MISCELLANIES


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RELIGIOUS FORTUNE TELLING.


The _Sortes Sanctorum_, or _Sortes Sacrae_, of the Christians, has been
illustrated in the _Classical Journal_.

These, the writer observes, were a species of divination practised in
the earlier ages of Christianity, and consisted in casually opening the
Holy Scriptures, and from the words which first presented themselves
deducing the future lot of the inquirer. They were evidently derived
from the _Sortes Homerica_ and _Sortes Virgilanae_ of the Pagans, but
accommodated to their own circumstances by the Christians.

Complete copies of the Old and New Testaments being rarely met with
prior to the invention of printing, the Psalms, the Prophets, or the
four Gospels, were the parts of holy writ principally made use of in
these consultations, which were sometimes accompanied with various
ceremonies, and conducted with great solemnity, especially on public
occasions. Thus the emperor Heraclius in the war against the Persians,
being at a loss whether to advance or retreat, commanded a public fast
for three days, at the end of which he applied to the four Gospels, and