Science has led to great advances in medicine in the last hundred or so years. It's almost magical what can be accomplished with all the wonderful diagnostic machines, pain-relievers, antibiotics, etc., but if you want the real McCoy, the real magic, nothing beats spit. In the right hands (or at least mouth) spit can work miracles.The spit story most Christians are familiar with is the one about Jesus and the blind man of Bethesda:
"And he cometh to Bethsaida and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly." – Mark 8.22,26.
As if curing blindness wasn't enough, the versatility of the savior's sacred saliva was further demonstrated in the following verse:
"He came unto the sea of Galilee ... And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain." – Mark 7.31,35.These accomplishments greatly impressed later generations of Christians who sought not only to imitate the miracles of Jesus but, in many cases, to exceed them:
Saint Hilarion (AD 291-371) and St. Peter of Tarentaise (AD 1108-1174) merely copied Jesus and spit-cured the blind, but Saint Attalus of Bobbio (AD 627) hawked one on the severed thumb of a laborer and it instantly reattached itself to the man's hand without even leaving a scar (think what Attalus could have done for Dwayne Bobbitt!).
St. Valery (AD 619) one-upped all these when he sprayed an entire crowd with spittle and cured them of a variety of maladies.
Not to be outdone, St. Francis of Paula (AD 1416-1507) daubed his expectorant on the face of an infant born without eyes or a mouth, made the sign of the cross and, lo and behold, the missing facial features promptly appeared.
Perhaps even more impressive was the feat of an obscure saint named Donatus (not the better-known bishop of Arezzo, but another of that name) who hawked a holy loogie into the mouth of a dragon and thereby killed it.
End of Part 1. Part 2 can be found here.
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This is an entry in a series I call "Faith: Plucking Out the Eye of Reason." The title is derived from "To be a Christian, you must 'pluck out the eye of reason'" a quote from Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation. It's designed to show what happens when faith trumps reason and it's not directed at Christianity per se because "plucking out the eye of reason" is a requirement for accepting any faith-based belief system.
More stories in the "Faith: Plucking Out the Eye of Reason" series:
Photo Credits:
1) Brass spittoon
2) Jesus hawking one into the eyes of the blind man of Bethesda (Source: Christianclipart.blogspot)
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Comments
what an interesting comment, I never heard of it before.
In the ancient Moabite religion the manner of worship was to defecate in the presence of an idol. I wonder if that was supposed to cure hemorrhoids?
Loogies kill dragons? Who knew???
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