''Lots of the Apostles'' () is the name of several texts used in Christian

divination Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...

, based on the ''

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make u ...

'' 1:26, which describes how the

Apostles An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary. The word is derived from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", itself derived from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to se ...

cast lots to select a replacement for

Judas Iscariot Judas Iscariot (; ; died AD) was, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. Judas betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane, in exchange for thirty pieces of sil ...

. The earliest reference to the ''Lots of the Apostles'' is found in the 6th-century ''

Gelasian Decree The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapt ...

'', a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

work from southern Gaul or northern Italy. It lists a , 'book which is called lots of the Apostles', among the

New Testament apocrypha The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cit ...

. The identity of this text is uncertain. It may be a reference to the ''

Sortes Sanctorum ''Sortes Sanctorum'' (incipit ''Post solem surgunt stellae'') is a late antique text that was used for divination by means of dice. The oldest version of the text may have been pagan, but the earliest surviving example—a 4th- or 5th-century Gree ...

'', but this work is not otherwise called ''Sortes Apostolorum'' prior to the 13th century. In late antiquity, another text called ''Lots of the Apostles'' circulated in Syriac. Around 700,

Jacob of Edessa Jacob of Edessa (or James of Edessa) () (c. 640 – 5 June 708) was Bishop of Edessa and prominent Syriac Christian writer in Classical Syriac language, also known as one of earliest Syriac grammarians. In various works, he treated theologica ...

in his canons forbade monks "to take answers ... from the Lots called the Apostles." He issued a similar rule in answering a question of Addai the Priest. The identity of the work condemned by Jacob is also uncertain. It may be the Syriac work of the same title preserved in a 19th-century manuscript now in London,

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, MS Or. 4434, at folios 41v–46v. This work contains 34 potential answers., calls the text "Lots of the Holy Apostles". The identification is accepted by , who calls it ''The Lot of the Apostles''. It is edited in There is also a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

text entitled ''Lots of the Holy Apostles'' preserved in three manuscripts from the 15th to 17th centuries. It contains 87 answers. Neither of these texts can be securely identified with the ones condemned by the ''Gelasian Decree'' or Jacob.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * {{Divination Bibliomancy