''Sortes biblicae'' ('biblical lots') is a method of divination where by the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts o ...

is opened randomly and the first words which one sees are interpreted as predictive. The practice was common in

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

and had pagan precedents in the ''

Sortes Homericae The ''Sortes Homericae'' (Latin for "Homeric lots"), a type of divination by bibliomancy, involved drawing a random sentence or line from the works of Homer (usually the '' Iliad'') to answer a question or to predict the future. In the Roman worl ...

'' and ''

Sortes Vergilianae The Sortes Vergilianae (''Virgilian Lots'') is a form of divination by bibliomancy in which advice or predictions of the future are sought by interpreting passages from the works of the Roman poet Virgil. The use of Virgil for divination may dat ...

''. It was nevertheless condemned by numerous church councils, including in Gaul alone by those of

Vannes Vannes (; br, Gwened) is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago. History Celtic Era The name ''Vannes'' comes from the Veneti, a seafaring Celtic people who liv ...

(465),

Agde Agde (; ) is a commune in the Hérault department in Southern France. It is the Mediterranean port of the Canal du Midi. Location Agde is located on the Hérault river, from the Mediterranean Sea, and from Paris. The Canal du Midi ...

(506) and

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Bruce M. Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the ...

"Sortes Biblicae"
in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (eds.), ''The Oxford Companion to the Bible'' (Oxford University Press, 1993 nline 2004. Sometimes Bibles were specially prepared for fortune-telling with fortunes being written in the lower margins. These were marked by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece 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 ...

word ''hermeneia'' ('interpretation'). The Bible could be opened at random or dice could be rolled to determine a page number. The 5th‐century

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum D or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 5 (in the von Soden of New Testament manuscript), is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century wri ...

contains 69 such 'interpretations' added to the ''

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to ...

'' in the 9th or 10th century. The fortunes include "Expect a great miracle", "Seek something else" and "After ten days it will happen". The ''sortes biblicae'', widely practiced in the early Middle Ages, declined after the year 1000.Jonathan M. Elukin, "The Ordeal of Scripture: Functionalism and the ''Sortes Biblicae'' in the Middle Ages," ''Exemplaria'' 5.1 (1993): 135–160, at 154. In modern times, John Wesley is known to have treated the ''sortes biblicae'' seriously.

References

{{Divination Bibliomancy Christian Bible