''Sortes Sanctorum'' (

incipit The incipit ( ) of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of Musical note, notes, having the same purpose. The word ''incipit'' comes from Latin an ...

''Post solem surgunt stellae'') is a

late antique Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodization has since been wide ...

text that was used for

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, ...

by means of

dice A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, ro ...

. The oldest version of the text may have been pagan, but the earliest surviving example—a 4th- or 5th-century

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 ...

fragment on papyrus—is Christian. The original version had 216 answers available depending on three ordered throws of a single die. It was later revised down to 56 answers for a single throw of three dice. This version was translated into

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 ...

by the time of the council of Vannes (465), which condemned its use. The Latin version was subsequently revised to render it more acceptable to ecclesiastical authorities. This Latin version survives in numerous manuscripts from the early 9th century through the 16th, as well as in

Old Occitan Old Occitan (, ), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the 8th to the 14th centuries. Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is some ...

and

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

translations.AnneMarie Luijendijk and William E. Klingshirn, "The Literature of Lot Divination", in AnneMarie Luijendijk and William E. Klingshirn (eds.), ''Sortilege and Its Practitioners in Late Antiquity: My Lots Are in Thy Hands'' (Brill, 2018), pp. 42–44. Beginning in the 13th century, the text was sometimes known as the ''Sortes Apostolorum'', a title it shares with at least two other texts.William E. Klingshirn (2002), "Defining the Sortes Sanctorum: Gibbon, Du Cange, and Early Christian Lot Divination" ''Journal of Early Christian Studies'' 10.1, pp. 77–130. The term ''Sortes Sanctorum'' has a long history of being misunderstood and misapplied. It was once believed to be identical with the practice of '' sortes biblicae'', whereby one would seek guidance by opening the Bible at random and consulting the verses therein. The mistaken identification seems to have originated with

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English essayist, historian, and politician. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is known for ...

in the third volume of his ''

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', sometimes shortened to ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Ro ...

'', published in 1781.Edward Gibbon (1781). ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 3''. p. 184 n. 51. The title ''Sortes Sanctorum'' is a reference to '' Colossians'' 1:12.

Notes

References

{{Divination Christian mysticism Bibliomancy Christian Bible