Sortes Sanctorum

Drawing the Sortes Sanctorum (Lots of the saints) or Sortes Sacrae (Holy Lots) was a type of divination or cleromancy practised in early Christianity, derived and adapted from the pagan Sortes Homerica and Sortes Virgilanae.

Some early Christians went to church and listened for the words of scripture that were being sung when they entered the church as a random means of predicting the future and God's will (along the lines of the Jewish Bath Kol form of divination), but the Sortes was done more formally, by casually opening the Holy Scripture and reading the first words to come to hand, with these words being taken to foretell the inquirer's fate. Doing so was often a public event, and sometimes accompanied by ceremonies (such as the 7th century emperor Heraclius ordering 3 days' public fast before a consultation as to whether or not he should advance or retreat against the Persians - he took the text that arose as divine instruction to winter in Albania). Since full copies of the Christian Bible were rare before printing was invented, the lots usually used the Psalms, the Prophets, or the four Gospels.

History

Gregory of Tours relates that Meroveus used the Sortes to check the predictions of a female fortune-teller that he would (as he hoped) gain the kingdom of his father Chilperic. He had the Psalter, the Books of Kings, and the four Gospels placed on the shrine of St. Martin and held a time of fasting and prayer, but the texts he then drew stated that he would not and were later interpreted as predicting his later ruin.

A French writer, in 506, says, "this abuse was introduced by the superstition of the people, and afterwards gained ground by the ignorance of the bishops.", as is shown by Pithon's Collection of Canons, which contains some forms under the title of The Lot of the Apostles. These were found at the end of the Canons of the Apostles in the Abbey of Marmousier, and various canons were made at later councils and synods (such as the councils of London under Archbishop Lanfranc in 1075, and Corboyl in 1126) against the Sortes as superstition. However, they were still occuring in the time of St Francis who, in denying himself any possessions except coats and a cord, wanted to check if he was still allowed to own books. He prayed and then drew Mark, chapter IV, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables", which he took to mean that he was neither allowed books nor needed them.

A Peter of Toulouse, who had sworn on the Bible that accusations of heresy against him were false, was immediately afterwards convicted by the Sortes when a bystander grabbed the Bible and opened it randomly at the words of the Devil Legion to Jesus, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?", which he adjudged to mean that Peter had nothing to do with Jesus.

Protestant examples

To pay a very great deference in opening upon a place of scripture, as to its affording an assurance of salvation, used to be a very common practice amongst the people called Methodists, but chiefly those of the Calvinistic persuasion; this, it is probable, has declined in proportion with the earnestness of these people in other respects. They had also another opinion, viz., that if the recollection of any particular text of scripture happened to arise in their minds, this was likewise looked upon as a kind of immediate revelation from heaven. This they call being presented or brought home to them.

Sources

• This page draws text from 'The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction', Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827, a text now in the public domain.