some authors in literature to aid characterization...) — but this is no longer the case, and it has to be regarded now as correct current usage.

BUT no such confusion between 'was' and 'were' is possible for an average EN native speaker in the specific expression here, where the subjunctive 'were' is still necessary when it is required to have that meaning (casting some doubt on the literal nature of the statement made, cf. 'so to speak', etc.), and anyone reading 'as it was' would naturally, instinctively interpret it in a quite different way: 'as (indeed) it was', 'as it (really) was', etc.