God bless you

Origins and legends

The locution "God bless you" is used in Christian benedictions. In the Aaronic blessing, "Invoking the name of the Lord in this benediction transferred the name, the identity and presence, of God onto his people." While used by clergy in Christian liturgy (especially during the benediction), the phrase "God bless you" is regularly used among believers with one another, who call upon God to grant the recipient of the phrase favour and protection. In the periodical Christianity Today, the philosopher Dallas Willard wrote:

National Geographic reports that during the Roman Plague of 590, "Pope Gregory I ordered unceasing prayer for divine intercession. Part of his command was that anyone sneezing be blessed immediately ("God bless you"), since sneezing was often the first sign that someone was falling ill with the plague." By AD 750, it became customary to say "God bless you" as a response to one sneezing. However, the Pope Gregory story appears to be apocryphal.

Some have offered an explanation suggesting that people once held the folk belief that a person's soul could be thrown from their body when they sneezed, that sneezing otherwise opened the body to invasion by the Devil or evil spirits, or that sneezing was the body's effort to force out an invading evil presence. In these cases, "God bless you" or "bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil. The Irish folk story "Master and Man" by Thomas Crofton Croker, collected by William Butler Yeats, describes this variation. Moreover, in the past some people may have thought that the heart stops beating during a sneeze, and that the phrase "God bless you" encourages the heart to continue beating.

In some cultures, sneezing is seen as a sign of good fortune or God's beneficence. Writing around 400 BC, Xenophon records a chance sneeze as being seen as a good omen from god. Alternative responses to sneezing exist in various languages.

References

References

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12. (12 September 2009). "An allergic reaction".
13. [http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/blessyou.asp Snopes Urban Legends] – Bless You!
14. Ed Zotti, Editor. [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgesundheit.html ''Why Do We Say "God Bless You" After a Sneeze?''], [[Straight Dope]], 27 September 2001.
15. (2014). ""God Bless You!" – A Blessing in Disguise?". Skeptic Magazine.
16. story by T. Crofton Croker. (1898). "Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry: Edited and Selected by W.B. Yeats".
17. [http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar98/890925984.An.r.html Madsci.org], [[Mad Scientist]] posting by Tom Wilson, M.D./PhD, Pathology, Div. of Molecular Oncology, [[Washington University School of Medicine]]
18. [http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/870807554.Me.r.html Re: Why does plucking my eyebrows make me sneeze?], [[MadSci Network]] posting by Robert West, Post-doc/Fellow, 1997-08-05
19. (27 May 2006). "Ancient Sneezing: A Gift from the Gods". NPR.