Why Do We Say "Bless You" When Someone Sneezes? The Custom Is Older Than the Famous Story
Answering a sneeze is a custom at least 2,000 years old, recorded by Greeks and Romans. Its exact origin is unknown, and the story about Pope Gregory I and the plague of 590 has no documentary support.
The exact origin is unknown. Responding to a sneeze is an ancient habit: in the first century, the Roman writer Pliny the Elder was already asking why people did it. The most popular explanation, that Pope Gregory I ordered people to bless sneezers during a plague in 590, has no document to back it up.
What we do have are clues: ancient texts that treat sneezing as a sign from the gods, a rule of etiquette enforced by an emperor, and several later legends that tried to give the custom a reason. In English the reply became a blessing, while many other languages wish the sneezer good health.
What did the Greeks and Romans think about sneezing?
To the ancients, a sneeze was an omen, something that happened without a person being able to make it happen. In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope takes a sneeze from her son Telemachus as a good sign. The Grammarphobia blog, written by Patricia O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman, points to a paper in the journal Classical Philology that argued exactly that: sneezing was read as a divine message.
The Romans responded to sneezes too. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder asks why people salute someone who sneezes and notes that the emperor Tiberius, whom he calls the most unsociable of men, demanded the courtesy even while riding in his chariot. Pliny doesn't record the word itself. Some scholars suggest it was salve, a greeting along the lines of "be well," and Petronius's Satyricon, also from the first century, describes a reply to a sneezing fit with a formula of greeting that one modern translator rendered as "bless you."
What about Pope Gregory and the plague?
It is the most widely shared explanation online: in 590, during a plague in Rome, Pope Gregory I, known as Gregory the Great, supposedly asked everyone to say "God bless you" to anyone who sneezed, because a sneeze was thought to be the first sign of the disease. Grammarphobia went looking and found no evidence for it.
What is documented is different. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, cited by Grammarphobia, Gregory led processions and prayers during the plague, but before he became pope. Many websites also confuse Gregory I with Gregory VII, who lived centuries later. And the custom of answering sneezes was already centuries old, as the Roman texts show. Plague did leave real marks on our vocabulary, as the origin of the word quarantine shows, but this doesn't appear to be one of them, at least until a document turns up.
What other explanations are out there?
The fact-checking site Snopes and Dictionary.com have rounded up the most common explanations. None can be confirmed:
- The soul could escape the body during a sneeze, and the blessing protected it.
- A sneeze expelled an evil spirit, and the blessing kept it from coming back.
- The heart stopped for a moment during a sneeze, and the phrase asked for it to restart. The heart doesn't stop, Snopes notes.
- A sneeze was a sign of plague or another serious illness, so the sufferer was commended to God.
- A sneeze was a sign of good luck, and the reply celebrated it.
There are also signs that the medieval church didn't always approve of such beliefs. Grammarphobia cites St. Eligius, a seventh-century bishop who condemned people for practicing "auguries or violent sneezings" among other pagan customs. The authors lean toward the omen theory: a good omen called for a blessing, and a bad one needed it.
What do other languages say after a sneeze?
The reply varies a lot around the world. According to Dictionary.com, many languages wish good health, some wish luck, and some ignore the sneeze altogether:
| Language | What people say | Idea |
|---|---|---|
| English | Bless you! or Gesundheit! | a blessing, or the German word for health |
| German | Gesundheit! | health |
| Spanish | ¡Salud! or ¡Jesús! | health, or a religious invocation |
| Portuguese | Saúde! | health |
| Romanian | Noroc! | luck |
| Greek, Dutch and Ukrainian | a word for health | a wish for good health |
| Chinese and Japanese | usually nothing | the sneeze tends to be ignored |
In some languages, a sneeze in the middle of a conversation is taken as proof that what was just said is true, a superstition that shows how the idea of sneezes as omens lived on. And for people who sneeze when they step into bright light, the cause is well known: it's the photic sneeze reflex.
Today, saying "bless you" is mostly good manners. The phrase has outlasted empires, epidemics and religious change, and it survives without anyone needing to believe in runaway souls: one sneeze in a quiet room is enough to set it off.
