Question II

GRATIAN. PART I. That seeking lots is not a sin is proved by examples and authorities. For when Achan had secretly stolen from the anathema and, on account of his sin, the people, having been cut down at Ai, had turned their backs upon the enemy, the Lord commanded Joshua to seek by lots through whose sin the people had merited to fall into the hands of the enemy. Joshua, receiving the command, cast lots first over the tribes, then over the families, and finally over the persons; and the lot thus fell upon Achan. Saul also, when fighting against the Philistines, had sworn that he would kill whoever among the people ate before sunset; by lot he discovered that his son Jonathan had eaten honey, which he had taken with his staff. When he wished to hand him over to death, he revoked the sentence at the people’s supplication. Jonah also, when he fled from the Lord’s face, was discovered by the sailors through lot, cast into the sea, and swallowed by a whale. It is also read of Zechariah that his lot came forth that he should offer incense. Matthias likewise is chosen by lot for the apostolate and as successor to Judas by blessed Peter. Therefore, what is proved by so many examples is manifestly not evil. Hence Augustine too says in the book of Psalms, [on Psalm 30, discourse 2, at the verse In Your Hands Are My Lots]:

A lot is not something evil, but a thing indicating the divine will amid human uncertainty. PART II. GRATIAN. To these things answer is made thus: before the Gospel shone forth, many things were permitted that in the time of a more perfect discipline were wholly eliminated. For the union of priests or of consanguineous persons is prohibited by neither legal, evangelical, nor apostolic authority, yet it is wholly forbidden by ecclesiastical law. Thus also it is shown that there is nothing evil in lots, yet they are prohibited to the faithful lest under this appearance of divination they return to the ancient worship of idolatry. Hence the Apostle says to certain persons observing constellations and signs of future things: “You observe days, and months, and times, and years. Hence I fear lest perhaps I have labored among you without cause.” Thus also astronomy and astrology fell into disuse among Catholics because, while through their own curiosity they were too intent upon them, they had less leisure for those things adapted to the salvation of souls.

That one ought not to trust in lots is attested by Jerome, writing upon Jonah, [c. 1]:

We ought not immediately to trust in lots under the example of Jonah, or join to this testimony that passage from the Acts of the Apostles where Matthias is chosen for the apostolate by lot.

Augustine in reply to the inquiries of Januarius, [epistle 119]. As for those who read lots from pages of the Gospels, although it is to be wished that they do this rather than run to consult demons, nevertheless this custom displeases me: wishing to turn divine oracles to secular affairs and the vanity of this life.

Likewise Bede upon the Acts of the Apostles, [on c. 1]. Lots are not to be trusted indiscriminately from the example of Matthias, or because the prophet Jonah was discovered by lot, since the privileges of individuals, as Jerome says, altogether cannot make a common law. § 1. Yet if any persons, compelled by some necessity, think that God is to be consulted by lots after the example of the Apostles, let them see that the Apostles themselves did this only after the assembly of the brethren had been gathered and prayers poured forth to God. But concerning diviners Augustine writes thus, [Book V upon Deuteronomy, c. 19]:

The Lord wished it to be understood that even those things said by diviners not according to God, if the things said occur, are not to be received in such a way that the things commanded by them are done or the things worshiped by them are worshiped.

The same in Book [II] of On Christian Doctrine, [cc. 19, 20, and 21]. That which is according to the institutions of human beings is partly superstitious and partly not superstitious. Superstitious is whatever has been instituted by human beings pertaining to making and worshiping idols, or to worshiping as God either a creature or any part of a creature, or to consultations and certain compacts of signs agreed upon and covenanted with demons, such as are the enterprises of the magical arts, which poets are accustomed to commemorate rather than teach. Of this kind, though with a seemingly more permissible vanity, are the books of haruspices and augurs. § 1. To this kind also belong all amulets and remedies that even the discipline of physicians condemns, whether in incantations, in certain marks that they call characters, or in any things to be suspended and bound or even in some manner made to dance, not for the balancing of bodies but for certain signs, whether hidden or manifest. They call these by the more eminent name “physic,” so that they may appear not to entangle one in superstition but to benefit nature. Such are earrings at the top of each ear, little rings made from the bones of ostriches on the fingers, or when a person with hiccups is told to hold his thumb with his right hand. To these are joined a thousand most empty observances: if some member has twitched; if, while friends walk together, a stone or a boy intervenes between them. § 2. From this kind also are these things: to tread upon the threshold when passing before one’s house; to return to bed if someone sneezes while putting on his shoes; to return home if, while proceeding, he stumbles; or if a garment is gnawed by mice. § 3. Nor are those formerly called genethliacs because of their observations of natal days, but now called mathematicians, to be separated from this kind of pernicious superstition. For even though they obtain and sometimes ascertain the true position of the stars when each person is born, nevertheless they err exceedingly in what they attempt to derive from it, whether our actions or the outcomes of actions. § 4. Divine authority did not salutarily remain silent about this kind of fornication of the soul, nor did it deter the soul from it merely by saying that such things are not to be followed because falsehoods are spoken by their professors, but it says: “Even if they shall have spoken to you and it shall so happen, do not believe them.” For because the image of the dead Samuel pronounced true things to Saul, sacrileges of the sort by which that image was presented are not therefore less execrable; nor because in the Acts of the Apostles a ventriloquist woman offered true testimony to the Lord’s Apostles did the Apostle Paul therefore spare that spirit, but rather he cleansed the woman by correcting and expelling that demon. § 5. Therefore, all arts of this kind, whether of trifling or harmful superstition, established from a certain pestiferous fellowship of human beings and demons as though compacts of a faithless and deceitful friendship, are wholly to be repudiated and shunned by a Christian.

The same in the book On the City of God. One who wishes to possess salvation without the Savior and thinks that he can become prudent without true wisdom will labor as one not healthy but sick, not prudent but foolish, in continual sickness, and will remain foolish and demented in harmful blindness. Consequently, every inquiry and every cure sought from diviners and magicians, or from the demons themselves in the worship of idols, is to be called death rather than life; and those who follow them, if they do not correct themselves, tend toward eternal perdition, as the Psalmist says: “All the gods of the nations are demons.” Through deceived human beings they daily desire to deceive others, so that they may make them participants in their perdition. Thus this vanity of the magical arts, from the tradition of evil angels, prevailed throughout the whole world for very many ages through a certain knowledge of future and infernal things; and through their inventions were invented haruspicy, auguries, those things called oracles, and necromancy.

The same in Book IV of the Confessions, [c. 3]. They plainly did not cease to consult those astrologers whom they call mathematicians, because supposedly no sacrifice was offered by them and no prayers were directed to any spirit for divination. Christian and true piety nevertheless consistently expels and condemns this.

Likewise Jerome. But add this also: because one who fornicates sins against his own body—not only this body that has been made a temple, but also that which is spoken of because the whole church is the body of Christ. And one who has stained his own body appears to sin against the whole church, because through one member a stain is diffused throughout the whole body. § 1. There is also that reproach of Egypt which, if you neglect it, is suggested by the brand of ancient custom even after the crossing of the Jordan and after the second circumcision of baptism: to observe auguries, inquire into the courses of the stars, scrutinize from them the outcomes of future things, and become entangled in other superstitions of this kind. For Egypt is the mother of idolatry, from which it is certain that reproaches of this kind sprout. If after crossing the Jordan you take them up and bind yourself again with these snares, without doubt you draw the reproaches of Egypt with you. PART III. GRATIAN. But these sacrileges are not to be detested to such an extent that, if something from a threshing floor or winepress has been sacrificed to demons, what remains is therefore believed to be unclean, or that, if it should happen that we unknowingly consume the very thing that had been offered, we therefore believe that we have sinned. Hence Augustine to Publicola, [epistle 154]:

If something is taken from a threshing floor or winepress for sacrifices to demons with a Christian’s knowledge, he sins because he permits it to be done where he has the power to prohibit it. But if he learns that it has been done, or did not possess the power to prohibit it, he uses the clean remainder of the fruits from which those things were taken.

Likewise Ambrose in the first epistle to the Corinthians, [on c. 10]. Although something is polluted accidentally—that is, by an offering to an idol—nevertheless, when one who buys it does not know, he suffers no scruple and is guiltless before God.