Can spitting be a religious practice?

There has been much talk in the local and international media lately about the despicable behavior of religious Jews towards Christian sites and Christian clergy in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. Much of this has been vandalism of property, such as "price tag" attacks in which racist anti-Christian slogans are spray-painted in Hebrew on the facades of churches. In October, dozens of tombstones in the Mount Zion Protestant Cemetery were smashed. The most infuriating behavior, however, is the routine practice of spitting at Christian clergy as they walk through the streets. While this does not seem to be a totally new practice (Chabad has been spitting during the Aleinu prayer for generations), it has certainly taken off in Jerusalem in the last few years. The phenomenon also extends beyond Christians. In 2011, the spitting by a Haredi man at a seven-year old Jewish girl in Bet Shemesh made national headlines. Unfortunately, Israelis seem much less troubled by the spitting at Christians. Christian clergy get spit at all over the Old City, but the epicenter of this behavior seems to be Mount Zion, which contains several important Christian sites (Dormition Abbey, the Cenacle, Protestant Cemetery). It is also the site of the Diaspora Yeshiva which in recent year has attracted fundamentalist "hilltop youths" evicted from the West Bank by the Israeli police. It is presumed that the latter are responsible for the upswing in spitting incidents as well as many of the price-tag attacks.

All this spitting has got me thinking about the role that saliva plays in Judaism and Christianity. It's pretty obvious that today's Jewish acts of spitting directed at Christians are meant as an insult. Expectoration, like the violent discharge of other bodily fluids, is not usually regarded as an act of love. Yet there are many examples of good spitting in the ancient sources of both religions. Saliva was (and still is) believed to bring about healing, good fortune and to banish evil. Is there a connection between these two kinds of spitting? 

Saliva was widely regarded in the ancient world as a medicine for a variety of afflictions, from blindness to epilepsy to various skin disorders.* Galen, the second century physician and surgeon from Pergamon, writes in his treatise On the Natural Faculties:

•  And you may observe the extent of the alteration which occurs to food in the mouth if you will chew some corn and then apply it to an unripe [undigested] boil: you will see it rapidly transmuting- in fact entirely digesting- the boil, though it cannot do anything of the kind if you mix it with water. And do not let this surprise you; this phlegm [saliva] in the mouth is also a cure for lichens; it even rapidly destroys scorpions; while, as regards the animals which emit venom, some it kills at once, and others after an interval; to all of them in any case it does great damage. Now, the masticated food is all, firstly, soaked in and mixed up with this phlegm; and secondly, it is brought into contact with the actual skin of the mouth; thus it undergoes more change than the food which is wedged into the vacant spaces between the teeth. (3.7)
  

Pliny the Elder, the first century Roman polymath, writes in his Natural History:

• The best of all safeguards against serpents is the saliva of a fasting human being. But our daily experience may teach us yet other values of its use. We spit on epileptics in a fit, that is, we throw back the infection. In a similar way we ward off witchcraft and the bad luck that follows meeting a person lame in the right leg.' (28.7.35)

*see the excellent article on this subject by G. Chowdharay-Best, "Notes on the Healing Properties of Saliva," Folklore 86:3/4 (1975), 195-200

There are three occurrences of Jesus healing by means of saliva in the gospels. In Mark 8:22-26 Jesus heals a blind man in Bethsaida by spreading saliva on his eyes. In Mark 7:31-37, Jesus heals a deaf man with a speech impediment by placing his fingers in the man's ears, spitting on his hand and touching the man's tongue. In John 9:1-12, he heals a blind man by spitting on the ground, forming a muddy paste in his hands and spreading the mixture on the man's eyes. After washing in the Pool of Siloam (pictured here), the man is miraculously healed:

• ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἔπτυσεν χαμαὶ καὶ ἐποίησεν πηλὸν ἐκ τοῦ πτύσματος, καὶ ἐπέθηκεν αὐτοῦ τὸν πηλὸν ἐπὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς
  

In all three passages, the verb used is πτύω, ptuo (or the corresponding noun πτύσμα), a wonderful example of onomatopoeia. Many contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with such passages because they make Jesus seem like a pagan magician. But the belief in the healing power of saliva seems to have been very deeply rooted in Jewish culture as well, as is seen in the following passages.

The Babylonian Talmud also contains several references to saliva (רוק) as medicine. In Baba Batra 126b there is a discussion about how one can tell if a boy is the firstborn son of his father and not his mother. The answer? According to his spit: 

• גמירי בוכרא דאבא מסי רוקיה בוכרא דאמא לא מסי רוקיה
• "We have a tradition, if he is the firstborn son of his father, his saliva brings about healing; if he is the first born son of his mother, his saliva does not bring about healing." 

A long discussion in Shabbat 108b about what kinds of medicine are permitted on the Sabbath contains a tradition attributed to two sages, the father of Samuel and Levi:

• חד אמר יין בתוך העין אסור, על גב העין מותר. וחד אמר רוק תפל [אפילו] על גב העין אסור 
• "One man said it is forbidden to apply wine to the inside of the eye on the Sabbath, but upon the eye is permitted. The other said tasteless saliva even upon the eye is forbidden."

If one simply washes the outside of the eye using wine, it might not be for medicinal purposes (presumably, healthy people did this too); therefore there is no violation of the Sabbath. However, in the case of "tasteless saliva" (רוק תפל), the sages are more strict. Apparently, saliva from the mouth of someone who had not yet eaten since waking up was considered a particularly effective ointment. And because it is a medicine par excellence, it cannot be used on the Sabbath in any fashion. It is interesting that in the minds of the sages, the saliva does not need to belong to a professional healer (e.g., shaman), but simply needs to be tasteless. The Mishnah in Niddah (9:5) mentions tasteless saliva as one of the seven substances applied to a menstrual stain to determine whether it is blood or simply dye. [Some of the others, by the way, are far more caustic liquids, including: crushed-bean water, urine, natrium, lye, soil from the island of Kemolos and potash.] When the Mishnah asks what precisely תפל means, it is defined as כל שלא טעם כלום, "one who did not taste yet any food," that is, someone whose last meal was the previous day and has not yet brushed their teeth. Interesting that the foul taste which we today call "morning breath" was regarded by the sages of the Talmud as merely tasteless: neutral or unsalted (cf. Job 6:6). Also interesting is the fact that whereas Galen regards saliva as an effective healer when combined with food, both Pliny and the Talmud require that the medicinal saliva be as free of food as possible.

Few modern people today use saliva as a medicine, although it should be noted that recently science has demonstrated that saliva does in fact contain wound-healing proteins called histatins. Many modern people, however, do believe that spitting will bring about good luck, or at least ward off bad luck. Baseball players have elaborate spitting rituals before they step into the batting box. Throughout the world, but especially in the Mediterranean Basin, people spit into the air three times to chase away the evil eye or the devil. This is the origin, for instance, of the phrase "tfu, tfu, tfu" that many Jews recite after announcing a piece of good news. Even Pliny talks about people in his day doing this, particularly boxers would spit in their glove to ensure that their punches would be strong. Perhaps this is the connection between good and bad spitting. Fundamentally, saliva is and was regarded as something undesirable, and the act of spitting seen as something vulgar. This is what provides its power to exorcise both demons and disease.