Curiosities of Olden Times/Chapter 15
SORTES SACRÆ
It is not an uncommon case, nowadays, for pious persons at times of great perplexity to seek a solution to their difficulties in their Bibles, opening the book at random and taking the first passage which occurs as a direct message to them from the Almighty.
The manner in which this questioning of the sacred oracles is performed is serious. A considerable time is previously devoted to prayer, after which the inquirer rises from his knees and consults the family Bible in the way described. Whether such a manner of dealing with the Word of God be under any circumstances justifiable, I do not pretend to judge. St. Augustine in his 119th letter to Januarius seems not to disapprove of this custom, so long as it be not applied to things of this world.
Gregory of Tours tells us what was his practice. He spent several days in fasting and prayer, and in strict retirement, after which he resorted to the tomb of St. Martin, and taking any book of Scripture which he chose, he opened it, and took as answer from God the first passage that met his eye. Should this passage prove inappropriate, he opened another book of Scripture.
The eleventh chapter of Proverbs, which contains thirty-one verses, is often taken to give omen of the character of a life. The manner of consulting it is simple; it is but to look for the verse answering to the day of the month on which the questioner was born. The answer will be found in most cases to be exceedingly ambiguous.
The practice of consulting certain books for purposes of augury is of high antiquity. Herodotus speaks of the custom, and of the fraud of Oxomacritus, a celebrated diviner, who made use of Musœus for reference, and who was driven out of Athens by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, because he had been detected inserting in the verses of Musœus an oracle predicting the disappearance in the waves of the islands near Lemnos. Homer, and afterwards Virgil, were the poets most frequently consulted, but Euripides was also regarded as divinely inspired to foretell the future.
Two hundred years after the death of Virgil, his poems were laid up in the temple at Prœneste, for consultations. Alexander Severus sought the oracle in the reign of Heliogabalus, who feared and hated him; and the line of Virgil he read told him that "if he could surmount opposing fates, he would be Marcellus." The Emperor Heraclius, when deliberating where to fix his winter quarters, was determined by an oracle of this sort. He purified his army during three days, and then opened the Gospels. The passage he found was understood by him to indicate that he should winter in Albania.
Nicephorus Gregoras relates how Andronicus the Elder was reconciled to his nephew Andronicus in consequence of lighting on the verse of the Psalm (lxviii. 14), "When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake, then were they as white as snow in Salmon." Whereby he concluded that all the troubles that had been undergone by him had been decreed by God for his purification.
With the same intent during the consecration of a bishop, at the moment when the book of the Gospels was placed on his head, it was customary to open the volume and gather from the verse at the head of the page an augury of the prelate's reign. This is illustrated in a curious ancient painting of the consecration of St. Thomas à Becket by Van Eyck, shown in the Leeds Fine Art Exhibition of 1868.
Chroniclers and biographers have not failed to mention several prognostications given in this manner which were verified in the event.
At the consecration of Athanasius, nominated to the patriarchate of Constantinople by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a patriarchate which he stained with his crimes, "Caracalla, bishop of Nicomedia, having brought the Gospel," says the historian Pachymerus, "the congregation prepared to take note of the oracle which would be manifest on the opening of the book, though this oracle is not infallibly true. The bishop of Nicæa, noticing that he had lighted on the words, 'Prepared for the devil and his angels,' groaned in the depth of his heart, and putting up his hand to hide the words, turned over the leaves of the book, and disclosed the other words, 'The birds of the air come, and lodge in the branches': words which seemed far removed from the ceremony which was being celebrated. All that could be done to hide these oracles was done, but it was found impossible to conceal the truth. It was said that they did not forbid the consecration, but that, nevertheless, they were not the effect of chance, for there is no such a thing as chance in the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries."
"Landri, elected bishop of Laon," says Guibert de Nogent, "received episcopal unction in the Church of St. Ruffinus; but it was of sad portent to him, that the text of the Gospel for the day was, 'A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.'" After many crimes he was assassinated. He was succeeded by the Dean of Orleans, whose name is not known. "The new prelate having presented himself for consecration, people looked to see what the Gospel would prognosticate; but it was opened at a blank page, as though God had said, 'I have nothing to foretell of this man, because he will be, and will do, nothing.' And in fact he died at the end of a very few months."
Guibert tells a story of himself, which shows that the same practice was in vogue at the installation of an abbot. "On the day of my entry into the monastery," he writes, "a monk who had studied the sacred books desired, I presume, to read my future; at the moment when he was preparing to leave with the procession to meet me, he placed designedly on the altar the book of the Gospels, intending to draw an omen from the direction taken by my eyes towards this or that chapter. Now the book was written, not in pages, but in columns. The monk's eyes rested on the middle of the second column, where he read the following passage, 'The light of the body is the eye.' Then he bade the deacon, who was to present the Gospel to me, to take care, after I had kissed the cross on the cover, to hold his hand on the passage he indicated to him, and then attentively to observe, as soon as he had opened the book before me, on what part of the pages my eyes rested. The deacon accordingly opened the book, after I had, as custom required, pressed my lips upon the cover. Whilst he observed, with curious eyes, the direction taken by my glance, my eye and spirit together turned neither above nor below, but precisely towards the verse which had been indicated before. The monk who had sought to form conjectures by this, seeing that my action had accorded, without premeditation, with his intentions, came to me a few days after, and told me what he had done, and how wondrously my first movement had coincided with his own."
Thomas Cantipratensis relates how that Cardinal Conrad, Archbishop of Paris, was in doubt as to what reception he should give to the Order of Preachers, some members of which had lately entered the city. He hesitated as to their having been legitimately constituted, and questioned their value. Whereupon he betook himself to prayer; and then going to the altar opened the Missal at the words, "Laudare, benedicere, et predicare," whereupon his scruples vanished, and he extended to them the right hand of fellowship.
"I know a religious man who had designed to serve God in the secular life," writes Paciuchelli (In Jonam, vol. i. p. 9); "he once poured forth his prayers to God, and asked that he might be permitted, if it were His will, to fulfil some desire or other that he had. Having asked the opinion of certain persons of authority, he was recommended, after the most sacred service, to open the Missal and to take note of what should first arrest his attention. He followed this advice, and lo! the first words which presented themselves to him were those of our Lord to the sons of Zebedee, in St. Matt. xx. 23, 'Ye know not what ye ask'; from which he gathered clearly that were his wishes to be gratified, his eternal welfare would be imperilled."
I have heard of a young man in doubt as to his vocation for holy orders, when he found his desire strongly opposed by his parents, inquiring of his Bible in a similar spirit and manner, and reading, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." I have been told of another man in somewhat parallel circumstances, having lately awakened to religious convictions after a life of great laxity, who sought guidance in the same manner, and read, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee."
A story of the baleful effects of this practice among Scotch Presbyterians appeared in a collection of Legends of Edinburgh by a recent writer. The story related how a designing mother persuaded her reluctant daughter into a marriage with a wealthy but dissipated youth, the son of their employer, towards whom the girl felt great repugnance, by manipulating the Sortes Sacræ so as to make the girl read, "Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken." As the name of the young woman was Rebekah, the sentence seemed to her to be a message from heaven.
Gregory of Tours mentions a couple of instances of omens taken from Scripture. The one was that of Chramm, who had revolted against his father Clothaire, and who marched to Dijon, where he consulted the Sacred Oracles, by placing on the altar three books, the Prophets, the Acts, and the Evangelists. In like manner, according to Gregory, Merovius, flying from the wrath of his father Chilperic, and Fredigunda, placed on the tomb of St. Martin three books, to wit, the Psalter, the Kings, and the Gospels, and kept vigil through the night, praying the blessed confessor to discover to him what was to happen to him. He fasted three days and continued incessantly in prayer; then he opened the books, one after another, and was so dismayed at the replies which he found, that he wept bitterly beside the tomb, and then sadly left the basilica.
In 1115, differences having arisen touching the elevation of Hugh de Montaigu to the Bishopric of Auxerre, the case was brought before Pope Pascal II., who decided in favour of his consecration, and ordained him himself. It was urged by his friends in his favour, that on the opening of the book above his head, during the ceremony, these words stood out at the head of the page, "Ave Maria! graciâ plena!" and this was regarded as a token of his chastity, humility, and exemplary piety, and of the favour in which he was held by the Blessed Virgin.
According to the use of the ancient church of Terouanne, on the reception of a new canon, it was customary to open at random the Psalter, after that the volume had been sprinkled by the dean with holy water, and the paragraph at the head of the page was transcribed in the letters patent of the new canon. The same custom was in force, as late as last century, in the cathedral of Boulogne, and the bishop, De Langle, tried in vain in 1722 to abolish it.
The Bollandists relate that St. Petrock of Cornwall, when in doubt whether to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or not, was decided by opening his Bible at the passage in Isaiah, "Et erit sepulchrum ejus gloriosum." A similar story is told of St. Poppo, a Belgian saint of the eleventh century.
The anecdote is well known of King Charles and Lord Falkland consulting the Sortes Virgilianæ in the library at Oxford. The lines they met with and which were so singularly verified afterwards, are marked with their initials in the book, which is still preserved.
Rabelais refers to the Sortes Virgilianæ when he makes Panurge consult them on the subject of his marriage.
Gregory of Tours, sad at heart because of the desolation produced by the ravages of Count Leudaste in and around the city, entered his oratory; "and," as he tells us himself, "full of trouble, I took up the Psalms of David, in hopes of finding, when I opened the book, some verse which might bring me consolation. And I found this: 'He brought them out safely, that they should not fear; and overwhelmed their enemies with the sea.'"
Gregory relates another story akin to the subject. Clovis, at the moment when he was marching against Alaric, king of the Visigoths, sent his deputies to the Church of St. Martin, at Tours, saying to them, "Go, and maybe, in the holy temple you will find some presage of victory." After having given them presents for the sacred place, he added: "O Lord God! if Thou art on my side, if Thou art determined to deliver into my hands this unbelieving nation, hostile to Thy name, grant that I may see Thy favour, or the entry of my servants into the basilica of St. Martin, that I may know if Thou deignest to be favourable to Thy suppliant."
The envoys having hastened to Tours, entered the cathedral at the moment when the Precentor gave out the Antiphon: "Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou shalt throw down mine enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn their backs upon me: and I shall destroy them that hate me" (Ps. xviii. 37, 40).
Hearing this, they gave thanks to God, presented their offerings, and returned with joy to announce the omen to their king.
Divination by Scripture has been forbidden by several national councils, probably on account of the superstitious use made of it. The sixteenth canon of the Council of Vannes, held in 465, forbids clerks under pain of excommunication, consulting the Sortes Sacræ. This prohibition was extended to the laity by the forty-second canon of the Council of Agde, in 506. "Aliquanti clerici sive laici student auguriis, et sub nomine fictœ religionis, per eas, quas sanctorum sortes vocant, diviniationis scientiam profitentur, aut quarumcunque scripturorum inspectione futura promittunt." It was also forbidden by the Council ot Orleans in 511; again by that of Auxerre in 595; by that of Selingstadt in 1022; by that of Enham, in 1009; and by a capitulary of Charlemagne, in 789.
Related to Sortes Sacræ are those messages which are supposed to be conveyed by the chance hearing or reading of a passage of Scripture. These are not, however, to be regarded in the light of superstition, and it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that certain texts accidentally met with may influence for good or bad those who are in a disposition of mind to be so affected.
The well-known story of St. Augustine's conversion is to the point. He relates himself how sitting in a garden-house, in great trouble of mind, he heard a voice say, "Tolle, lege"; whereupon he took up the sacred Scriptures and read, "Not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Rom. xiii. 13, 14).
St. Anthony was moved to the assumption of the religious life by accidentally hearing—"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me" (St. Matt, xix. 21).
St. Louis when trying a murderer was much inclined by his natural tenderness of disposition to pardon the man; but his resolution to let justice take her course was strengthened by opening his Psalter at the words, "Feci judicium et justitiam."
But, to conclude, the true use of Holy Scripture is best learned from our English Collect, which asks that we may read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its glorious lessons, taken as a whole, and not wring disjointed directions for conduct from stray passages.