BIBLIOMANCY, divination per formed by means of the Bible, also called soetes bibliccr, or sortes sanctorum. It consisted in taking passages at hazard, and drawing indi cations thence concerning things future. It was much used at the consecration of bishops. It was a practice adopted from the heathens, who drew the same kind of prognostications from the works of Homer and Virgil. In 456 the Council of Vannes condemned all who practised this art to be cast out of the com munion of the Church; as did the councils of Agde in 506 and Auxerre. But in the 12th century we find it employed as a mode of de tecting heretics. In the Gallican Church it was long practised in the election of bishops; chil dren being employed, on behalf of each can didate, to draw slips of paper with texts on them and that which was thought most favor able decided the choice. A similar mode was pursued at the installation of abbots and the reception of canons; and this custom is said. to have continued in the cathedrals of Ypres, Saint Omer and Boulogne, as late as the year 1744. In the Greek Church we read of the
prevalence of this custom as early as the con secration of Athanasius, on whose behalf the presiding prelate, Caracalla, archbishop of Nicomedia, opened the Gospels at the words, 'For the devil and his angels° (Matt. xxv, 41). The bishop of Nice first saw them and adroitly turned over the leaf to another verse, which was instantly read aloud: "The birds of the air came and lodged in the branches thereof° (Matt. xiii, 32). But this passage appearing irrelevant to the ceremony. the first bccame gradually known, and the Church of. Constantinople was violently agitated by the most fatal divisions during the patriarchate. It has persisted in a measure in modern times and devout persons have used this means of seeking guidance. Tennyson makes use of the custom in (Enoch Arden.)