Bibliomancy: opening a sacred book in search of an answer
Bibliomancy from the sortes biblicae to Augustine's «tolle lege», from the councils that banned it to Gregory of Tours and the Persian fal-e Hafez tradition.
Opening a book at random and reading the first passage the eye falls on, seeking an answer in it: many people have done this at least once. When the book is considered sacred or authoritative, the gesture becomes bibliomancy, from the Greek biblion, «book». In late antiquity and the Christian Middle Ages the practice was known as sortes biblicae or sortes sanctorum, and it was the subject of a long debate between popular devotion and the caution of the Church.
Augustine's «tolle lege»
The most famous episode is told by Augustine in the eighth book of the Confessions. In 386, in a garden in Milan, in the grip of an inner crisis, he hears a child's voice repeating «tolle lege, tolle lege», «take up and read». Interpreting it as a divine summons, he opens the letters of Paul and reads the first passage he finds, a section of the Letter to the Romans. Augustine relates that from that moment every doubt dissolved.
Augustine also recalls that Anthony, the father of Egyptian monasticism, had been converted on hearing a verse of the Gospel by chance. Yet in a letter to Januarius, Augustine himself expresses reservations: he would prefer that lots drawn from the Gospel not be used for worldly affairs, while considering them less serious than resorting to demons. His position reflects well the ambiguity of the practice.
Councils and Merovingian princes
Over time the Church took a stricter stance. Several councils in Gaul, between the fifth and sixth centuries, condemned the sortes sanctorum: the Council of Agde in 506, in particular, forbade clergy and laity to practise them, under threat of excommunication. The very fact that the bans were repeated shows how widespread the custom was.
Gregory of Tours, in his History of the Franks, relates that Prince Merovech, son of King Chilperic, placed the books of the Psalter, of Kings and of the Gospels on the tomb of Saint Martin, and after keeping vigil and praying opened them to learn his own fate. The passages he read were interpreted as unfavourable omens. The story shows how bibliomancy could become entwined with the cult of relics and dynastic politics.
Other traditions of the book
Bibliomancy does not belong to Christianity alone. In the Islamic world the practice of opening the Qur'an to draw guidance from it spread, discussed and sometimes criticised by jurists. In Persia the fal-e Hafez became popular: the consultation of the Divan of the poet Hafez, who lived in the fourteenth century, whose verses were read as the answer to a question. This custom is still widespread in Iran, especially at the festival of Yalda and at the New Year.
The Greco-Roman world also knew similar forms, such as lots drawn from the verses of Homer and, later, those drawn from Virgil. In all these cases the chosen book was a text regarded as the repository of a higher wisdom, able to speak to the individual reader. What mattered was less the literal content of the passage than the conviction that chance, at the moment of opening, was guided.
Bibliomancy reveals a profound idea of the relationship between reader and text. The authoritative book is not merely a body of teachings to be studied, but a living voice that, opened at the right moment, can speak directly to whoever questions it, in their own particular situation. It is an idea that runs across different religions and centuries.