<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Look up God bless you in Wiktionary, the free dictionary . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Look up God bless you in Wiktionary, the free dictionary . </Td> </Tr> <P> God bless you (variants include God bless or bless you) is a common English expression, used to wish a person blessings in various situations, especially as a response to a sneeze, and also, when parting or writing a valediction . This Phrase has been used long time ago in the eastern literature . Somadeva's "Brihatkathamanjari" which it self is based on earlier long lost book, Gunadhya's "Brihatkatha" has a story in Book 6 (Madanamanchuka lambaka) under the story "Princess and the merchant's son who saved his life". In this story the cursed prince is saved by the merchant's son as the prince is supposed to die after 100 sneezes . Merchant's son who happen to hear the curse, knows the cure too . He has to utter "God bless you" on every sneeze, and thus he saves the prince . The phrase has been used in the Hebrew Bible by Jews (cf . Numbers 6: 24), and by Christians, since the time of the early Church as a benediction, as well as a means of bidding a person Godspeed . Many clergy, when blessing their congregants individually or as a group, use the phrase "God bless you". </P> <P> National Geographic reports that during the plague of AD 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 . </P>

Where does the expression god bless you come from