Why Do People Say God Bless You When You Sneeze
Camila Farah
For many people saying bless you or gesundheit following someone else s sneeze is a conditioned response or reflexive action.
The romans would say jupiter preserve you or salve which meant good health to you and the greeks would wish each other long life the phrase god bless you is attributed to pope gregory the great who uttered it in the sixth century during a bubonic plague epidemic sneezing is an obvious symptom of one form of the plague. As years passed and decades rolled into centuries the custom of saying god bless you following a sneeze became ingrained in people s cultural lives. The saying god bless you in response to a sneeze is of ancient origin and there are a variety of stories about where it first came from. The practice of saying god bless you when someone sneezes does not come from the bible nor is there any mention of the practice in the bible.
Here s when it s ok to. Well there isn t one set answer because there are actually quite a few reasons for the phrase. Saying god bless you following a sneeze is a common refrain so common and taught from childhood that many people don t even think of it as a blessing but rather as an utterance without. The origin of saying bless you when someone sneezes stems from an ancient desire to safeguard the sneezer s soul or to commend the dying to the mercy of god.
When someone sneezes say god bless you and may the devil miss you when you sneeze your soul tries to escape and saying god bless you crams it back in said by millhouse in an episode of the simpsons. How about giving me the straight dope. First up is a pretty spellbinding one apparently some people thought you ran the risk of sneezing. Saying god bless you when you sneeze keeps the devil from flying down your throat.
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So in that case saying god bless you was a way to try to provide a protection or a good luck charm against the evil spirits leaving or inhabiting the body. Whenever they hear a loud sneeze the next words out of their mouths will be a blessing of some description. They do this essentially because of centuries of religion and tradition.Source : pinterest.com