Curiosities of Olden Times
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
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