Defining the Sortes Sanctorum : Gibbon, Du Cange, and Early Christian Lot Divination

Abstract

First mentioned in a fifth-century Gallic church council, the term sortes sanctorum ("lots of the saints") recurs throughout the Latin middle ages. Following Charles Du Cange's Glossarium . . . Latinitatis (1678), scholars have usually defined it either as a synonym for divinatory consultation of the Bible (sortes biblicae) or as a blanket label for all early Christian lot divination. This article argues instead that Sortes Sanctorum was the title of a divinatory text found in numerous manuscripts (incipit: "Post solem surgunt stellae"), which also appears under the title Sortes Apostolorum. The original setting of this text, its subsequent history and condemnation, and changing interpretations of its titles are then traced from the end of antiquity to the present, with special attention to Edward Gibbon's transmission of Du Cange's definition. Among other consequences, the rejection of this definition removes most of the evidence for the early church's condemnation of the sortes biblicae.

Scripture as Guru in the Sikh Tradition

“…From the Sikh perspective, however, the random choosing of the passage functions to remove the sinful ego ( haumai ) from the process so as to allow the True Guru to do the choosing. There is a parallel phenomenon in classical Hellenism (picking out texts from the Iliad and Odyssey for divination purposes) and early Christianity (picking out phrases from the Bible), complete with guides to what a random choosing means, but these were always condemned by the religious authorities, not folded into official ritual (Klingshirn 2002). In the Sikh case, however, the Vak ritual is a well‐established tradition.…”

Rolling Dice for Divination, Gambling and Homeromanteia

“…Still useful FLÜGEL 1860 for Muslim lot-oracles. See also KLINGSHIRN 2002;KLINGSHIRN 2005. 6 See HEINEVETTER 1912SCHWENDNER 2002, 109;GRAF 2005, 55-59;MEERSON 2019, 139, 141. For the variety of decisions taken by using lots, see VAN DER HORST 1998, 143. 7 See KLINGSHIRN 2019, 72-73 for the list of lots-oracles practiced in a large number of oracles, as Iamblichus´ Hypomnesticon mentions with respect to little pebbles and stones.…”

Divining Gospel

“…Klingshirn 2002, 85-86. 131 McNeill 1933 Et qui per scripturas sanctas Deum, quid ei facturus sit, expectatur, quid ipsas indicent scripturas… iste non christianus, sed paganus est (text fromKlingshirn 2002, 105).…”